#if only we could have seen that in an actual shot ingame

[flickerintwilights]

I think it’s very important for Minurah shippers to know that Purah is actually very short and Mineru is twice Purah’s height.

exhibit a: Purah is about the same height as Link, even if she feels taller, or if her updo and heels seem to give her an edge. she’s probably slightly shorter, really. (thank you to @briarbramble for pointing this out to me, which made me start looking into this whole thing!)

and this is Link and Mineru:

exhibit b: direct overlaid comparison of Mineru and Purah from the same angle is below — shots are taken from the totk post-credits scene so keep reading at your own risk

[transhoverfish]

OK TRAILER TIME

SO PRETTY!! now, because everything in this is cinematic (and it's only a teaser), i would take basically this entire thing with a grain of salt for how accurate it will be to actual environments and gameplay. the cinematic trailers/teasers for the first two games are full of things that didn't make it in. still looks VERY GOOD and im so excited!!!!!!

onto a few specific things, this specific area ^^ shows up in a steam screenshot (which i will get to later), and considering the high amount of light and coral, this is potentially this game's version of the safe shallows! that pink fish that swims by is also the youtube channel's current pfp, and as such is probably replacing the peeper, which was the old 'mascot' fish. this character is also using alterra tech, which i think is very interesting! are we still working for alterra, or are they just such a mega corporation that they make basically all water/space gear? the diving suit looks a bit like the stillsuit with its colors! the design itself reminds me of the cold suit,,, :o

now, the thing about this scene is that it goes by pretty quick, and is supposed to draw attention to the water vortex (and won't it be fun if THAT is an actual mechanic!!! god i would be so so scared), but upon a few pauses and look arounds... there's a building! that is so clearly some old ruins!! it doesn't look anything like the usual ruins/bases we've seen before, so i would guess that these are NOT built by the architects, and instead a new alien race. the assumption is that this planet is also very much abandoned,,, which begs the question, why? not the kharra again, surely? or is it just these surface-level ruins that have been left? and if they went deeper, why? this appears to be the only screenshot/sequence that shows any of these ruins. how many more are there?? I DEMAND ANSWERS!!

also, entirely possible im wrong, but this new character bears some resemblance to ryley, imo. the earlier scenes of him doesn't match too closely, and their hair is entirely different, but this shot specially depicts a very similar face structure, eyebrows, lips, and nose! now, this could be (and probably is) a new guy that just kinda looks like him, but if it IS ryley,,,,, what's he doin here? is he working with alterra still? is he just off exploring various ocean planets? even if this isnt him, i want to know these things. wheres my guy :(

another thing pointing at this being ryley is that this game is intended to be a direct sequel (as opposed to bz being a spin off), and if its in an entirely different environment, then it stands to reason there's a chance theres returning characters. otherwise,, this game would just also be a spin-off!

(also, would absolutely love if that oxygen warning is an actual popup ingame!)

and here's the second character that pops up! the steam screenshots also only show two people in co-op so far, and i do wonder if these are two of the playable characters and not just random models/characters used for the teaser (similar to how bart is a trailer for sub1 despite not being playable, and fred in bz's trailer). this person doesn't seem to be anyone from either game (she looks a tinyyy bit like lillian, but not enough that i can say it could be her), and she's in a new vehicle! everything still looks very atlerra, though, and the two characters seem to know each other, so once again i wonder if this is a lore reason, if these ARE alterra workers, or if this is just to fit in with the aesthetic of the other games.

BIG FISH!!!!! BIG FISH!!!!!!! this thing looks VERY new and introduced in the teaser in a similar fashion that the sea emperor was shown in the first sub1 trailer, so im wondering if this might be THE Big Fish (or simply just one that they've finished the design for). with brightness turned way up, it appears to have a nose and mouth on level with the two humans, much below the light on its head. a similar hunting tactic to anglerfish, maybe? and so many tentacles!! and pincers! BIG FISH!!!!

no exact date for early access, which makes me think we won't get it until spring at the earliest. however, the first two games came out in winter (december for sub1, january for bz), so its possible it will keep with that trend and be out before march. don't take my word for that, though, this is purely speculation.

with this teaser (or potentially before, i was not actively checking this LOL), there's also now a steam page up with additional ingame screenshots and description of the game with a lot of new information!! because tumblr has a screenshot limit, im going to rb this post later with all of the steampage info.

but there is a LOT of new stuff we've learned now!!! pair all of this with this article showing screenshots the devs have dropped in sub1 time capsules (which i will also talk about in the rb), and oughhhh it is a GOOD DAY to be a subnautica fan!!!!!! are we all ready to get dragged back into this fandom?? i hope ur all ready. we're gonna get water vortexed. help.

[faithinchances]

Hit me with more of Roy conned Jamie into being nice and City is mad about it. I remember the concept and am face pressed against glass!

The basics of the original concept from @jamiesfootball are that Roy accidentally puts Jamie on a niceness points system so they can be friends, wherein Jamie gets to be a dick once for every four times he does something nice, with plenty of shenanigans along the way and everything is fun and hilarious until Jamie gets sent back to City which is when I get to make it sad and dramatic (ie, Jamie spends his nice points on his teammates/Pep/everyone else at City, and his dick points on Sr with the predicted results)

Jamie is an asshole at Richmond, in a way which is pretty well on par with the people around him, except that the narrative frames them well and Jamie poorly. Isaac and Colin do the brunt of the on-screen bullying but we're supposed to blame Jamie because he laughs at it. Roy humiliates Jamie by framing his embarassment as the funniest thing Roy has ever seen except that it's okay because Jamie is an asshole. Ted yells at Jamie for being hurt and unable to train, which is cool because Jamie is "obviously" faking an injury to get back at Ted for benching him.

Basically everything and everyone kind of sucked.

Take him out of that and put him in a functional dressing room with a good coach and lower pressure overall, and I don't think Jamie would behave that way. I don't think he ever behaved that way at City.

So Jamie goes back to City, a place where he never was much of a prick to begin with (except to the opposition team, because that is part of the sport), and has a casual identity crisis in the back of every shot.

He is touch-starved, being very very good, and blatantly and obviously anxiety-ridden, and all of this in ways which he hadn't been the year before.

Someone: *gets tackled kind of rough by someone on the other team* Jamie: Pep put me on put me on I will break his ankles and restore our honour Pep: ... no... ... Jamie are you doing okay? Jamie: Yes Pep all is well and good, I am just using a nice point. Pep: I'm going to think about what that means some other time. Jamie on the inside: oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck

Meanwhile, Jamie is gradually racking up bruises, injuries, and sore spots because he is constantly pushing Sr's buttons so he can pretend that he's still 20% an asshole, and City desperately want to know what Richmond did to their previously nice, normal teammate for him to come back as this clicker-trained attack chihuahua.

(sidenote, I headcanon Jamie as struggling with statistics and numbers games. That he doesn't play FIFA because he worries about how wanting to maximize his ingame stats could negatively affect how he plays in real life. That the only person he's willing to take statistics from are the tactical scouts (a position at a club where you study the upcoming opponent to learn their strategies and tendencies to better prepare the players to face them) because he doesn't want to wind up maximizing his pass completion percentage by no longer taking good risks on through balls or crosses. He's a numbers guy in a way which is sometimes a problem, and is definitely a problem here.)

(a different sidenote, Roy's poor opinion of Jamie was probably a torpedo to his self-confidence. He probably always struggled with both, in some part due to Sr's abuse, but he worshipped Roy. And Roy hated him.)

Hence: an intervention.

Someone, either the captain group (football teams will have ~4 captains with an internal hierarchy, since there has to be a captain on the pitch but no one can actually play every minute of a season) or Pep, sits Jamie down for a chat about how concerned they all are about him and Jamie what is a nice point, what is a prick point, Jamie you were already nice. We already liked you. But right now you're scaring us. You're hurt. Jamie who are you using your prick points on. Jamie? Jamie?

[mojavehearts]

Fallout 4 Companions react to synth of soles spouse

ROMANCED 

REQUESTED!

(Did only the romanceable companions for this one! I’m sorry if anyone’s upset that others like nick, deacon ECT weren't included :((( I would happily add them if it was really wanted though :)) ) 

(also to who requested it I’m sorry it took so long ! xx)

I tried to base this one on their personalities/how ive seen them ingame deal with things

(also ‘some’ of these assume that Sole took in Synth Shaun but if your sole didn’t just...Disregard it hsjdkfj)

Cait:

Cait LOVED just walking around with Sole, every-so-often fighting some raiders or supermutants or feral ghoul. But she never thought that on their way back, upon entering Sanctuary their Spouse would be standing right at the gate waiting for them, but this couldn’t be ? They were dead...Right? Sole took Cait to see their body...Cait was unimaginably scared and already heartbroken, would Sole leave her now? what would happen to them, to her and the person she loved so much, her rock. Sole was just as shocked as Cait was turning to Cait and then back to their presumed dead Spouse, but sole knew deep down it wasn’t them, couldn’t be. ‘’Cait, go home and wait for me can you? I promise ill be back soon’’ every bone in Cait’s body wanted to refuse but she didn’t she walked on and hated herself for it, she sat on the couch legs shaking, picking at her nails and biting at her fingers for what felt like forever until she heard the door open, she immediately turned her head to the sound, sole stood there eyes deep and murky Sole flopped down beside Cait with a sigh and then turned to her with a sad smile ‘’Synth...Shaun definitely has his father/mother’s sense of humour..’’ they laughed dryly and Cait swallows deeply ‘’So ..You just gonna throw me away then?’’ Sole raises an eyebrow at Cait ‘’Why in gods name would I do that Cait? ‘’ ‘’Synth or not they’re your husband/wife, that would mean more to you than me’’ Sole shook their head, pulling Cait close with a sigh ‘’It’s not like that, you’re what matters to me now alright?, I love you Cait’’ That was enough for cait, usually she would be flying off the rails, breaking things, beating on their spouse, but the way Sole said what they said she believed it.

Curie:

(why aren't there enough gifs out there of this BEAUTIFUL woman I cant omg)

Curie stood there, frozen. staring deep into the eyes of Soles ‘dead’ spouse as they looked around the room curiously, Sole had gone out for the day and Curie was just doing some housework when they casually walked in, she didn’t make a sound and they finally turned and jumped with a yelp, making curie scream out, then they both just looked at each other wide eyed and breathing heavy, she had half expected them to hurt her or yell at her or something for being in their spouses house, pictures of Curie and Sole were framed basically all over the house, it didn't take a genius to realise what was going on, but their spouse smiled at her ‘’Thank you, for taking care of Him/Her, when I was created I was just made to help...But I got free I wanted to know who ‘I’ was or who I am or who I was meant to be but I know now that I may be have the same body, same memories. But I assure you I’m not here to damage this relationship I may have the same body, but I’m a different person’’ Curie was pleased and looked back to them with a soft smile, maybe just maybe it would be okay ‘’Let me make you something to eat’’

Danse:

Danse wanted to take Shaun out for the day, teach him how to shoot and how to hunt. Sole had insisted that he and Shaun bond more and Danse NEVER says no to Sole, not that he’d want to Shaun was a lovely kid, a little soft around the edges but he’s sure he would...Uh grow? into a fine man

Danse had helped Shaun learn how to make his bullet land better from afar and he was doing quite well shot a mongrel dog from a few feet away behind a bush ‘’Congratulations soldier, Ill go bring it over maybe your mother/father will mount it, ‘Shaun’s first big kill’ you know that sounds pretty violent actually’’ Shaun laughed a little and took a seat in the ground Danse smiles at him and ruffles his hair ‘’Ill be right back buddy, you keep practicing’’ It wasn’t exactly to far and he made sure Shaun was still in his sights and that he could hear more practice shots but as he was walking back he noticed them stop he walked a little faster and then dropped the carcass ...Was that...Shaun was laughing and smiling up at the man/woman ‘’Danse! look! they must have made them too!’’ Danse was shocked and quite disturbed he watched as their spouse stood and turned to him, a slight smile on their face ‘’Shaun was telling me all about you, you’re raising him well’’ Danse felt his chest slowly untighten, the BOS paladin in him wanted to believe this was a way to hurt him, hurt Sole, but he knew he and this person were one and the same now, but it still stung so he just brushed them off and walked past them to check up on Shaun ‘’I wouldn’t hurt him, I know he’s not technically my son, but he’s still just a boy’’ for some reason the words ‘my son’ struck Danse hard in the chest and he stood ‘’I don’t know why you are here but you’d better leave, Sole has moved on. For good’’ Danse couldn’t control himself in that moment and the other just sighed ‘’I understand, but there is not were else for me, I thought, I think maybe Sole can help’’ Danse’s nostrils flare slightly ‘’You get your help but you stay away from my family alright’’

Hancock:

(im sad the only gif of him smoking I could find was a modded version of him :(( )

Hancock was back in Good Neighbour ‘Mayoral’ business and such, he was just enjoying a cigarette when his doors slammed open, Fahrenheit immediately jumps up to defend Hancock, when he then notices who it is ‘’What the-’’ ‘’You stay away from my wife/husband!’’ they yelled at him, practically spewing venom Fahrenheit turns to Hancock eyes wide as if to say ‘what the fuck I thought this guy/chick was dead!’ he just waves her away ‘’It alright, I’m sure we can talk about this like adults’’ he puts out his cigarette and stands slowly ‘’You stay away from my partner!, you...UGH what even are you’’ Hancock was used to people saying things like this so it didn't really affect him all that much ‘’Hey, don't piss me off are you forgettin’ I got guards here?, look I don't know why you’re so upset you’ve been ‘dead’ for years now, me and sole got a whole thing goin on’’ ‘’dead?...I’m not...dead!’’ Hancock tilts his head to the side, what the hell was going on here ‘’Sole saw you die friend, back in the vault’’ ‘’what?! no we got out and then the institute took us in but they went missing and they couldn’t fine them!, that's where I woke up and then someone destroyed it! after asking around I find out they’re this whole new person and that they’re with...You?!’’ Hancock knew then what was going on and sighed softly, leaning up against the wall ‘’hate to break it to ya buddy you’ve been dead for 60 plus years’’ he then chuckles ‘’come to think of it I think its 69 now...Damn I’m old’’ their spouse had had enough ‘’stop with this funny business! I was in the army/I was a lawyer!’’ Hancock groaned slightly and stood up straight ‘’You want proof? then deal with me for a little while and ill show you’’

it was...Long and tedious and frankly very awkward but they were finally in the vault, staring back at the ‘real’ spouse ‘’I...Oh my god I think I’m going to be sick..’’ Hancock nods in agreement ‘’Sole wanted to bury ya but things always get in the way, listen I never met to take em from ya but there’s some things you gotta know now’’

MacCready:

MacCready and Sole were having a great time together, watching Shaun and Duncan play when suddenly someone came running up to them embracing Sole quickly Mac gasped out and pulled out his sniper ‘’Oh honey! I’ve been looking everywhere for you I just woke up, somewhere I-I I don’t even know how to explain I...You look so different-’’ they then trail off and turn to Mac holding a gun to their head in shock ‘’Hey buddy put it away this is my wife/husband’’ Maccready looks at them and then Sole helplessly and then to Duncan and Shaun and then frowns deeply slowly holstering his weapon ‘’I get it...’’ he didn't know if he should laugh or cry, frankly he didn’t even know what he would have done if Lucy had come back would he go back? he loves Sole with his whole being but...’’No, I’m not’’ Sole blurts out ‘’What!?’’ both their spouse and Mac say at the same time in shock ‘’I’m married Nate/Nora, to Robert.’’ Sole takes MacCready’s arm and holds it, their spouse looks at them both in shock and Mac could have just melted at that moment, he was on cloud nine but his conscious spoke out ‘’But...Sole they’re your-’’ ‘’I don't care who they are or were or... whatever!, I saw them DIE so I know for a fact that its not...Really them anyway, even if they were that isn't me anymore, I love YOU’’ and here comes the heart eyes, he couldn't help but to be real smug about it either smirking slightly at their ex they look on in confusion, this was gonna take a lot of explaining

Preston:

It was during the raid on the institute people yelling and shooting, Preston was full of fury and love his newly found relationship with sole had really helped him gain a lot of confidence back in himself, they helped him become the man he wanted to be, well the man he always was and he couldn’t thank them enough for that really.

They ran together into a room guns at the ready to fire but when they walked in there was a man/woman holding up their arms 

Sole puts their weapon down in shock ‘’Preston...look’’ Preston takes a good look at them and his eyes widen he turns back to sole and they share a glance ‘’P-Please don’t kill me’’ they didn’t recognise him/her, Preston felt bad for feeling relief that they didn't but he was weighing the odds of Sole leaving him already ‘’Lets take them with us, get them to safety...Please I can’t think of them dying again, even if its not them’’ Sole whispered to Preston softly, the flawed part of him was anxious and wanted to leave them there, but the better part of him knew that wasn’t what he was like and he nodded at Sole, they went through the rest of the Institute wiping it clean at the end Sole had even seen the synth version of their son, which made them go into hysterics, sobbing and holding him close. It was a good and bad day for them both

but also relieving 

Preston strutted around Sanctuary later that day, anxious as hell, worrying if Sole wanted to leave him and start again with their son and husband/wife so when a hand came down on his shoulder he jumped ‘’Oh god preston im sorry didn’t mean to sneak up on you’’ Sole stared at him with gentle eyes and he could have fallen inlove all over again ‘’Babe I-’’ Preston sighed not being able to let out the words he wanted to, Sole shook their head slowly ‘’You’re an open book you know that? I love you, now come home Shaun needs to formally meet you’’ Sole kisses him softly on the nose and pats his chest, walking away slowly

and his worries all melted away

Piper:

Piper was writing a new paper, it was all she had seemed to do lately since sole was out on this strange railroad mission (if your sole didn’t side with the railroad/didn't join it or anything just change it to B.O.S or whatever you’d like) that they knew they would be gone a while for, it had been two weeks or so now and Piper missed them ...Like really bad, so she was writing paper after paper to try and keep her mind elsewhere, but resting up on their bed at Homeplate she just couldn’t tonight, she wondered if they were okay if they were eating or sleeping enough, if they were hurt. It was a lot to take and she wondered if she needed a cigarette 

but then the door squeaked open ‘’P? you here?’’ 

‘‘Blue!’‘ 

Piper jumped up excitedly and raced down the stairs squeezing Sole into a tight hug ‘’I missed you too Piper, but hey you better look at what I found’’ Piper was confused and slowly let go of Sole, her eyes widen when she’s met face to face with an exact copy of their ex, she knew it couldn’t have been them, because sole buried them in Sanctuary ages ago ‘’Blue I- what’’ she was lost for words to be honest 

‘‘Oh believe me I was just as shocked when I found them, there was this whole synth refuge up in the capital wasteland! they all had the mind wipe but no face change ...I had wondered why and then realised all of those people were replicas of dead spouses from my time...a bit Sick right? they were the newest one’‘ Sole almost chuckled as their ‘ex spouse’ walked around eyeing everything ‘‘I just ...wow Blue! wait... you ain’t leaving me right...Right?!’‘ Piper joked at first but then realised the gravity of the situation Sole laughed and took her hand softly raising it up to kiss her knuckles ‘‘oh my god P’‘

(the fact that you can tell which ones I wrote first and then which I wrote after I woke up from my intense sleep fjfhfffdhsj) (Im sorry again for the wait! )

[lewlthea]

The Actual Thing Going On With Edelgard Von Hresvelg.

 Spoilers: It’s not fascism, nor racism (at least not in the way people think). Also, actual spoilers for the game.

If there has been a controversial character in Fire Emblem Three Houses, it’s Edelgard Von Hresvelg, one of the game’s main three lords, the house leader of the Black Eagles, the princess and sole heir of the Adrestian Empire, and an antagonist in every single route but hers. She has been a polarizing figure within the community: Some people think she’s an irredeemable monster, others think she’s a misunderstood leader. When it comes to Edelgard, theres hardly a grey opinion towards her; She’s either black or white. Today, I wanna talk about Edelgard’s actions towards the 4 routes, what they actually portray, and how and why the entire discourse towards her was caused deliberately by Intelligent System’s incredible mishandling and mistreatment of the character.

I remember Nintendo’s 2018 E3 conference quite well. I was at with a group of friends, watching at one of them’s house because he had a bigger TV. I remember making jokes about how “there was going to be a new Fire Emblem” because loving Fire Emblem when Intelligent Systems is Like That is a living nightmare.

And then this happens.

Words could not express the joy I felt when the trailer was over. It wasn’t just a new Fire Emblem game: We were going to have another lady lord, and an axe-wielding one at that - something the fanbase had been desperately craving since the recent surge in Hector’s popularity - and for once, it was like when I first found out that there would be a new female character in Shadows Of Valentia with Faye, and it was the tipping point for me to finally buy a Nintendo Switch.

Of course, just like Faye, things weren’t that simple.

Because some months before E3 2019, which promised to reveal more info on Fire Emblem 3 Houses, Reddit exploded. All because of someone who goes by the username Thanibomb, who claimed to have leaked info on the game, saying a lot of information about all the characters, some of them very questionable (With things such as Lysithea would die due to her crest complications, and it would cause the major 5-year war, and other things like Claude being the one who shot Dimitri’s eye off), while other info being oddly specific. A part of it that made me particularly chuckle was when such user said that Dimitri would have lost an eye, and would cover it with an eyepatch. I found it so silly and, along with some friends, claimed it to be fake and carried on.

And then E3 2019 happened.

And Dimitri had an eyepatch. 

And still, even after Thanibomb, things remained optimistic. All lords looked nice, they seemed to have their own ideals, their own paths, and no fights were breaking out within the fanbase yet. But then early copies were sent to reviewers. And then 4chan got a hold of one of those. And then the main leaks started. And by the time the game got released, it was too late. The amount of hate comments towards the character was so overwhelming; some calling Edelgard a fascist, others claiming that she was racist, others even saying that she gives racist remarks towards Claude ingame (a blatant lie). A personal favorite comment of mine was how Hubert and Edelgard looked like the perfect alt-right couple. 

(Should I remark that these kinds of comments stopped as soon as they found out that Hubert could A-support Ferdinand, and most of them moved on to fetishize the relationship between the two of them instead. Ironically, before that happened people despised Hubert in general solely because of his unusual appearance and shady behavior, but that was soon seen as ‘nuanced’ the moment he could be paired off with another man.)

And so, a fight between the fanbase begun: (Mostly) Blue Lion fans bashing Edelgard’s character, Black Eagle fans defending her vehemently, and Golden Deer fans between either on any of those sides or just making memes for Joe Zieja’s rally campaign for the GD. Mostly the latter. But that’s beside the point.

A (Kinda) Brief Summary of Edelgard’s Presence In Azure Moon, Verdant Wind, And Silver Snow.

Throughout the game’s second part, unless you’re playing the Crimson Flower Route, Edelgard will always be an antagonist who cannot be spared, and she cannot survive unless it’s in her own route. However, the way she is percieved changes depending on each route you are making, with each route leaving small fragments depicting Edelgard’s past and shaping her character in full scale. 

In Verdant Wind/Silver Snow, Edelgard isn’t the final boss. She is one of the bosses before the big fight. (Nemesis in Claude’s case, Rhea in Seteth’s). She’s one of the obstacles, but not the main one, therefore there is not much insight on her character; However, there is still one element present in those routes that is curiously omitted from Azure Moon that is the reason why she doesn’t really have too much focus, that being Hubert’s final letter.

In both routes, Hubert seems to highly respect Seteth/Claude’s prowess in the war and their cunning mind. (Especially Claude; Throughout both Verdant Wind and Crimson Flower, he commends Claude’s tactics and strategies multiple times). In the letter, he gives the location of where Rhea is confined and asks them to eliminate Those Who Slither in the Dark, the game’s true villains and the ones behind most, if not all the game’s tragic events. Even more curiously, though, is the fact that the letter does exist on the Crimson Flower route, and can be seen briefly on Hubert’s B support with Ferdinand, being the reason of their argument throughout the conversation. Not a single mention of the letter exists in the Azure Moon Route. (Of course it would not make sense for it to exist gameplay-wise due to the player having already murdered Arundel/Thales earlier in the game but. It’s still something to be accounted for).

Speaking of Azure Moon, this is a much more trickier route to talk about. Not only due to the fact that Edelgard is this route’s final boss, but also because all of the things we discover about Edelgard within it are never mentioned in any other route, only brief mentions about the time she spent in the Kingdom; nothing more. 

In here, her time spent on the Kingdom is expanded: Both Edelgard, her mom Patricia and Arundel were sent off to Faerghus due to exile, with Patricia being set off to marry King Lambert. There, she meets Dimitri, and they both become fast friends. By the time she has to leave, Dimitri gifts her with a dagger (Which, in Faeghus, are important gifts that mean ‘to cut a path towards a better future’), and she returns to Adrestia. Some time after she leaves the Tragedy of Duscurr happens, caused by Those Who Slither in the Dark. However, due to a misunderstanding caused by eavesdropping on a conversation between Thales and the Flame Emperor, Dimitri mistakenly believes that the Flame Emperor was behind it all, and once the Flame Emperor’s identity is finally revealed to be Edelgard, she is instantly demonized and called a ‘witch’, even though she openly declares how she had nothing to do with it. This goes on until Rodrigue’s death and Cornelia’s reveal that Patricia was the one behind the Duscurr Tragedy so she could return to the Empire and “reunite with her daughter”. (We never find out about what happened to her and she is not mentioned during the Crimson Flower). Dimitri tries to talk Edelgard off their final confrontation, but Edelgard insists that it is far too late for her to back down for their ideals are far too different, and she refuses to live in a world where the Church of Seiros exists. Dimitri then hands back her dagger (Which she accidentally dropped before the timeskip), and they both retreat to prepare for the final battle.

This route’s final boss is an Edelgard who was absorbed direct power from Those Who Slither in the Dark, and adquires a grotesque, corrupted form. No other character in the canon possess such a thing, and only Edelgard can assume such form. Once she is defeated, Dimitri tries once again to spare her, only for Edelgard to stab him with the dagger, making Dimitri realize that she would never give up on her dream, and finally kills her.

An Even More Brief Explanation of What Does All of This Means.

Okay, all of that info was nice, fun, good, yadda yadda. What does this mean and why was it needed.

Well, for starters, let’s ask ourselves a question: After reading the summary, can you say that you know what drives her to seek out the destruction of the church?

What is her reasoning behind the unification of Fodlan?

Do we get anything out of her other than “Scary dictator” or “An obstacle that had to be sadly removed” or “Under better circumstances... We could’ve been Allies (tm)”?

We don’t. Because Intelligent Systems did not bother to show Edelgard’s motivations, despite her being the villain in almost all the routes.

During Verdant Wind and Silver Snow, Edelgard herself does not matter: she’s solely important because she is threatening the church, she is your scary big bad dictator that you have to beat in order to rescue Rhea, only to find out that in reality she was just a stepping stone to the real villains, Those Who Slither in the Dark. (In game it is said that Hubert came up with this name. In my humble opinion Hubert can go fuck himself because this is the shittiest name I have ever seen and I am tired of having to type this five word long thing every paragraph or so). As soon as you read the letter, suddenly Edelgard, the Empire, and all the questions you had as to why she Did It dissappear because now you have another objective, another goal. 

This is even more offensive during Azure Moon because she is the focus, the final boss, but it doesn’t matter why she did all of this nor what her ideals actually are despite them being the reason why she cannot be spared. The game would rather focus on getting reactions out of the player when the intimidating big meanie does something that makes Dimitri go angry than actually focusing on the clashing of Dimitri and Edelgard’s ideals, why they cannot go back to what it once was, what happened to her to change this way, why did ‘El’ actually die. All you have is a dictator in red which does things for no reason other than “I will destroy the Church and unify Fodlan so I can govern over all of it”. Nothing more, nothing less.

....Of course, you do realize that I have avoided to talk about a certain thing.

So, About That Crimson Flower Route...

If there is a way to truly understand a villain, one must walk on such person’s footsteps. Most people criticizing Edelgard were the ones who hadn’t played her route yet, or had only played Azure Moon and was led to believe that all of Edelgard’s actions are unwarranted or pure nonsense. 

There is a reason why people sing their tune differently as soon as they experience the Crimson Flower.

For starters, to be able to fight for Edelgard, you have to first have her support up to C+, go with her to Enbarr once she asks of you, and then defend her from Rhea at the Holy Tomb. The reasoning behind that is so that you fully understand what Edelgard has gone through and the reason why she cannot agree with the existence of the Church.

The Azure Moon route tells you of Edelgard before she returned to the Empire.

It never tells you what caused her to change after she went back.

Edelgard was part of the crest experimentations caused by Those Who Slither in the Dark, alongside all her siblings. Her father, the emperor, was unable to do anything about it, as the real people in control of the Empire were Arundel/Thales and Duke Aegir. Being the sole survivor of such things to return to society and see how everything is defined by whether you have a crest or not and finding out that the Church, who instead of breaking down such system to favor equality would rather turn the creatures who run it into figures to be worshipped is. Something.

There’s another reason for Edelgard’s sudden betrayal, a more sinister one, and why she feels like everything needs to be done in a quick pace. In her C+ you find out she has a second crest, The Crest of Flames, just like the player. People who bear two crests have a shortened lifespam, however.

When Edelgard declares war against the Church, and to unite Fódlan, it’s not solely because ‘Church bad’: She declares war against the unfair crest system, against the hypocrisy of Rhea’s dragon entourage, and of course, to destroy Those Who Slither in the Dark later on the road.

  However.

Just because Edelgard’s behavior is justified, does not mean she is 100% in the right. She herself admits that the path she follows is one drenched in blood. But there are several times in the game that makes you stop and think for a second that she can still make bad decisions, and that sometimes her decisions might have horrible consequences. One of them is for example to never take away Brigid’s status as a vassal to the Empire and return it back to it’s former glory as an actual country, which shows how the entire Brigid kerfuffle is something akin to colonization. We should also point out that when she unifies Fodlan, in some endings she remains the Emperor, completely missing the point of what she fought for.

Another case that shows one of Edelgard’s biggest flaws is with the Silver Maiden incident.

Edelgard had just conquered Arianrhod, the Silver Maiden, and due to murdering Cornelia, enrages Ariandel/Thales, whom causes the situation above out of a show of power. She knows it was Those Who Slither in the Dark, but she needs to give explanations fast and she can’t reveal their identity or else they would slip away and it would be impossible to locate them and destroy them. So what does she do?

She says it was Rhea who did it, actively lying to her closest allies, one of them being the Prime Minister of the Empire.

For Edelgard, the ends justifies the means, and as long as she gets the results she wants, she will do what it takes. Even by alienation. And that’s a dangerous way to go on.

...So, where do I want to go from here? Who is to blame for the hatefest Edelgard is receiving?

Intelligent Systems Kind of Didn’t Know What To Do With Edelgard.

Now hold on. That sounds a bit too harsh, don’t you think? She was the first lord shown in the E3 2018 trailer, they have placed a very big emphasis on Edelgard everywhere hell the game’s main theme is about her, why would you claim that??

Well, first and foremost, I should start by saying that Crimson Flower is the game’s shortest route, with the total of 18 chapters. From those 18 chapters, there is only one cutscene, with most of the route’s major events being shown with either the game’s basic models or still images.

For comparison, Verdant Wind has the total of 8 cutscenes, counting the final one before the timeskip, with 3 of them being unique to its route.

Azure Moon has the total of 5 cutscenes, 3 of them being unique to its route. 

Silver Snow has 4 cutscenes, having 2 unique ones to its route.

The other two main lords have several support options with people outside of their respective houses; Edelgard only has one.

Remember when I said that one of Edelgard’s main enemies are Those Who Slither in the Dark? The game never lets her deal with them personally. You never truly fight them during Crimson Flower.

In a way, the game feels as if while Edelgard is the focus, you shouldn’t side with her. It really makes it feel as if someone at Intelligent Systems just snickered and said ‘Hey wouldn’t it be cool if we could let our players side with/date our villain?’ without even considering or respecting such villain’s motivations, her ideals, and what truly makes a character unique.

In the end, all they truly cared for was if Edelgard was romanceable enough for the player, not if she made sense or was appealing as a character, whether as a villain or a savior.

And considering how the fanbase is behaving towards Edelgard, they succeeded. 

[mazurah]

do you have any headcanons about alteration magic? i feel like due to game balancing limitations, it wasn't as powerful as it actually could have been in-universe. thoughts?

I’ve been sitting on this ask for more than a week trying to figure out how to answer. Yes I have Alteration magic headcanons, but a lot of them aren’t technically mine. 

First off, you’re absolutely right. Alteration is much more powerful in the lore than it is ingame. The Ayleids, who invented Alteration magic, could shapeshift.

There does, however, appear to be evidence that, just as the Psijics on the Isle of Artaeum developed Mysticism long before there was a name for it, the even more obscure Ayleids of southern Cyrodiil had developed what was to be known as the school of Alteration. It is not, after all, much of a stretch when one considers that other Ayleids at the time of Bravil’s conquering and even later were shapeshifters. The community of pre-Bravil could not turn into beasts and monsters, but they could alter their bodies to hide themselves away. 

⁠— Daughter of the Niben

The closest things we’ve ever seen to that kind of magic (not counting things which aren’t actually school-of-magic spells, such as the Wild Hunt, vampire transformations, and werewolves) are spells like oakflesh, which isn’t exactly what I would call shapeshifting. Shapeshifting implies that you’re actually changing your shape, not just changing the consistency of your skin, so I think it’s more likely that the Ayleids did things like make their limbs look like branches to blend in with forests. 

And then there’s that one NPC in Skyrim, the Face Sculptor, that will straight up let you open the character creation menu and change anything about your appearance except your race or sex. (What, no sex change option? Transphobic!) You can’t tell me there’s not Alteration magic involved in that somehow (although I would certainly listen to a case for Restoration.)

There’s also a spell (actually a greater power) that got cut from Skyrim called Polymorph Skeever which lets you turn yourself into a skeever. It was never implemented in the game, but it exists in the code, so I think it’s safe to say that it’s a valid piece of lore. Polymorph spells do exist! There’s even more of them in ESO.

So do I believe that a master Alterationist could potentially turn somebody into a chicken? It’s quite possible. Are we ever gonna be able to turn NPCs into chickens? Not without the Wabbajack. They gotta balance the game somehow.

To be honest, this is a limitation to magic in general, not just Alteration. If I was really a master healer, what’s to prevent me from healing somebody’s mouth closed? Or casting a spell that causes my enemy to have a heart attack? There’s all kinds of things I would love to be able to do with magic that I can’t because of game limitations, like casting a spell to send me to Oblivion so I can go exploring, or conjuring a Dremora or Winged Twilight to ask them about themselves (both of which exist in the lore.) Or using levitation in Skyrim. *sigh*

Back to Alteration though. If you want to know about Alteration in general, the lore book you should be reading is Reality and Other Falsehoods:

It is easy to confuse Illusion and Alteration. Both schools of magic attempt to create what is not there. The difference is in the rules of nature. Illusion is not bound by them, while Alteration is. This may seem to indicate that Alteration is the weaker of the two, but this is not true. Alteration creates a reality that is recognized by everyone. Illusion’s reality is only in the mind of the caster and the target.

To master Alteration, first accept that reality is a falsehood. There is no such thing. Our reality is a perception of greater forces impressed upon us for their amusement. Some say that these forces are the gods, other that they are something beyond the gods. For the wizard, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the appeal couched in a manner that cannot be denied. It must be insistent without being insulting.

To cast Alteration spells is to convince a greater power that it will be easier to change reality as requested than to leave it alone. Do not assume that these forces are sentient. Our best guess is that they are like wind and water. Persistent but not thoughtful. Just like directing the wind or water, diversions are easier than outright resistance. Express the spell as a subtle change and it is more likely to be successful.

⁠— Reality and Other Falsehoods

This is a great start, but it doesn’t help us understand what it would be like to use Alteration on a daily basis, and that’s where headcanon comes in. I headcanon that people have different ways of conceptualizing spells, and this can result in different teaching styles. Sometimes the differences are cultural. But ultimately, it comes down to how good you are at envisioning the changes you want, how much you believe the changes can/should/will happen, and how good you are at willing those changes into existence. How to Disappear Completely by @chameleonspell contains an excellent illustration of what it’s like to try to learn Alteration and navigate the cultural differences between teaching styles as a novice: 

Iriel had studied Alteration. Had, at one point, thought he might specialise in it. It had sounded so impressive, when he first attended lectures at the Crystal Tower: change the world! Bend the physical realm to your will - sorry - your Will! Then he had attended classes, and spent months learning about counter-aetheric force (the academic term for what ordinary people, who didn’t understand these things, called gravity) and formulas to calculate water pressure and wind resistance. Altmeri magical tradition demanded that students first master the theory. You had to learn the rules before you could break them. He might be allowed to actually alter things in a few years, if he studied hard and passed the exams.

Things were different when he transferred to Cyrodiil. There, the Professor of Alteration was a steely-eyed Imperial known to students as The Cliff, due to her threats to throw students off one, if their problems with levitation persisted. Necessity focused the mind, she said. Alteration was all about willpower and belief. She didn’t hold with teaching the physics of it. You are a mage, she would roar. You make your own physics! Your mind will do battle with the Aurbis, and if you are worthy, the Aurbis will bow before you!

She was rumoured to be working on a transmutation spell that would change lesser substances into gold. They said she spent her nights concentrating on a rock on her desk, glaring the resistance out of it, molecule by molecule. When she looked at him, Iriel could believe it. But, struggling to levitate a feather on his own desk, he hadn’t felt that engaging the universe in mental combat was ever going to be his forte. It was so much bigger, and more experienced than he was, so much more self-assured. There were thousands of years of inertia behind its processes, grinding like endless Dwemer machinery. His will, even capitalised, was too weak a spanner to jam into those works. A minor blip in the rhythm, at most, and it’d be crushed as the gears churned on.

He’d found himself returning to the equations he’d been forced to memorise at the Tower. He’d discovered, to his chagrin, that the Sapiarchs had been on to something, at least to his Altmeri-educated mind. If you wanted to change something, it helped to understand the thing you were trying to change. Staring at the feather, he had realised he didn’t need to do battle with the entire Aurbis, he only needed to fight the air immediately around the object he wanted to move, convince it that local relative masses were very slightly different. The Cliff had been right about one thing: it was about belief. And Iriel found it considerably easier to believe things if he could construct a veneer of logical process, however flimsy.

He’d balanced the feather on his finger. It barely weighed anything. Using the standard formula, it couldn’t be constrained by more than a quell of counter-aetheric force. He had repeated the incantation, but instead of trying to command physics as a whole, he’d merely suggested a minor adjustment to the relative densities of feathers and air, just within these few square inches.

The feather had shot upwards and lodged an inch into the plaster of the ceiling. He’d blinked, brushed the dust from his hair, and began recalculating the ratio. An hour later, he’d floated up to retrieve it himself.

⁠— How to Disappear Completely, Chapter 93: force by @chameleonspell ​

(That entire work is amazing and contains so many headcanons and extrapolations of lore I couldn’t possibly begin to summarize them if I tried. You should read it.)

The thing about Alteration, and to a lesser extent, all magic in general, is that to perform it, you must wrestle with the very nature of the universe. Alteration, at its essence, contains what could potentially be understood as the fundamental principle of magic: to perform it, you must impose your Will on the world around you. When you perform it, you change the world. 

This is not without consequences. I headcanon that the greater skill a mage has with Alteration, the more trouble they have with distinguishing what is real and what is not, and with maintaining control over the reality of their personal environment. This is a headcanon I garnered from reading the works of @troloputo2012, and to some extent, @chameleonspell.

The advanced alterationist starts with sensory issues, since they start being able to listen and see the mechanisms of this world (also the plane where spirits and magic roam, that occupies the same place as this Mundus, and being this over saturated with information can be overwhelming), and slowly, they start having trouble attaching to reality and they can’t go back to their normal life as before; many have grounding sensory “mechanisms” to wake up, but many don’t because sometimes nothing works … .

Many experts get tired of constantly wrestling with existing or fail because their will is not strong enough, just give up and vanish, or they get consumed into their own reality and are unable to follow the currents of the world and time … .

To be able to live correctly and master alteration, one must have considerable willpower, or it’ll consume you. You learned to use alteration to weaken reality for you, now you must use it to also reinforce reality (for you start to unconsciously exist in weakened reality you created for yourself) to live.

— Alteration is not as harmless as it seems. by @troloputo2012

So a master of Alteration who fails to have enough Willpower to maintain their own existence might even disappear completely (a concept very similar to the tenuously canonical concept of Zero Sum, wherein a person truly perceives the nature of the universe, sees that they are a figment of the Divine Dream, confronts the concept head on, and fails to assert that they still exist, thus ceasing to exist.) Sure, a master of Alteration can change reality to an amazing degree, but there is a danger; there is a price.

Finally, I have a headcanon (which I’m pretty sure isn’t actually my idea, but I’m not sure where I picked it up) that schools of magic are more like philosophical models for creating spells rather than rigid expressions of natural law. Ultimately, almost any spell could potentially be created using almost any school of magic, but depending on what the spell does, it may not be a very good spell. It might use too much magicka, or it might be insanely hard to cast, or it might take a really long time to conceptualize the spell in that school of magic so nobody bothered trying to make the spell in the first place.

This is an easier idea to apply to Alteration than it is to some other schools like Conjuration (like, what am I gonna do, conjure healthy body parts for a dying person?) but it can go a long way to explaining why some spells change schools between games. For example, there are a few Alteration spells (mostly resistance spells) that get moved to the Restoration school of magic between Morrowind and Oblivion. If you’re looking for an in-universe explanation for this, perhaps spell researchers developed more efficient spells using the philosophy of Restoration, and the magical community had come to accept them as the norm by the time Oblivion began.

So yeah, there’s a lot of overlap between schools. In fact, there are documented arguments between mages about the similarities and differences between schools:

The School of Alteration is a distinct and separate entity from the School of Destruction, and Bero’s argument that they should be merged into one is patently ludicrous. He insists — again, a man who knows nothing about the Schools of Alteration and Destruction, is the one insisting this — that “damage” is part of the changing of reality dealt with by the spells of Alteration. The implication is that Levitation, to list a spell of Alteration, is a close cousin of Shock Bolt, a spell of Destruction. It would make as much sense to say that the School of Alteration, being all about the actuality of change, should absorb the School of Illusion, being all about the appearance of change.

⁠— Response to Bero’s Speech

While I believe that Alteration is an insanely powerful school of magic in the right hands, it’s probably still easier to heal someone using the principles of Restoration than it is to do it using the principles of Alteration.

Feel free to add your own headcanons, I love having discussions like this!

[cipherr]

HELLO ♡♡ 1, 9, 43 for Eralei; 7, 18, 38 for Severine; and 50 for Alunera? (( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°))

HHHHH YAY I LOVE YOU (but you know that) (BUT IM TELLING YOU ANYWAY I LOVE U) :’DD

ok here goes:

Eralei:

01. What does your character’s name mean? Did you pick it for the symbolism, or did you just like the way it sounded?it has no meaning! i honestly don’t even remember how i created it… i know i had a couple of similar-sounding variations bouncing around when i was still trying to decide which of the red face tattoos to give her, but ultimately decided on ‘Eralei’ because i liked the way it sounded and looked aesthetically the most. i realize that the pronunciation might not be the most intuitive but i did the best with what was still available ingame–for anyone who might be reading this that doesn’t know, it’s pronounced like “era lie”. (not only was ‘Eralie’ already taken, i felt like that spelling made it look like it should be pronounced ‘Eralee’ and that’s not what i wanted.)so yeah tl;dr it doesn’t mean anything but it sounds very pretty and fitting for her, i think c:

09. Do they have a favorite season? What about a favorite holiday?hmmm well she grew up on Alderaan, which is earth-like enough that i’d assume it has pretty similar seasons? in any case, her favorite season would definitely be spring. new life, more daylight, less cold and darkness. also the whole idea of ‘new beginnings’ is something that appeals to her greatly. (as for holidays i genuinely have no idea, i don’t think she’s really the type to celebrate much of anything to begin with.)

43. Does your character have a switch that changes aspects of their personality whether they are around friends, family, etc. Is there someone who gets to see their true self?absolutely. Eralei “The Empire’s Wrath” is so much different than “just” Eralei. a lot of her ‘official’ Sithy duties call for her to put on yet another ‘mask,’ and she does her best to carry out whatever needs to be done while still adhering to her own personal moral code. in public, she is very serious and solemn and radiates an almost intimidating presence, because she’d rather be seen as unapproachable than be challenged in any way that could potentially escalate the situation. in private, she’s softer, especially around Vette and Jaesa. Vette more than anyone gets to see her true self, since they’ve been together the longest and have such a unique bond. eventually, Lana will also be this for Eralei, but we haven’t quite gotten there yet :’D

Severine:

07. Is there a catchphrase or sound that they tend to make a lot (likely without being aware of it)?she hums under her breath when she’s concentrating or thinking hard. it’s a deep sound, almost like a purr. she doesn’t really do it consciously; it’s her way of attempting to sort of block out whatever’s going on around her so she can focus. she does it when planning, when lining up a shot with her sniper, even sometimes when she’s training.

18. What kind of home would they want to live in? Where would they place this abode?AHH she actually pretty much canonically has this in-game :’D she has an upscale penthouse apartment in the heart of Kaas City and it’s perfect for her. it’s spacious and private enough while also being in the middle of everything. and of course it has the best security that money can buy :’) 

38. What kind of weather does your character like? Cloudy skies, rainy days, sunshine, etc?she’s definitely a fan of being more on the cooler side, since she gets overheated easily and too much sun makes her irritable. or rather, uh, more irritable than she is normally :’D also, for completely shallow reasons, she likes how her skin looks in cool/gloomy lighting LOLshe’s just more comfortable and at home in the dark. she was raised on Dromund Kaas, which is miserable like 110% of the time anyway. 

Alunera:

50. If your character confessed love to their crush, boyfriend, girlfriend, etc, what would they say?( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) i think… that it’d probably take her a long time to say anything, but only because she’d want to be absolutely positively sure of her feelings. and it would probably be something along the lines of, “i realized that if anything happened to you, i would never be able to go on.” it would take her a bit longer to actually say The Three Magic Words because she’s a bit guarded and it’s a big deal to her, but she’d find a way to indirectly confess her feelings long before it. c:

THANK YOUUUUUU

[ecpwrestling]

Cruising for a Bruising

This past week ECPW hosted their yearly Cruisership Classic. Whether you liked it or not, I think we can all agree the Classic this year was certainly quite the adventure. Brought to us by Oceania Cruises and hosted on actual cruise liner USS Champion, the tournament had much to offer this year - an exciting venue, an interesting roster, and indeed, the ECPW debut of Brian Bryan fresh from the Developmental Leagues.

The tourney opened with a top-deck match between former manager Jack Stroker, now reinvented as Jack-Senpai, and new talent Bryan. The match was pretty impressive, with Stroker showing a surprising degree of skill and Bryan proving he deserves his spot up in the big leagues. But, as all things with Eternal Champions, the tourney was not without its troubles. Longtime lush Bobby Crood’s animosity towards Senpai saw him mercilessly attack the man following the opening match - resulting in yet another injury for the bruised Senpai and the booking of a vengeance match to be hosted in the future; Bryan’s win was left untouched.

There were a few unremarkable matches, such as the tag team match between The TerrorWrists and their long time rivals The SWOT Team, before returning to the main lineup with Yumi Shinisawa vs Akcer Jace (who the hell is he?). The famously antisocial Yumi was cornered by some fans who were left alienated before the fight, and many were bemused by her late arrival to the ring: tired, and tangled in cables. The subsequent arrival of ‘SwordBro’ Mako Takehiko revealed that the Japanese Hardcore hadn’t slept but instead been playing Tekken. Perhaps she’s looking to join Bullet Club with ingame items? Jace, however, was clearly unimpressed by his groggy competition, as, soon into the match, he dashed to the bar, returning with a glass of water to douse Shinisawa in a move of disdain that really got the crowd riled. After some solid wrestling, who else should crash the party but Jack-Senpai, ambushing Yumi as she neared the ropes. But that wasn’t the only interference with this match: going into a rage hearing the name 'Jack Stroker’, Bobby Crood charged from the hall bar to the ring, bludgeoning his target with a bottle for the second time in the tourney. After some tense moments, General Manager Cody B. Stabbe managed to break up the fight, Yumi finally finished Jace off with a fairly standard throw into pin, and everyone involved ended up exhausted at the bar, where Yumi managed to redeem herself in the eyes of some fans with a friendly exchange talking about the fighting game.

There were no major matches over the following two days, and time was taken instead to focus on promotional efforts. Bryan was seen shooting a video promoting fitness for all, and Senpai once again continued his exploits with the powerhouse that is Boss Coffee. Bryan’s video came tantalisingly close to being a disaster as he nearly brought a child to tears, but managed to salvage it at the last moment. Senpai somehow managed to avoid Crood long enough to make sure that this advert, shot on the Pacific cruise, was just as professional as all of his others.

Two thirds of the way through the tournament the Champion docked at Honolulu, where Yumi was billed in the semi finals against the seedier member of The Brits: Jack Vaden. Whether it was due to prompting from management, or just her own initiative, Yumi was far more prepared, and was drinking at the ringside with Takehiko well in advance of the fight. Vaden made his entrance in particularly anarchic fashion, bringing his battered old guitar with him in preparation for the hardcore match. Getting up from the bar to fight, Yumi had her drink pinched by her friend in an amusing move with a clear message: finish fast. Opening with a flurry of blows it wasn’t long before she’d driven her opponent in a corner but,  just as she was about to break Vaden’s own guitar against him, a shrill whistle from the crowd stayed her hand. In an uncharacteristically heel move, Sir Justin Thyme had assaulted Takehiko in an attempt to buy Vaden some time to recover. After a scuffle between all four of them the referee managed to break them up, but the rest of the fight saw more interference from the two noncombatants. Towards the end of the fight, Vaden was thrown from the ring to the sands of the beach, but in a surprise move blinded Yumi with pocket sand as she approached. Surprisingly, Yumi was counted out leaving Vaden to progress to the finals - a move that left many of us asking 'was that supposed to happen?’

Our second semi-final was a poolside bout with new blood Bryan facing Crood, who held the seeded place. Commentated by surprise guest Enzo CF, the match itself was a clear display of skill from both of them; Bryan eager to defeat his one time idol turned rival, and Crood showing that, despite his age and addictions, he’s still a competent wrestler. Despite the overall quality of the match there is definitely a moment that outshone the rest: after throwing Crood from the ring Bryan managed to execute an absolutely flawless Tope Suicida from BETWEEN the middle ropes and landing square on the defenseless Crood - something fans are already calling a Mythic Moment . Clearly running on ‘juice’ fumes at this point, Crood managed to get back up despite the crushing blow and the fight continued. A tense exchange began on one of the posts, with control exchanging between both wrestlers as they teetered towards the pool. Eventually Crood sent Bryan  crashing down into the water below. After some floundering, both fighters managed to make it back to the ring, though by now Crood was clearly looking worse for wear. Perhaps his body reacting to having something other than juice in it for the first time in what could be years. After a brief struggle it became clear that Crood wasn’t going to win it, and indeed he went down and was pinned by Bryan within five minutes of leaving the pool. Unfortunately for Bryan, Crood wasn’t to be dissuaded by something as small as losing. After the fight he left steaming, and many on site let us know that he’d been seen backstage - not only attempting an attack on Bryan shortly after his loss, but cashing in favours and leveraging his stroke in an attempt to reverse the ruling.

All of this unrest culminated in an obscene all-out brawl, already dubbed as the Ballroom Blitz by fans. Rendering the rest of the tournament irrelevant, the Blitz would give two wrestlers a ticket to the final. How you ask? By throwing their opponent out a window, and OFF THE BOAT. Classic slapdash brutality - the likes of which we’ve come to know and love from ECPW. After a few moments of uneasy calm, all hell broke loose as a bottle of 'juice’ was thrown from across the room at Jack-Senpai. While official cameras didn’t catch it, we can confirm that it was thrown by none other than Bobby Crood. Tables and chairs were smashed, blood was spilled, punches, kicks, throws, and more suddenly burst to life all across the room. Takehiko, now wielding Vaden’s patched up guitar and eager to settle a score, struck Justin Thyme clean in the face with the weapon sending him sprawling. Yumi struck in a similar fashion towards Vaden, breaking a chair across the Brit’s head as he attempted to charge her down. Across the room Senpai and Crood fought it out in a desperate and underhanded clash between the two older wrestlers, both of whom are know to go to extreme lengths to secure a win. Not to be outdone, Bryan interrupted the fight sending Senpai sprawling to the side. Perhaps it was his disgruntlement at having his win nullified, but he ignored the easy win with throwing Senpai out and instead focussed his attacks on Crood after his initial charge. Returning to Yumi and co. it became clear that The Brits had been utterly trounced by their Japanese opponents and were set to be thrown from the boat through a previously shattered window. With a tumultuous splash, Yumi’s place in the finals was secured. Takehiko, as a non-participant in the tourney, left the second spot open. Taking advantage of the momentary lapse in calm Yumi’s security caused, Crood attempted to break off his fight with Bryan to shove Yumi after The Brits, but was intercepted by Senpai and Bryan both. It now became a desperate race to second place between those three as they scrambled to push one another from the boat. In the end, Yumi was sent tumbling out the window by Bryan, and so the final was (apparently) settled. Crood however, was still raging. Arguing that it was in fact he who’d pushed Yumi from the boat, he successfully levelled his influence once more to demand the final of the Classic be a triple threat between Yumi, Bryan, and himself. It was at this point that Yumi, hands bleeding and full of glass, somehow heaved herself back in the window and latched herself to Bryan’s back, clawing at his face and smearing blood across him. She was dragged off her prey by security and the other wrestlers, but not before a good few blows were put in direct to Bryan’s head.

And so we come to the final. The big one. The culmination of every bit of violence and pettiness the Classic had shown us so far. Set in the terribly dramatic engine of the cruiseship, Brian Bryan was the first to enter, but no sooner had the electric guitars started the familiar riffs of Flight of the Valkyries than Tubthumping cut in and Bobby Crood attacked Bryan before the promising talent had set foot in the ring. Yumi Shinisawa entered last and the ultimate clash of the tournament began. It was a brutal battle, with all three combatants bearing the scars of past confrontations, punctuated dramatically by the engine room’s red lights. There were several close calls throughout, and for many moments it’s thought that not even management was sure who’d come through victorious - though ultimately, it was Crood who secured victory by pinning Bryan and promptly collapsing, exhausted by the strain of facing both the Eternal Champion and the hot blooded rookie. But the brutality was not yet done: Enraged and covered in blood, Yumi assaulted the unconscious Crood with a shattered bottle, before turning her blind fury on the shocked Bryan. Security intervened and Shinisawa was dragged, snarling, from the ring.

So finally, at the end of this confusing tourney, the USS Champion arrives at its final destination: Osaka, Japan. It was here that Cody Stabbe revealed that this Season of ECPW would be featuring the All Japan tour, culminating in their next pay-per-view: DOOMSDAY. Many are wondering what nonsensical shenanigans could untold next on the show, but one thing’s for certain. I’m watching that shit.

UPDATE: Thanks to an inside source from ECPW who wishes to remain anonymous, we can confirm that Yumi’s rampage at the  end of the finale was was in fact a SHOOT that left Crood and Bryan injured! While Crood and Bryan were left shaken, but with relatively minor injuries, Yumi is set to face serious punitive action from Management. Currently it appears that she’s to be suspended for an unknown duration - how will removing the home talent from the roster affect the All Japan Tour? Time will tell.

[soarinsora-blog]

My fallout 76 beta thoughts

I played through the B.E.T.A for fallout 76 and enjoyed it greatly, that said I had my fears when I preorded the game. When I first got it I was thinking about how much I enjoyed the previous fallout games and wanted to get the game in the hopes of getting some preorder gift, my wishes for these gifts were forgotten when I learned that those who preorded the game would be able to participate in the beta for the game a few weeks before release, this made me super excited for the rest of the week, for the rest of the time I made sure to skip all of the ingame spoilers that i could, luckily I did not come across much aside from the rare snippet whilst I did not search for it, I did however plan out a build, in this planning stage I ended up with an agility/strength build, my original plan was to have a pistol wielding gunslinger but my plans quickly changed to a one handed melee build. I wanted to have a fists only build but the lack of my awareness of fisting weapons prevented me from traveling down that route, that was until I found a pair of knuckles off the dead bodies inside of a lighthouse, still I continued on investing in my current melee build keeping my fisting ideas in store.

How I traveled:

Wielding only a combat knife and a 10mm I explored the wasteland, I traveled off the beaten path my fellow vault dwellers traveled, there I found workshops and even a suit of power armor hiding within a barn, without any real use for the power armor I took its fusion core and traveled on, in total I found three workshops in the north, east and west directions from the vault, each workshop costed only 25 caps to control.

My experience with others:

In general my experiences with other players has been enjoyable, though I did notice a lack of other players using mics. Throughout my travels I was only interacted by one player, he shot at me while I was cutting down the scorched with a combat knife, I had thought he was shooting at the scorched trying to help me but missed them and hit me instead so I finished off the scorched and noticed that even after the scorched were slain he was still shooting at me with a little pipe gun. Accepting his challenge I ran at him and stabbed him, in response he took out his shotgun, he could not get a single round off before I stabbed him to death.

In total my complaints are:

1. The server crashed on me occasionally.

2. I would randomly get hit by an invisible spirit both inside and outside of combat, most commonly right after combat.

3. Melee builds seem very op.

4. I felt the small limit of players per server limits the enjoyment that could be had from how large the map is.

5. I felt the game forced the player to go at a slow pace to really enjoy the games environment, this is especially bad for the multiplayer aspect of the game where you have a group of people each doin their own thing and rushing everywhere.

6. There needs to be some sort of way to travel, not necessarily fast travel but because the map is so big some way to get from one side to the other would be nice, it would however promote faster gameplay and may be best utilized if there were factions or players fighting each other from bases.

7. As I just mentioned about factions, player owned factions or main game factions that effects the map in some way, think of it like fo4's factions where at the end the factions you chose controls the commonwealth.

8. The wasteland feels lonely, while I did not play with others I wanted to enjoy the world instead. What I'm hoping to see is some sort of companion, I'm hoping to see a return to the automatron DLC from fo4 where we can build our companions or gain a robotic friend that seem to be an abundance as remnants with nothing else do to but stand over a corpse telling it how much it hates camping.

9. I felt the game was too easy at times, the enemies didn't give me much sense of urgency to not get hit by them and I constantly came across supplies I needed to survive. Now this may just be my wish for a difficult experience like when I mod fo4 to extreme realism but even playing alone I didn't feel the need to even use a stimpak very often which ended up with me being loaded with them.

10. Someone teach the scorched how to shoot. I constantly found myself inside of a building with scorched outside shooting at the building rather than at me. As for a graphical glitch that was throughout my playthrough but i have yet to see it in other peoples plays are the scorched inability to actually hold their guns, too many times I've noticed their guns bugged in their hands with their fingers sticking through the gun itself.

Conclusion.

In total I truly do believe that the game still likes a solo playthrough, groups can be fun but will ultimately prove a hazard for other players. But do not let that disway anyone hoping to enjoy a nice fallout game where you can enjoy the wasteland, in fact it may even prove beneficial for the play if you think of other players like the mercenaries from Assassins Creed Odyssey but with more interaction and even more possible outcomes. From a role players perspective I see this as a great opportunity since you will have a more varied audience, the lack of npc's however may prove annoying for any rp not including other players, unless you want to play a survival playthrough where you travel through the wasteland trying to survive off the land and living from your camp. I do feel the game is a little easy and that the enemies dont exactly give me this sense of urgancy that the previous games gave me. I loved playing the beta and I want to play more but at the moment the game will get repetitive without long term goals or a reason to come back to a location that wont get repetitive due to events. I am happy to say that my fear may not last long since the developers are constantly listening to the fanbase and trying to make improvements, as evidence listen to the people that played both at the greenbriar and the beta, many of whom are saying the game is running much more smoothly and I predict that after each beta the game will get more smooth and cleaner and way more playable, within a year of release it may not even look like the beta anymore, just like elder scrolls online the game may get updated until it doesnt even feel like the same game. I remain hopeful of the games future and wishing to continue playing.

Should you buy it?

When the game releases the bugs seen during the beta will be in the past, however the main game itself will not have changed very much. That said it will likely be changed after a few months of release, so should you buy it as soon as possible? No, the game is too early in development and playing it on day one may easily burn you out and prevent you from playing the game when it gets to the height of possibility.