#that one shot at the end of the launch trailer

[galacticsabc]

Aaaaaghhh I'm so excited for dawntrail!!! Here's Jarvis yet again.

[robbie-wallis]

I need to vent about Watcher, endure it if you can

Relax, this isn't a parasocial thing, but it is a long ass post, which suits me as a long ass human.

I need an outlet to discuss the terrible business decision Watcher has made by announcing their plan to leave YouTube, and this long-forgotten Tumblr account reached from its grave to grab at my ankle.

If you didn't see their video, good for you. It's extremely cringe-worthy in its sentimentality and editing, with blurry shots, pensive pauses and obligatory sad piano.

But at least there's no f'ing Ukulele.

Although, I think we might get the Ukulele in a few months.

Even though anyone who reads this is probably familiar with what the "Ghoul Boys" have done, I feel as though I need to add a little history.

WATCHER HISTORY

You can skip this part if you've been obsessively following the shenanigans, this is for the noobs who were never a "shaniac" or a "boogara".

Shane Madej and Ryan Bergara used to work at Buzzfeed. They hosted the successful Buzzfeed Unsolved shows. In 2019 they followed in the footsteps of the Try Guys and Safia Nygaaard and left Buzzfeed to create their own YouTube channel named "Watcher".

They brought along Steven Lim, another Buzzfeed person who is most known for the "Worth It" series. This series followed Lim and his friend/s spending obscene amounts of money on obscenely overpriced and indulgent products.

Think of it as being similar to the $100 V's $10,000 Sidemen content, only without the self-awareness and British "bad lads" humor.

Notably, even the Sidemen seem to have cut back on those adventures, perhaps understanding how bad it looks when so many people are struggling to pay their essential bills.

Steven became the CEO of Watcher while Shane and Ryan continued to create and present for the new channel.

They were wildly successful by YouTube standards. At the time of their self-spanking on Friday they were close to achieving 3 million subscribers, in just 4 years, based on basically only 2 cornerstone shows. If Social Blade is still a reasonably trusted source in everything but estimating income, they were gaining thousands of new subscribers every week.

Their most successful shows were Ghost Files, Puppet History, Too Many Spirits and Mystery Files.

Ghost Files is the only one of these shows which requires heavy investment, travel, a large crew and impressive production costs. These videos are shot on-location and require a lot of work. The rest are basically Good Mythical Morning style, just the two hosts and their banter.

Aside from Ghost Files, their content could be created with 3 cameras, 2 lapel mics and a good editor.

They were massively successful, solely because of Ryan and Shane.

THE DEMISE

So, what did they do on Friday 19th April? They decided to announce the launch of their own subscription platform.

Not a Patreon for extra content, behind-the-scenes, audience interaction etc, (they already had a Patreon with 6,000 paying subscribers earning them at least $50k a month), but a bespoke streaming platform which looks like a clone of Netflix.

The cost is $5.99 a month, or $60 a year.

Comparable to Netflix.

And by that I mean the price is comparable to Netflix while the content is comparable to a 4 year old YouTube channel.

Don't get me wrong, their production quality is incredible. The quantity, however, is not.

From the end of May viewers will have to pay to be a subscriber on their own platform in order to watch their shows.

They'll still be posting their trailers on YouTube, and the first episodes of new shows, but to watch it all you'll have to pay up or miss out.

Edited to add: Variety originally reported the Watcher crew were planning to remove all their existing content from YouTube to monetize it on their own platform. It's since been confirmed they will not be removing their old content. Fans are undecided whether this was a back-track after the announcement or a misunderstanding by Variety. You be the judge.

Of course, they're entitled to do this. They are creating a product and you can either enjoy it or not. No one is entitled to see it, for free, whenever they like.

Why did they do this?

Half of the sombre video gushes about their "humble beginnings" as "struggling young guys in a big harsh world", which comes across as extremely self-indulgent and ego-stroking.

A quarter of it explains how insanely successful they've been on YouTube and how this is all thanks to the fans who stuck with them after Buzzfeed, how it's allowed them to hire 25 people, how it's given them the freedom to create what they enjoy making and what the viewers want to see, and - most importantly - how it's allowed them to increase production quality on Ghost Files.

The final quarter of the video explains that this isn't good enough, the quality isn't high enough, the finish not glossy enough, it's not "TV caliber" enough! They want more, they need more, you have to give them more, mostly (apparently) because their CEO Steven Lim wants to bring back his show where he flies around the world with his bestie sipping Champagne and eating gold-leaf-covered lobster.

In short, they want more money to make even bigger things, even though their audience never asked for that.

WHY IT WILL NOT WORK

Oh my goodness, this is going to be a ride so strap in.

I'm not a YouTube creator so there are a lot of things I do not know. Having said that, I know a little about business.

This ain't Buzzfeed, y'all

Watcher became successful because of Ryan and Shane. It was their friendship, their personalities, and the content we loved to watch featuring them at Buzzfeed, that brought us along for the ride.

The audience they poached from Buzzfeed is there for them and Ghost Files. It's not there for Steven Lim and "Worth It". His show worked under the Buzzfeed umbrella only because they had numerous sub-categories in that community to support it.

The Try Guys left and created their own channel from their Buzzfeed fans.

Safia Nygaard left and created her own channel from her Buzzfeed fans.

Shane and Ryan left and created Watcher from their Buzzfeed fans.

Steven Lim left and became the CEO of Watcher. He didn't take his audience with him.

The audience of Watcher is not the audience of "watch me fly around the word with my pal and spend $100K on hand-reared, Whiskey marinaded, diamond-encrusted Kobe steak".

And... IN THIS ECONOMY?

Steven chose to become a CEO instead of a presenter. He's missed the opportunity to take that Buzzfeed audience with him.

This is made clear by the Watcher channel itself. Their "man eats food" content rarely breaks 500K views while their Ghost Files breaks 2 million consistently.

If a million of their viewers followed them from Buzzfeed to Watcher, the other 2 million have joined them since, based almost entirely on their spoopy content.

Not only did they base their channel on this genre and format, they have distilled their audience further ever since the creation of their channel and no matter how hard they try to diversify into "man eats food" it's just not working.

This ain't Netflix, y'all

As mentioned, the $5.99 charge is comparable to Netflix and just about every other streaming platform. Only Watcher can't give you even 5% of what a competing platform can offer for that price.

Other platforms also tailor their content and their pricing based on geographical location and localized economics.

You're paying far less than $5.99 a month if you live in an economy where the median household income is $300 a month. YouTube has a global audience. Their subscribers don't all live in a stable economy where $5.99 is considered disposable income.

We don't know the numbers, but I would guess only 60% of their subscribers are based in the USA, Canada, and the UK.

Even for those who do live in a stable economy, their audience is predominantly young adults and students. Most young adults are currently facing the reality that they will possibly never own their own home, they're living day-to-day trying to budget.

They've instantly priced-out a large % of their audience.

I confidently predict that diehard fans who can't see anything wrong with this will sign up for $5.99 a month, binge watch for a couple of weeks, realize there's no new spoopy content and cancel.

They'll come back when a full season of Ghost Files has arrived, pay again, binge it and leave.

Steven Lim thinks they're gonna get $5.99 a month, every month, from thousands of subscribers. In reality they're going to get maybe $12 a year, from people signing up to binge watch what they want, then leaving.

This will then decline naturally as attention wanes during the months where there is no spoopy.

This ain't good marketing, y'all

They're going to be posting "trailers and season pilots" on YouTube.

Sure, I bet YouTube is gonna be totes okay with a channel doing nothing but trying to hijack traffic for an external site.

Posting nothing but trailers and season premiers will mean maybe one full video per month during busy seasons. That's not enough to remain relevant for the algorithm.

If 80% of those posts are also just trailers saying "leave YouTube and come here", the channel will be smacked down quicker than a crypto scam using an AI generated Elongated Muskrat.

Their channel was growing steadily, but that was with full content regularly posted. When the schedule drops off, and when most of it is considered spammy by YouTube, it's going to collapse like a flan in a cupboard.

A streaming platform needs a constant flow of new subscribers just to replace the gradual drop-off (maybe ask Rooster Teeth about that). When your global audience at YouTube is gone, where are those new subscribers coming from?

The platform is also an additional overhead. It's going to cost thousands a month to keep the servers going.

This ain't good financial management, y'all

I don't know if they've already spent hundreds of thousands of $s on Lim's "men eat food" gamble, but I suspect they have.

I know they have spent hundreds of thousands of $s on a new season of Ghost Files, flying to the UK to host live events while filming those episodes.

This means they've over-extended their finances just at the moment where they've cratered their opportunities to see a return on investment.

Just that, on its own, is enough to destroy a production company.

They do not need 25 employees any more than I need an editor and proof-reader for this long ass post.

They do not need a production studio in Hollywood any more than I needed an office to write this.

They do not need to spend tens of thousands of $s on glossy graphics that appear on screen for maybe 4 seconds in one episode any more than I needed to add screengrabs to this painfully long essay.

By leaving YouTube they've lost:

Adsense revenue (which might not be much on a per-video basis but adds up with a back catalogue over years of productions)

Sponsorship deals, which allegedly contributes almost 50% of their annual revenue.

Merch sales, which is about to crash if the only people they can promote merch to are already paying per month in their smaller ecosystem.

Patreon. Why would someone pay $5.99 twice, for the same or less content?

And they've abandoned all of this for maybe a few thousand people who will probably end up paying just $12 a year when a new spoopy season arrives for them to binge.

I'm no Will Hunting, but no matter how hard I try to make the numbers work they just don't, and I don't need Robin Williams to tell me it's not my fault.

This ain't nice, y'all

Some of you are feeling like Ned's wife right now, and some of you will have no idea what that's in reference to.

Most of you will hate that I made that reference more than you hated the SNL skit.

I get it.

Maybe the worst part about all of his, from a viewer's perspective, is the dismissive nature of their sign-off.

They didn't mention the Patreon members once, not one single time in the whole video. It's like they consider the Patreon "too YouTube". They're the deformed cousin locked in the attic. They're the relative who wasn't invited to the wedding because they can't afford a Tom Ford suit. They're the colleague who isn't invited to the staff night out because they only work in accounting and no one has anything in common with Janice anyway.

These are diehard fans who were actually paying them extra to support them and enjoy a little bonus behind the scenes, and the boys didn't even consider them worthy of an utterance.

They also finished with "If you don't follow us and pay up it's been real, peace out". I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically what it was.

They spent so much of the video saying how awesome and great it was that the fans and YouTube got them to this point, but they didn't thank their Patreon members, and they ended with a blunt suggestion that if you don't follow them and pay more then you're not a real fan anyway and they don't really need you.

"Thanks for getting us here, sucks to be you, bye now!"

You made them wealthy, you helped them hire 25 people, you helped them increase production value to "TV caliber" even though you didn't ask for that, but your job is done and now you're superfluous. Only the real fans are wanted.

In the words of the great George Carlin - "It's a big club, and you ain't in it".

They're okay losing the vast majority of the people who got them here if a few thousand of those are comfortable enough to be able to pay $60 a year for a YouTube channel.

Can it get worse? Sure!

We've had a weekend to enjoy the constant heat of this bonfire and it's predictably worsened with each hour of silence from the company and its employees.

The fact that they haven't back-tracked, despite almost unanimous agreement that this is badder than the baddest thing that could happen to their company, suggests they're okay with it.

Consensus seems to be that they knew it would be this bad, and they're cool. They predicted 90% of people would scream "Boo to you good sirs! Boo indeed!" and they could still survive on the 10% who don't see a problem here.

The lack of response reinforces the narrative that they're totally fine with discarding almost their entire audience if they can just squeeze the cash they need out of whoever is left.

This ain't fixable, y'all (maybe)

Note: I don't want this to be mean, but it's going to sound a little bitchy no matter how I try to say it.

If they'd brought out the Ukulele on Saturday, or even teased Ukulele's on their socials before putting out a video on Sunday, they probably could have survived this with much hand-wringing and a little groveling.

But now I think they've grilled this Kobe steak for far too long.

They've lost 100K subscribers, and counting. The venom among Patreon members is allegedly worse than the public comments section under the video, which is startling. Dozens of YouTubers are torching them harder than a $100 crème brûlée.

People are scraping their channel content in case it's nuked.

Shane "eat the rich" Madej's sentiments over the last few years look disingenuous, to say the least. To shamelessly steal someone else's comment: "Imagine being all 'eat the rich' right before throwing yourself on the plate". He's silent while his McMansion burns down, at his own hands. "Why not!?" indeed.

Steven "I drive a Tesla" Lim's socials now make him look like a tech-bro try-hard and his use of words like "early adopter" and "soft launch" in the video only compound the belief that this was all his brainchild. He is the CEO, and that comes with responsibility and the associated blame. You can't steer the ship into the Bermuda Triangle and then disappear without looking like the bad guy.

Okay, you can disappear, but that convoluted metaphor is a mystery for someone else to solve.

Ryan "TV caliber" Bergara now sounds like an elitist who thinks YouTube is "too pedestrian" for his big plans, not big enough to meet his artistic vision. You see, he's more James Cameron, while YouTube is more like your student film club. He's grown beyond this pesky platform with billions of daily hits offering exponential growth with almost zero financial risk.

Even if they released a video today admitting they messed up big time it's still going to be hard to get the taste of this Ghost Pepper Warhead out of the collective mouth of their viewers.

This hasn't just burned their shared brand, it's singed their individual reputations among an audience upon which their careers rely.

What they should have done, on Saturday, is release a video (Ukulele or no) confessing their error. They should have announced their new platform will instead just be a bigger and better Patreon, with early access to everything, behind-the-scenes content, extra features, audience interaction etc.

They should have reversed to make clear their YouTube channel will stay the priority, their main source of revenue, but that you could get more on their own platform if you want it.

And, maybe, over time, people will pay for that. If they grow their channel to 6 million subscribers in the next 4 years there will be a couple hundred thousand of them willing and able to pay $5.99 a month for 8 years of shows, 8 years of behind the scenes content, 8 years of community involvement and regular early access to new episodes.

Maybe then they could try out their "privileged guys eat expensive food in expensive places" show and see how it does? Maybe a majority of people won't be living on the cusp of poverty by then and it won't look as tone-deaf as a 13 year old YouTuber trying to cover Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah"? Maybe then they could hire another 50 people and make Bergara's "TV caliber" (I still don't know exactly what that means) game shows and reboots?

The clock has been ticking since they hit that "publish" button on their career ending video, but that clock is about to count down to zero and silence will permeate throughout their previously lively community.

That 1980s basement set needed someone crying in the corner, right?

The problem is, their own platform is not a terrible idea. Really, it's not the worst thing they could do. The badness came in the timing, the switch, the middle finger and the f you. They could have released this as an extra, their own Patreon alternative, waited, developed it over time into something sustainable and established.

They could still try to do that and hope this dark chapter is forgotten.

Maybe I'm wrong? Maybe Lim is a financial genius with more skill than the management of Rooster Teeth and their corporate parent company combined? Maybe this gamble will be wildly successful despite all streaming services down-sizing or just going bankrupt? Maybe they won't be back on YouTube in 3-6 months begging for views after having to lay off 20 of their employees?

I know this... if I were one of those 25 employees blind faith would not be enough to stop me from looking for another job.

I suppose this will, for now, remain... a mystery.

EDIT:

I'm not writing another essay about this, but I'm glad to see they've backtracked and made the right choice to use WatcherTV as any sane creator would - to host early access and exclusive content in addition to their YouTube channel.

Over time, while promoting it in every video, building up that trust and fan base, it can be a secure and long-term financial bonus helping them to expand their business incrementally as finances allow.

Why this wasn't the plan all along is anyone's guess. Gambling everything on this was never the sane decision.

I still think they need to scale back on costs. I still think the food content is not currently a viable source of income while being a serious drain on resources. I still think they need to stop hiring all their friends and they need to hire one person who doesn't have personal relationships with everyone there and can make the tough business decisions.

No one likes firing people, it's ten times worse when it's a friend. But this is a reality of business and just wishing it wasn't so isn't going to make it go away. It would be awesome if we could all run a business where we can hire all our friends and family, never have to rely on any outside funding, make whatever we want, make a great living in one of the most expensive cities in the world and continue to grow.

That's just not the reality.

Their apology was genuine, in my opinion. I just hope they can work out the right financial balance.

[my-hyperfixations]

Isha is 100% going to die (Season 2 Arcane theory)

I was watching the music video for Isha’s Song when I had the realization that she is definitely going to die before the season ends.

How do I know this? Well besides the running theme of family death and Jinx’s “curse” of hurting everyone around her, there was one crucial detail about Isha’s design that gives away the fact she is going to die.

Let’s take a look:

Let’s talk about this design.

The first noticeable thing is that Isha has dyed her hair blue and grown it out a little, putting it in a pigtail braid style. She’s also started drawing clouds on her arm, as well as dressing in a new style.

It’s obvious that she is styling herself to look like Jinx.

But there is one specific detail in this design that tells me she is going to die, and that is the braids.

My first reaction upon seeing the braids was along the lines of “Aww, she and Jinx are matching! How cute!” and we can see in the photos that they very much are matching now.

So why do the braids tell me she is going to die?

Well, it’s because of this shot in the trailer:

Jinx has cut her hair.

She no longer has the braids that let her match with Isha. She no longer has that connection to her.

We know this comes after the earlier photos I showed because Jinx can’t possibly regrow her hair that long that fast, as well as her hair is now dyed with purple highlights and she is wearing a new outfit. Typically when a character gets a redesign in a show, they don’t go back to their old one. Especially when it regards changing their hairstyle this drastically. This shot comes after all the scenes with Isha from above.

Isha will die, and Jinx will cut her hair because of it.

I believe that at some point during the second act, or perhaps the very beginning of the third, Isha will die at the hands of an enforcer/someone from the upper side. In her mourning, Jinx will no longer be able to stand seeing the braids in her hair (as they are now tied to the thought of Isha) and she will cut them off, as well as changing her fashion style so she no longer has that connection to Isha. Isha’s death will also cause her to finally use her position as Zaun’s symbol of the revolution and launch an attack on Piltover, which will lead to the final battle of act three.

(I also have a theory that she and Jinx are going to seek help from/team up with Ekko but thats for a later time)

TLDR; Isha having matching braids with Jinx tells us that Isha is going to die because we know Jinx is going to cut her hair.

[thisismeracing]

Part of your world | LH44

SOCIAL MEDIA AU

Pairing: lewis hamilton x actress!reader (she/her)

Warnings: curse words, Twitter environment, it’s not proofread, etc, etc. Minors DNI!

Summary: What happens when Lewis goes to the theater with his nephews and realizes he now has a new favorite Disney movie. The princess? Ynl Yln and she’s definitely fairytale-worthy outside the screens as well.

a/n: none of the pictures used are mine, they are all from Pinterest and other apps. everything else is made up by me and I do not give permission for it to be published on a different platform. I would appreciate it if those things could be taken into consideration 💛

my masterlist | taglist

yourusername

liked by lewishamilton, disney, and others

yourusername I can't believe this press tour coming to an end :( A huge thank you to everyone involved. It was great working with you guys, from filming to singing and interviewing.

view all 1,563 comments

royaltyyln omg, I still don't know which dress was my favorite, but this white one is def between the top 3

lewishamilton woah! 😍

⤷ hammertime8 shooting his shot

disney 😍🧜🏾‍♀️💙

user01 I just watched the movie and Istg I cried the whole time, my whole childhood on screen. Yn did a great job

mermaidyn I have an eight years old sister and she's so excited to watch the movie, we cried during the trailer. I can't stress how much it means to us to have a black princess on screen, I am glad my sister is growing up with these examples, and I'm happy I'm still around to watch all these events unfold. Really proud 🤧❤️

user90 Everything on this live-action was on point! From the soundtrack to the cast, absolutely perfect

sainzspain I am so ready to see Yn and Lewis interacting 😌🤌🏾

yourusername

liked by pierregasly, lewishamilton, and others

yourusername camera roll reveal 🫶🏾

view all 1,982 comments

summertimeyn soft launching, I see

⤷ ynbrasil she thinks she's lick, everyone knows its lewis lol

russelular bro, every time she posts I am reminded of the fact that she is stunning, what should one do to look this pretty?

⤷ user3 for me, only being born again lmao 😭🤣

driverslicensef1 lewis lurking on the likes

fortyfourfone Pierre Gasly liked it 🧐

roscoesfans THAT'S ROSCOE AND THAT'S LEWIS, NO DENYING

mickshoes @.disney please, a movie where Yn is the princess and Lewis Hamilton the prince, y'all owning us a live-action from the princess and the frog btw, just saying 👀

flawlessyn Yn is my religion 😭💖💖

lewishamilton

liked by alex_albon, yourusername, and others

lewishamilton we’re all about winning…and making lovely memories along the way 💚

view all 2,374 comments

yourusername cute

⤷ lewishamilton 😌😝❤️

eliteleclerc I am so happy for them

rainytracks can you imagine being born as yn yln and dating lewis hamilton???????

ynwinter God, I've seen what you've done for others 🙏🏾

estebanocon Congrats, guys!

⤷ yourusername thank you, estie bestie! 🥰

lewyn They look so happy, when will it be my turn?

hitsdifferent not yn all cautious not to spill it was lewis, and lewis saying "fuck soft launch, here's my princess" lol

arielyln wish I could beeee part of this worldddd 😭

taglist: @sachaa-ff @mickslover @formulakay3 @mishaandthebrits @iloveyou3000morgan @crimeshowjunkie

💖 Don't forget to like, reblog and/or leave a comment letting me know if you liked it *mwah* your interaction means a lot not only because it motivates me, but because it spreads my work and gives me more visibility (especially when you reblog 🥰🤍)

[drivinmeinsane]

Shot Through the Heart

※ Colt Seavers x GN!Reader ※

{ masterlist } ※ { ao3 }

※ Summary: You've worked with Colt off and on for years, building an easy rapport with the stuntman. The rest of the crew sends you to check up on him after he's bad off following a stunt that seems to have caused his nearly career-ending injury to act up.

※ Rating: T for suggestive themes.

※ Content/Tags: Fluff, Caretaking, No use of y/n, Mentions of old injury, Budding Love, Pre-Relationship, Solely based on the official trailer uploaded to YouTube by Universal Pictures

※ Word count: 3,052

※ Status: Oneshot/Complete

※ Author's Notes: The devil works fast but I work faster. That three and a half minute long trailer sure possessed me. Needless to say, I'm excited for the movie's release in a few months.

The setting sun is blinding you on its long journey below the horizon. You squint against the light at the block of apartments as you pull your vehicle into a stop alongside the curb. You really hope you’re at the right location. You’re not sure if you trust your crewmates to have given you the right address. You honestly did not really want to be here at all. Many of the crew for this particular production had worked with Colt before, so it really was wildly unfair that you had been unanimously volunteered to check up on the man after he was a no-show for the past couple days. Sure, he had called, but no one had actually laid eyes on him to verify his condition.

You put your car into park and open the door to step out into the evening heat. You immediately feel smothered by the warmth, and you reach across your center console to grab the items crowding your passenger seat. You withdraw, burdened, and nudge the door closed with your knee. You manage to hit the lock button on your key fob before you duck into the small parking garage. A flood of relief washes over you when you immediately spot Colt’s obnoxious brown and yellow truck. There are surfboards still resting in the bed of the vehicle. It’s parked haphazardly with no regard for anyone else’s need for the space. You’re in the right place at least. You skirt around it, eyes scanning for apartment numbers. You mutter his unit number under your breath while you look for it. You’re juggling a heating pad, multiple ice packs, and a bag of food. You’re not sure what you’re going to be walking into. 

After what feels like an eternity of searching, you finally locate what you hope is his front door. With your hands full, you contemplate figuring out how to knock. You finally decide to just bang on the wood with your elbow. There’s no response or any whispers of movement. You sigh and hit it again, more aggressively. You know he’s home. The lifted monstrosity in the parking garage is proof enough. He avoids going anywhere without it. 

You double down and are in the middle of hammering on the door for a third time when you finally hear muffled cursing gradually getting louder as the apartment’s occupant gets closer. To your relief, it’s Colt Seavers himself who yanks the door open hard enough you’re briefly worried he’s going to pull it right off the hinges. You open your mouth, about to launch into a bantering complaint about how he left you to rot on his doorstep when you register what exactly you’re looking at.

The man crowding the doorway is wet, straight from an interrupted shower. His shaggy, blond hair is falling into his eyes. The light from the setting sun reflects an orange glow on the water droplets racing down his body. He looks like he’s on fire. You drag your eyes from his obscenely exposed chest to his face. You try to pretend that you’re not talking to a very damp, very naked man preserving the last dregs of his modesty with only a towel wrapped around his narrow hips. You’ve just agreed with yourself not to acknowledge how large his hand looks clutching the fabric. 

“Where’s the fire?” He asks. His annoyance fades away at the realization that you’re the one bothering him out of the blue. 

“The guys sent me on a welfare check. We haven’t seen you in a few days.”

“I’m clearly alive so you’re welcome to-” He pantomimes you leaving by walking his fingers in the air “-report back that I haven’t died yet.”

“Welfare, not proof of life. Besides, you look like shit and I brought some supplies.” You argue, raising your arms to show your wares.

He looks like he’s thinking about pushing the issue, but he deflates, exhausted. He purposely lets out a dramatically weary sigh and gives you only the barest amount of space to get past him. You squeeze through the door, grazing against his wet arm. You hear him close and lock the front door behind you while you openly gawk at his apartment. 

“You live like this?” You ask, slightly aghast. The place is a mess. There are plants and exercise equipment everywhere. The stuntman hovering behind you clearly has his priorities. 

“Sure do. Just going to go finish rinsing off. I’d say make yourself comfortable but you’re already on your way,” he remarks, casting an amused glance at the way you’re wobbling while trying to extract yourself from your shoes with no hands. 

You frown at his back as you watch him skirt around you and head in the direction of his bathroom. He’s moving jerkily, almost stumbling. His back is definitely messed up. You really hope it’s something that you will be able to assist with in some capacity. You know first hand how stunt work takes a toll on the human body. 

Following the sound of a television, you manage to make your way to the living area. You shove over some electrolyte packets and gardening tools on his coffee table to create room for the bag of food that you made for him. The heating pad and ice packs get dumped on the floor next to one of the legs. As for yourself, you settle in on his couch to wait. You’re not surprised to see that he’s left an Indiana Jones movie playing on the screen. It seems like the kind of thing he would watch.

From the bathroom, you hear some muffled complaining before the shower kicks on. The sound of the rushing water does little to cover the noise of the shower curtain hooks on the rod as he wrestles with the material. You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, thankful you didn’t hear Colt fall trying to get over the edge of the tub. The last thing you wanted was to wrestle your naked crewmate while on the phone with emergency services. 

Only a few minutes pass before the water cuts off and you hear the door open. You can’t help but notice that you didn’t hear the sound of his bedroom door closing. There’s just the sound of footsteps and rustling fabric. He emerges, wearing a pair of garish pajama pants. He’s still distractingly shirtless, because why wouldn’t he be? It’s not as though he has a guest that is trying very hard to be normal about this entire situation. There’s a towel draped over his bare shoulders in the effort to contain the mess produced by his sopping wet hair. Trails of water are running down his neck and soaking into the cloth. 

Colt practically drags himself over to you. He lowers himself onto the cushion at your side, and makes an effort to avoid leaning against the back of the couch. You turn to face the blond man, taking a hard look at him. He looks even worse up close than he did when he greeted you at the door. Exhaustion is deepening the fine lines in his face and his eye bags nearly have their own luggage. 

“How are you doing? Really?”

He gives you one of his goofy grimaces and flashes a thumbs up. He can’t hide the wince as movement pulls at his back muscles. The look you give him in return is unimpressed. 

“Can you even function?”

“Barely,” he says with a groan as he tries to get a little more comfortable. He still looks painfully stiff.

You suppress the urge to give him a comforting pat on the leg and instead lean over to dig the meal you had brought for him out of the bag. You shove a tupperware container, a wrapped sandwich, and a plastic fork at him until he takes them. He looks bewildered. 

“Eat. The dressing is in the small container hanging out in the salad greens.”

“Did you make this yourself?”

“I’ve worked with you enough times to know how you are, so yes.” You admired the man’s discipline, but it had been cause for concern while you desperately scoured your kitchen looking for something to make that wasn’t going to fall under the umbrella of junk food. 

“Maybe I should reinjure myself more often then,” he says with a smirk and raises his eyebrows. You don’t dignify him with a response.

He balances the container of salad on the armrest next to him and sets to work on unwrapping the sandwich. It’s grilled chicken breast with a truly ridiculous amount of lettuce and tomato. You hadn’t dumped condiments on it, not wanting it to get soggy during the car ride.

“I’m here to play nursemaid so can I do something about all of that? '' You gesture to his dripping hair and his hunched over body.

He looks up from the sandwich like he’s holding something precious in his hands. “You made me this. You can do anything you want with me. I’ve only got a few limits.” 

You roll your eyes at his suggestive tone before rising up onto your knees. You shuffle closer, knees mere inches away from grazing the outside of his thigh. The towel slips freely from his shoulders and he doesn’t complain when you drape it over his head. You gently work the material over his hair. Colt starts in on the sandwich while you work carefully to dry him without putting unnecessary pressure or movement on him. You take a corner of the towel and wipe away the water that has trailed down his face and his neck. You don’t go any further down than his collarbone not daring to drag the fabric over his chest. You have to cling to some level of professionalism between coworkers. He leans into the touches in the areas you are willing to wipe dry. You pretend not to notice. 

He eats like he’s been starving ever since the last day you and the rest of the crew had seen him on set. He probably had been if he was still in this bad of shape days later. You leave him to start in on the salad. On your way to hang the towel over the shower curtain rod to dry, you stumble over a stray weight that had been left in the middle of the floor. You manage to suppress your pained noises despite the tears leaping to your eyes. Why had you been volunteered for this? Your crewmates had been suspiciously giggly and evasive when you had protested. They had just made excuses and jokes about how you were Colt’s favorite person and you being the one to check on him would make his day. What a load of crap.

“What do you usually do for your back?” You ask, coming back into the room and trying to not let on you nearly had your own medical emergency just out of sight. 

“Just uh… stick the tens on it and stretch it out.”

“Gotcha. Finish that up and we’ll start on your back,” you tell him. You crouch down next to the coffee table and gather the ice packs. You won’t be using them today. The injury has sat for too long.

“Thanks, nurse,” he responds around a mouthful of greens.

You cross the apartment and pull open the door to the freezer. You cram the ice packs onto an already sizable stack of them sandwiched between the freezer wall and bags of frozen vegetables. The refrigerator itself is covered in receipts, bills, coupons, business cards, brochures… You’re really not sure how Colt is able to find anything. You suppose that it’s all his own brand of organized chaos. 

You make your way back to the living room in time to see him clamp the lid back on the tupperware container. You give your head a little shake. The man inhaled an entire sandwich and a salad in under fifteen minutes. Impressive. You hope his stomach handles going from zero to a hundred with more grace than yours would. You don’t feel like holding his hair back while he vomits. 

“How do you want to do this? Floor, couch, or bed?”

He twinges his back when he twists to look up at you. You’d laugh if you hadn’t felt a sting of worry at the way he winced. You know Colt’s a tough man. You have seen him take hit after hit over the past few years. He must be hurting badly to be showing this much sincere discomfort. You’ve seen him ham it up as a joke, but this was the real deal.

“I’m glad one of us thinks I’ll be able to get off the floor. How about you take me to bed, beautiful?”

He heaves himself off the couch and you trail after him into his bedroom. The floor is messy like the rest of the house. You’re not sure if he’s always this disorganized or if it was just something that has resulted from him not being able to keep up with it due to his back. Given the state of his fridge, you’re strongly considering that it’s the former and not the latter. 

“How do you want me?” The flirtatious tone isn’t quite coming through as intended with him standing like he’s auditioning for the starring role in a live action adaptation of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. 

“On your stomach, please. Do you have lotion or anything I can use on you?” 

He groans as he makes his way onto the bed and lays face down. He’s unable to relax, the muscles in his back are too tight. “I have some vaseline in the bathroom. Right drawer.”

You set the heating pad down on the bed next to him after plugging it in. You make another trek to the bathroom to search for the aforementioned vaseline. It’s not hard to locate and you manage to dodge the weight this time. You’re not about to wreck your foot on it again. Once was enough. 

You settle on the bed next Colt, careful not to jostle him. You swipe your fingers though the vaseline to collect a sizable dollop of the substance. You set the container aside and liberally coat your hands with what you had scooped out. Your eyes catch on the long scar running alongside the stuntman’s spine. It’s pink and raised, a fairly old wound but not old enough to fade to silver. You weren’t there when Colt got the injury. You’d been on another set halfway across the world, but the things you’d heard months later from people who had been present when it happened weren’t good. He had nearly died and if he had… you would have just been left with memories spanning the hours spent with this cocky man. You would have likely said a few words at his funeral, if you had even been able to make it, and that would have been the end of Colt Seavers. He would be just another stuntman who died doing what he loved. The thought puts a pit in your stomach. You push it aside, he’s still alive and he’s waiting for you to get on with the program. 

The initial touch of your hands against his bare back causes you both to tense up and go deathly quiet. Your pulse is hammering in your years and you swear you can hear the sound of his throat as he swallows. You try to not knee him in the side as you start to massage the expanse between his broad shoulders. It’s not long before he’s melting into the mattress, relaxing under your touch. You work him over, section by section. You gently knead the raised line of scar tissue, helping to discourage the excess building of collagen. A little lower and he’s groaning when you carefully dig your knuckles into the skin above his waistband, forcing the tight muscles to yield. He’s limp and unresistant when you catch him by the hip and pull his pelvis in your direction to better align his spine.

Thankfully, you spot an already dirty shirt nearby. You pick it up and wipe your hands on it with a grimace. Most of the vaseline has either ended up on the man currently face down on his bed or had absorbed into your palms, but you still didn’t want to risk tracing it through the house before you slathered your hands in dish soap to remove any oily residue. As a final token of care, you lay the heating pad across his lower back and turn it on the medium setting. You’ve done all you can do for him.

Colt is so still and quiet that you’re sure he’s fallen asleep. You turn away from him and inch towards the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb him while you begin your exit from his apartment and back to your vehicle. You nearly leap out of your skin when he shifts enough to catch hold of your forearm. His hand is so large that his middle finger and thumb nearly touch.

“Please stay.” He sounds tired, vulnerable. There’s no charisma or bravado to his voice.

You feel your face soften as you take in his words. “All right.”

You scoot back towards him and lay down on your back at his side. The bed is barely big enough for the both of you like this. It’s intimate, too intimate, especially since your arm is still in his grasp. You can’t bring yourself to mind. The line between being coworkers and whatever this is was blurred a long time ago anyway despite your best efforts to tell yourself otherwise. You're starting to realize your crewmates might have been more aware than you were. Those assholes.

When Colt rises up onto one elbow and leans over, taking all the time in the world to project his intentions, you don’t turn from him. You just bring a hand up to brush his still damp hair out of his face. You guide the stuntman the rest of the way in, your hand migrates to cup his bearded cheek. The kiss you share is inevitable and unhurried. It feels as natural as breathing.

[waywardmillennial]

SPOILERS FOR PH 7x04

there will be MAJOR spoilers under the cut -- so DO NOT click through if you don't want to see Lore spoilers for the Watcher TV episode from Jan 31, 2025!

okay, if you're buckled up then let's crack in!

After several episodes where the Professor and Ryan have been taking Phorgedytol regularly (given to them by Elmer Walter Williams) Ryan convinces the Professor to skip their dose at the end of 7x04 and they start to remember what happened at the end of season six

and that's when we learn the sad news that Estranged Producer Shane Madej (EPSM) died during the season six wrap party

beautiful memorial video here from @trashworldblog - RIP to a real one

now in the trailer and previous episodes we see EPSM walking down this alleyway but here we also see that he stops and turns to face his unknown assailant - so he knows who did this! (I think this will be important - more on this in a minute)

we see Ryan and the Professor both stunned at what they remember

then we pan over to the memorial for Shane and there are lots of easter eggs that I wanted to point out

first, lmao at Shane's lanky body needing a second urn - and also Boo Buddy!

in the next shot, there's a note from someone (Shawn?) that says "I don't really know what you did at Watcher anyway but we'll miss you. PS [your mom] follows me on IG"

and Lizzie's pink note that reads "To my fellow long white Midwestern Producer. I will never phorget u. ♡ Lizzie" and she spelled forget with the "ph"

OMG! "PH" masks the true name of Phorgedytol (instead of Forget-it-all) but also PH is Puppet History!

(ahem, sorry for that random train of thought interruption - where were we?)

also scattered in the notes are at least two references to Shane owing people money with, "Shane I can't believe that you never paid me back for that In-N-Out WTF Sam" (not 100% on the name) and another that says "This man still owes me $20… with condolences"

and a note with a drawing of the Spirit Box from Ghost Files that reads "You can still star in Ghost Files if you want (but as a ghost)"

(I definitely feel like the Spirit Box will make an appearance again soon)

and I really wanted to point out the note that's presumably from Ryan that says "Haunt me bitch" signed with a heart (!) and the note in front of the newspaper article that reads "Do Not Haunt Ryan"

another note that could also be from Ryan reads "No for real please haunt me. I -"

(and I'm probably glad the end of this note is cut-off or I'd launch myself out a window -- if Ryan was this sad about EPSM and he made himself forget it -- I am crying in the club T_T)

finally we get a look at this newspaper article dated Saturday, August 12, 2023, one day after the PH season six finale, which aired on August 11, 2023

I've transcribed the article below as best I could:

Estranged Puppet History Producer Murdered in the Street Like Dog Los Angeles, CA - In a shocking and tragic turn of events, Shane Madej, the estranged producer of the popular web series Puppet History, was found dead in an alleyway late Saturday night following the show's sixth season wrap party. The discovery has sent shockwaves through Hollywood, with fans and industry insiders reeling from the sudden and mysterious loss of the lanky ghost hunter. A Night of Celebration Turns to Tragedy The evening started out in high spirits as cast, crews, and friends of Puppet History gathered to celebrate the completion of another successful season --2nd column-- remain murky, and the Los Angeles Police Department has yet to release any official statements regarding potential suspects or motives. The investigation is ongoing, and the case has quickly become one of Hollywood's most talked-about unsolved mysteries. Madej's death has rattled the entertainment industry, where he was known not only for his work on Puppet History but also for his contributions to other popular culture at large, such as [hidden] BuzzFeed video "Dogs Watch Television for the First Time.

(it's so funny the article refers to him as a lanky ghost hunter and how this is the most unsolved mystery and that meme dog photo that looks like him hahahaha)

the episode ends with Ryan calling Dorothy Ruth to discover she married Elmer and the Professor wishing they could talk to EPSM, but he's dead, and Ryan says "hypothetically, what if we could"

[ROLL CREDITS]

theory: I think the Spirit Box is going to make an appearance (even better if they used Boo Buddy after all Shane has bullied him imo) to try to contact EPSM, and they'll find out he's in Purgatory with all the puppets that have been sent there and they'll finally be able to rescue them!

I do feel like Elmer has to be behind Shane's murder, even if he's not the one who pulled the trigger, but I don't quite know his motive? we've only been shown he wants to marry Dorothy Ruth but how does that involve EPSM?

and Elmer was really only dosing the Professor and Ryan with Phorgedytol, and maybe some of the other Watcher staff? but Shane's murder was in the news and being investigated by the police?? unless Elmer was really trying to cover it up by pushing the pills on all of Los Angeles and that's why they have the billboards all over town ...

fyi, there was a new billboard spotted in the PH s7 poster that Watcher put on IG yesterday that reads "Phorgedytol - Make Brain go 'MMMMBZZT!'"

maybe the PH buzzer sound?

that's all I have for now! thanks for reading and drop your thoughts and comments in the notes below!

[thefirstknife]

Hello! Another day, another ask from yours truly. I was wondering what the "first knife" is? I've seen a few people mention it in relation to the shot of the veiled figure holding the shard of glass from the launch trailer, and i've never heard of this in lore. But it sounds pretty important, so now I'm curious. Thank you :)

It's referring to one of Unveiling's pages, called The First Knife. So the easiest and shortest answer is: we don't know! :D

But people have been speculating and trying to decipher it for years, as with all things from Unveiling, which I believe is a little bit of a futile thing to try and do because Unveiling is a metaphorical religious text. Essentially. It's been recently strongly implied that this text was written by the Witness pretending to be something else and using its lies and metaphores to convert the Guardians to its side (Unveiling was first released during Shadowkeep, before we knew about the Witness).

In The First Knife page, the author of the text is continuing with the explanation of, basically, how the universe began, through allegorical language. The Gardener and the Winnower argue about how things should be, the Gardener decides to insert itself "into the game" (the universe?) and this makes the Winnower "discover the first knife." It appears to be an allegorical way of saying that concept/idea of violence was invented, essentially. More under for length:

The Winnower appears to represent a specific concept that the Witness is pushing for which we know better as the sword logic: you have prove your right to exist and if you can't, you will be killed and therefore you never mattered at all. The Hive used this philosophy to eradicate countless of species, and so did the Witness with its disciples. This philosophy of winnowing is something that the Witness' species felt like was necessary in the universe to give meaning to everything that exists; there cannot just be the "meaningless" creation of the Gardener, there has to be a Winnower who will enact the violence and cull those that aren't worthy of existing.

The First Knife in that case would be a sort of a symbolical representation of the winnowing and how it all started. This is also referenced again in the lore book Inspiral, from Lightfall, in the page called Winnowing (last two pages of Inspiral read like a continuation of Unveiling):

It is the winnower that discovers the first knife, but it is not done without the gardener. This, too, is a tradition: a knife does not come to exist without something that must be cut. A woody stem, a colored petal, a vital vessel. The first victims of the blade.

It goes on to end the whole lore book with:

There can be no gardens without knives.

Which to me sounds like an attempt to convince us that the universe cannot exist without those that would do what the Witness is doing. That someone has to winnow, someone has to use the knife to cut things away. And to add to that, it could also reflect this idea that all of life is suffering, that there is no meaning to anything anyone does, that most lifeforms aren't worthy of existing and that a winnower in the universe will makes things better. That the universe should be made better by bringing on the final shape.

Seeing that veiled figure (which may be representing the Witness' species) with a shard of glass/rock (?) that looks like a sharp threatening object (knife?) sparked people's imaginations! It could be a representation of this concept, perhaps, or something completely unrelated. But the appearance of the veiled figures is so interesting because until now we've not had any explanation for them, other than their connection to the Pyramids/Darkness.

Now, at least from the few trailer shots, it seems likely that they represent the Witness' species or that they're in some form connected to that or some other symbol from the Witness' time as a civilisation. We've seen them as statues with the Witness' species and in all Pyramids. Curiously, the one in the Witness' flagship Pyramid appears to be tucked away in a hidden room, as if the Witness did not want it in a place of prominence; possibly signifying its attempt to detach itself from its roots? This is my old post about it before we knew of the Witness' origins.

We might find out some concrete information about the veiled figures in TFS; that would be really cool! They've been a sort of a constant since Shadowkeep and have been the cause of many debates and much speculation! Nothing I said here is in any way conclusive or final, naturally.

In any case, that image of the veiled figure with the sharp object could be a representation of a member of the Witness' species with the first knife, symbolically showing us how they discovered the philosophy of winnowing and dedicated themselves to it so completely that it turned the entire civilisation into this malicious angry entity.

A lot of people are also once again speculating that this could be representing the Winnower, a separate entity from the Witness, similar to the Gardener (Traveler). This is something a lot of people expected and wanted ever since Unveiling was revealed which was always a little bit weird to me because Unveiling openly describes itself as an allegory. A lot of people were disappointed that the Witness was shown as our big bad and some still expect there to be something even bigger and badder than the Witness, which I just don't think would make sense or would be beneficial to anything.

The story of Destiny has always been about choice. Repeatedly throughout every piece of information we've been told over and over that Light and Darkness are tools; they do not inherently tell us anything about their wielders. Using the Light does not make you inherently good, as we've seen from the stories of early Lightbearers; bloodthirsty violent Warlords. And more recently, as we've started learning more about Darkness, it repeatedly became apparent that simply using the Darkness does not make you evil; from the creation of the Awoken, through Drifter's Gambit, and all the way to Stasis and Strand and all the extra information about the Darkness and its users throughout the universe, we've known that this isn't an evil force by default. This was fully and completely confirmed in Lightfall; Light and Darkness aren't opposing moral forces, but the Witness desperately thinks they should be so it shapes itself to oppose the Traveler.

So there being a Winnower that governs all of Darkness which is an even bigger enemy to us than the Witness would just be bizarre to me, because Darkness is not inherently anyone's enemy. It's much bigger than that, as a fundamental force of the universe, as much as the Light is; it is our choice to use it that turns it into what it is. Our choices give morality to our tools, not the other way around. I personally really enjoy this because it creates a much richer world where you can't simply point at a Darkness user and say "evil." Darkness as a force of memories and emotions and history and thought and consciousness is so much more interesting to me than there being some evil Winnower. The Witness misinterpreting this and twisting the Darkness into just being "winnowing" is so much more fitting because it's about choice: the Witness' species chose to do that and they were wrong.

The "knife" allegory fits here as well, because a knife is not inherently good or bad; it's about your choice how to use it. The Witness chose to use it as a weapon.

Obviously, as I said before, none of this is final or complete. And who knows? It's possible that some information may be revealed in the future that turns everything upside down again and maybe there is another entity somewhere. But I'm mostly interested in the stuff we do know, rather than "what if" speculations simply because if we go by that, we could make any option sound true and plausible.

Also, in one of the early lore pieces, a grimoire from D1 which is from the POV of the Traveler, also mentions this imagery of a knife:

The knife had a million blades. And you were giant, powerful and swift. But the knife pinned you. Cut your godly flesh away. ... The knife stole much more than your body.

This is the Traveler most likely recounting the Collapse. The whole "knife" thing has been mentioned a lot throughout the lore, though only in these fairly metaphorical pieces. However, people have been looking into it for a long time and Unveiling turned this whole thing into a big debate and point of speculation. Inspiral reignited it 4 years later and now we also got this brief little snippet from the trailer so everyone is out here losing it and will continue losing it until we finally play. I am honestly hoping that some of this will never be fully explained and that some of it will always remain in this state of almost religious metaphor.

So long answer? We still don't know. But it's something people love thinking about and debating so this is why everyone is discussing it and how it might relate to that phrase, "the first knife." A lot more could be said as well, probably triple the size of this post.

Highly recommend (re)reading Unveiling, but also Inspiral and TFS CE. Unveiling remains my favourite lore book of all time, because to me, it only gains in its brilliance the more people question it. It's such a unique piece of writing that can be a complete lie, a complete truth, or something in between, depending on who you ask. It's a mythology without full context, a religious text and propaganda, possibly with some truth sprinkled in. And we may never know which pieces of the text are which. Perfect.

[natlacentral]

As ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Debuts To Strong Audience On Netflix, Creative Team Looks Ahead To Expanding Live-Action Adaptation

The results are in, and Netflix‘s Avatar: The Last Airbender seems to be a hit. 

The live action adaptation topped the streamer’s weekly English-language TV list with 21.2M views in its opening weekend. According to Netflix, it reached the Top 10 in 92 countries. It was edged out as most-watched title of the week by the Swedish natural disaster film The Abyss.

That’s a strong showing for the eight-episode series, which was another big swing for Netflix as it continues to dip its toes into anime-inspired content. In fact, Avatar managed to surpass One Piece in its debut weekend.

As with One Piece, Netflix was firing on all cylinders to launch the series, partnering with Serena Williams and even taking over the Las Vegas Sphere. So far, the Avatar global social campaign has reached 1.53B impressions, which is on par with both One Piece as well as Netflix’s hit series Wednesday. The main trailer alone has amassed 85M views to-date, while the #AvatarTheLastAirbender hashtag has generated 1B global views on TikTok in the past week.

Avatar marks Netflix’s second successful live-action anime adaptation, after a rocky start in the genre with its adaptation Shinichirō Watanabe‘s anime classic Cowboy Bebop. While die-hard fans of any animated series are likely to have a few things to say about their live-action counterparts, the streamer appears to be finding a groove when it comes to how to bring these stories to life on the small screen. 

“We’re trying to make a show for the most viewers possible. That doesn’t mean that there’s anything we’re gonna leave behind from the animated series. There’s not more purposeful deviations in order to make it acceptable for a broader audience,” Avatar executive producer and director Jabbar Raisani told Deadline. “I think it’s really attempting to be as faithful as humanly possible to the animated series, but also knowing that we have to fit it into this eight-episode, driving narrative that keeps us streaming.”

Other than missing story elements, which are obviously necessary when adapting from a 20-episode animated season of TV, one of the larger changes audiences might notice is the tone. 

“There inherently has to be a tonal shift as you’re moving towards live action, because things that work in anime won’t necessarily work with real people,” Raisani explained.

While animation can often boast a more exaggerated tone, that isn’t as possible when it comes to live action. 

“One of the things I did, specifically thinking of directing, was just working with the actors on different versions of the take. So with Sokka, with his humor, for example, we would do a version that was the flattest read, and then we would get more and more big and campy and over the top,” Raisani said. “Ian was great at giving a range. That allowed us in post to say, ‘Okay, let’s go funny’ or ‘We can go bigger’ or ‘Oh, man is now starting to break the tone and it feels cartoony. It doesn’t feel like he’s in the same show as everybody else.'”

Something viewers may notice remains faithful to the animated series is the dynamic camera movements, many of which came directly from the source material. 

Raisani described an Episode 4 scene where Aang backflips over a boulder. Not only does the scene come from the animated series, so does the shot used to capture it. 

“I literally just looked at the animated frame [and said], ‘Okay, we want to make this literal frame but with real people,” he said. 

It’s a bit preemptive to say whether the series will end up among Netflix’s most popular, since the series will have a 91-day premiere window and would need more than 83M views to achieve the feat. However, it certainly bodes well for a renewal. The good news is that the creative team appears to be chomping at the bit to expand the story and address anything that might have been missing from Season 1. 

“There’s stuff that we filmed that I love that isn’t in the show. There’s stuff that I love the idea of that we filmed and it just didn’t fit,” Raisani said. As a fan of the original animated series himself, he knows that audiences might be yearning for more than what they were able to fit into the first season.

“If we get another season, then we will certainly have those things, because I know what we missed now and I know how to do better the second time around,” he said, adding: “The animated series is a really good guide…for where the show can go.”

More specifically, Raisani said he’s already exploring new ways to shoot scenes that involve bending that would give the actor more agency on set and, in turn, make the final product feel more organic. He pointed to fire bending as one of the trickier elements to master, explaining that each actor had a light on their hands to emulate the fire, but they weren’t able to manipulate it themselves, which presented some restrictions. 

“If they could trigger their own bending… I think we would have a more seamless product,” he mused. “So stuff like that you’ve just got to try it and then you learn and then you do it again, but better than last time.”

[ub4q]

Our messy relationships & revolution visual novel Amarantus is out now!

(warning the launch trailer below has one (1) mildly NSFW shot)

Features

A defined and illustrated player character with his own personality, affected by and responsive to your choices

Four unique party members to befriend, betray, woo or wingman

The potential for romantic, platonic, sexual, antagonistic, and polyamorous relationships with different party members

No premature bad endings: every choice affects your playthrough, without ending it

A single playthrough takes 3-4 hours, multiple playthroughs required to uncover the truth

Unlockable graphic inserts by award-winning comic artist Hien Pham

Dynamic and immersive sound design underscored by original post-rock soundtrack

Get it now on Steam & itch.io.

[canmom]

knife missile simulator 2024

played through Children of the Sun by René Rother - thanks to @teitomonogatari for the rec! Here's a trailer:

...wait, hold on, that's not right. here's a trailer:

I was hoping for a game that would scratch that Neon White itch, and... kinda?

What we have is a sorta... sniping-based puzzle game is a decent way to describe it. It's a game of clearing a field of enemies with one bullet - feasible because you can steer this bullet with your miiiiind. Every time you hit an enemy you can launch the bullet in a new direction; later you gain the power to steer the bullet in flight with certain restrictions. At the end of the level you get a nice linear visualisation of the path of your bullet, tracing out some kinda crazy zigzag.

This is not really a game about stealth. Your enemies are totally helpless - later they don armour and even generate their own psychic shields, but there is really fuck all they can do to stop the bullet taking them all out in a matter of (without the slowmo) seconds. What it brings to mind to me is the 'knife missiles' from Iain M Banks's Culture novels, both in how the bullet moves and how completely unstoppable it is as a weapon.

Narratively, this is the story of a psychic girl who was raised by an American cult and is now on a one-woman revenge mission to kill every member and finally its leader. The exact beliefs and practices of this cult kind of left vague, but the leader wears a distinctive beard and sunglasses and there's suggestion of human sacrifices and maybe sexual violence depending on how you intepret a particular dream sequence. Probably the major inspiration is the infamous Jonestown, though history furnishes us with no shortage of other possibilities.

As far as the cult theming goes... as this kinda wanky guy says, it is honestly pretty superficial and tends to pull its punches. Given that this is mostly a solo dev effort (with the exception of some illustrations and the dynamic music), it's understandable that it can only go so far with narrative elements - thus we get fragmented comic-like memories wrapped in heavy glitch effects.

Honestly, the main issue that I have as a story is that it didn't seem to be saying anything new - the cult are pretty much stock villains, and while there are some suggestions that the girl gets off on killing and so on, it doesn't really give you that much to get invested in about her as a character. The final twist, in which the cultists appoint her their new leader, mostly merits a 'oh, ok sure lmao'.

As a story about an abusive cult, I think part of the reason it stumbles is that the player is only ever in a situation of overwhelming power. With only vague snatches of what the cult did before the start of the game, you don't really get much of a sense of 'these bastards' - they are more like walking targets. But the game doesn't seem interested in going further with showing your effects on your victims either.

Rather than say more about that, I want to comment on the mechanics. The comparison to Neon White makes a lot of sense: both are games about optimising a route through 3D space with certain restrictions. Both require you to hit every enemy, and exploit those enemies to reach places you otherwise couldn't.

And this is a scoreboard game; it has a fairly involved scoring system factoring in where you hit the enemies, distance travelled by your bullet, time and various other factors. It's not an incredibly hard game - I placed within a few thousand of the top of the leaderboard on most levels, and within the top 100 or even top 10 on a couple, generally speaking just by getting lots of headshots and maintaining my multiplier streak. It usually took a decent number of tries to clear, though, because it is quite a fiddly game - especially with the time pressure, an enemy might move slightly causing you to miss them by a few pixels, or you might slightly screw up the angle and be unable to make a curve shot, etc. etc. Admittedly this is because I tried to play for score from the start - if I had taken my time more and aimed for centre of mass, I'd probably have cleared each level sooner.

Compared to Neon White, where the basic route is usually pretty obvious even if shortcuts aren't, figuring out a viable route is also a challenge here. Conveniently, you can mark the locations of each enemy and it also auto-tags one if you kill it on any given attempt, so you don't have to remember enemy placements, and there is also a pretty informative crosshair which can confirm when you're pointing at a valid target. So, in each run, you gradually figure out more of your path: 'that guy, that guy, go over there to get distance for an armour piercing shot, then those two guys' etc. etc., then keep trying until you nail it.

Neon White's predictability was a huge point in its favour as a speedrunning game - if you screw up, it was nearly always be due to a fumbled input rather than bad luck, and you could rely on enemy placements regardless of your pace. Children of the Sun is also pretty deterministic... but it features a number of enemies who move on cycles or patrol routes, meaning several levels involved waiting for enemies to reach the right position to take your shot, waiting for gaps in moving trains, etc etc. It's usually not a huge obstacle, but the variations caused by small differences in timing added to the sense of 'agh nearly had it'. And since there is no music per se, but musical sounds associated with your actions in game, it doesn't have the same continuous 'flow' when you try a level over and over.

Possibly the reason for these timing-based levels is that it needs them to provide depth, because in general, movement here is much more straightforward. There is no gravity: your bullet travels in a straight line and can squeeze through the tiniest gaps, so generally if your crosshair says you will hit, you will only miss if an enemy moves.

Neon White's movement is in significant part about verticality and gravity: many of your movement tools give you options to gain height or cancel a fall. White's default state is to fall downwards unless he's on a platform; the bullet's default state is to go in a straight line, no matter what.

Additionally, in Neon White there is no slomo, but you can have moments of parabolic motion where you have a chance to line up your next dash or jump. Children of the Sun on the other hand has multiple speeds of slow motion: when the bullet is in flight, when you are aiming, and when you are adjusting trajectory, time advances at different rates. These are very necessary: you'd need esports level flick aiming skills to play the game otherwise. But the sense of speed and rhythm came across a lot more strongly in Neon White.

Why make such a point by point comparison? I'm thinking about this because the THRUST//DOLL project involved a very similar style of movement to the bullet: you pivot with the mouse and click to accelerate in a particular direction. My plan was to have you dodging patterns of moving bullets, but I'm starting to see this would be even more annoyingly hard to predict than the slow-moving cars and trains in Children of the Sun, forcing the player to rely heavily on slomo - which would in turn undercut the sense of speed.

A lot of Neon White's sense of rhythm came from the fact that you didn't have to think too hard about the next place to go. It was often possible to complete levels, and even score a gold, with just one or a few tries. Getting the boxes was more puzzle-y, but generally speaking involved making a plan and executing it - I'll get this weapon from here and jump from here - once you already had all the info.

Meanwhile, Children of the Sun is, at least the way I played it, more about feeling out the route with trial and error, and carefully lining up your mouse while time mostly stands still. Which can totally work - I did complete the game! - but was a different vibe.

One thing I didn't do here was unlock all the challenges. There is a challenge in each level, and each one has a vague hint suggesting what you have to do to get it - typically shooting through particular things or blowing up specific targets. But you only get confirmation when you actually do it, so you need to either mess around until you figure it out, with no indication as to whether you're on the right track, or else look up a guide. The challenges give a decent point bonus so they're important to exploit if you want to get the really high scores. I kind of understand why they took this approach - otherwise it seems like a bit of a box-ticking exercise - but after solving the levels I never felt much inclination to go back and look for the challenge trigger, the way I liked to go back and search for the boxes in Neon White.

The final level of Children of the Sun is something like two levels rolled into one. You have to kill the outer enemy group, which removes a shield covering the inner enemy group, which removes a shield covering the boss. In practice this meant: I had to do the first half of the level many times, with the same strategy every time, occasionally messing up, until I figured out the second part... which naturally involved a bunch of tricky shots and unclear routing. It's the classic problem of a multi-phase boss or a long level without checkpoints.

I don't usually find this bothersome, and I think the reason is that usually there's still room to tighten up your execution of the first phase, and when you get good at it, you can knock it off really quickly and you get the fun feeling of doing something really sick. By contrast, once I'd figured out my route through the first set of guys, there was not much more to learn: I continued to shoot them in the same way. Maybe it's just that the first shot was really annoyingly precise!

The real lesson for me: it's pretty essential for games like this to keep their levels short. But it was fine in the end, I got the bastards >:)

Overall... Children of the Sun was definitely a diverting five hours, and it's definitely interesting to see an implementation of a mechanic I was trying, but I feel like it didn't quite work for me the way Neon White did. Still - I appreciate the rec! I'm always glad to see a game with a unique mechanic and aesthetic, it's a very impressive showing for a largely one-dev project, and I'm excited to see what he comes up with next.

[denimbex1986]

'Saving Kylie Minogue from a bridge was not in Colum Sanson-Regan's plans when he turned up as a Doctor Who extra.

But David Tennant was not around, so someone had to do it, and producers thought Colum looked like the doctor.

"I've saved Kylie, flown the Tardis, held the screwdriver and had Billie Piper look deep into my eyes and tell me how much she loved me," joked Colum.

"I asked the producer 'Why am I putting on the doctor's suit? They replied 'Well, David Tennant isn't in'.

Now a father of two, Colum was earning some extra cash before his first child was born.

"I didn't know what was going on," recalled Colum of when he arrived on the set but was ushered past the "cold bus" where the extras usually hang around and was shown to a posh trailer.

The 10th Doctor had to leave the set for the 2007 Christmas special Voyage of the Damned, and producers needed a Tennant-alike for some extra shots showing his back.

So they improvised and Colum, then 31, stepped in to the suit synonymous with the Doctor since the world's longest running sci-fi TV show rebooted on the BBC in 2005.

Colum, now 46, had been asked by producers to be on set early but he had no inkling that his time (lord) had come.

"All of a sudden I was standing with the suit there, and I was handed a script and told 'You're gonna need this'," recalled Colum. "I was thinking pinch me, what's going on?

"Then I went for a haircut and a little Australian lady passed me dressed in a French maid outfit and said hello. I did a double take and realised I was there with Kylie Minogue."

The Australian singer and actor was a Doctor Who superfan and had asked for a part, which was humanoid waitress Astrid Peth, a one-off companion of the doctor.

"I was a bit star struck, for sure," he admitted.

His first work in Voyage of the Damned - where a starship replica of the Titanic is on collision course with Earth - was an action-packed scene where killer robot angels launched a deadly attack.

"There was a bridge, and the killer robot angels were trying to shoot, so I had to stop Kylie from falling over," recalled Colum.

"I had to hang on to her and pull her back from a precipice. That was the first thing I had to do in the morning."

The author and musician had a gig with his band that weekend in Leicester. As Kylie almost sang, he couldn't get it out of his head that he had worked with her - and we should all be so lucky.

"We got in the car and I said to my bandmates, guess who I've been working with this week?" said Colum, who lives near Cardiff.

"We'd been driving for almost two hours and had nearly hit Birmingham and they still hadn't guessed. I had to tell them! They're like 'absolutely no way'. It was so bizarre."

To Colum's pleasant surprise, producers were so happy with his work and lookalike skills, they asked him to play the Doctor again in the 2008 episode Journey's End - this time as his clone in the final episode of the fourth series.

That meant he had to be in the same scenes with Tennant, Billie Piper, John Barrowman and Catherine Tate, making her final appearance as a regular.

"I got to fly the Tardis in Journey's End," recalled Colum, who is originally from the Republic of Ireland.

"Everybody was gathered around the central console of the Tardis. We all had to have our hands on the machine and flying controls. Everybody was on that episode. There was a real buzz.

"I got to hold the screwdriver - they were very protective and kept taking it off me."

Colum was then involved in an emotional scene where Rose Tyler, played by Piper, had to say her final goodbyes to the doctor.

"It was an amazing and surreal experience.

"The nicest thing I have to take away was getting to work near David Tennant. I loved it. He was a thoroughly lovely, lovely guy and so professional. I think that was my favourite thing about the whole crazy time."

This weekend sees Tennant and Tate back together for Doctor Who, reprising their roles as the Doctor and Donna Noble in The Star Beast on BBC One on Saturday evening - but Colum will be back on his sofa with his family at home.

Husband to Kerry, singer and guitarist of band Goose, a creative writing lecturer and author of books like The Fly Guy, The Tall Owl and Other Stories, Colum has limited time for more extra work - especially after having his own trailer as the doctor's double.

"I'm looking forward to the show on Saturday with the return of some fantastic actors," added Colum.

"As a fan, working on the show was incredible and it's only strengthened my love for Doctor Who."'

[etaleah]

My Sonic Predictions and Hopes for 2024

Admittedly some of these are things I want to see happen rather than things that are likely to happen, but what the heck, I’ll list ‘em out and see if any of them end up coming true. 🤷🏻‍♀️

A one-shot for the comics involving either springtime or Valentine’s Day. I think spring is more likely since (1) they’re avoiding romance and Valentine’s Day is a romantic holiday, and (2) having a springtime one-shot nicely follows the trend of having Endless Summer and Winter Special one-shots.

I’m pretty pessimistic about the third movie still happening in 2024 given how stubborn the studios are being about the strikes, so I’m guessing the release date will be pushed back to 2025. However, I do think 2024 will bring us a trailer/teaser with some news about casting and whether any new characters besides Shadow will feature.

Part 3 of Sonic Prime, which will likely involve something bad happening to Shadow for reasons explained here. PLEASE LET THIS ONE BE TRUE I NEED PART 3 NOW

A DLC, update, or some kind of “Plus” pack for Sonic Superstars since that seems to be the trend now.

I doubt we’ll see much more for Frontiers since it won’t really be a new game anymore and will have already had a big update. Maybe a few minor tweaks like a new outfit or pair of shoes.

A new Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games title since 2024 will have the Paris Olympics.

More Sonic Symphony tour dates, one of them probably being New York since that’s a really big city for them to leave out.

More merchandise, possibly featuring Shadow to tie in with the third movie.

The Knuckles TV show released on DVD (hopefully).

The comics will take a darker turn again. They seem to alternate between dark, serious arcs and fun, light-hearted arcs. Right now, they’re on Misadventures, which is fun and light-hearted, so I suspect that at some point in 2024, things will turn serious again.

I also suspect that Starline might be revealed to have survived after all, but that could just be wishful thinking on my part since I like his character and was sad to see such a cool villain go so quickly.

Another visual novel or some kind of storybook thing that builds on the success of Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. No way is something that successful gonna be a one-time deal.

A remaster or re-release/port of an older game. The titles I think are most likely are Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes, and Sonic and the Black Knight. Adventure 2 would tie nicely into the release of the third movie (especially if they’re adapting its storyline) and they clearly know how popular it is since they released a new figure for it and put City Escape in one of their other games. Heroes is possible since it’s 20+ years old, had some songs included in Frontiers, and the franchise as a whole seems to be leaning toward having more playable characters and team/partner-based play. Murder and Superstars lean into this hard, Origins added Amy, and Frontiers will soon have other playable characters too, so I think they’re testing the waters for a game with an ensemble cast. The launch of the Fast Friends comic series on their socials also shows a lean in this direction. Black Knight is possible since 2024 would be the game’s 15th anniversary, the storybook setup was well received in Murder, and they seem to be calling attention to it by putting its characters in their mobile games.

Again, these are just guesses and I could be wrong about all of them. We shall see… 👀

[goombasa]

Penny's Big Breakaway Makes Me So Happy

So about a month ago (more like a month and a half by the time this post actually goes up), a game by the studio Evening Star (made up of the same folks who helped to make Sonic Mania) called Penny's Big Breakaway dropped.

The minute I saw the first trailer for this game, it immediately got my attention for being a bright and colorful 3D platformer that wasn't a collect-a-thon, with movement that reminded me of a mix of Mario precision and Sonic speed, like a potential Gamecube platformer that never got released. And when it dropped on Switch, it was an immediate grab for me, and I am so glad I did, because this is a game that really makes me feel like I'm back in high school again, in the best way possible.

It's a linear, straightforward platformer, with each world broken up into 3-5 individual levels, each level a straight shot from the beginning to the end. While making your way through the stage, you can earn points for destroying objects, and stringing together combinations of movement options without touching the ground. It's kind of like a Tony Hawk game, where you can manual to keep a combo chain going. You can do the same thing by riding your yo-yo before hitting the ground. You can also find three hidden tokens and three side jobs in each stage.

The tokens are used to purchase bonus levels, which are usually short, challenging stints that will test you on a specific move or combo, while the side jobs are usually very basic delivery or collection quests, or occasionally a combo challenge. Sometimes any of these tasks can also have a time limit associated with them. You not only get a point bonus for each one completed, but you also get more opportunities for a bigger ‘Busker Bonus’ at the end of a stage for each one of the side jobs you complete. It's an interesting way to give you some secondary tasks to complete without requiring the player to be aware of them for an entire level.

But the real strength of the game comes from the fact that you can essentially play it two different ways. You can play it as a gentle, fun, casual platformer where you can take your time and be precise as you need to be. Your score is going to be lower, but because there's no real penalty for not getting a good score, other than not hitting the level's target score, taking the game slow and gentle is a totally viable option, especially since some of the yo-yo combinations can take some getting used to.

But once you DO get used to the controls and how to properly string together all of the moves at your disposal, this game can become very different. It is absolutely exhilarating to dash through the stage as quickly as possible while at the same time keeping your combo up, and then landing at the very top of the platform at the end to get the best Busker Bonus possible. The ability to jump, spin in the air to keep yourself in the air a bit longer, hover the Yo-yo to swing on it like a vine, AND launch yourself forward through the air with it, all in a single string, in whatever order you choose, feels great! Combine that with trampolines, the ability to ride on your Yo-yo like some kind of mounted steed make this a game that I can see a lot of potential in for speedruns and trick runs in the future.

Touching on the story a bit, it's mostly just an excuse plot, but I mean that in a good way. The game knows that its story doesn't have to be a focal point, and it gives you a nice little tale about performers who want to be in the spotlight or are trying hard to keep themselves in the spotlight. It's not complex or complicated, but it's fun and heartfelt and the various characters you interact with are entertaining and endearing, helped a lot by some very great and appealing character designs. The game has a very simple style that lends itself well to silhouettes for each of the major characters.

The more whimsical character design reminds me a lot of a more angular Mario-esque character design, while the level designs are definitely more similar to a Sonic game, there's no question about it, with every stage peppered with ramps, and half pipes, and long, angular roads, and ziplines that send you flying off at a good speed. Make no mistake though, this isn't a direct clone of either series, Penny has its own unique feel, and it's simple moveset allows for a lot of fun combinations.

We've been seeing a lot of 3D platformers as of late that have been putting together some really interesting movement mechanics in their movesets; Pseudoregalia, Goat Game, and Blue Fire to name just a few, and PBB fits in right alongside them as a game that is fun to play casually, and only gets more fun as you get more experimental and daring with the movement options it gives you. While the stages might not be as open as the other games I've mentioned, you still have plenty of options and means of not only flying through the levels super faster, but also getting really creative with skipping large chunks of land if you're careful and precise enough.

I mean this as the highest compliment, this feels like a Gamecube platformer that we never got. It feels real great to play, and it is well worth your time. The main campaign is a bit on the short side (there are a lot of stages, and bonus stages, but unless you're taking your time, they aren't going to last super long), but this is a game that is infinitely replayable, and encourages you to try and set as high a score as possible every time you play through a stage.

Penny's Big Breakaway is currently available on Steam and all major consoles. I happened to grab it on Switch, where it plays great, though the loading times are abysmal. I haven't tried it on other platforms, so I can't speak as to whether this is an issue on that one platform or not, but I'd encourage you all to get it on whatever platformer you prefer, as it is well worth it regardless of how you play it. It's just a fun time all around.

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (June 11-17, 2023)

Tsuburaya Productions released a five-minute trailer for Ultraman Blazar, focused on the human cast. Between this and the unveiling of a bunch of the monsters (a combination of originals and some deep cuts), it continues to look extremely promising.

Toho launched a Twitter account for their next Godzilla film on June 12. It's been counting down all the "core" (live-action and Toho-produced) entries in the series at the rate of one per day, starting with Shin Godzilla. Presumably, they'll reveal the poster, title, and maybe more for the new one at the end (so July 11). The way they're doing this also lends credibility to the rumored Godzilla Zero title.

Hoshi 35, Megumi Odaka's triumphant return to movies, released a trailer, poster, and a bunch of stills (gathered on Wikizilla). Alas, no shots of the daikaiju in the trailer, just the baby.

Bandai's finally going to be producing Ultraman toys for the U.S., with the first wave focused on the animated Netflix movie due next year.

For those of you headed to G-Fest next month, the full schedule is out, and they finally announced the Friday and Saturday movies at the Pickwick: Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla and Godzilla (2014), respectively. King Kong Escapes will also replace Shin Ultraman on Thursday. Dunno if I'll go to GXMG (I just rewatched it before the Tokyo SOS Fathom Event), but I'm lunging at the chance to see G14 properly-lit and with booming sound. They showed it in 2017 too and it was a blast. For the hotel's film festival, the big title of interest is Yuzo the Biggest Battle in Tokyo, a Yoshikazu Ishii joint set during the pandemic. And if you haven't caught Iké Boys yet, that's playing twice (very much before the audience it was intended for).

Also, go to my friend Alana's panel about designing kaiju gijinkas for cosplay (Saturday at 1). If you've been to either of the past two cons, you probably remember her Mothra costumes, and we're both working on a bunch more for this year.

Oh yeah, and there's a third North American kaiju con, Super G, starting up in the fall... well, sort of. It might be better termed a convention within a convention (Northern National Collectors’ Convention). September 29-October 1 in Windsor, Canada, right on the Michigan border. Not many specifics yet, but the press release says, "Super G will offer fans a variety of guest celebrities and artists, direct from Japan and around the world, who worked on Kaiju franchises making either their first-ever or first-Canadian convention appearances. Inclusion opportunities feature program panels, contests, experiences, theatrical showings, collectables, cosplay, and more."

I haven't been keeping up with Godziban's multi-episode collaboration with Televi-Kun—seems like pretty routine stuff—but then they had to pay homage to Sharknado in the newest installment. I knew, of course, that this day would eventually come. Now which one of you said sharknadoes weren't kaiju back when I was unhealthily obsessed with that series?

[vendily-blog]

Mario & Luigi: Brothership Announcement Trailer Analysis

Okay okay, I'm done with making gifs for right now. I still can't believe it's real. And releasing in November too.

As per usual, everything goes under a read more.

So first things first. The Brothership.

It seems to be a floating island, and brings to mind the Starship Mario (the "Faceship") from Mario Galaxy 2.

At the front of the ship is the cannon, which the brothers use to launch to other islands, as you can see the sail and the cliffs behind it in this shot.

I wonder if this means we'll get a slightly less linear adventure, since there's clearly a selection for islands using the telescope mounted to the cannon.

If so, I wonder if it'll be a world map type thing, where completing an island gets you the path forward to more islands (Galaxy 2 style), or a central hub style, where you upgrade the ship to reach farther islands (Galaxy 1 style). It could go either way honestly, and there's not enough evidence either way to say yet.

What I do have evidence of, is the selection screen for different overworld Bros Moves! The Japanese trailer is very slightly different from the English one, and we get a much clearer view of the icons before they use the UFO spin one.

So it seems that Bros. Ball is back! It doesn't quite look like Ball Hop from Dream Team, it has little speed lines, so I think it really is the version of the move from Partners in Time!

We can also see there's at least 1 more action yet to be unlocked. Maybe it's a burrow action?

Speaking of UI, there's a few shortcuts in the corner. Interestingly, the top two options, a thinking bubble and a golden pipe, don't appear in the middle screenshot, which may be from early game, given the low coin counts (2201 coins, 98 coins, and 476 coins respectively). A hint system, Return to Brothership, and your normal menu to adjust gear and use items perhaps?

Speaking of currency, there's 2 of them in the game.

Seems like magic sparkles, and standard coins.

Sparkles might be used to upgrade the ship? We see in other shots that Connie seems to be a gardener of sorts and the ship is partially organic.

She has this seed or lightbulb shaped symbol on her head and there's other garden equipment here, like the trowel.

Speaking of important characters, Princess Peach being here is a fun surprise!

It seems the the Princess also ended up in this otherworld too, but not at the same time as the brothers, as she's picked up her own crew, and Dorrie. I wonder if she'll join along on the Brothership once you find her, or if she has her own adventure during the course of the story (sort of like Minion Quest/Bowser Jr.'s Journey from the Superstar Saga and Bower's Inside Story remakes).

It's also interesting that Bowser's here. He might not be behind this plot if the princess is here, he's not one to go sending Peach to alternative dimensions. Maybe he's followed them here because the Princess disappeared.

And perhaps a bit of fighting with the bros for good measure. It seems he fires upon the Brothership here, but he might not be working with the Extension Corps.

They share the same electrical theming as the other NPCs we've seen so far and their plot seems to revolve around these odd generators, which we can also see in the pre-bossfight intro here.

I suppose their plot might involve powering something. Or maybe they're taking something from these generators, given they seem to be spread out.

On the topic of battles though, either we get stat upgrades through food items, like the various coffees from Superstar Saga, or we get random rolls back (maybe both) because there's some variation in the stats of the bros at times between the JP and EN trailers.

Left is from the English video and right is from the Japanese one during the Headphone Jack Corp Boss. Which is odd, because every other part of the videos has tried its hardest to be identical save for the language change.

Same deal for the Gorumbla boss. Left English, Right Japanese.

It just seems like a rather odd decision to do the boss on different levels for the video, so that's why I think the fluctuation is from random rolls. But there could still be a cooking system, as we have this shot of the brothers and they may be in a kitchen of sorts?

I have other questions for the battle system too. We never see any battle action selection so it's hard to say in any particular way, but all the attacks we see seem to be duo attacks.

This Hammer move has an extra effect, "Kaboom Attack" but I don't know if it's an effect of the Bros. attack (it'll always do this) or a special effect of an equipped hammer for instance (much like how you could equip gear that allows you to stomp on spiked foes or spawn a spike ball to do extra damage afterwards).

On the overworld, it seems like Luigi is the one to come up with ideas? The Exclamation mark that denotes Luigi interaction is slightly shaped like an L, both in the animation and in the overworld afterwards.

Luigi retains this green glow whenever he's currently doing a Luigi action for lack of a better term.

It visually reminds me of Luiginary Works in Dream Team. I'm not sure if it's specifically a mechanic in the plot (Much like Dreamy Luigi was), or just a tool to show you Luigi is preoccupied.

(Also yes, Hammer on X and Y again, I missed that so much.)

Anyway rapid fire random thoughts before I stop.

I like the Mario Odyssey inspired Mushroom Kingdom, with the towers around the main castle.

I suppose the plot starts because they're just such good bros to each other, but that doesn't quite explain why Princess Peach and Bowser are here? I also don't see much involving this odd sparkle hand power outside the intro, but it just seems too important to ignore.

I like the one off movement abilities, just like how you had climbing pipes in Superstar Saga or the bike pads/gonzola.

[satoshi-mochida]

Narrative wartime RPG Long Gone Days launches October 10 for PS5, Xbox Series, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC

Gematsu Source

Narrative-focused wartime RPG Long Gone Days will leave Early Access and launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC via Steam and more on October 10 for $24.99, publisher Serenity Forge and developer This I Dreamt announced.

Long Gone Days first launched in Early Access for PC via Steam, Humble Store, Itch.io, and Game Jolt on March 28, 2018.

Here is an overview of the game, via Serenity Forge:

Rourke’s life was always predetermined. As a child of The Core, he was chosen from birth to be a sniper. Just like that, training for this role became his world. But on his first mission, he realizes that the war he’s been training for his entire life isn’t what it seems, and everything changes. Rourke never anticipated being called a deserter, but there has to be a way to stop this war and end the bloodshed: https://serenityforge.com/games/long-gone-days In Long Gone Days, embark on a journey where you will grapple with numerous real-world complexities, including an intricate web of language barriers. Every encounter becomes a pivotal moment, as the ripples of your choices extend to shape the fates of those around you. Can you rise above these formidable barriers, forging connections that transcend linguistic confines, or will the unforgiving grasp of warfare shatter the fragile bonds you endeavor to build? The answers lie in your hands, as you navigate a narrative that delves deep into the essence of shared humanity. Unfortunately, peace is elusive in Long Gone Days, and Rourke’s expertise as a sniper frequently comes into play. Spot and take down targets from afar or engage up-close in strategic, turn-based combat where specific parts of an enemy’s body can be targeted. Rourke’s shots will change the world and plot of Long Gone Days. Explore diverse cities, meet grounded, realistic characters and make choices that will change lives when Long Gone Days launches.

Watch a new trailer below. View a new set of screenshots at the gallery.

Release Date Trailer