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irafatum-a · 6 years

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“ They called me a traitor to my kind, a crazed lunatic hellbent on swimming in blood and sure -- it might be half true -- but that’s only because I’ve never had a reason to give a damn until now. Being with you has opened my eyes to so much that has been lost, but you’ve also shown me the great things that can be done. For that alone, I will give you my blade, and I will stand against any who oppose you in the name of a brighter future: point to your foes and I will be your sword, and they will die. ”

SEMPER FIDELIS

Rose has always been a woman of self-preservation, never going out of her way to save others only should it benefit her in some way and this line of thought has kept her alive and out of harm's way ( once she was able to defend herself ). But this shallow existence has made her feel not only worthless but hopeless and lonely: for thousands of years while disguised as a succubus in the first layer of Hell she has watched countless allies fall, those she might have called friends dead, and worse still those who betray and lie; what is the point of life if you’ve nothing to fight for? If you only fight for yourself and in-kind live, but in living having nothing but emptiness. She could find no solace in greed, sex or violence: all of these inclinations of her youth spent and transformed into bitterness and vengeance. With Mundus ruling earth and nearly all of Nephilim slaughtered in his conquering left little hope of a new age: of one where you did not have to hide and did not have to fight tooth and nail to preserve not only your personhood but your life. Soon the world began to bustle as if nothing had happened: with humans consuming the poisons of demonkind and gradually deteriorating from their influences -- it seemed all was lost.

Until rumors began to spread of Sparda’s betrayal, his mating with an angel; Eva, and their inevitable rebellion against demonkind's hold in hopes of creating a better future for humanity and their newly acquired family. But to those in Hell this was merely a pipedream, among them Rose believed so too: who could truly fight against Mundus? Even if Sparda was the strongest among the demons and a lord himself, he had played a hand in his brothers' ascension to power, he had made them too strong and would surely fail -- and fail they did; Eva was murdered and Sparda locked away for an eternity in the depths of Hell. To many on the outside, they figured this was done until further rumors spread of his heir being alive: Dante, a child of a demon and angel, the supposed first Nephilim born in how long from the complete genocide of the once proud third race. To the demons of the underworld this was all a comedy to them: the child would eventually die and they would continue on, and soon, would aim for Heaven’s Gate -- but Rose felt differently.

She felt hope. For the first time in how long Rose felt determination. A desire to fight.

Though she could do very little to help a child let alone herself, and instead took to remaining in her succubus form amongst demonkind, quietly searching for the one known as ‘Dante’ in hopes he truly was not a rumor or myth -- as Mundus attempted to paint him -- but a key to killing him and unlocking the path for the Nephilim once more: to rule as they had been destined to for a long time. Rose held no real loyalty to her race of the past: they were stuck in their ways, forced their morals on others and discriminated against each other often -- only cooling off their standards once they were brought to the brink of extinction -- and now they were gone. For many, many years Rose held out for a sign of Dante, hoping he had not been murdered by the demons in their search of him, but all seemed for not -- no one could find him anywhere, and she had to thank and curse Sparda for his skill. As the years rolled on it was not Dante that Rose happened upon first, but instead his brother: Vergil, a Nephilim that no one knew existed at all... but she had found him by happenstance, and what luck that was.

As the two got to know one another through their shared alliance in fighting the demons, she was quickly exposed for not being a succubus at all and became exceptionally impressed with the second son. This perplexed her: Dante was supposed to be the son that would change the world, that would be the key to destroying the demons and Mundus, yet the more she spoke with Vergil the more she began to realize it might, in fact, be him instead. These opinions she kept mostly to herself, but turned tenfold when Dante was finally among their crew -- and she was mildly disappointed with the man she had finally met: this young man had grown up much like herself; abused, lost and full of rage at the world, hopping from battle to battle, raging against a system that looked to use and oppress you, and yet the both of them had come out with very different views as their fight waged on; Dante had initially cared for no one but himself, until fighting alongside them and humans brought a softness to him, a sort of softness that repelled the female Nephilim and filled her with worry.

The more she learned of the older sibling the more she was convinced the youngest would be the one to rule, that he would be the one to understand the severity of the situation and the naivete that was involved in allowing humans to have a say in much of anything. It pushed her further into the youngest sons way of thinking, pushed her further to be around only him, to speak a majority of the time to only him and to defend his ideas and himself from his rowdier, older sibling that attempted to swing his weight around: Rose did not like him, and she did not like where things were seemingly headed, yet she kept this to herself.

However, the negatives of the situation were ignored in favor of the more positives that were occurring: getting to know Vergil had sparked a strange fondness deep inside of her, a sort of flame that spurred her to strive for their victory and to impress him. Never before had she given a damn about the Nephilim or setting the world to order, for so long she had given up on order for the world seemed to favor chaos and violence; her very being had been molded to fit that very world and yet she desired more. She wanted something deeper, she wanted to find a solace and calm after all the blood, flesh, broken bones, tears and loss... there had to be something more. This world had to have more than the shallowness of hedonistic pursuits and dreams, that more could be done beyond being exploited and abused. And Vergil offered that: his words stoked the embers of her passion, urged her to look into herself and her own morals, to look upon the world and decide that enough was enough, to decide that it was not merely enough to defeat Mundus and go about her business -- they had to correct things, and the smartest among them with the most drive was Vergil, and she felt they had a promising future beneath his guidance.

Over the course of their being together she was becoming more obsessed with both the idea and newfound affection: for all of her life she had lived only for herself and for her own desires, she wanted for nothing but her greed, pride, and lust... but now the thought of returning to those pursuits brought an emptiness to her. A sort of disgust: she did not want that old life, she much preferred being with Vergil instead, looking to the future and hoping to build something more... something better than the past. With this newfound resolve, the female Nephilim made a vow to herself that she would give anything and everything to the two youngest: she would ensure that Mundus was defeated and that Vergil would craft a new future.

For the first time Rose wanted to fight for more than just herself, she wanted to fight for the dream of a man she admired and was now finding herself infatuated with, for never had her heart been struck so fiercely. Thousands of years she had laid with plenty of men who brought her no passion, no drive to want more, no point in courting or attaching herself -- now everything was changing, her dreams were quickly intertwining with Vergil’s dreams, and found she wanted for nothing more than to be faithful. To earn his trust and show that she was not only an exceptional warrior but also a powerful, beautiful woman, eager to fight beside him.

Her faith is both powerful and zealous; she holds no mercy for those whom would betray or harm Vergil and this obsession only strengthens as time goes on, and doubles when they are officially together and form a family. Rose became the embodiment of faith and loyalty to the cause and it turned so fierce that none would dare turn their nose up to the true Son of Sparda, lest they wish a visit from the Demon’s Wife who leaves no survivors: only loyalists. The day when Dante betrayed Vergil and nearly killed her had left vengeance seated deeply in both her mind and soul, while upon his return to life, she made a vow: “ I will not fail you a second time. ”

#HEADCANON.#◄███▓▒░░ ℧ ▬ BLOODY PALACE. ⁽ ᵈᵉᵛᶤˡ ᵐᵃʸ ᶜʳʸ ⁾#long post #me writing about dmc zero again #also me writing about her obsession that she thinks is faithfulness #also also me getting hurt #because she loves HIM AND BELIEVES IN WHAT THEY ARE DOING #when she didn't give a shit about anything and felt empty #like wtf is worth living why live????#but then she found a reason for living and has turned utterly obsessed with preserving it

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synchronmurmurs · 3 years

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I hope this isn't out of the blue, but I follow your Twitter, and recently you spoke about having fears of writing a book from scratch. Nothing connected to fandoms, no pre-existing characters or settings. No leg to perch on from an already developed story.

But I have to say, that your work on multiple OCs proves that you are incredibly skilled at making characters from scratch and developing compelling stories for said characters. For example, Punchy *chef's kiss* an absolute gem of a woman with wonderful depth, and the attitude to match. Liviere, whose sass and playful nature hides so much trauma. Evette, an aDORABLE BEAN with zero fucks to give. Each character is extremely unique, and I truly believe you are more than capable of creating an entire seperate world of your own.

Not to mention your prose, tHE PROSE *angels chanting*. I can honestly go on and on about how much your writing has inspired me, and the amount of times I reread a paragraph to soak in the flow and descriptions. An entire world developed through your mind, with your skillful writing, would probably make me astrally project into another dimension on the spot.

So anyway, what I meant to say is that you're underestimating your ( ͡ʘ ͜ʖ ͡ʘ) POWER. You have the skill, the drive (from the amount you've written for Pact I- hOLY SHIT THAT'S AN EPIC), and the creativity to write an original book and more. You're more than capable 👌

That being said... I want Punchy to absolutely

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

annihilate me

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Nonnie I’ve had this open for like half an hour trying to find words I can reply to this with, but I keep defaulting back to things like WOOORGHHGHHGHGHGH and HOOORRRGHHHHHHGGGWWOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH and uncrontrollable, inconsolable sobbing that looks something like this

so I think I’m going to give it up for the moment, but this really, really means a lot to me. 😭😭 I think I’ve been very blessed with the reception of these OCs, it’s something I can’t... ever properly repay or convey how deeply grateful I am, but I just have so much damn fun with putting little barbie dolls into a world and seeing what they do. And DMC especially, is a series that really easily welcomes literally any OC from any walk of life, where you can almost seamlessly find a justifiable way to integrate them into canon, and it’s just 😙👌

But that being said, I think I do have a pretty long road ahead of me. It’ll be... very awkward without the crutch of an existing canon to fall back on, and beyond a vague idea of what I’d ideally like to do (SUPERNATURAL CRIME DRAMA!!!!!!!), I don’t really know where to start? But baby steps and all that. I really would like to see how far writing can take me, because I don’t think I’ve ever felt so strongly about a hobby before? I’ve been at this for nearly 3 years now? And if that alone isn’t some sort of indication that maybe writing is what I’m supposed to be doing with myself, then I don’t know what is.

....christ this got away from me, I’m sorry nonnie. But thank you so much again for this encouragement, I’m really, truly touched and whehh fdskjhkfjh. 😭😭

....also big same about wanting to be annihilated by Punchy. The Punchwife.... hhgghoorgh maam.....

#answer: anon #ask sync #this is so kind I'm crine #also good lord I went to check #and as of October this year I'll have been writing (almost) consistently for 3 years #jesus

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zwowow · 4 years

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Either 15 or 19 for the angsty writing prompts plz 🥺

15. “This wouldn’t even be a problem, if you wouldn’t make one out of it.”

This is the dumbest fight they’ve ever had. Colson is convinced. They’ve had a lot of dumb, petty arguments, from blow outs over left out cereal bowls to Em sleeping in one of the guest bedrooms for a week because they couldn’t agree on which RUN-DMC album was the best. Colson maintains that it’s their self titled album, but since he hates sleeping without Em, he keeps his mouth shut as his boyfriend praises Raising Hell. So yes, they’ve had some dumb fucking fights, but this takes the cake.

And it started with Spongebob. The two of them had been cuddling together on the couch and trying to find something to watch when a Spongebob Squarepants rerun came up on the screen.

“This was my shit as a kid.” Colson grinned.

At the same time, Em said, “I used to put this on all the time when Hailie was a kid.”

Colson didn’t think much of it, just nodded and laughed, but Em froze right away. The children’s show played in the background as Em sat still as a statue.

“What?” Colson finally turned and looked at Em after a full minute of silence.

“You’re so fucking young.”

“Hell yeah, old man, thirty, flirty, and thriving or whatever Jennifer Garner said in that one movie.” He expected Em to laugh, or even just to crack a stupid smile and get back to picking a movie or TV show, but he was just met with Em’s thinking face and a sort of brutal cold shoulder.

“You’re thirty.” Em said after a moment of silence. His lip curled when he spoke, like it was the first time he’s said it, and the number was bitter on his tongue.

“Yeah...” He didn’t understand what Em was getting worked up about. It’s not like he didn’t know how old he was when they got together. He knows for a fact Em had googled him before. When he’d stolen Em’s phone once and looked up his own name, the link to his Wikipedia page was purple. Obviously he’d seen it.

Hell, they’d even celebrated both of their birthdays with each other last year. Em had lit the three and zero candles up himself.

“I don’t think... How did I... You’re almost twenty years younger than me.”

“Yeah,” He cocked his head to the side, confused, “That’s kind of how numbers work.”

“We shouldn’t be together.” Colson hadn’t expected any part of their conversation, but when Em said that, his neck snapped to look at Em head on.

“You can’t be fucking serious right now.” But Em was, and that was just the beginning. Now, they’re fighting about whether or not to break up, because Em found out he watched fucking Spongebob.

“If Alaina was with a dude that was forty five...” Em starts and stops, too disgusted to finish.

“She’s not.”

“But if she was, I’d be doing everything in my power to stop that shit. It’s gross.”

He rolls his eyes, “Lucky for you I don’t have an overprotective uncle-dad that needs to deal with his own relationship with a younger dude instead of fixating on my fictional one.”

Em narrows his eyes at Colson, a warning about crossing some invisible line he’s drawn, Colson looks back at him pointedly, and rolls his eyes again. This is so unbelievably stupid.

“I don’t understand how you don’t see how weird this is. When you were born I was a legal adult. Kim and I had Hailie before you were in school. You were in the fucking fourth grade or some shit when the Marshal Mathers LP came out-”

“Yeah and at twenty nine you had three albums that had blew, whatever. Look, I fucking get it, you’re old. I knew that when I slept over the first time and saw your beard dye in the bathroom. Get over it, I did.” He grins while quoting Em’s own song back to him. He had to cut him off, Em is fighting with him over nothing.

They’re still sitting on the couch together, but instead of cuddling they sit facing each other. Em’s leg is bouncing so wildly, he wants to reach over and put a hand on it to calm him but he’s not sure how well that would go over since Em is in the middle of trying to convince him they shouldn't be together. Not that he plans on letting himself be convinced of anything.

“I’m serious. You being as young as you are is a big fucking problem. I don’t know how I ignored it for as long as I did, but I can’t keep ignoring it. It’s freaking me out.”

Annoyed both at their cyclical conversation, and by Em’s obsession with calling him young like he hasn’t lived three full decades, Colson snaps, “This wouldn’t even be a problem, if you wouldn’t make one out of it. I’m thirty, you’re like a hundred, it’s not a big deal.”

“You’d be more age appropriate for Lainey or Hailie, yeah it’s a big fucking deal.”

“Oh, so now you’d be okay if I went for Hailie?” Colson jokes to ease the tension, nudging his shoulder into Em’s but the older man doesn’t find it funny.

“Don’t even fucking joke about that.” Em flinches away from his nudge and all but jumps off the couch. Colson stifles a laugh. It’s been close to like nine years and Em still hates whenever the tweet is brought up. It used to be a sore spot for him too, but now Colson and Hailie are able to joke about it. Em never joins in. That’s probably part of the reason they’re having this argument right now.

“Em, really,” He grins easily, refusing to take this stupid ass argument seriouslu, “I’m fucking thirty. I got an eleven year old girl. We’re way past the point where our ages have anything to do with us fucking. It’s not like I’m a teenager, seventeen or eighteen and shit.”

“You act like you are.” Em quips, the barest hint of a smile gracing his lips.

“And you act like you’re eighty. Still love you, old man.”

Em’s smile grows. Kells gets up from the couch and ambles over to him. He wraps his arms around the back of Em’s neck and hugs him close. With only a few inches between them, Kells looks down at Em and grins.

“Plus, I’m like three feet taller than you, so we’re pretty much the same age.”

“That doesn’t make any fucking sense.” Neither do they, not really, still, Kells wouldn’t have it any other way. The way Em is looking up at him, he knows he feels the same.

#i forgot until i was almost done that these are angst prompts #um oops #mostly snark with a smallll side of angst cozy?#also its long #y is it so long #thank u 4 the prompt #hope u likeee anyway #cosmicbash #emgk #angst prompt #zwowfic #um anybody get the 13 going on 30 reference or is it just 4 me?#just did 19 so went with 15! <3

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dreaming-gamer · 4 years

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DMC Week Day 7: College AU

For my final entry for DMC week, I chose to write the trio as college students playing Final Fantasy XIV – Nero, V & Nico.

A self-indulgent AU fic (haven’t played Final Fantasy XIV in years) based on a few college headcanons.

Thank you to everyone and all that’s read my works during this week! Your support means a lot ❤️❤️❤️ Here we go, hope you enjoy!

Nero as Warrior, tank

Nico as Machinist, damage dealer

V as Summoner, damage dealer

***

Nero nervously stared at his health-bar steadily going down as attack after attack scratched down his life despite all the buffs his character had on. The controller vibrated furiously in his hands, his jaw clenched. The boss would be dead at any second and the healer was trying their best but the bad connection they had so far had was making Nero nervous. Wasn’t a heal long overdue? Weren’t their character just standing still?

“If you perish, I got Resurrection ready.” V said, his voice ever so calm that it actually made Nero grin. Was he ever happy he’d gotten himself this new headset that let him regulate game and party sounds separately? Yeah, they were in a bad spot, but the boss was so close to dead now. They’d get through it.

“Nico!” He called the second the limit break chime could be heard in his headset.

“On it!” Nero could basically hear the buttons on her controller being slammed, together with her laughter. “Eat this!” Nico’s machinist character pulled out the crossbow, ready for the shot that would send the boss to oblivion.

“Dammit!” Nero shifted his character as an AoE marker appeared under his feet, along with certain death as his health was reaching less than 5000. Even if V revived him instantly, Nero as the tank dying now might just spell their doom.

The boss inched after him, leaving the indicated line of Nico’s limit break. Winds whipped around their characters, but they all managed to avoid more injury.

“Whoa, whatcha doing?!” Nico exclaimed in disbelief.

“Just aim again!” Thrill of Battle was back off cooldown, restoring some of his health. Sweet.

“It got used up, asshole! Healer dc’ed!” Nico’s voice snapped his focus back. Another buff off cooldown and he used it.

“What?!” Did that have to happen at this crucial moment? One quick glance at the party list said ??? for the healer’s status.

“Nero, your Holmgang should be ready for use. Just hold on.” V calmly stated and Nero blinked as he realized V was right. Had he been counting seconds since the last four minutes??

“Fuck!” The progress bar over the boss’ life told him a tankbuster was coming. Nero waited, his finger on the trigger for Holmgang, his sweet 6-seconds of almost invincibility to save him if needed. He pushed the button, the bright orange line above the boss filled the entire way, the hit connected, the controller in his hands vibrating valiantly. Hit points sailing down to zero. Swears bubbled up in his chest, flowed out of him like a sailor when the boss started to move towards Nico. But it had sooo little HP left!

“I pushed the button, I swear!” Nero shouted in disbelief, heart pounding in his chest, did they really have to redo this??

A sharp blast of white light engulfed the boss, sending it to the ground and the screen faded to black for a second before the victory cutscene played, with Nero’s own character magically on his feet. This was why he loved having V as a summoner on their team.

“Freaking finally! We did it!” Nico celebrated. Nero grinned, feeling as if a stone lifted off his shoulders.

“Let’s check gear!”

“No healer means one less to compete with!” Nico singsonged, letting her character put her grabby hands on the treasure chest. A healer chestpiece popped up on screen. Nero’s sigh was mimicked by Nico, none of them were a healer, not even close. At least there was a Strength ring for him to grab.

Nero blinked as the notifications told him V had grabbed the healer chestpiece. Unprompted, the summoner spoke.

“Perhaps I should go as a scholar, for our next dungeon. Our luck with healers tonight has been… less than fruitful.”

“Nah man, continue with summoner if you want, we’ll be--”

“Do it!” Nico stated on the top of her lungs, her microphone bumping into her chin as she grabbed for a cigarette. “I wanna see the end of the next dungeon tonight!”

“I can go paladin for extra heals.” Nero shrugged, even if neither of his companions could see it.

“And give up that sweet damage, really?” Nico teased, making Nero huff.

“I can play defensively every once in a while.”

“Uh huh…” Nico snickered, while all he heard from V was a chuckle.

“What, I can! Come on, let’s go to the next one!” Nero prompted and grabbed for his soda, eager to go again. Leaning his head back for a sip, there were just two drops meeting his tongue. Damn, when had his beverage run out?

“As… enjoyable as progressing further would be, I am fairly certain you both have lectures in the morning?” V said matter-of-factly while there was a weak rustling of a book page being turned coming from his microphone.

“Yeah, so? I can do it for a bit longer--” Nero started, checking his phone for time. It was waaay too late! “It’s already FIVE?!”

Dry coughing made it clear Nico had just swallowed smoke.

“Y-y-yer…” Cough. “kid-ding!”

“Hell no!” Nero exclaimed.

“Why didn’t ya say somethin’?!” Nico coughed at the sole calm person.

“I did try to, both at one and three o’clock. You both were a bit too… absorbed in what we were doing.” V calmly stated, making Nero groan, oh yeah, they might have been into everything. It wouldn’t be the first time…

“I gotta scram, I’ve got an exam tomor-- today!” With that, Nico’s character was logged out, her voice chat icon offline.

Nero sighed.

“Hope that works out for her. What about you V?” The sign out option showed up at the click of a menu and Nero clicked himself out, the calming music of the title screen trickling through his second-hand headset that smelled of energy drink. At most he’d be able to get what, two hours of sleep? Was it even worth it at this point?

“I will attempt to sleep. I do not have a lecture until the afternoon.”

“Lucky you, vampire.” Nero snorted, his dormmate’s chuckle meeting his ears. “Catch you at lunch then?”

“If I have awakened until then, yes.”

“Great.” Nero knew he should log off, get some sleep. But damn, he didn’t feel sleepy at all. He knew something would keep him up, if he went now.

“Hey V?” He tried, hoping the other hadn’t shut off his headset just yet.

“Yes Nero?” V didn’t sound bothered by the quiet inquiry, despite being about to head to sleep. Nero inhaled, through his nose.

“I told you my grade dropped a bit, right? From last exam?” During the day, he brushed it off, no problem. But at night, it was hard to not feel some… nervousness over what could happen, if his grades dropped too much. Nero needed to keep it up, if he wanted a new scholarship and he not only wanted that scholarship, he needed it so badly to stay.

“Yes.” A pause, followed by V softly closing a book. “Are you worried it might happen again?” He softly asked.

Nero scratched his nose, V even knew before he voiced the issue? He wasn’t sure if he felt relieved or called out.

“Yeah, something like that. I know our subjects are pretty different…” No shit, considering V was reading the classical poems and literary works of people whose names Nero barely could pronounce. But V had great study technique, always fixing his assignments on time, something that Nero had failed to do, several times. He admired that, about the dorm vampire with a love for classical music. V’s voice was always a joy to listen to as well. Maybe he didn’t say everything he was thinking, but his voice was deep, calming at this late hour.

“But, you up for studying together? Someday this week? I think I need someone to help me not procrastinate so much and Nico is not that…” If anything, she either sat with her notes and realized she had found out something brilliant for her own studying, or she was digging the rock music Nero always put on while studying, just as much as he was.

“I don’t mind.” V replied, making Nero grin with relief over having one guy in his corner. “We can start with hiding your headphones. Or your Bluetooth speaker.”

“Right…” Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea, Led Zeppelin did snatch his focus otherwise. Nero let out a small laugh. “But you’ll give the headphones back, right? I need those for my morning runs.”

“Hmm, perhaps.” His dormmate teased.

“Or you’ll come along on my morning runs to keep me company?” Nero tried, he had given hints to get V to join him in the fresh air, the early morning sun for weeks now.

“Too chilly for me, I’m afraid.” Was the soft reply. “I will retire for now, Nero. Do try to get some sleep.”

“Yeah, fine… Thanks V.” Nero’s eyelids actually felt a bit heavier now.

“You’re welcome. Goodnight. Or perhaps, good morning.” V replied with a chuckle.

Nero groaned, giving a goodnight before ending the voice chat.

#dmcweek #dmcweek2020 #devil may cry fanfiction #devil may cry nero #devil may cry nico #devil may cry v #final fantasy xiv #my writing

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turkoftheslums · 4 years

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Let’s start a chain of sweetness.

5 THINGS YOU LOVE ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER.

ONE: He is one snarky guy. Being such a reserved and quiet person irl, I don’t often get to snark or be witty in conversations so it’s really nice to do that with Reno.

TWO: As I’ve mentioned in the past, Reno is a three-dimensional character - he acts like a bad guy but has a conscience hiding deep down that he only shows to Rude. He has feelings and emotions he’s stuffed down as deep as he can and it’s interesting to think what could happen if they just bubbled to the surface.

THREE: Reno is a trained combatant. I’ve gotten into writing combat as of recent and getting to write it with him feels like a blessing. I never got to write combat at all with Noctis, not even in fanfics so writing and choreographing fight scenes feels great. It’ll get put to use one day.

FOUR: The amount of stuff he just has tucked away everywhere - and that’s just on his person. He has things folded up neatly and tucked in pretty much all his pockets. “Why does he not have huge bumps sticking out?” I hear you ask. Tetris logic.

FIVE: For all the violence that’s involved with his job, Reno is a secret sweet bean. He hates showing it but he craves even the tiniest sliver of affection and dislikes being alone unless he really, really needs to be alone. Idk can you tell I’ve been grasping at straws from point 2 onwards?

5 PEOPLE ON HERE YOU LOVE, AND WHY.

Why can I only pick 5?? I love so many D:

ONE: Always at the top of my lists is @rude-at-your-service. He’s my bro and I always love seeing him on my dash. He was the 8th person I followed when I made this blog back in 2015 and I’m super duper glad we’ve reconnected (and he helped keep me sane for part of my train journeys last month). And just for you good sir; jag skulle behöva lite vatten. (Say the thing, I dare you)

TWO: Next up we have Lyri for whomst I shall tag @hautevaux. Lyri is a gem. Lyri is bae. Vaux is bae. I was really shy to approach at first because her writing is just 😲😲 it’s so good and we’ve really clicked since we first started talking and I love it. Also, I promise I’m not ignoring you when you compliment me, my brain just blue screens and doesn’t know what to do.

THREE: @that-turk-laney come back to us, Mia! We miss you! But seriously, I think Mia was one of the first people I followed when I returned back in February and she’s really helped me build Reno up. We really need to get that soft thread going, we really do. Movie night for Reno and Elena, yes please.

FOUR: JAEJAE. I love the good JaeJae over at @cssnei. He got me really into some stuff coughUpUpDownDowncoughDevilMayDrycough and I wouldn’t trade that for the world. Every Wednesday we sit and wait for DaParty to start streaming then type in capitals at each other on Discord while laughing our asses off. I enjoy the fun we have and I hope that doesn’t change when we finally run into each other.

FIVE: Finally, I’ve decided to finish off with @shinrasfirst whom I used to admire from afar. Min is super cool and I spent actual weeks trying to get myself to check them out and follow them because we have a few mutuals and I was like “Hnnnnnn, I’m sure we’d get along but hhhhhhhhh”. Then they followed me first and I was like “!!!! wtf????” so yeah, now we occasionally talk about Kpop and I can’t remember what else we’ve talked about but we’ve talked about other things. (I have Discord if you want it)

5 SONGS EITHER YOU OR YOUR MUSE REGARD AS A ‘GUILTY PLEASURE’ THAT ALWAYS MAKES YOU SMILE.

I’m gonna cheat here and group a bunch of songs together because y’all need to be exposed to my here there and everywhere music taste. (Judge me, I dare you)

ONE: So I’m actually putting 3 songs in here. My mum’s favourite decade has always been the 80′s so I grew up listening to a lot of D.uran D.uran - I still have memories of us in her green car with the cassette player and I’d beg for us to listen to the D.uran D.uran tape (which is merely 10 years older than me!). My favourites have always been Rio, Hungry Like The Wolf, and Save A Prayer. SAP is absolutely my first emo song. (And interestingly enough, I don’t think Reno would listen to DD songs)

TWO: Infinity by Guru Josh. This. Damn. Song. Why is it so bloody difficult to find the specific version I grew up with?? But yeah, the saxophone has stuck with me all these years - and I’m still proud of myself for identifying the first instrument heard as a saxophone. I feel like this song says something about me...

THREE: Courtesy of JaeJae, I am super into DMC. Nero’s theme in 5 is probably my favourite thing in existence and I’m probably going to listen to it on Thursday. Sticking with video game music, let’s add some more here shall we? This remix of Supporting Me used in S.onic F.orces just gets me in the right spot. That goddamn guitar is just *chefs kiss*. Also the theme for Green Hills in the Sonic movie makes me want to sob because I grew up with Sonic the Hedgehog in my life and the movie being really good despite some pacing and editing issues-- I just-- someone come cry with me 😭 THOSE CHORDS (also chucking in Un-gravitify from Riders: Zero Gravity because that series is underrated as hell and I can’t believe Free Riders killed it. Revive Riders, you cowards. Give me my extreme gear back) - I feel like Reno would definitely listen to a lot of video game music (especially from Sonic and DMC)

FOUR: It’s Brit time again: Mr Brightside by The Killers- ahem, sorry, the anthem for the UK. Cheesy Brit songs? Yes, please. 5, 6, 7, 8 by Steps was my childhood - I still know the steps to it ;¬¬, I’m Too Sexy by Right Said Fred is an absolute must and you know Reno listens to this even if it’s not particularly to his taste - it just fascinates him, THIS SONG - I love it so much and I’ve convinced myself I can mimic it almost perfectly, my mum probably sensed something was up years ago considering my obsession with Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. Bands like Busted and McFly with songs like Glad I Crashed The Wedding and Obviously, as well as VengaBoys with We Like To Party are joint guilty pleasures.

FIVE: To flip to a whole other spectrum, both Reno and I are fond of rock and metal and you will likely find one of us mouthing along and bopping our heads to songs like Hero by Skillet, Bodies by Drowning Pool (I have to resist the urge to scream along every time), It Has Begun by STARSET, and Another Way Out by Hollywood Undead. It only just clicked with me in recent months that I did in fact have an emo phase (if a little low-key) and it was devoid of P!atD and MCR which is a crime. But songs like this are absolutely guilty pleasures for both myself and Reno.

Tagging: Everyone tagged above, as many of my Aerith/Aeris mutuals as I remember: @roseusuitta, @cultivatxr, @pulchralilium, @floralcetra, @flowergirlgillionaire, @wallflowergainsborough, @churchflower, @thememcry, @angetoile, and YOU (should you wish to do it)!

Tagged by: @madamdirectcr

#OoC #Positivity #long post

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videogametim · 5 years

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My Top 10 Games of 2019

It was pretty hard to narrow down the list this year. 2019 was a lot stronger for video games than 2018 and I feel a LOT more confidant about my picks and GOTY choice. In addition, there were also a lot of indie games not mentioned here that I think I will highlight in another post a bit later. For now, here’s the Top 10.

10. Sayonara Wild Hearts (Simogo)

Sayonara Wild Hearts is something special. Although clocking in rather short at just under an hour long, I would best describe the game as an Album Video Game. Each of the game’s 23 or so levels has its own song. The actual gameplay consists of mostly on-rails segments where you have basic movement and avoid obstacles and collect pickups to boost your score, but every level has a unique take on that concept with major climax levels being full tracks with vocals. It’s incredibly stylistic and tells a heartwarming story about dealing with heartbreak. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys musical games.

9. Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Intelligent Systems)

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is the first game in the series that managed to grab me. It’s a very competent tactical RPG with one of my favourite casts of characters this year (especially the Black Eagles house). I was consistently impressed the most with just the sheer amount of content and detail that went into it. An unnecessarily large amount of the dialogue is voiced, the second half of each of the three selectable house’s routes are totally unique, and each route takes around 60 hours to complete. I really never thought a Fire Emblem game would be my new most played game on the Switch by a mile but here we are.

8. AI: The Somnium Files (Spike Chunsoft)

Kotaro Uchikoshi’s (creator of the Zero Escape trilogy) latest work might be his finest. AI: The Somnium Files is the game on the list this year with the most heart put into it. Consistently funny and over-the-top, a wonderful cast, and a really well executed sci-fi murder mystery. It makes me hope that Uchikoshi continues to make the kinds of games he wants to make, because you can definitely tell he had the most fun making this one.

7. Resident Evil 2 (Capcom)

Resident Evil 2 is the new gold standard for game remakes. I could go on and on praising it for how good it feels to play, the sound design, and the painstaking detail of recreating the original game from the ground up to be a third-person shooter. Quality of Life changes like the map marking items and telling you when a room is cleared and telling you when it’s okay to throw away key items are such fantastic additions. It gives me really high hopes for the RE3 Remake next year. Capcom’s hotstreak continues.

6. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (From Software)

Sekiro rightfully earns its spot as my second favourite FromSoft game. The Souls formula is still there, but the gameplay is fairly different now. Taking Bloodborne’s aggressiveness encouragement another step forward, Sekiro rewards not giving the enemies a chance to breathe more than ever. Boss battles are a tug-of-war of trying to break each other’s posture and perfect blocking to mitigate it. The dodge button pushes you forward by default and you often hope to have your attack blocked more than a it be a direct hit. Some of my favourite FromSoft bosses reside in this game with the final boss perhaps being my favourite overall. Level design is also at its best with the game finally giving you a greater range of movement and verticality with jumping and grappling. There’s even decent stealth mechanics. Sekiro was a really pleasant surprise and I hope they continue The Wolf’s story.

5. Judgement (Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio)

Judgement is a Yakuza game in all but name, and RGG Studio’s first one set in Kamurocho without Kiryu as the main character. After giving up being an attorney, Takayuki Yagami becomes a freelance detective and investigates a series of murders in the city with the help of his former law office and ex-Tojo clan friend Masaharu Kaito. Substories are framed as side cases that Yagami can take on to earn some extra money, and new mini-games like drone racing and the Paradise VR board game are incredible additions. Anyone who is a fan of the Yakuza series should really check this out, and newcomers can jump right in without prior knowledge.

4. Disco Elysium (ZA/UM)

Disco Elysium has some of the best writing I have ever seen in a video game. As an amnesiac detective, you explore the rundown post-wartime district of Martinnaise trying to find who was behind the lynching of a mercenary before the situation gets out of control. What sets Disco Elysium apart from other RPGs in terms of gameplay is its character builds. As there is no combat, the 24 skills that you can put points into when you level up are all social skills. The higher you have various skills leveled, the more you will hear advice from them during conversation trees. A high Authority level will constantly remind you to tell people you are The Law, where a high level in Inland Empire will let you talk to inanimate objects to gain new perspectives. I also feel I have to give a nod to your partner throughout the game, Kim Kitsuragi. I’d rather not give anything away but they could not have written a better character to support you throughout your journey. I’ll likely be thinking about this game for a very long time.

3. Control (Remedy Entertainment)

I think Control flew under a lot of people’s radars until the publicity from the overwhelming number of Game Awards nominations. Control is a game for people who like SCP, psychokinesis powers, cool architecture, and a bit of Alan Wake. It wears its inspirations very blatantly on its sleeve and wraps a very cool story and even better side quests around them. It’s very stylish and has phenomenal lighting. Perhaps this is my Remedy bias but I really really adored this game and featured the coolest moment of the year for me. Please check it out if you get the opportunity.

2. Kingdom Hearts III (Square Enix)

Kingdom Hearts III has been a long time coming and what I think it nails best are the size and scale of the worlds. Olympus is the best its ever been with how much of the area outside the Colosseum you get to explore. The Caribbean is more expansive with boat combat that’s better than it has any right to be. Monstropolis has a great original story with some incredible tie-ins to the Kingdom Hearts plot. There’s a ton of incredible fanservice moments too for everyone waiting to see their favourite characters again. I still think a lot of it is really hype albeit cheesy, and it finally puts to rest an arc that has been going since the very first game. Kingdom Hearts isn’t over, but KHIII wraps a lot of things up in as satisfying of a way as they could for a story so expansive and often times convoluted. It’s very rare when a game that has been anticipated for so long not only doesn’t fumble it, but delivers on what I had hoped for, so I’m really glad it got to finally release this year.

1. Devil May Cry 5 (Capcom)

Speaking of games that I’ve been waiting a very long time for, DMC IS BACK! Every moment of DMC5 is a treat. Dante and Nero are at their most fun to play in this game, and V is a very cool addition both story-wise and gameplay-wise.This is the game from this year that I’ve kept going back to the most whether it’s for getting good at harder difficulties, or playing through bloody palace until floor 70 and give up ,or practicing with different weapons. It makes me happy to know that Platinum haven’t just been relegated to being the character action studio and that Hideaki Itsuno’s still got it. There’s no question that this is my Game of the Year and anyone who loves action games but hasn’t ever jumped into this series really needs to address that because DMC5 alone is worth it.

That’s all for my GOTY 2019 Top 10. If you’ve read this far, thanks for doing so. I really enjoy writing these and there’s a lot to look forward to in video games next March year, so please join me again next time when we can do this all over again!

#goty 2019 #sayonara wild hearts #fe3h #ai the somnium files #resident evil 2 #sekiro #judgement #disco elysium #control #kh3 #dmc5

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somethingusefulfromflorida · 5 years

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Complete Timeline of “Back to the Future”

The entire trilogy takes place over the course of about two weeks from Marty McFly’s perspective, two days for an outside observer in 1985. We are given specific dates and times, often minute-by-minute, so we can piece together a complete timeline with time stamps. All times are in PST (Pacific Standard).

Part 1

Friday, October 25, 1985, 8:18 AM PST: The first movie begins with shots of Doc’s clocks and his automated breakfast machine. The clocks actually say 7:53, but we soon learn they are 25 minutes slow. We are soon introduced to Marty McFly, who accidentally overloads Doc’s giant amp around 8:23 or 8:24

Friday, October 25, 1985, 8:25 AM: Doc’s clocks all strike 8:00, and Marty realizes he is late for school. The thing is, he’s wearing a watch in this scene, and moreover he must have woken up to an alarm set on his bedroom clock, so how does he NOT know what time it actually is? Moving on; cue the “Power of Love” skateboarding-behind-cars sequence. Marty and Jennifer sneak into school too late, and Mr. Strickland gives him another tardy slip and the whole “slacker” spiel. “The future’s gonna change,” Marty says.

Friday, October 25, 1985, afternoon: after school, Marty’s band, the Pinheads, audition for the big dance. A real square of a teacher tells them to stop playing because they’re just too darn loud; I did not know who Huey Lewis was when I first saw this movie, so I didn’t realize this was a celebrity cameo meant to be a joke, I just figured he was a stuffy old man who isn’t with the times. Either way, Marty is dejected, but Jennifer tells him to send in his audition tape to the record company anyway. Marty ogles a new 4x4 truck, “Save the Clock Tower!” he gets a flier, Jennifer’s dad picks her up to take her to her grandma’s house.

Friday, October 25, 1985, evening: Marty returns home to find the car totaled (there goes his date at the lake with Jennifer). We are introduced to Biff and the McFly family. One awkward family dinner and a ton of exposition later, and we learn everything we need to know about George and Lorraine’s first meeting back in 1955; Lorraine’s dad hit George with his car, and it was love at first sight.

Saturday, October 26, 1985, 12:28 AM: Doc calls Marty, tells him to swing by his lab and pick up his camera before meeting him at Twin Pines Mall at 1:15.

Saturday, October 26, 1985, 1:15 AM: Marty arrives at Twin Pines Mall just as the clock ticks over to 1:16. The next few minutes are thoroughly documented. Doc emerges from his van in a souped up Delorean DMC-12.

1:18 AM: Doc begins his spiel for the camera, giving the date, time, and location of Temporal Experiment Number 1.

1:19 AM: “Einstein’s clock is in precise synchronization with my control watch.” He remote controls the Delorean to the opposite end of the parking lot and floors it towards him and Marty.

1:20:00 AM: At exactly one-twenty and zero seconds, the world’s first Temporal Displacement occurs, Marty thinks the Delorean explodes, but it actually just made a jump into the future, “one minute into the future to be exact.” Doc had nerves of steel to test it for the first time by driving it straight at him.

1:21:00 AM: Exactly one minute later, the Delorean reappears covered in ice, a special effect that the filmmakers stop using because it became impractical to coat the car with ice every time it travels through time. Some ice is always visible, but never to this extent again.

1:22 AM: Doc opens the Delorean to discover Einstein is perfectly fine; to him, the trip was instantaneous. The experiment was a complete success! Doc prepares for his historic journey as the first human to travel through time; he plans to go forward 25 years, later amended to 30 because it’s a nice round number.

1:34 AM: Doc is shot to death by Libyan terrorists because he used the plutonium they stole to build the time machine instead of the bomb they wanted (the less we think about the implications, the better).

Saturday, October 26, 1985, 1:35 AM: Marty flees from the terrorists in the Delorean, accidentally turns on the time circuits and blasts himself back to 1955.

Saturday, November 5, 1955, 6:15 AM: Marty arrives on Peabody farm, is mistaken for an alien and shot at. He drives away, accidentally running over one of the twin pines in the process. The exact time is not shown on screen except for the 6 (the last two digits are obscured), but the DVD menu says 6:15 so I’m sticking with it. The Delorean breaks down shortly after, and he hides it behind the Lyon Estates billboard. He walks into town, “Hill Valley 2 Miles.”

Saturday. November 5, 1955, 8:29: “Mr. Sandman” sequence, Marty walks around courtyard square, dazed and confused. It took him over two hours to drive from the mall to his house and then walk 2 miles into town, so of course he’s confused. The clock tower chimes 8:30, the first time Marty’s ever heard it go off. He enters Lou’s Cafe to find Doc’s address in the phone book, and encounters a young George and Biff. George bikes away, and Marty gives chase. Shortly after, George falls out of a tree while peeping on Lorraine like a creep, and is almost hit by her dad’s car; Marty pushes him out of the way, taking his place in the timeline. He hits his head and is knocked out.

“Almost 9 hours” later (so around 6-ish PM): Marty awakens in young Lorraine’s bedroom. She has the hots for him, Florence Nightingale style. He has dinner with the Baines family soon after, though the clock behind Lorraine’s parents says it’s 8:35. He leaves after his mom grabs his thigh (ew), and goes to find Doc at his mansion before he burned it down for the insurance money (this is never stated on screen, but the implication is clear). Doc doesn’t believe he’s from the future until he recounts the story about the wet toilet and the flux capacitor (it makes sense in context). Doc deduces that Marty messed up the timeline by interfering with his parent’s first meeting, so they have to find a way to get them back together.

Monday, November 7, 1955, morning: The date is never given, but we can assume Doc and Marty wanted to scope out the school as soon as possible, so Monday it is. Marty tries to introduce George to Lorraine, but she would rather introduce herself to him (ew)

November 7, lunchtime: Marty talks to George in the cafeteria, and almost gets into a fight with Biff after he assaults Lorraine.

November 7, afternoon: George goes home after school with Marty in tow, “why are you following me?” George tells him that he’s not ready to ask Lorraine out, and that nobody on this planet can change his mind.

Tuesday, November 8, 1955, 1:23 AM: Marty dresses in his radiation suit and visits George, pretending to be “Darth Vader, an extraterrestrial from the planet Vulcan.” He threatens to melt George’s brain with more Van Halen tapes if he doesn’t ask Lorraine to the dance. Mission accomplished.

November 8, afternoon: George skipped school that day, having overslept because “Darth Vader” knocked him out with chloroform (in a deleted scene). Marty encourages him to go into Lou’s Cafe and tell Lorraine that he is her density- I mean destiny. All goes well until Biff shows up; Marty gets into a fight followed by a chase through courtyard square where he accidentally introduces the town to the concept of skateboarding. Biff crashes into a manure truck, doing $300 damage to his car. Later that day, Doc and Marty go over the plan to go Back to the Future TM (the model is so crude, it’s not even to scale or painted). Lorraine followed Marty to Doc’s house and asks him to ask her to the dance. He reluctantly accepts.

Wednesday, November 9, afternoon: Marty and George go over their plan for the dance. Marty will “take advantage” of his mom (ew), and George will come to her rescue. This date isn’t given either, but we can assume it is the next day because they were wearing different clothes and I don’t think Marty would wait more than a day to go over his plan (time is of the essence).

Saturday, November 12, 1955, 7:55 PM: Doc sets up the “weather experiment” in courtyard square, Marty writes him a letter warning him of the terrorists (he doesn’t go into detail, he just says “you will be shot by terrorists.” Doc must be very surprised at what shenanigans his future self will get into).

8:59 PM: George is at the dance, dancing like a dork, and Marty and Lorraine arrive in Doc’s car. Marty is nervous as hell because he doesn’t want to feel up his own mom, but Lorraine is down to clown (ew). She kisses him, but is grossed out because he’s like her brother or something. Biff and his stooges pull him out of the car and throw him in the Starlighters’ trunk; Biff begins assaulting Lorraine.

9:00 PM: George goes out to fake-confront Marty, only to real-confront Biff. He finally manages to stand up for himself and the woman he loves, knocking Biff out with one punch. Hooray!

9:31 PM: Doc checks four different watches to deduce that Marty is running late (they’re cutting it close). Marvin Berry sliced his hand open helping break Marty out of his trunk, so Marty takes over on guitar. Earth Angel, George and Lorraine kiss, the timeline is restored, Johnny B Goode, “your kids are gonna love it.” Marty leaves George and Lorraine on good terms and heads out to courtyard square.

9:55 PM: Doc checks three more watches, and Marty arrives just in time, having changed back into his “life preserver” vest. The plan begins to unfurl.

9:56:38 PM exactly: Doc says the lightning bolt is 7 minutes and 22 seconds away, which strikes at exactly 10:04. Doc finds the latter and rips it up.

9:58 PM: a branch falls on the wire, disconnecting it. Doc climbs the clock tower with a rope so he can pull it back up.

9:59 PM: the clock ticks at runtime 1:34:41, Doc emerges from the top of the tower and pulls up the plug.

10:00 PM: the clock ticks at runtime 1:35:30 (this minute was 49 seconds long), Marty tries to tell Doc about the terrorists, but he has to get going because time is running out.

10:01 PM: the clock ticks at runtime 1:36:09 (this one was 39 seconds), Marty drives to the end of the runway and resets the time circuits to give him 11 extra minutes to warn Doc (only 11? you’re cutting it close as is, Marty). Doc slips on the clock’s facade, almost dropping the plug.

10:02 PM: the clock ticks at runtime 1:38:00 (111 seconds), the Delorean won’t start, the alarm goes off, everything is going wrong. Marty slams his head in desperation and the engine kicks to life (Doc’s calculations were wrong; he told Marty to floor it when the alarm went off, but he started a few seconds late and still made it. If he had floored it on time, he would have been several seconds too early and hit the wire before the lightning struck).

10:03 PM: the clock ticks at runtime 1:39:50 (110 seconds), Doc plugs in one end of the wire, which unplugs the other end. Marty is almost there, so Doc ziplines down to the ground and runs over to the lamppost [note; the Delorean’s time circuits read 10:03 before the clock tower ticks over to 10:03]

Saturday, November 12, 1955, 10:04 PM: the clock ticks at runtime 1:40:38 (48 seconds). Lightning strikes the clock tower just as the Delorean hits the wire, sending Marty Back to the Future TM.

Saturday, October 26, 1985, 1:24 AM: the Delorean rematerializes in courtyard square, crashing into the movie theater, but otherwise intact. The engine gives out before Marty can head to the mall, and the terrorists drive past him. He gives chase on foot, but doesn’t make it in time. [Note: a digital clock on courtyard square says it was 1:23 when Marty arrived, ticking over to 1:24 after he emerges from the Delorean. The Delorean’s time circuits are consistently a minute ahead]

1:33 AM: Marty arrives at Lone Pine Mall just in time to see the terrorists gun Doc down. He sees himself jump into the Delorean at 1:34, and blast into the past after a short chase. The terrorists crash into a photo kiosk and the van rolls over, presumably killing them (we never see the van hit the ground, we just see it start tipping, but the camera cuts away and we never see them emerge and try to collect Doc’s body). Doc is in fact alive, having taped Marty’s latter back together and worn a bullet proof vest, the first of several in the series. Doc takes Marty home, then travels 30 years into the future, “look me up when you get there.”

Saturday, October 26, 1985, 10:28 AM: Marty’s alarm goes off, “Back in Time” by Huey Lewis plays on the radio. Marty thinks the past week was just a bad dream until he discovers new furniture and successful family members. Lorraine is no longer an alcoholic, George is an author, David works at an office instead of Burger King, and Linda is a trendy socialite. Biff has become the neutered family gopher, cleaning their cars and kowtowing to George’s commands. He gives Marty the keys to his truck, the 4x4 he was ogling earlier with Jennifer.

10:30-ish: Marty reunites with Jennifer, “you’re acting like you haven’t seen me in a week,” “I haven’t.” They kiss, at which point Doc returns from the future with a warning, “you’ve got to come back with me,” “where?” “Back to the Future TM.” Where they’re going, they don’t need roads; the Delorean flies away, roll credits.

The first movie was never intended to have sequels. It ended on a cliffhanger as a joke, “the adventures continue,” and it wasn’t until four years later that they decided to film Parts 2 and 3 back-to-back to round out the story.

In real time, Part 1 takes place over 1 day, 2 hours, 12 minutes

Friday, October 25, 1985 8:18 AM to Saturday, October 26, 1985, 10:30 AM

For Marty, it takes place over 8 days, 18 hours, 11 minutes

Friday, October 25, 1985, 8:18 AM to Saturday, October 26, 1985, 1:34 AM (17 hours, 16 minutes)

Saturday, November 5, 1955, 6:15 AM to Saturday, November 12, 1955, 10:04 PM (7 days, 15 hours, 49 minutes)

Saturday, October 26, 1985, 1:24 AM to Saturday, October 26, 1985, 10:30 AM (9 hours, 6 minutes)

Part 2:

https://somethingusefulfromflorida.tumblr.com/post/189335688766/complete-timeline-of-back-to-the-future

Part 3:

https://somethingusefulfromflorida.tumblr.com/post/189337316891/complete-timeline-of-back-to-the-future

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firstpuffin · 5 years

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A look at the leading ladies in the Devil May Cry series:

I do love the Devil May Cry (DMC) series. The action is fun and over the top, the music is super engaging and the designs great. But there are absolutely some big flaws in the series and I personally feel that while the male leads are generally good to fantastic, the ladies are typically…dull.

I was chatting with friends about the series and tried to bring this up only for them to…miss the point. Completely. And then to tease me about it. It was infuriating. Instead, I’m going to discuss it here, where I can flesh out my thoughts to my heart’s content.

Of course as I haven’t played DMC 5 yet and I haven’t even looked at DMC: Devil May Cry (the reboot) in years I won’t be bringing them up, but I’m currently on the fourth game of my series playthrough so I can at least talk about those four.

So let’s start by pointing out that there was a real problem with the writing of the series which they tried (and freakin’ succeeded at) to do better in the third entry, and eventually with DMC (the reboot; god that’s confusing) they tried to redo everything from scratch. DMC(.5?) was… well, it was a bad Devil May Cry game although not a bad game by itself, but the writing was worse. Really, any writing that relies on that level of sex and shock value and swearing is pretty poor. Sure, all of those have their place in writing, but it’s easy to rely too much on it, but this and DMC.5 is really a subject for another article.

Anyway, not only did the writing improve drastically for DMC 3, but that also included the lead lady…Lady. But again, that’s for later; I wanna start with DMC 1’s Trish.

Devil May Cry wasn’t all that close to what it would become, especially given that it was originally a part of the Resident Evil franchise that was rejected but ended becoming a standalone game. And you can tell. It’s noticeable through the sound design and the aesthetic of the game, as well as the fact that Dante is pretty much a dull Leon Kennedy.

Basically the game starts like this: Dante is at his store, the titular Devil May Cry, when Trish who looks “exactly” (not very much) like Dante’s dead mother, drives her bike into the front door, stabs him and hucks the bike at him.

Then she dumps exposition on us and away they go to this mysterious island, yadda yadda ya. It’s not very interesting and neither is she. She is literally the inciting incident and love interest. She betrays him, saves him, appears to die… but this isn’t character. These are all token events to add drama to the story and that at most say that she is a troubled character who overcomes life-long conditioning, but that’s about it.

Let’s move on because there really isn’t much to say about her. Next is Lucia who… could easily be no more than a paragraph. DMC 2 was outsourced, presumably because Capcom didn’t realise how much the fans loved the first game, and it was a travesty.

Dante, who was already short on personality, had his cockiness mostly removed and zero agency, repeatedly relying on a coin flip. The story was a series of loosely connected events, connected by poor dialogue and made confusing by out of the blue statements that make no sense. The only good points were Dante’s outfit, and Lucia’s Devil Trigger. Oh, and the music was pretty good.

Lucia herself was a very typical example of an early 2000’s love interest: watch almost any action movie from the time period and honestly, you have a prime example of Lucia, the story points and how they attempt to make things dramatic. Seriously, watch Mission Impossible 2.

-Lucia and her Devil Trigger-

Yes, yes, YEAH!! Onto my favourite lady-lead.

-Lady-

Yes, I should calm down. I’ve just finished DMC 3 again and my adult brain got so much more out of it than my teenage brain. There is emotional depth and complexity, characters with character and- damn. It’s just so good.

Yes, Lady dresses a bit like a stripper, but it’s also pretty practical (I frequently struggle with trousers that limit movement so I understand). More importantly, she doesn’t act as sexual as Trish and where Lucia is boring Lady just isn’t. But she isn’t a perfect person either.

She’s determined to kill all demons but she clearly won’t stop there; she shoots Dante before she even knows that he’s a demon. Lady is angry and she lashes out, but it’s also easy to see how vulnerable she is and how hard she works.

Lady was betrayed by her father (Arkham) who killed her mother and he is currently her primary target, but when she finds him already dead she is devastated. Then he wakes up, confesses to her that he was being used and she actually believes him. She shouldn’t have.

Arkham was using her again, but that’s not the point. The point is that she so desperately doesn’t want to hate her father, thus falling for his lies. It’s touching and tragic, and when she finally kills him her laughter turns to crying and then laughter again. Her emotions are a mess.

Which especially makes the fact that while she eventually gives in and lets Dante help, she doesn’t turn into his girl. She rejects his kiss assuredly but without vehemence. Lady is an emotional mess and yet doesn’t leap into our charismatic hero’s arms. More stories need this because it’s kinda boring at this point.

-this, this is straight up sexualised-

And Kyrie. Wow. Kyrie is just… wow.

She could literally be replaced with a photograph in a wallet. Kyrie is there as motivation for our protagonist, Nero. She gets kidnapped some way through the game but that barely matters.

-at least she dresses modestly; I can appreciate that in a video game lady-

Devil May Cry is not a deep, complex series, apparently reaching its peak in these areas in the third entry, but the characters are usually pretty good, as long as they have a penis hanging between their legs.

#first puffin #opinion #female characters #devil may cry #dmc #Lady #Lucia #Trish #Kyrie #storytelling #character #Character Design #video games #thosetagswilldofornow

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poppopopopopi · 5 years

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Settos GOTY 2019 list

Videogames happened, Tumblr is dead, Here is videogames Me like.

10. Code Vein

Sekiro was fucking shit, This was fun despite not having big enemy variety. Best character creator since Honey Select Unlimited. Bit easy but cool world and it had a big twist that ties it into another series I love so It gets bonus points.

9. Pokemon SWSH

I don’t care about dexit, If I never see Finneon or Zubat again i’ll be fine. Fuck Gen 1, this was fun despite bugs and issues plaguing it. I spent more time in the wild area then in pretty much any western shit open world game in the last decade.

8. DMCV

Thank fuck DMC is back to being actual DMC and not the poor mans imitation we got in the reboot.

7. Baba Is You

I still haven’t finished this because it’s so innovative and outside the box that my stupid shit brain goes into overdrive and explodes when I do anything.

6. Luigis Mansion 3

Luigis Mansion 2 was garbage. Then they were like “What if we take all the decent things from both games and make a great game?” and they did.

5. Dragon Quest Builders 2

I built a castle and spent over 200 hours doing pointless shit. Game is fun.

4. Death Stranding

Navigating rocky mountains and insane landscapes while balancing luggage is so fucking dumb and I love it

3. Sayonara Wild Hearts

Hey...do you like incredible music?. Do you like cool flashy outfits?, Do you like fighting bikers with a sword?. Then buy this.

2. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Thank fuck we have a new Castlevania game that isn’t Castlevania. Thank fuck it’s amazing. Give me more please.

1. Zanki Zero: Last Beginning

I love the characters, I love the systems, I love the writing, I love everything about this game. I am incredibly hard to draw into dungeon crawlers and visual novels. This kept me engaged for days, I want more please?. If you can drag Danganronpa into a huge franchise then please give me more Zanki Zero.

Next year has Nioh 2, Disaster Report 4, DBZ: Kakarot, Animal Crossing etc. I need it please. Give now. 2019 was fine but I was more disappointed with a lot of games than anything else.

#GOTY #settos goty

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tespuco · 5 years

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PotC Liveblog: Dead Man’s Chest

I’d been looking forward to rewatching DMC for some time. It was the movie that canonized my OTP and inspired so many amazing Sparrabeth fics. I fondly recalled seeing it in theaters with my family, my eyes and shipper heart growing bigger and wider with every subtext-laden appearance of Jack’s compass. I remembered feeling personally betrayed by Elizabeth’s death-kiss, like the writers had deliberately buoyed my hopes only to ruthlessly crush them. Unlike CotBP, I had only seen DMC once before, and I couldn’t wait to appreciate the complicated Jack/Elizabeth dynamic with more mature eyes.

Boy, was I disappointed. Not by the Sparrabeth, thank the gods, but by literally everything else.

Is it just me or was this movie composed of a bunch of standalone scenes and set pieces strung together? Did they bring in Tim Burton just to direct the visuals of the interrupted wedding scene? Why does the Turkish prison sequence look like the opening cutscene to a high fantasy RPG videogame with the brightness setting turned down to zero?

OK I laughed at Jack popping out of the coffin and using a femur as a paddle, but I’m confused about everything else

Oh look, the crew’s on the verge of mutiny again, and this time it is Jack’s fault

Listen, I have Ted Elliott’s compass meta tattooed on my heart, but in retrospect the “Why is all the rum gone?” scene was probably too subtle. The audience doesn’t even know at this point how the compass is supposed to work. Maybe if they had the balls to actually include the deleted Sparrabeth scenes in CotBP, Jack’s emotional turmoil wouldn’t have seemed so opaque!

Still, a character being Vexed about their affections/feelings and doing a poor job of managing that vexation is my idea of high romance

(and both Jack and Elizabeth are quite vexed with each other indeed)

I CANNOT believe I had to sit through an uninterrupted half hour of racist filler that does absolutely fuck-all to advance the plot while ticking at least four boxes on my postcolonial bingo card what the fucking fuck

Let’s tally the cinematic sins: unfunny physical comedy in a style that would’ve been more suited to animation; indigenous cannibals speaking in unrealistic, buffoonish gibberish; said cannibals worshiping our hero (and later a dog) as a deity; and worst of all--

All the brown men that Gibbs hired as extras additional crew for the Black Pearl in DMC were put into a separate cage from the recurring white characters from CotBP (btw Anamaria is absent without even a throwaway line of explanation) because apparently even barbaric islanders know and practice segregation

And so segregated, the crew enters the stupidest, most contrived rat race up a cliffside with each other that ends with the brown people’s cage falling into the ravine THEREBY GETTING RID OF ALL THE CHARACTERS OF COLOR IN ONE FELL SWOOP

Also egregious racism aside, I’m put off by the film’s rather cavalier attitude towards gratuitous loss of life? Idk I feel like in the midst of all the action and adventure CotBP knew how to handle death and violence with the appropriate modicum of gravity and horror

Meanwhile on the island Gibbs is just like “oiya we’re standing in cages built from the bones of our former shipmates ha ha”

As for Jack - Jack has yet to save a cat or anything else besides his own skin, so he’s rapidly losing the goodwill he accumulated in the first film

holy shit yet another Elizabeth Swann-related realization about my sexual awakening: her look as a cross-dressing stowaway - pretty, delicate features in a boyish, flat-chested, slender form - is literally my sexuality

She’s literally pulling the strings of all the men on that ship! What a puppet-master queen

Tia Dalma’s interest in Will and the “touch of destiny” line is an interesting bit of foreshadowing that doesn’t get any payoff in this film. DMC and AWE have been criticized for being impossible to watch as standalone films, but I think there’s something to be said for a universe that strives for internal continuity and demands more than a casual investment in its proceedings (a related but distinct model from the MCU)

If you gave me half a reason to I would ship Jack Sparrow with anybody and everybody. Look at the flirtatious lines and looks he exchanges with Tia Dalma!! Give me that story! (Actually, artaxastra did, twice: once in her standalone Creole!Jack origin story, And All of Them True, and once again in Gods and Heroes, a Jack/Calypso interlude in her Outlaws and Inlaws ‘verse)

Tia Dalma’s acceptance (and release) of Jack’s payment for her services tells me two things about her that I really like: (1) she’s like a magpie that collects interesting miscellany (witty tricksters, cunning pirate lords, undead monkeys). and (2) she’s not interested in caging creatures (the foreshadowing!!)

FINALLY WE GET SOME JACK/ELIZABETH INTERACTION

God bless Keira’s face and acting choices!! The chemistry!! All the little smiles and smirks they share!!

How doth she look at thee? Let me count all the ways: her amused, tentatively credulous smile at Jack’s storytelling and posturing over a magical compass and chest, while Norrington scoffs disbelievingly in the background; her having to bite her lips and walk away before Jack notices her giddiness because she literally cannot handle their flirting; her little laugh as he gently rebuffs the idea that he’s a good man

Also “I have faith in you. Both of you,” were her parting words to Will and here she gets a chance to tell Jack in person yay

Their little dance of “persuasion” is hot and all (Jack literally looks like he has to bite back a groan and whimper), but I’m really here for the banter (“Friendly?” / “Decidedly not.”); they get each other, and, under the right conditions, can communicate so effortlessly

“Why doesn’t your compass work?” - alright so ofc I love the legendary “curiosity” exchange, but I’m so confused by the abrupt transition in their conversation here? Like why didn’t she follow through and tug on that line of inquiry?? The “Because you and I are alike” line that follows makes no logical sense in context (ETA: I guess it could suggest that Elizabeth already knows why the compass doesn't work for him, because he's torn between doing the right thing and the selfish thing... But at this point she doesn't suspect him of lying to her, so...idek)

“You’d never put me in a position that would compromise my honor” - my god what a TEASE my queer heart

Oh, Norrington, what’s happened to you?? What happened to serving others, not just himself?? :(( It kinda confuses me that he goes on about the “dark side of ambition” and the “promise of redemption” when he’s the one who voluntarily resigned from his post...

Norrington carrying both shovels while Jack just poses prettily though lol

JACK’S COMPASS FINALLY WORKS FOR HIM BECAUSE THE TWO THINGS HE WANTS MOST IN THE WORLD--THE CHEST AND ELIZABETH--ARE IN THE SAME PLACE AND HE KNOWS IT

idk I guess some people find the three-way swordfighting scene hilarious but I’m with Elizabeth on this one: men are stupid

ugh this script makes no sense

I’m so fucking confused by the narrative logic here: if Jones is dead, there’s no one to call off the Kraken?? But isn’t Jones the one calling the Kraken in the first place, to settle Jack’s debt? So if they killed Jones, wouldn’t the debt be null and void? NO JONES, NO KRAKEN, DUUUH.

OK but Jack is really unlikable in this film, last-minute “heroic” acts notwithstanding. Give me fix-it fics please

I mean it’s rather telling that by the time Jack returns to the Pearl there are only enough survivors to fill a single longboat. Oh yes he “saved them all” - the few that were left!!

This script has more holes in it than the Pearl does right now: everyone unquestioningly follows Will’s orders like he’s the captain (what happened to the dork who shouted, “Aye! Avast!”?? And there’s no evidence that since his engagement post-CotBP he’s practiced any sailing)

I mean it’s like no one but Elizabeth even noticed Jack was gone; the moment he comes back Gibbs chirps, “Captain, orders?” as if he never left. This coward just abandoned you all!!!

“It’s only a ship, mate.” - This is actually just the saddest line, and I’m glad Elizabeth was there to witness it because if there’s one thing she took away from their fireside conversation in CotBP it’s that the Black Pearl is more than a ship to Jack; what it really is is freedom, and here Jack’s set to lose both

And that’s what Elizabeth--not the Kraken--definitively takes from Jack: his freedom. Not just his ability to run away from his fate, but also the chance to take a stand and face it. (I like to think that, more than the murderous act itself, is what he finds so hard to forgive post-DMC. The darker Jack in salr323′s oneshot, Perfidy, written post-AWE, articulates this eloquently: “You know nothing of my debt, love, nor of my payment. But had you allowed me a nobler death, my account might have been lighter.”) His last act of defiance entails reclaiming what choice he has left: slipping slickly out of his shackles, hat on, “hello beastie,” into the monster’s maw.

Ugh they could have given Jack’s whole arc with Davy Jones such PATHOS instead of waiting until the very end--he struck a deal with the devil in all his youth and despair and hubris; now the bell is tolling and he realizes 13 years is nothing, no time at all, and he’s not ready to die; not today, not ever--yes it’s selfish and dishonorable (Will’s willing to square the debt of a father he hardly ever knew; he wouldn’t have blinked at paying his own) but how human is that? to fight and run even as the flames lick your heels?

omg Jack is the jackrabbit

The irony of that eulogy still gives me feelings tho: “Guess that honest streak finally won out.” Elizabeth wrested away Jack’s control over his own story, so now she has to write it for him. When she toasts, “He was a good man,” it’s in both unearned homage and recompense.

“And the world is a little less bright.” - OK but that’s too much. Moving words from Gibbs, but here it’s like he’s speaking directly to/for the audience, and not in a good way. It’s too obviously meta, and especially out of place in a film where Jack did not shine very bright at all

In-universe, it’s not very believable that two pirates like Pintel and Ragetti--who mutinied against Jack before, without a hint of remorse!--would now risk their lives to save him

Honestly if Disney wanted to include familiar faces/fan favorites in the supporting cast for AWE, they could’ve easily written a more realistic line like, “what the hell do we have to lose?” or some more selfish motive, none of these panegyrics

btw who are the native people standing in the swampwater? holding candles with mournful tears in their eyes?? no seriously who are they??? (I dearly hope such a striking tableau was meant to hint at Jack’s history with Tia Dalma and the residents of this bayou, but the more cynical part of me thinks: “Now hiring: extras of color, to play the part of human candlesticks lit in exaltation of an ambiguously white man” The writers get no benefit of the doubt from me after forcing me to sit through that cannibal island act)

It sounds sadistic of me but seeing how anguished Elizabeth is after claiming she’s not sorry gives me life

She keeps crying, and can’t even bring herself to drink Tia Dalma’s concoction against cold and sorrow! She just fakes a sip, which is such a great little character beat, because it shows she doesn’t think she deserves the remedy! She’ll just have to live with it...

That is, until Will decides he can’t stand the sight of her grief, and opens up Pandora’s box for her despite just catching her passionately kissing another man: “If there was anything to be done to bring him back, Elizabeth...” He really is too good for this world

And Elizabeth MUST know there’s a price, that she’d be staking not just her own life and happiness but her betrothed’s, and yet selfishly, always selfish, she says, “Yes”

BARBOSSA!!! Still the most epic character reveal ever. I still remember the theater bursting into gasps and applause, good times

#i've had this in my drafts folder for too long along with a whole bunch of dmc reblogs #it's time to air them out they're starting to stink #tl;dr i could've watched the youtube videos compiling the 12 minutes of jack/elizabeth interaction instead of the entirety of dmc #and i don't think i would've missed out on much #t-recs #the long and short of the meta #pirates of the caribbean

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nightcoremoon · 6 years

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So I finally watched Deadpool 2. long post. very... very... very long.

back in 2009 my then 7 year old sister really got into avatar the last airbender and I hadn't really watched it but I had to share the tv with my four sisters and honestly between the kids television and disney sitcoms it was a breath of fresh air, and for a year and a half we would wait for reruns of episodes we hadn't seen yet. avatar was the show that got me into fandoms. alas, time passed and by the time korra was playing we'd moved to a different house and lost cable tv because the stepfather refused to pay child support and we were on a one parent income. we didn't really do anything together anymore either because I was in high school now. but then she got super into comic books. and I mean SUPER into them. especially harley quinn and deadpool. so when they announced the first movie and suicide squad we had both collectively lost our shit in excitement. alas, mom said she wasn't allowed to watch it since it was rated R and she was only 14. so one late february afternoon I was gonna take her out to see a movie. I told mom we were going to go see zoolander 2. in the car, I looked at her and said

we're not watching zoolander

and she screamed

and we watched deadpool

AND IT WAS FUCKING AWESOME

anyway more time passed and I heard that a second one was coming out and I wanted to do the same thing but that didn't happen and I lost my chance to see it in the theater. and then as I got enraptured in transitioning and working and a whole bunch of other stuff I just never got around to it. I did watch all of the supporting videos and trailers and stuff though. anyways, my sister (yes the same one) just rented it on dvd from a video store and watched it with her boyfriend today (actually yesterday but shut up), so I just sat down to watch it after work and

Was

...

a little disappointing at first, don't get me wrong. there were a lot of plot contrivances and I LOATHE fridge stuffing. I literally made a joke, "if she dies I'm gonna be mad" and then BOOM she fucking died and I was so pissed off I almost just turned it off. but I decided fuck it might as well watch the whole thing. it was a huge step forward from a technical perspective and all of the cinematography was on point and I could tell david pulled his a-game and did so much better than tim did (sorry tim, I love mass effect 2 and scott pilgrim if it's any consolation) and felt so much more fluid of an action movie considering the man did john fucking wick. of course ryan was fantastic too, as he always is. everyone was great: rena, tj, karan, leslie, BRI AND KUTSUNA-SAN, zazie, and stef's voice plus the cgi crew. also I always love terry crews, bill skarsgard, matt damon, alan tudyk, and the two seconds that brad pitt was on screen, even if their appearances were for comedic effect. I wasn't really sold on julian though but he's a newcomer on the scene and he did pretty well for all intents and purposes. I could tell which scenes were filmed first thought but this isn't a scathing attack on a child's acting abilities. I'm just angry that the actual plot for getting to the end was so weak, that they're aware and had ryan lampshade the fuck out of it, and the last half hour was such a trip.

okay so first of all how in the FUCK did sergei figure out who deadpool's secret identity was, track down wade wilson's apartment, get a hit crew together, and make his way downtown in the amount of time it took dopinder to drive wade home, wade and vanessa to bang, and them to start watching a movie? oh yeah sure there's nothing saying that their talk about his daddy issues was the same day let alone the same hour as the previous scene except for the simple fact that there was no fucking indication that any time had passed. either way, someone fucked up, and it was for the sole purpose of fridging ness to cause wade manpain. although frankly the only thing I hate worse than killing off the previous waifu for the next is breaking them up for zero reason whatsoever from out of nowhere (or doing both: if you do both then you're no better than paul blart mall cop 2 and that movie is a steaming blight on humanity that's only saved by perfectly syncing to pink floyd's dark side of the moon album). and to be fair THEY ACTUALLY USED THAT AS A PLOT ELEMENT AND MADE ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AND HAUNTING SCENES I HAVE EVER SEEN IN A MOVIE. and also a hilarious one. so that sucked at first but then redeemed itself later. I'm still a little salty that he killed francis for nothing. MORE ON KILLING LATER.

(actually upon reflection maybe wade didn't hide his secret identity at all so it's perfectly reasonable that sergei just went after him but that would awaken a whole swathe of problems like why the fuck are wade and ness livin in the middle of the city full of crime and shit??? and more on that later)

dopinder killing his rival in love. come on now, that's just unrealistic. dopinder is too fucking incompetent to successfully murder anyone who isn't a pedophile. MORE ON THAT LATER.

the suicide. I can understand going out with a bang but are we supposed to believe that wade bought all those barrels, wheeled them in, and arranged them all and never once thought "well gee maybe I'm overreacting a little bit"? okay, he was depressed and not thinking clearly, but he was constantly getting drunk, doing coke, and god knows what else. he somehow didn't have the clarity to not kill himself but had just enough to arrange such an extravagant death? yeah yeah I get it, rule of funny and cool, and I can forgive it because it's deadpool, but god damn it that's really lazy (AND GODDAMN IT THEY EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE IT TOO. ITS LIKE THE ROYAL RAT AUTHORITY BONFIRE HERE). it's also indicative that weasel and colossus and dopinder are just bad or at least distant friends. and at least althea has an excuse being that she can't see. but as for the other two? bruh he is suicidal and unstable as hell. the last thing he needs is SPACE. but well maybe he hid it well, like kurt cobain, robin williams, chris cornell, chester bennington, okay writing this sentence maybe that actually does make sense. fuck.

negasonic thought that wade "flamboyant pansexual" wilson was lesbophobic? what? I understand it was for a joke but like come on now. surely she'd know that wade legitimately wanted to fuck colossus but wouldn't because he loved vanessa. lesbian gaydar works well, okay? then again the writers are not lesbians so I mean they can't be faulted for not grasping the raw power lesbians exude. (and if there's canonical evidence negasonic is actually bi, the same rule applies because wlw solidarity and stuff). and that's more than made up with the interactions between wade and yukio. whom I love and would die for. she's delightful and I hope she gets plenty of screentime in DP3. (also lmao 'pinkie pie from my little pony'. the real pink pony would be proud)

now, I get that this is purely because of license issues and budget constraints but THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF THE X MEN COEXISTING WITH THE PEDOPHILE HOME AND THE ICE BOX IN THE SAME UNIVERSE IS SO FUCKING ASININE. even if I made concessions for everyone being dead despite the timeline being fucked up the ass without lube, and admitting to never having watched literally any x men movie past X3 and yes that means I've not seen origins, japan arc [wait shit yukio's in that WTF SONY], first class, days of future past, apocalypse, or logan so I'm not an expert on the field but like. FUCK. I know there's jurisdiction, things change, erik is away and charles is dead (I think) and logan is dead (I know), and there's six whole movies I'm lost on, but jesus christ, none of that segment had any work done to make sure it was logical. so here we're supposed to believe that colossus and negasonic took wade as a trainee in the X Jet to Allegorical Racist/Homophobic And Literal Pedophile Central to... do what, exactly? What was the fucking plan? Because it sure as fuck looks like the plan was to distract him enough to force the Devil May Cry (sorry but I see DMC I either think of the rap duo or the game series) to haul him off to fucking prison to the fucking nth power. Colossus who seems to be the head honcho and sole decision maker of the X Men just stood by and watched until bullets started flying. Was he recruiting? Was he the damage control? Was he the cheap plot moving device whose sole reason for showing up at Essex was to punch Wade out before he killed headmaster touchykids allowing for the hamfisted climax? Clearly if we were to derive any conclusion from this circlejerk we have to assume that not only Colossus but the entirety of the XMansion just don't give a fuck anymore, or that it isn't important to make sense because hey this is a Deadpool movie so fuck you for using logic. Excuse the shit out of me for being confused as to what the fuck actually happened, because if Colossus is willing to let Wade get thrown into prison for killing a pedophile but he's not gonna TAKE ACTUAL LEGAL ACTION AGAINST ESSEX HOUSE FOR TORTURING MUTANT CHILDREN FOR DECADES (Domino admitted to it being the same when she was a kid), either it's just a Public Relations nightmare to not let the Run-DMC haul him off, Essex is a legal powerhouse on the same level as the Westboro Baptist Cult with lawyers up the ass, or they changed a lot of shit from the trailers and cobbled together what they could from what remained (which is the most likely suspect because Bedlam and Shatterstar had scenes in the trailer where they were not dead and were actually fighting with Wade and Domino). Regardless, the scene however dumb and nonsensical was necessary I guess, and established Russell/Firefist as a character. I'm still gonna be pissed about that in particular but HOLY SHIT is that stupid. But that's not all that's stupid. More on that later.

Cable's motivations are grief. His hypocrisy is understandable. Killing kids is wrong so I'm gonna kill a kid so he doesn't kill other kids. Why doesn't Russel deserve life? Because he's a mutant? Wow, Thanos is racist AND mutant-phobic! In all seriousness though, all Cable had to do was nothing to prevent his family's death. If he had stayed in the future, nobody would have broken Russel out so there would be no way in hell he'd have killed the headmaster let alone everyone else he did. Although according to the laws of time travel, the timeline Cable came from was the timeline that he went back in time and did everything exactly the way it happened up until Wade took that bullet for Russel. Because that's the moment the teddy bear lost its bloodstain. Because literally not a goddamn thing changed the course of history up until that exact moment, THAT IS THE EXACT FUCKING MOMENT IT BUTTERFLY EFFECTED ITS WAY TO HELL AND BACK. Cable's dead family is a direct result of him going back in time to kill Russel to save them and failing miserably. And god I love time travel paradoxes UGH I JUST LOVE THEM SO MUCH. We have to assume Cable failed and that's why he succeeded. THATS SO FUCKING STUPID.

And you know what else is stupid? Wade made it back to New York after breaking out of DMC. How is that stupid? Well, first of all, the facility wasn't looking for THEIR MOST DANGEROUS INMATE. Black Tom said it himself, Wade is the toughest cunt in there. Although Juggernaut is way more powerful but whatever. More on that later. Anyway, the facility got the riot back on lockdown despite Cable decimating most of the staff, and got everyone in line enough to get them to start convoying to the more secure location. Did they see that Wade was missing and decide "hey, fuck it, what can the literally most unkillable man in the world with the most enormous boner for revenge in the universe POSSIBLY do to us who forced him to slowly die of cancer all over again in a hell prison???" Fucking stupid. Even dumber is the actual X Men themselves not giving a shit that there was an attack on the ice box which is apparently Mike Pence's wet dream, not lifting a finger to so much as offer assistance TO ENSURE THE SAFETY AND REHABILITATION OF ALL OF THE MUTANT INMATES, or even so much as being like "hey guys is Wade doing okay dying from cancer in your Guantanamo Bay?". And dumber still than that is Colossus deciding that Wade deserves to slowly die of cancer since he killed a pedophile who abused a kid so bad he used his powers for destruction and murder and evil and eventually became one of the most deadly sociopathic murderers in the fucked up future world, rationalizing it because Wade broke the rules of being an X-man by killing, even though Wade didn't wanna be an X-man in the first place. Colossus dragged Wade from his suicide directly to the X manor to get his body healed, forced him along to a mission he didn't wanna be a part of, and then punished him for killing a pedophile by forcing him to die slowly from the cancer while getting the shit kicked out of him by convicts. AND THEN WADE APOLOGIZED TO COLOSSUS? ARE YOU FUCKING FOR REAL HERE? WADE WAS SUICIDAL AND COLOSSUS FORCED HIM INTO PRISON. Bad friend, 0/10.

Seriously, a queer military vet with ptsd and a fucked up past replete with daddy issues who developed cancer and was then tortured by a shadow organization went on a revenge spree followed by a murder spree as a mercenary, and expressed that he's a violent psychopath who won't hesitate to murder sex traffickers or pedophiles or people who threaten his girl, and watched said girl (the only good thing in his fucked up life) die right in his arms immediately after his life was about to go in a good direction and start a family and probably give up all of the murder business and just be the best dad in the world and give a good life to someone to make up for the one he never got himself, did a cocaine bender, and literally committed suicide. But his godforsaken mutation wouldn't let him die, so he couldn't even see his Vanessa again. He clearly has severe clinical depression and needed a FUCKING MENTAL HOSPITAL STAY, not being shoved into a planless feeble attempt to get him to join the Xmen (using him for an extra hand for missions), and he was allowed to BRING THE GUNS, and he was confronted with a physically and sexually abused CHILD with mutant powers he probably didn't ask for that ruined his life and got him sent to Essex, a BIG KNOWN HOTSPOT FOR PEDOPHILES, and he has a big problem with sex criminals (oh yeah and the girl he loved so much he killed himself when she died? sex worker with a life full of being sexually assaulted herself. let alone the fact that wade has been sexually assaulted as well). You take a queer, mentally ill, suffering man and push him past his breaking point, and let him bring guns to a pedophile nest, HE IS GOING TO KILL THE PEDOPHILES. Colossus is a fucking cunt in this situation in every single conceivable fashion. He dragged Wade out of the frying pan, and out of the fire, and into the fucking woodchipper, before stepping on him. The situation is so far behind fucked up that I don't even think the crew fully grasp the full gravity of the situation described. But I digress.

Things weren't all bad from this point on.

The recruitment was funny and full of people. Dopinder's reaction at Peter was amazing and I love him. Domino was fucking phenomenal and I loved her. I knew that everyone else was dead from the moment I saw them, though, but I still loved them anyway. Brad. fucking. Pitt. Great action scene all around. Josh Brolin is just the baddest of asses. Murphy's law is supreme.

Juggernaut's reveal was well done. Still dumb but not quite "AHM THE JUGGANAUT BITCH" dumb. Cool dumb. And then he Megatron'd Wade which was even cooler. I thought Russell joining him was a little dumb but it was quite a callback. Although it begs the question: Wade knew it was foreshadowing something and he knew that Juggernaut existed but he just isn't omniscient and the inconsistency is driving me fucking bonkers. This isnt the Deadpool of the comics. This is the movie Deadpool. And while I do like it I can't say it's without flaws. That's ok but still annoying as fuck. And then more flaws.

It's stupid that Colossus would react the way he did when he learned Wade was back. Well if Colossus was moping about because an entire convoy of mutants literally fucking died except for Juggernaut (PROFESSOR X'S BROTHER IN THIS CHRONOLOGY) and Russell, that's even dumber. If he learned Wade was back at that moment then he's not even paying attention to anything considering Deadpool was out and about. Negasonic and Yukio didn't look too surprised to see him. Lazy writing, lampshades, whatever, blah blah who even fucking cares.

The heroes show up just in time. Shocking. But of course if they didn't it'd be a boring movie.

The action scene was FANTASTIC. It balanced four different fight scenes all at once. Why Jug didn't rip Cable in half like he did Wade I won't ask, maybe because he's half robot I guess idk. Still, Wade/Cable, Domino, and Colossus kicked ass, and Russell's advance to the headmaster was beastly. Julian's acting wasn't the best and neither was Eddie's but I got what they went for and HOLY SHIT THE SCENE IS SO CHILLING, especially for queer youth. Bryan Singer could only dream of that level of subtle analogues.

I thought it was dumb that Cable was all like "if Russell kills then he'll be an evil monster since killing is wrong" even though literally every one of the people there have killed several people that fucking day. Cable killed many, Wade killed many, Domino killed many. Granted they killed mostly pedophiles but they also killed a lot of DMC people & innocent civilians (accidentally). But again he was grieving so whatever.

Negasonic and Yukio had their moment too, I just wish there was more. But that's what the threequel is for. WE WANT MORE LESBIANS!

Wade has balls, I'll give him that. Where he kept that power nullifier I'll never know. [also... fuck that noise. they just have a collar that turns off mutant powers? ORORO WILL HAVE A FUCKIN ANEURYSM. and marie will have an orgasm. for once in her life. hahaha references]. But it was still a great scene. Russell is actually a really good character, if he is a bit Woobie, Destroyer Of Worlds. But I like that trope. Simon from Cry of Fear is one of my favorite characters in that respect; sympathetic even to the very end if he kills Purnell and Sophie (god that monologue is so haunting... "have fun cleaning my brains off the wall. FUCK YOU."). He's basically just a mini Wade but a mutant first. And it allowed Wade to have a defining character moment.

And what a moment. There's a quote that was said about The Princess Bride that I feel works here. It was about the Inigo fight with Rugen. "A comedy is only as strong as the moment when it stops being funny." And the moment when Inigo stabs Rugen, and says "I want my father back, you son of a bitch." is just permanently etched in my mind because the entire movie you watch with a smile up until right at that moment. And when Wade finally bites it, you think "oh, he'll just wake up again and make another joke" but he doesn't. He doesn't move again. He shows up on death's door. And you hear the acoustic version of Take On Me. And he walks through the fog door, and he's got his skin back. He did it, he's finally reunited with Vanessa. And Cable looks away, and you start to piece together where they're going with it, and he goes back, and you wonder wtf is this, and it returns to the present day and Wade digs in the wound AND PULLS OUT THE SKEE BALL TOKEN HOLY FUCKING SHITBALLS OH MY GOD THATS THE COOLEST SHIT IVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE JESUS CHRIST ON A STICK.

THE ENTIRE ENDING SCENE IS SO ICONIC.

And the whipped cream on top of the sundae is the headmaster getting creamed in the middle of his tirade. And then Dopinder's reaction is the cherry.

After that it kinda does the sappy ending which is fine for what it is. And then it brings in all the fourth wall breaking time travel shenanigans, drenching it in sap and Ryan Reynolds' brains.

The music is just OH MY GOD amazing. Yeah there's the pina colada song and skrillex and celine dion and ac/dc and enya and pat benatar and peter gabriel and cher and steve miller and for some reason diplo/french montana/lil pump but THOSE ARE ALL ACTUALLY REALLY GOOD OKAY???

The movie is chock full of amazing lines.

The fights are all really fluid and visceral.

The cinematography is always on point.

The plot formula is shaken up a little bit.

Several pedophiles die incredibly violently.

ITS A REALLY GREAT MOVIE, FOR REAL.

I'd literally say it's better than the first one.

All of the plot contrivances in the first half are negligible and are barely even problems unless you overanalyze them too much. Like I do.

And I also watched all of the extras... Celine Dion is such a good sport, really, and honestly kind of a dork and super endearing and I love her honestly and think she caught too much flak for being a) a woman b) popular c) in the worst 'romance' movie ever made tifuckintanic god I hate that movie so much despite loving kate winslett, leonardo dicaprio, and james cameron as much as I really loathe to admit it. And Ashes is a really good song.

And I never thought I'd say this but... Lil Pump has really nice flow. I really kinda hope he isn't the dead one. I despise French Montana but I love Sia and by extension Diplo (because LSD), and the song they did for the movie was... bad. But I'll probably be checking out Lil Pump soon.

And anyway the winter solstice mtv unplugged acoustic version of take on me? Beautiful.

I enjoyed this movie a lot, despite the nitpicks.

Thank you Canada. 🇨🇦

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aurimeanswind · 6 years

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Let’s Make Up—Sunday Chats—4/22/18

So last week I had a Sunday Chats all written and done, and while writing the last two closing paragraphs, my web browser crashed and Tumblr, being the platform with apparently no fail safes at all, completely lost all of what I wrote. I was initially going to just rewrite it the next day or the following Wednesday (my next day off) but then life happened and to be perfectly honest I had what we call in the biz a godawful week, so it didn’t happen. I apologize, I took your questions and selfishly coveted my answers when you had taken your time to submit them, and I am very sorry for that.

To make up for it, this week I am answering all of last week’s questions IN ADDITION to the few I got for this week, so hopefully it’ll be jam packed. Luckily I didn’t have a big editorial thought-piece ready for last week, so for this week...

The 10 out of 10

So I’ve been playing God of War, as I’m sure many of you readers have been, and I’m delighted by it in so many wonderful ways. But I think the reviews definitely set an expectation that is really impossible to meet. I’m not treading new ground here, I think that’s safe to say (as is usually the case with my writing) but it’s just the thought I’ve had the most playing God of War.

I think you get this idea that it’s a series of incredibly brilliant moments that tie together beautifully, and while I think much of that is true, a lot of what you do in God of War is run around and fight dudes. As great as that is, I’ve only had maybe two big moments in my ten or so hours with it. But the quality of what I’ve seen so far just gets me excited to see what moments I have coming up, especially since at this point, I really have absolutely no idea what the hell is going to happen next.

What i think gets understated in such a masterful score is just the sheer volume of production value poured into every inch of a game. I think that’s something that’s hard to convey across an entire review, let alone just a score, but boy, there is just a ton of polish and excellence throughout the game, from the small animations, to how Kratos always grabs a cliff’s face and doesn’t clip through it.

It’s really excellently made, and I hope everyone out there is enjoying it as much as I am.

What’s on Tap

So I finished Kingdom Hearts 1

I re-beat this game again, finally going and doing all the additional content, like synthesis, extra bosses, grinding to level 100, etc.

I dunno... I think Kingdom Hearts is great but its “post-game” content is really underwhelming. I think none of the bosses are truly “special” in a way that they are in Kingdom Hearts 2. They don’t have these strategies seared into my mind, at least.

That being said, the design philosophy in KH1 versus its sequel is so completely different and fascinating. It’s far more Metroidvania in its intent to have you backtrack and re-explore already searched areas. It feels almost like it’s from a completely different franchise.

Like... There is ZERO platforming at all in Kingdom Hearts 2. Like, none. I can’t think of a section where you have to jump from a thing to a thing, except maybe the extra dungeon they added in the Final Mix version.

It makes me hopeful that maybe they’ll revisit some of these ideas in Kingdom Hearts 3 but eh. I doubt it.

Kingdom Hearts 2 on Critical

I started this and it’s about as frustrating as I anticipated. It’s not terrible or world ending, as its essentially just Proud mode difficulty with half your total health.

But I’m about to fight Xaldin in my playthrough so basically it’s all downhill from here.

God of War

So yes, I’ve been playing God of War. It is indeed, a video game.

I mean it’s really great. I talked about it a lot on last night’s podcast if you want some more detailed thoughts. But here are some standouts:

The combat is labored in a way that makes it so much more intense and significant. Of all the things that remind me of The Last of Us, it’s this aspect. It’s the intensity of each hit, the feeling of desperation in every slam and slash, and the violence that goes with it feels justified in the God of War universe where it absolutely never has before.

I get a ton of Darksiders vibes from this game, specifically Darksiders 2. The way it introduces side areas, side dungeons, side puzzles, and especially chests, reminds me a ton of how Darksiders approached formulaic Zelda ideas. It works very well here.

The Axe is, of course, excellent. But I’d say it isn’t the throw of the axe that works, it’s calling it back.

The ambient dialogue between your characters feels pulled straight out of a Naughty Dog game, and it feels so derivative of that that it makes me like it a bit less that I’d personally want to. It just feels almost exactly the same, just with different characters, and so far, outside of Kratos and how “deals” it dialogue, there isn’t enough separating it.

Overall very good. I will eventually be writing a review for IrrationalPassions.com. Look for it someday.

Questions

Remember to look for my tweet with the hashtag #SundayChats every Sunday afternoon, reply to it with your question, and boom. That’s how the magic happens.

Last week’s questions:

Ya know last week I’d have a different answer but I’ll revisit that later. In short: stuff is happening. I’m trying to live my life. Trying to do good. Failing a lot, but I’ll keep trying.

I’ve been crazy busy too. I feel like this is the year I am trying to teach myself different and new things, whether they be on a technical level, or maybe software, or something else along those lines.

Thank you for the kind words. As for the future, I think there is another question asking a bit of something like this, but it’s trying to stay busy and trying to make bigger and better moves. Like, E3 I think is out of the question, but PAX West isn’t, and aiming for something like that is really exciting and it gives us a lot of new options and opportunities. Plus, we’ve been trying to have actual meetings on the reg about what we’re doing and what ideas we have.

A big one that Scott White has been spearheading you’ll probably know more about by the end of this month, and there are some new shows and new styles of pieces I think we are all trying to do. As for me, I just want to get better with video stuff, with supporting the team, and with GA, as that’s my main new project.

I like milk. I drink milk, by itself, or in chocolate form, pretty regularly. I’ve been at a restaurant with friends and asked for a glass of milk and everyone laughed at me. I’ve since never done that.

Milk is good.

I mean the biggest one was assuredly The Messenger, which is like, my #1 most anticipated. But I was lucky that my team got to go out there and see stuff and present it to me with cool thoughts and perspectives on all of them. Like, Solo sounds super cool and I want to see more of it, and City of Brass wasn’t on my radar at all but seems really cool. Mike convinced me to see Omensight and that’s just a really rad new entry from a team I didn’t think had it in them.

I mean, I don’t even really know who Kid Rock is. I mean I know of him, but eh. I’ve never heard his music before a day in my life. I hear he is like, not good? Like, not a good person, not necessarily a bad musician. But I don’t want to assume. Is this libel? Am I getting black balled out of the industry right now?

Also you look hella cute Roger. So proud of you.

It absolutely was not. A big thing was I was planning on getting a 4K TV, and since I had the Xbox One X I was happy with just that and then the HDR that my original PS4 could reach. But there was a good deal and if I was already investing so much I wanted to get the most out of my TV. So I swear to god if a PS5 comes out next fall I’ll be pissed.

Brian. Nabeshin. Jackson. So I can know what it feels like to be the nicest dude in the world and also a great uncle.

It’s really sad. But also nice since I can be alone again. But also sad.

A bit of a mixed bag.

Pretty much anything in Final Fantasy 15 looks amazing and delicious. But that Beef Bowl in Persona 4... Man, I’ve had dreams about that Beef Bowl.

This week’s questions:

Shoutout to Brandon Gann, who is in ALL WEEK’S questions for Sunday Chats.

Yes, God of War is great. I think I got into it pretty well above, but yes, I really enjoy it. The combat, above all else, just feels so great. It reminds me a TON of DmC Devil May Cry in that it is training me well and I feel really good at it. Plus the way the weapons work kind of reminds me of that kind of combat too.

It absolutely has to be the SNES. I think I’ve lost countless hours to that system, and it’s something that, as a gift for me, I had my parents go and buy of eBay waaay past its time so as I could sit down and revisit all these classic games. Something I’m still incredibly appreciative of to this day.

But A Link to the Past and Super Metroid are just so formulative of my current taste in games and the things I seek out the most in video games (see: adventure and backtracking) and that was the console I sank the most time into without a doubt. I think GameBoy is totally a great choice, I didn’t have my own until I got a GameBoy color, but the GBA was the one I fell in love with the most, and I wouldn’t really get deep into that until much later.

Hey like, real talk everyone? Hey? Everyone bring it down, it’s real talk time?

Like, I’m doing suuuuper not good. Like actively very bad, and it’s just a whole lot going on. Last week is like, top three, top four worst weeks ever for me, and I had to make a whole bunch of adult decisions that, while I was prepared for them, I wasn’t happy about anything, and everything seemed to just make the situation more miserable. On top of that, I just feel like I’ve been really shitty and a shitty friend to basically all the people in my life that matter the most, and on top of that I have a lot of stress from work and money and blah.

Like, in the grand scheme of things, I’m doing okay, I’ll be okay, but I feel bad, it all feels bad, and it’s pretty shitty. Like, I know this probably wasn’t the answer expected, but it’s definitely the truth.

I’ll do better next time.

In my defense, it’s what I was doing up until I started writing this, and, while I do need to go do the dishes before I get back into God of War because lord knows no one else will, I’ll be continuing my adventure in Midgard until I pass out tonight.

I mean I feel really good about it, so long as everyone involved feels good. Like we’ve certainly hit a lot more readers and have broadened our audience in a way we’ve never been capable of before, and we have opportunities now that we’ve never had before, and I feel really good about that. I’m not super into the numbers, but I am into opportunity, ability to cover games pre-release, go to events, things like that.

As for the end of the year, I feel like, or at least I hope, there is a bit more cross pollination as far as skill, like more folks will be able to support Social, and more folks will be able to do video, or host shows, or whatever that may be. But I want that to all happen within comfort: like Social is Jurge’s thing, and if he doesn’t want to share that because of his ownership of it, I get that, I respect that, and I’m all about that. People gotta have their territory of expertise, and since I’ve been jack-of-all-trading it alone this whole time, I’m all about doing that for myself.

Even though I kind of already have and that’s editing.

The Ninja Samurai from Ghosts of Tsushima (upcoming, I know) and Sly Cooper, because I’m all about creating the greatest Ninja clan this side of the land of the rising sun.

That’s all I got for this week. Thank you all for your patience and understanding. I’ll do better next time. I will try and continue to do these more consistently. I love you all, thank you for reading and supporting and listening and being great.

Until next time, keep it real.

#video games #god of war #sunday #sunday chats #sundaychats #Alex talks

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gigsoupmusic · 5 years

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OK Go - One big craziest thing we've ever done after another - Interview

OK Go is a band that needs no introduction. For over a decade, OK Go has been making waves across multiple artistic mediums. The Grammy award-winning group makes songs you will sing along with and music videos you will never forget. Whether they are dancing on treadmills, singing with The Muppets, or making music with cars OK Go inspires creativity. OK Go continues to show how music and art correlates with physics, math, and creativity with educational videos on okgosandbox.org/ and their new form of live show that is all ages and interactive. I had the chance to interview OK Go bass player and vocalist Tim Nordwind. We talked about the craziest thing he has done for the band, how a summer camp changed the course of his life, a possible OK Go ASMR video, where he keeps his grammy, and more. I'm with Tim Nordwind of OK Go, who plays bass and vocals; you are also a significant part of the artwork for the band. I'm excited to be talking to you because I have been watching videos and I feel like you do a lot of the really outrageous things in your videos. I saw you with a half-shaven face for the writing on the wall video, and I wanted to ask what is one of the craziest things you have done for the band? Tim Nordwind: That's a hard question to answer because every time we do a video, it always sort of feels like "oh this is the craziest thing we've done" then we do the next one, and it's like "no this is the craziest thing we've done" you know? I mean we have done videos in zero gravity, we've been launched in the air through paint, and I helped create a portrait of my face made out of junk, we've danced on treadmills, we've shot things in 2.3 seconds and slowed it down to make a 4-minute video. It's hard to pinpoint one; the whole experience is generally one big this is the craziest thing we've ever done to the next (laughs). https://youtu.be/LWGJA9i18Co That's incredible, and the story with OK Go is also amazing. You and Damian met at summer camp when you were eleven at an art camp. Is it crazy looking back that this summer camp sort of changed the course of your life? TN: Yeah, it is always crazy to think about that. It was at an art summer camp, and it's funny because that camp you can go there for theater, dance, and visual arts and things like that, but the main thing is music, and neither one of us was there for music. I think that was the beginning of this whole long journey that we've taken together, where it sort of like we were in a place where music was the thing, but we were allowed to come at it whatever way we wanted to. We have always been surrounded by music, but we've always been really into theater, and visual arts, and technology, and all these different things, and so from day one, we never thought that we have to do one thing. As we grew up into the music industry, there were moments where it seemed like oh well maybe we do only have to do one thing. But we were very relieved when the videos started doing well, like those first couple of videos of us dancing in backyard, us dancing on treadmills, and things like that we realized that those were the things that people were actually reacting to in a major way. So that was a relief because it was like well that is what we do normally anyway, that is how we have hung out with each other since we were eleven, is we make funny videos, and we bang on pianos and call it a song. So it came as a great relief to know that people really liked the things that we do as like friends. We haven't really looked back ever since. It gave us great confidence when we started to feel like people liked us for what we naturally do both musically and visually. So where you were participating in art in multiple mediums, when was it that you started making music together? TN: Damian and I definitely first bonded over music, we had a very wide spectrum of music that we were interested in. We both listened to everything from Run DMC to Les Misérables. It's like right when Run DMC was first coming out, and so hip hop and things like that were this very fresh and brand new thing. But then also, we were super into musical theater too (laughs). We were kind of all over the map, but we definitely really bonded over music. I think music, in general, is such an immediately satisfying format in the sense that, like sometimes even just the opening sound of a snare drum, it's like you know instantly you know what kind of mood you're in for. I think we've always been that kind of like a quick fix in a way when it comes to music. So we have always just been very, very curious about everything else in art and like in anything that seems curious in the world. That goes into science and math and all these different things. I guess we are just very curious people who like to make things. https://youtu.be/jxD_QQWyhCc With that interest in science and math, I watched some of the more educational video series for The Sandbox on your YouTube Channel. One of those was the Surrounding Sounds video, where you took random objects you were surrounded by like scissors, and tape, pens and pencils, and things like that. So the video was a few years old, and now there is the craze for ASMR, so I wondered if OK Go would ever do an ASMR video? (Laughs) TN: (Laughs) I definitely...sure. When I think of ASMR, I think of people close like eating pizza or something like that (laughs). I think it is kind of amazing, and I am somewhat obsessed with some ASMR videos. Especially head massage videos, which I'm not sure count as ASMR but I feel like it gives me the same sort of relaxed feeling. Have you ever seen the video under "Best Head Massage Ever" there's a guy who I think is in India and he has this little what feels like a trailer on a sidewalk where people step into, and he does the most amazing 10-15 minute head massages that I could just watch forever. Like someday I will make a pilgrimage to wherever that guy is. (Laughs) I think for like my 50th birthday I am going to find this guy and get this head massage. I haven't seen that but I'm excited to look. I have seen like the chubby baby face massages and that craze and those are fun too. TN: Well, that sounds like my next obsession, probably. If you look up "Worlds Greatest Head Massage," or I think maybe under the name of Baba Cosmic Barber. He does the massage like before he cuts their hair. But we haven't specifically thought about ASMR videos, but again it is something that like, in general, the way our process works we would be like "Wouldn't it be cool to make an ASMR video?" and then we would spend like 3-6 months really exploring what it would mean to make an ASMR video and whether or not you could make a compelling three and a half minute like visual music video where you can keep getting surprised every 10-15 seconds through ASMR. Or you start to think well ASMR is the base here but what else can you combine it with to keep things surprising and entertaining for three and a half minutes? And that really is at the end of the day is how we would think about it. People ask us all the time where we get the ideas for our videos, and it's not so much like where do we get the base idea for it, it's what happens once we get in that sandbox of whatever it is we decide to get into and start playing with it. The end result looks like we had a great idea but really what happened is that we played and played and played and experimented for usually a few months at a time until we had enough great things come out of that experimental process to kind of like stitch together to make the video. It's funny you ask that because like sure we could try that, and that would be the process. Then halfway through the process, we would probably either learn that we aren't the one to come up with the 10-15 surprises that you would need with ASMR, or we would learn that we are (laughs). https://youtu.be/QvW61K2s0tA What has been a place in your art that you have caught yourself in a wow moment like that you couldn't believe? TN: There have been a lot of times. I mean, we played Barack Obamas 50th Birthday Party, we did our choreographed dance routine for 'A Million Things' on top of a building in New York City on New Year's Eve in Times Square for like 2 million people, we met and made a video with the Muppets. That was actually on my list of questions, all these things your naming are all bullet points. It's so cool. TN: Yeah, like we won a Smithsonian Ingenuity Award in the company of like really amazing physicists and just crazy. It has taken us to places that we just never really dreamed of doing, and it's been incredible in that sense. https://youtu.be/m86ae_e_ptU If someone would have told you the success that you are having, especially success being genuinely yourself when you were coming up in Chicago, what would you have said? TN: Um, I mean, I don't know you have to be somewhat delusional in the first place to go after this kind of thing. I think I would have been surprised, but I would have been like, "okay, cool, that's awesome." That's what we hoped for ourselves. I think that the one thing that was most unexpected was that we would become known for something other than music, or that along with the music, we would be known for making music videos. That is something that we absolutely did not set out to do. We really, when we started in Chicago, were going at it like any other Indie-rock band in the country and in the world. We were looking for a label and trying to get on tour, that sort of stuff. If you told me then that what I'd be known for was the videos that would have meant like "Okay, so we're going to be huge on MTV?" That is the hardest thing to wrap my brain around would be that in a short amount of time there would be this brand new space where people go to live their lives online. Including where you do your shopping, banking, and socializing is also going to be your new space to create. That I think would have been like, "what the fuck are you talking about?" So I think that is the thing I'd be most surprised about. And the way that OK Go uses the space they have to create art is inspiring. What can you tell me about ways your videos have inspired people that has been unexpected? TN: Yeah, it's nice in the last several years now we get emails from teachers and parents who show their kids our videos to teach them a little something about physics, or math, or creativity, or whatever it is the particular videos are featuring. It has been nice because we started okgosandbox.org which is our sort of educational arm of what we do. It makes teaching tools for teachers to use in classrooms to help kids think about how math, science, creativity can all be as one. It doesn't have to be this textbook thing like you can use music to make really fun and awesome stuff. That is another thing I think if you told me in Chicago, in 1998, that like people would be using our videos to teach with I would be like "what are you talking about? Why would they be doing that?" (laughs) It is nice to see all of this evolve in ways that we couldn't have dreamt of, and sometimes in ways that we did dream of. A lot of our career has really been surprising. Really nice surprises that have come from the hard work we put into the things that we made. https://youtu.be/dTAAsCNK7RA What are the schedules and budgets like for these videos? TN: Most of the videos these days take about 3-6 months to make. They have been from like dirt cheap to incredibly expensive. Like think pretty expensive and that is what some of them have cost, then think like roughly $20-40, they have kind of gone all over the map. As we have gone on the ideas have gotten bigger and more ludicrous and it tends to be a higher budget affair. What can you tell me about the live video shows that OK Go is doing? TN: So the live video show is a bit more of a sort of cinematic and cultural experience rather than just a full-on rock show. We have been playing performance art centers around the country and it's basically a video retrospective that has rock show elements and theatrical elements. We play about twenty of our videos chronologically and stop every three of four to talk with the audience. There are some interactive moments where we play songs with the audience and it has been great. It is kind of like a new mode of show for us. The videos that existed online and our rock show we used to kind of keep those things separate from each other, at some point, we realized that it sort of seems like a missed opportunity to not show up and own the fact that we are the band that makes these videos and that we are going to take you through that experience of doing so. It has been super fun and it feels very appropriate where we are in our 21-year career. The show feels very modular and that we can keep adding to it as we make more music and make more videos and all of that. It has been really fun to do, and it is fun to talk to the kids in the audience. They usually have the weirdest and funniest questions (laughs). And there is thing number three that if you had told me in 1998 in Chicago that a bunch of kids would like what we are doing I wouldn't have believed you. Like we make music for 18-35-year-olds and that's what we know (laughs). https://youtu.be/47PDFwMcplw I have a question I ask in every interview and I love karaoke and I like to ask people that have performed on a number of stages if they do the small stage of karaoke and what their go-to song is? TN: Gosh you know it's funny, I used to love karaoke and then I played in a band and started to hate karaoke. I'm probably the rare person who there were periods of life where I would sing on stage sometimes 2-3 times a day or 180 days a year, so I didn't want to get up and sing in front of anyone, anymore (laughs). But my go-to songs back when I loved it were 'Take On Me' by a-ha or 'Total Eclipse of The Heart' by Bonnie Tyler which if you know it and can sell it will bring down the house every time. Where does OK Go keep their grammy? TN: Well we all have one, and I keep mine in my studio. Well, thank you, Tim. I really appreciate what you guys do and your time. This was a lot of fun. TN: Thank you so much. It was nice to talk to you. Follow OK Go on their website, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Read the full article

#hereitgoesagain #OKGo

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gigsoupmusic · 5 years

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OK Go - One big craziest thing we've ever done after another - Interview

#hereitgoesagain #OKGo

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