#the fact that their own wants and desires often clash with the player's is THE POINT

[skyfire45]

an addition, if i may

toby fox: makes a character that very clearly has their own identity separate from the player by on two different occasions having the character go off and do things on their own independent from any and all player input, and to ignore that this character is separate from the player would be to ignore every single theme this character is supposed to embody as well as a large chunk of their characterization

the fandom: ima call this character that is only called they in the source material "he". "he's" Obviously supposed to be a self insert, this is just My interpretation of the character! I understand the source material and what its trying to say about identity, control, and free will completely

toby fox: alright im gonna nonbinary this character

the fandom: this character is non-nonbinary. not agender but instead A Gender™

[goodqueenaly]

I can’t wait to see Arya’s storyline in TWOW (among other reasons) because I feel like GRRM is setting up tension coming to a head with a long-running theme for her - that is, disguise and identity.

Of course, Arya’s narrative has incorporated this theme for a very long time, indeed from the very first book. Long before she had any desire or need to adopt a false identity, Arya was being mistaken for an urchin boy at the Red Keep, while the first book ended with her disappearing into the common crowd at her father’s execution. Ever since, Arya has often adopted or been forced to adopt alternate identities: while most of the world believes that Arya Stark died during the purge of the Stark household in King’s Landing, the real Arya has traveled across the Riverlands and on to Braavos, mistaken by any number of onlookers as merely another child. Nor has this tension decreased in Braavos, where Arya’s ostensible professional role as a trainee of the Faceless Men - an organization that identifies (or, rather, non-identifies) its assassins as “no one”, and which disguises its members both sartorially and supernaturally - clashes with her personal thoughts and desires. 

So as TWOW opens for Arya, we see an even greater increase in this tension between disguise and true identity with her very first chapter, as “Mercy”. Once again, Arya has taken on a new cover identity with the Faceless Men - but this time, that cover even more explicitly embodies this conflict. As “Mercy”, Arya works at a playhouse, even getting the chance to act in its latest show (albeit in a minor role). The Gate’s very existence as a business literally depends on false identities: patrons come to its shows to see the players adopt roles they and the actors both know are not their real selves. Nor is this any random story Izembaro is staging, but a drama pointedly (if sometimes quite loosely) based on recent events in Westeros, events that directly involved and concerned Arya’s family and people she knew personally; indeed, Arya’s role in the play may even have been partially based on her own sister. Having hidden the true identity of Arya the Westerosi noble girl, once at King Robert’s court, behind the cover of “Mercy” the mummer girl, Arya is now, as Mercy, taking on the identity of a Westerosi girl at King Robert’s court. Everyone at the Gate, moreover, is very much aware that she is not the nameless Westerosi maiden, nor will she truly be raped by the real Tyrion Lannister; this is a dramatic disguise, happily recognized as false by all onlookers.

Nor does the conflict of disguise and identity end there. While the Gate audience and Arya’s fellow Mummers readily accept that Arya is not her role in The Bloody Hand, only she and (presumably) Izembaro know that she is not “Mercy” but really an acolyte of the Faceless Men - and, of course, of the two of them only Arya knows that she is in fact Arya of House Stark. This is not the first instance of Arya’s personal character coming through her Faceless Men disguises (having killed Dareon the Night’s Watch deserter while Cat of the Canals, and having used her skinchanging ability as Beth to pass the kindly man’s test), but it is the first time that Arya specifically weaponizes her Faceless Men disguise to achieve a goal she has as Arya Stark: using Mercy’s giggly personality and (almost) maiden age, as well as the sexualization of (and sexual predation on) mummer girls she had heard of and herself experienced, to lure Raff back to her apartment for killing. Too, Arya explicitly links her plan to kill Raff with her current role as an actress, blurring the line between the inherent falsity of the staged drama and her own use of the false identity of “Mercy”. Immediately before she starts to speak with Raff, Arya thinks that “He’ll want me or he won’t … so let the play begin”, and she offers to “teach [him] a line” because, so she says, he “could be a mummer if [he] wanted”; though Raff doesn’t know it, he is now an actor in Arya’s drama, where she is playing Mercy and he her target. Likewise, the chapter climaxes with Raff unconsciously repeating Lommy Greenhand’s last words, with Arya thinking to herself with amusement that “You know your line, and so do I”; this moment becomes a sort of play within a play, as Raff unknowingly assumes the role of his own previous murder victim. Yet even as Arya follows up with Raff’s words to Lommy, repeated back to him in the moments before she kills him (and in a similar way to how Raff had killed Lommy), the story explicitly - and uniquely, for this chapter - identifies her as “Arya”; as it was Arya who wanted Raff dead for his cruel murder of Lommy, so it is Arya who cuts through the layers of disguise and identity, casting off the covers of her roles to satisfy her long-held aim of bringing justice against Raff. 

Yet as “Mercy” is only the first chapter of almost certainly several for Arya in TWOW, so I think GRRM will continue and indeed heighten this tension between disguise and identity in subsequent chapters. One very natural way to do so may be for GRRM to have Jeyne Poole go to Westeros, in the company of Justin Massey (and perhaps Alysane Mormont as well). Putting aside the narrative sensibility of such a decision, I think the reintroduction of Jeyne into Arya’s storyline will work on this thematic level as well, forcing Arya to consider disguise and identity in a new, and perhaps final, way. After all ASOS, Jeyne has been forced into the role of “Lady Arya Stark” - that is, supposedly Arya herself, with Jeyne’s Stark-passable features acting as a convenient mask for those wishing to exploit the false identity. While many within Winterfell under the Boltons privately recognized that Jeyne was not really Arya Stark, Jeyne was nevertheless held out - including, later, by Stannis - as the true “Lady Arya”; more to the immediate point, Justin Massey has no reason to believe that Jeyne is not in fact “Lady Arya”, and consequently no reason, should he take her to Braavos, not to address her as such.

So Arya would have quite the crisis of disguise and identity to consider should she encounter Jeyne Poole, now addressed as “Lady Arya”, on the streets of Braavos. Instead of Arya herself hiding the identity of “Arya Stark”, often holding onto it in hidden ways (as with her mystical connection to her wolf Nymeria or her refusal to discard her sword Needle), here would be a girl without the true internal identity of Arya Stark carrying on (albeit not by choice) the outward appearance of “Lady Arya” - the Stark colors in her clothing, the vaguely northern features of her face, most of all the name. Too, because Arya and Jeyne grew up together in Winterfell and interacted (albeit far from happily for Arya) on a regular basis, each is in a unique position to specifically identify the other; while Jeyne may not immediately recognize Arya (depending on the level of disguise the latter might have at that moment), Arya would certainly have the ability to unmask Jeyne, so to speak -  to positively name Jeyne as Jeyne, with the most authority to do so because she is, in fact, the person Jeyne is supposed to be. With Arya already likely in more trouble with the Faceless Men (having now killed another for personal reasons, and this time the guard of a Westerosi envoy), this will be the moment, perhaps, where Arya can finally, after books of hiding, publicly reclaim her identity as Arya Stark, abandoning the need for disguise and setting on her path away from Braavos (and her would-be training as “no one”) and back home, to the heart of the Starks at Winterfell.

On top of all of this, GRRM may also draw on a worldbuilding detail of Braavos included in TWOIAF to underscore this tension even more. Maester Yandel writes in TWOIAF that one of the major celebrations of Braavos is the annual commemoration of the Uncloaking of Uthero. This holiday honors the official reveal of Braavos to the world as an established city-state, when “Sealord Uthero Zalyne … [sent] forth his ships to every corner of the world to proclaim the existence and location of Braavos, and invite men of all nations to celebrate the 111th festival of the city's founding”. In honor of the event, Braavosi hold “ten days of feasting and masked revelry—a festival like none other in all the known world, culminating at midnight on the tenth day, when the Titan roars and tens of thousands of revelers and celebrants remove their masks as one”. There is obviously no guarantee that the Uncloaking of Uthero celebration will occur during Arya’s time in Braavos, yet its inclusion could serve as a perfect outward expression of this thematic tension of disguise and identity. As Arya has worn invisible masks (as the identities she has had or been forced to have) and even supernatural masks (in the form of the magic done by the House of Black and White to give her difference faces), so now she would be in a celebration which requires its participants to don literal masks. Just as the Uncloaking remembers the end of a century of disguise for the city-state - when Braavos, finally free of the threat of extermination by its Valyrian enemies, could publicly proclaim its existence to the world - so Arya may be coming to the end of her long (relatively speaking, at least, compared to Braavos’ isolation) period of disguise and hidden identity, finally ready to claim her true identity in the eyes of the world. As the festival ends with all celebrants removing their masks together, so Arya’s time in Braavos may end with her finally removing all the masks she’s taken on or been forced to take on, reverting back to her true, very Stark-looking face as she returns to her true, Stark identity. 

[help-im-a-gay-fish]

Okay I had to do some stuff, but here I am rambling about relationship between Killer and Nightmare in Colours of LOVE.

Some of this I might mention before some of it might be your and Jann or Yuri ideas... Anyway!! The way I see that:

Even though this is soulmate au Nightmare and Killer aren't perfect fit for eachother. They are perfect fit in threesome - Ccino softens rough edges of both of them, and changes their attention from being mad on eachother to carrying about Ccino together (especially at first when he is really depressed). But before that... It was hard.

Killer is really open about everything he thinks and feels. If he founds someone who is attractive he will flirt. Even when he is already dating Nightmare. And also he always shows his affection to Nightmare everywhere, in public too. That's cute and sweet, but Nightmare is really closed person so that makes him really uncomfortable. Night often got jealous with Killer flirting with anyone else, got embarrassed with his kisses and all on public, and in general is a bit annoyed with Killer's actions. Killer on the other hand doesn't really understand why Nightmare is so "tensed" (he is not, Night is just much more calm, but Killer don't get it).

They were braking up and coming back again a few times, because they had argued a lot about everything and got tired of this. Right now they are on their "best days" - they started to date again a few weeks ago and right now they are through some stuff, they understand eachother better, and pretty chill about eachother weird actions. Like in the second page Night is a bit flustered by Killer's kiss but he almost used to that. Same as he is worried about being late, since Killer is almost always late, but he is more or less fine by that. On next page (which you haven't seen yet), there are an interesting dialog between them, and I will definitely write some of "subtext" about it when I will post it.

Actually if they haven't met Ccino they would break up again after a few months. And maybe come back again after a week.

Also! Interesting thing about third soulmate: at the beginning of the comic (before Nigh met Ccino) Killer is 100% sure that they have third soulmate, but Nightmare is sure for about 60%. Killer is existed about that, he knew knew that he is polyamorious for a long time, but Nightmare hesitates a lot, because he can't really imagine himself in polyam relationship. It feels weird and also he is soooooo jealous about Killer paying any attention to anyone except him, that he worries to become "third wheel". Will it be different with Ccino?? Who knows (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.)

Hi kotikaleo!!! This was super fun to read.

Firstly I'm going to tag @zu-is-here since she started the studio verse

It's definitely an interesting insight to your comic and the characters!

It reminds me a lot of an early version of my own ideas about the studio verse nightkiller relationship! And I can definitely see the way we have bounced headcannons of each other paying off.

Them still dealing with a softer kind of lovehate dynamic is an interesting one. It doesn't seem to be as extreme as my version, but it's interesting that it's still there.

The fact that they are meant to work as a 3 makes sense as well. If they are supposed to be bounded as a 3 it makes sense that three they their relationship would be unstable. They don't work as a two, but they are soul mates and something would always pull the two of them together.

I'm also curious, since Nightmare isn't 100% sure that the lack of colour is due to them being soul mated to another person. I wonder if he ever felt like the universe got it wrong? And that he'd been mated to the wrong person? Or perhaps he felt it meant that him and Killer don't have soul mates and that's why they have some connections.

It sad boy.

Also if Killer knows he's poly by nature, is that something that causes disagreements with the 2 of them?

And now for mine and @jann-the-bean version.

This story has been something that we mostly developed in tumbler DMs but both me and Jan wrote a story about it. Jan wrote

KillerNight(s)

And I'm writing

Round and round till we all fall down

Nightmare and Killer's relationship started off baddddd, it basically started as a mutual dislike for one another. This is due to their conflicting personalities and morals.

Nightmare was originally quite excited to meet Killer, as he'd heard a lot about the actor. But almost straight away he found Killer to be rude, childish and irritating. Killer found Nightmare to be stuck up, snobbish and entitled.

The two first met at an awards ceremony and got into a yelling match after a few drinks and were separated. From there their dislike for one another was made quite well known to the public because of a social media battle back and forth.

This only went on for a few months however, as the characters of 'Killer' and 'Nightmare' were cast to play together.

Nightmare and Killer agreed to be civil in order to function while working and get the filming completed as soon as possible.

As they worked together, their dislike turned into a playful banter and respect for one another. And then something else shifted.

Now Killer has a reputation for being a player and one who likes to sleep around, as you said, he's open about his interest in people when he has it and enjoys casually flirting with just about anyone.

Which came to include Nightmare.

Nightmare paid no mind to it really, though he couldn't understand why it embarrassed him so much.

Killer comes to find Nightmare to be very attractive and enjoys his reactions when teased, he rights him off though because he was under the impression that Nightmare was straight, and he'd never try to change that.

It was a day when they were talking about Killer's eyes and how it's caused him to struggle, that Nightmare tells him that he thinks his eyes are very pretty and that they are an attractive quality, and something in Killer breaks and he kisses him.

So Killer feels like he messed up and the two avoid each other. But it causes Nightmare to start questioning things about himself.

Nightmare at this point had only every dated women. He assumed that he was straight. But after that kiss a lot of buried feelings are dragged to the surface and exposed, and he realises that he's also attracted to men.

So Jan goes into full details about this, in the fic Killernights, but basically Nightmare confronts Killer about the kiss and Killer tells him he 'has a thing for him'

The two go back to Killer's flat to talk, but their normal banter, leads to flirting and then another kiss. And Nightmare who is curious and suddenly craving new sensations becomes lost to him. Killer who finds Nightmare physically very attractive, also gets wrapped up and the two of them sleep together.

Nowwww this is getting long so I'll try to shorten it down a bit.

Basically, it's an amazing night. It's passionate, enjoyable and a lot of fun for both of them. Upon finding out Night has never been with a man, Killer guides him carefully though the process.

After that night the two can't stop thinking about each other, even though they both planned for it to be a one time thing. Again, they avoided each other until talking after a while.

And killer admits his desires for the other, and offers Nightmare a safe environment to experiment with his sexuality, where he won't be judged.

To cut a long story short, this spirals into a passionate and carnal, on and off booty call/fling with each other that spans for years.

Other that time they grow very close with each other, and come to recognise the similarities that they share, and have soft moments of just enjoying being together with one another.

For Killer, Nightmare is the first person to ever tell him he had beautiful eyes and mean it. The first person who wasn't at all put off by them.

To Nightmare, it feels like Killer is the one person that will never pick Dream over him. And he makes him feel wanted and desirable in a way few have before.

However, their are still parts of their relationship that conflict. Of course a healthy relationship will always have some conflicts. But for Killer and Nightmare the conflicts clash and fight with each other.

That along with both of their past traumas, (I wrote about Killer's back story here) means they find it difficult to talk about genuine feelings and what's bothering them. Causing things to bottle up and blow up over time.

They also find it impossible to admit that they actually love each other deeply.

They tried to be in a full on committed relationship once, (which I'm writing about in Round and Round) but it didn't work out for these issues. As well as the fact that Killer is poly by nature, and therefore gets anxious and uncomfortable in a relationship with one person only. Which he won't talk to Night about for the reasons stated above.

Enter Ccino.

Now Ccino is the missing piece for Nightmare and Killer.

He's soft and gentle spoken, which easily helps them calm down when things get heated between them. He also provides a safe and loving space to open up about what things are bothering them.

Nightmare and Killer's also, as you said, spend more energy caring for and sometimes worrying about Ccino, so they have less energy for the constant fighting.

Ccino was the missing piece. He's the person who will cuddle and read books with nightmare, but also the one who's super into affection, which Killer loveesss.

A relationship would never work between just killer and Ccino, since Ccino wouldn't be able to keep up with Killer's libido and killer doesn't know much about Ccino's mental health. And Ccino wouldn't work in a relationship with just Nightmare because Night's colder and more straight forward personality would leave him affection staved after a while.

They just work together! They are basically soul mates in this universe as well!

P. S Nightmare in this universe was also very veryyyyy jealous when Killer showed interest in Ccino. Which is something he took out on Ccino till Killer stopped it. After falling in love with Marshmallow he regrets this a lot.

I'M SO EXCITED FOR MORE. COLOURS OF LOVEEEEE

[thatonealise]

On Worlds.

We inhabit them. We've christened ours Earth, but there are some who call Middle-Earth their home. I've heard many dashing tales from the Borderlands, and on all too many occasions guested in Azeroth. All these faraway lands are unique in their own right, sporting flora and fauna so diverse it really does make one wonder how such things came to be, whether out of nothing, or out of the wilds of human imagination.

I've always been under the impression that it would take a person too much blood, sweat and tears to fashion one. But here I stand, alone, and I need a place to set my latest overambitious and never-ending enterprise. It's a habit I'd always detested deep down, but came to respect over time, and now I say it is the prospect of making something grand, chipping away at it day and again, that gives me one more reason (among many, mind you) to get up early in the morning, and wonder what aspect of it am I going to work on next.

So it is, that I've been pondering on the sort of a world I would want you, the Player, to quench your wanderlust, and perhaps take your subconscious somewhere it has never travelled.

My research -- that hunt for inspiration, artistically speaking -- took me to media I have and have never ever witnessed, or heard, or read, or seen. I've browsed art, played this game and that; I've watched film and series, and I've brushed the dust off some of my forlorn literature. I've even dared to show up in the local library for once in an embarrassingly long (by a reader's standards) while, and borrow a "manuscript" or two I thought had a few interesting ideas. But, I have to admit, Stack Exchange remains my personal favourite. There are so many great minds there, with an equal knack for world-building, and even more thought-provoking questions granted inspiring answers. I can't recommend it enough.

On to the point, though, and it is that I've compiled a list of "archetypes" to take into consideration building my own world:

Earth-likes

What a surprise, huh? I believe it to be the most widespread archetype, and it is rather self-explanatory. An Earth-like world is more often than not a carbon copy of the blue planet (or our rather milky galaxy), with oceans and continents shuffled a notch to dodge the cosmic copyright, so to speak. It is again most common, and for a good reason: we know plenty about the science that keeps such worlds (and, by extension, our own) spinning, and the life living the way it does. It is a solid point of reference, backed with facts and studies so easy to look up on the web, or anywhere bookish, and it is always oh so tempting to use.

A few notorious examples taken from modern authors include...

...a continent under the influence of Celtic and Germanic myths; known as Middle-Earth of J. R. R. Tolkien.

...the super-continent of Stillness by Nora K. Jemisin.

...the Present World, to some extent a mirror of ours, and found in Kentaro Miura's Berserk.

...or the unforgiving deserts of Arrakis, credited to Frank Herbert.

...or Faerun, the iconic setting of Forgotten Realms.

...or even the Journey, courtesy of thatgamecompany, and the dunes one has to slide down rushing to the mountain's peak.

If at least two of the above ring a bell, you may have an idea of what brings all these worlds together, and by extension, what I think constitutes an Earth-like world. If not, then let me illustrate my point instead:

Go on, draw a comparison! It wouldn't take a particularly perceptive eye to notice that even a seemingly outlandish example, the desert planet of Arrakis, shines features not too unlike those we may find here on Earth, albeit "turned up to eleven," for the lack of a better expression. They are planets filled with oceans, and continents in between the oceans, most of them, and in general they follow the same rules we follow in our universe: desert storms rise as the wind blows, plates collide to erect mountains, and sentient life is soon to usher in an age of civilisation. Physics and passage of time progress the world as you would expect them to.

Naturally, there will be a degree of variation between Earth-likes. George Martin's Westeros, for one, is an otherwise conventional continent subject to unconventional seasons, some so abnormal they shape entire cultures -- consider the Long Night, for instance, and the impact it had on the Westerosi folklore.

Let's touch on Arrakis again: it is too an Earth-like world at the core, that suffered from a speculated misfortune of a near-miss encounter with a comet, and what once might have been an arid and bountiful world has now been left a scorching desert inhabited by massive sandworms that have evolved to swim through the sands as though they were oceans, and gobble up the teeny-tiny human wanderers crossing their "soil." A few similar worlds come to mind: Kharak, just as extreme and featured in the Homeworld series, and the much more famous Tatooine, the brainchild of George Lucas.

This big quirk -- extreme weather, unpredictable seasons, or morphed geology, or fictional species -- I prefer to dub "the Twist." It is something, a phenomenon or fact of life, that sets this world apart from ours -- something you can use to suggest that the world at hand is its own, and not Earth put in an alternate reality. Extreme biomes of Arrakis or Kharak, and bizarre seasons of Westeros, are just two examples of the Twist. Magic and magical beings found on Azeroth, or in Faerun, is another.

While the Twist is found in all archetypes, I'm of the opinion that Earth-likes depend on it more than others. Take away the Twist, and you will be left with yet another exoplanet, abiding by the rules we all know and, to be frank, find them too mundane to entertain us, or to leave a lasting memory.

As you'd expect, this was the first archetype I visited and considered for my game. The Twist I wish to feature, to go hand in hand with game mechanics I have devised, is the marriage (or clash, depending on your point of view) of science and magic, and the many ways cultures practicing either-or-both would balance them out, or tip the scales in one's favour if they so desire. I'm also very keen on endangering the Player on their journey, which I want to be perilous, and for it to matter more than the destination. Think of it as a world of vagabonds and gallivants, travelling from one bizarre place to a place twice as otherworldly, and embarking on life-threatening quests.

I've considered several worlds, most notably Kharak -- whose native species, the Kushan, traverse it on trucks and jeeps and other sand-crawling machinery. Cities on that scorched planet exist as only safe havens around, surrounded with lifeless sands, and to make it from one city to another is a dangerous affair indeed. The theme resonated with me quite a bit, but I did not find desert planets a good choice for my game, for many reasons:

It is, as the name suggests, a giant desert. There aren't that many biomes (just two, in fact, if you count largely mechanical cities as one) for the Player to explore, and there is little challenge in generating them on the fly, as opposed to a more varied world.

Throwing in arid biomes we discover in worlds like Middle-Earth or Narnia, or Faerun, felt far too conventional to me, and in my mind there would not be much room for an apocalyptic event so crippling as to make exploring this world nigh fatal.

Even if I dodged the desert altogether and rolled with a different biome or biomes, I'd still have to balance between two problems I doubt are easy to solve: featuring more biodiversity in a fundamentally monolithic environment, or more extremes in an Earth-like world that would not fit in very well.

Banality. Banality was a major concern for me, as there are oh so, so many Earth-likes out there in the industry, and the last thing I wish for my little side project is to offer yet another one. No sir!

Scope was the last but nevertheless just as important. It is difficult to fill up a giant continent, or continentS, with enough quests and points of interest to keep the Player invested. It is hard enough to produce enough scripted content, a la World of Warcraft, and it is harder still to delegate the creative matters to an automaton (Talking about you, Left 4 Dead!). Earth-likes, to my understanding, necessitate imposing scale, that I can not hope to achieve neither alone nor in company.

So I scratched this archetype off my list, and again I went searching every nook and cranny of the game industry and beyond for patterns and clues to make into archetype...

Otherlands

Perhaps not the best title to describe a world so otherworldly as to defy all laws native to our universe, but I nonetheless thought it described what I had in mind for such worlds best. Exotics, Otherlands, Alternate Realities, you name it: they spit on the natural laws we've always known, and turn what we consider to be natural upside down, from a relative point of view (I'd image they'd think we earthlings bend their ideas of what is natural, vice versa). They more often than not have so little in common with a conventional; continental world, that as a Player, you ought to be born anew, in a sense, as you have to come to terms with the new reality, and learn the rules alien to your human brain-box.

While not so abundant in fiction or film, there is an unexpected plethora of otherworldly examples found in video games. I suspect, as little more than a humble writer and not at all a qualified game designer, that the blame (the reason, rather) is at least in part to be pinned on the freedom of mechanics worlds detached from all physical boundaries allow. You're no longer on Earth; seldom even in our universe, and more often in a dimension forged by game designers to fulfill a very blunt purpose: to serve the gameplay, in full. I'd imagine it is times easier to set a game built on mechanics hostile to laws of physics somewhere abstract; mallable, in a way, to the designer's whim.

Thinking of examples took me to these fine pieces of digital entertainment:

William Chyr's Manifold Garden is, to me, a quintessential Otherland. It is set in an abstract world wrapping on itself, juxtaposing impossible geometry against Euclidean space. About the only link to our reality it maintains is the presence of gravity. Look up and down, try interacting with the objects or solving the puzzles, and you will very soon understand this is NOT the realm accomodative of your earthly instincts.

Alice: Madness Returns, too, features an Otherland (not Otherlands, fellow Alice fans!), a level set among the clouds, far above in the sky -- none other than Cardbridge! Playing cards dwell there, and glide along the windy streams to form marvellous paper castles in the sky, and bridges, and gates for Alice to cross on her way to the evil (is she really?) Queen's heartful (quite literally) domain. Like in Manifold Garden, physics still permeates this world, but the only "actor" it appears to affect is Alice herself. All that surrounds her, on the other hand, behaves in a way we would think odd.

Oddly enough, Valve's Ricochet is one more example of an Otherland, the way I see it. It's set in a pitch black void, a pocket dimension of a sort, and constricts its gunslinging inhabitants to a small archipelago of quasi-futuristic-looking platforms. It is in many ways abstract and disconnected from what we would brand a "real" world; akin more to a simulation than something even an advanced civilisation would be able to orchestrate in the vacuum of deep space. It instead serves a solitary purpose: to be an open and clear arena for the Players to pull off dextereous ricochets and physics-bending leaps from one spot to the next. There are no other earthly rules to govern this world, and beyond the dark arena is the thrice as dark abyss.

Of course, by this logic, one could consider more abstract games along the lines of Tetris Effect or even Pinball Dreams, to also fit under the same umbrella of otherworldness, and I reckon they would be right. Both games take place in places foreign to our expectation for a, dare I say, traditional setting. This is not to say, oh no, that Otherlands belong to just the games -- far from it! Otherlands are to be found in many other media.

Off the top of my head, I'd count that one scene from the cult-classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, as a "classic" Otherland in a mind-boggling nutshell:

The message I'm trying to convey, if not clear, is that Otherlands are very stubborn, and insistent on breaking you as an earthly thinker; to augment your mind and let it comprehend and utilise the new reality and the rules it enforces, like one would use the laws of our universe. "When in Rome," is the mantra they will have you etch into memory, until you think and interact with it as though you had never known another home.

The entire world, in other words, is one big Twist, standing in stark contrast to the little twists applied here and there to an Earth-like dimension. Furthermore, one could even assert that the Twist in an Otherland is turned on its head -- whereas in an Earth-like Twists were other-landish phenomena many in number but little in scope -- the Twists in an Otherland are instead few and far between, and grounded in reality. They are the links linking an Otherland to the Earth-like law. Say, physics would be very much expected in an Earth-like world, but treated as an exotic Twist in an Otherland.

To be a little more precise, an Otherland does not bother to stay true to the mechanics we think mundane and natural. It instead moulds or kills them outright, and throws itself at the mercy of the designer's wants and wishes.

Otherlands were an option, but not the option, that I'd choose for my world. I cherish the freedom they bestow upon you as a designer, but it alone did not convince me to opt for this archetype. Simply put, the downs outweighed the ups:

The world I wish to create will host fantasy far too Tolkien-esque to distance so much from Earth and earthly law. There is, in my view, a strong pull among many dungeon-crawling aficionados towards fantasy, and fantasy I will deliver. My own strain of fantasy, to be clear, but it will nevertheless mandate a degree of reality deemed by me too Earth-like to belong in an Otherland. I just can not see, at this time, a world of fantasy that is also an Otherland, not if I want my world to radiate welcoming familiarity.

This game being an open-ended RPG, it is difficult for me to envision it in an abstract environment. It calls, as I see it, for landmarks sensible to someone never ever "tainted" by the quirks of Otherlands, familiar and homely in a way, based in laws of physics and around points of interest grounded in our reality. Elevating it to be the Twist of an Otherland, brings the latter much closer to an Earth-like, but not quite. Neither this nor that, if you will, and that in turn leads me to the next and last archetype...

Near-Earths

Should you ever run into the same predicament as yours truly did in the paragraph above, I'd strongly advise you to consider Near-Earths. Not entirely Earth-like, but also too Earth-like to fit as an Otherland, a Near-Earth world is based to some considerable extent in the laws and traits of an Earth-like. It takes the best of both worlds -- mind-boggling Twists of an Otherland and experiential familiarity of an Earth-like -- and mixes them up to shape up something in-between.

Near-Earth remains ultimately an extension of an Earth-like world at its core, but to set itself apart it puts an emphasis on large-scale Twists -- that would be considered too outlandish for an Earth-like. One popular trope among Near-Earths is to feature earthly topology, strewn around the universe in the form of isles or even whole continents. Fundamental laws that define an Earth-like it bends to a fictional degree, but preserves the essentials, such as planets or stars or faimiliar dimensions, that make up our universe. Thus the link between our universe and that lives on, and it's easy for a newcomer to the world to find their way around with little to no hand-holding required.

I can't help but conjure up a few shots from Treasure Planet, which I gather needs no introduction, to illustrate my line of thought. Take one of the more iconic stills from this flawed masterpiece, R.L.S. Legacy docked at the spaceport of Crescentia:

It is in many ways familiar, I think, to anyone who has ever been to any run-of-the-mill harbour, except that ginormous frigate appears to stay suspended mid-air, not even ropes to hold it in place, and not at all swaying side to side on the high seas as one would assume. No, in this universe carpenters and shipwrigts build 18th century vessels propelled by internal combustion engines to fly through the breathable expanse that they call Ethereum. Indeed, there it is possible to breathe in space, so long as one stays careful not to lean too much on the taffrail and fall into the Ethereum proper, doomed forever to be a cosmic castaway.

Treasure Planet is very representative of a Near-Earth world, as I reckon the aforementioned scene proves. While grounded in culture and (partly) science of our universe, it strays a lot from what our scientists would deem feasible, to the point that it is fundamentally different from our universe in some respect, such as there existing a breatheable atmosphere everywhere in their universe, but not so fundamental as to defy every law of science we know in our world. Physics, and planets, and other celestial bodies and phenomena still exist there, albeit altered in a variety of ways.

Another such example would the High Wilderness, that we're told to travel aboard a literal locomotive, in the brilliant game and one of my many favourites -- Sunless Skies:

It, too, features all the same biomes and structures and many laws with a basis in our universe, and like Treasure Planet, it introduces a major twist: the space beyond the confines of Earth (which does exist in Sunless Skies, and generally follows our history with significant deviations perpetrated by Masters of the Bazaar) is an intricate maze of seldom interlocked and often overlapping topology, stacked on top of one another, and filled with an atmosphere reminiscent of Ethereum, breathable but named a different name.

It is still familiar enough to us as earthlings, and it would not take a seasoned Otherlander to pick the thing up and know the rules of play by instinct. Sure, we are driving a locomotive through time and space, and pass by living stars that govern all, called the Judgements, but the spaces we traverse and people we meet and phenomena we witness are not confusing in the slightest. Shrouded in mystery, maybe, but ultimately sensisble if given enough thought. There is not another dimension for us to consider, and impossible geometry wrapping on itself to comprehend, as seen in Manifold Garden. Nay.

On the Judgements, as a side note, I've found them to be an interesting twist in and of themselves: they are intended to be the law-makers that decide what is real in this world, and what is not. Kill, or posses them, and the world will return to a chaotic state, easily a contender for the quintessential Otherland.

One last sample for you to taste would be the city-state of Sigil, the center of all planes in the planar world of Planescape (pardon the tautology!). Also an earthly world in many ways, it departs from tradition by dabbling in the ideas of interplanar travel, and whole planes of existence drifting from place to place depending on the belief of its denizens. Name me a single spiral-shaped medieval town suspended miles in the air:

I hope my criteria is now clear, or clear-er, better still if as a day. A Near-Earth has some of its fundamental laws thrown away, or meddled with, but there is always at least some foundation identical to that of an Earth-like.

Enter the Wild

In the end, I had a choice to make; a choice of three options, all of which bore pros and posed cons. Weighing all of them took me several restless nights, about a week in total, and some creative encouragement from a colleague, who suggested I turn to Sunless Skies-esque worlds for inspiration: islands floating in the sky, nurturing islanders and their peculiar settlements. I fell in love with the idea in a heartbeat, and on and on I went searching for references. It implied to me a Near-Earth, and all the marks of distinguishment I outlined before for other archetypes pointed to Near-Earths as the perfect fit for my world.

I settled for a few points of reference, among them...

Variably-sized islands and quasi-continents of Dragon Hungers, complete with pocket cultures and hosts of creatures that dwell there:

"Outdated" and outlandish means of transportation between the islands, like airships or fire-breathing dragons, a la Sunless Skies:

Celestial bodies of Treasure Planet, like black holes or nebulas, making an appearance, though toned down a bit to ditch some of their more destructive and lethal properties. A black hole wouldn't spaghettify you in the blink of an eye, but falling into one will nonetheless bring a swift (albeit not quite so fast and unavoidable) end to your career:

What they amounted to, ultimately, is an amalgamation of varied islands, some as big as a continent, others as small as my balcony, and all sporting ecosystems never-before-seen on most other islands. They are suspended in the sky, fortunate to have a man-friendly atmosphere, with a devilish twist I'd rather keep a secret for the time being.

Wannabe heroes make their living sailing through this sky aboard mighty airships or fire-breathing dragons (among many other means of transportation), from one island and on to the next, undertaking quests and accepting commissions from the locals to earn themselves some sustenance. It's a floating world of vagabonds, gallivanters, and legends-in-the-making.

OR! Those same gallivanters may find a particular island, or spot upon on the island, very tempting to settle on. Indeed, if they so desire, players would be able to adopt a sedentary lifestyle, and see what the wilds beyond the comfort of their heart might bring one treacherously blissful morning...

Us locals have entitled this universe the Wild. Enter at your own risk, traveller, for you may never return. This theme seemed to me like a good middle-ground between all the problems I've outlined reviewing archetypes:

Scope was confined to the typical bounds of an island. Some are bigger than others, no doubt, but all of them are a far cry from the usual dimensions of a continent. A narrow scope, as such, is a scope amiable to developers limited in number, or readiness to tackle an enormous landmass.

Narrowed scope in turn shortens the distance one must travel to leave one point of interest for another. We're feeding two birds with one scone -- there is no need for us, as developers, to fill up the lands betwixt with something for you to do, and you won't have to drag yourself through an overstretchesd piece of half-arsed (pardon my French) filler to finally reach the objective that caught your eye in the first place.

At last, as my colleague pointed out, islands in space are capital. Done before to be sure, that road has been travelled many times (and so were most others), but it is still the Earth-likes that proudly keep at the victorious spree as the dominant archetype among the developers. A Near-Earth to me felt like a fair and much-wanted change of scenery, for once in a blue moon.

A floating world shattered into many habitable pieces by far imposes so many more factors upon the cultures, languages, civilisation, technology, and nature of the wild, that to turn it down in favour of an all-too-researched Earth-like world seemed a lazy way out the massive creative problem, I think, many people of letters and pencil and other trades would be thrilled to approach.

P.S. I do realise all my scribbled judgements are arbitrary, and the lines separating Near-Earth from Earth-likes, from Otherlands, is apparently fine, and entirely subjective. These are little more than my five cents; my five thoughts on the subject, and I personally found grouping these worlds into archetypes a good "bookmark" that I've used and will likely come back to designing my own worlds. Peace.

[tomyoungwrites]

Adventures in backloggery with Homefront: The Revolution

To say the first Homefront left me lukewarm after playing it would imply that I was left feeling anything after that game finished. Painfully derivative with nothing to say about it’s interesting premise, I left that game fully understanding why so many people dismissed it. 

For those unfamiliar with the premise of Homefront, here it is, fresh from the wikipedia page: “The game tells the story of a resistance movement fighting in the near-future against the military occupation of the Western United States by a Korea unified under Kim Jong-un.”

Sounds interesting right? Telling a guerrilla warfare story based on American soil gives you a chance to take a lot of war-story tropes and twist them into new, interesting forms. Turning America into the occupier instead of the occupier offers a lot to explore. Sadly the original game does nothing like that - instead opting for a very simple “We wanted to take back America and we did” story.

So when I overheard through my gaming circles that the general perception of Homefront: The Revolution was hovering around the 6/10 mark, I was under the impression that while it was an improvement over the first game, it was still not a title that was worth my time. I assumed it was a decent yet uninspiring corridor shooter just like the original game.

Imagine my surprise then when I watched one of the latest videos from Jarek the Gaming Dragon and discovered that my preconceptions about shooting dudes in corridors were entirely wrong! This was an open world shooter, in the vein of Far Cry. And not only that, but the story actually has things to say this time!

Instead of North Korea invading the USA due to them being weakened, North Korea becomes a tech powerhouse. Due to poor decisions by their government, the USA slowly goes into financial ruin while they opt to purchase military technology from North Korea.

North Korea provides aid to the US, but this is just a pretence to establish a foothold and exploit the natural resources within the continent. This is presented as the real reason behind the occupation - because we all know that only evil governments invade foreign countries in order to exploit their natural resources, right?

It’s important to note when talking about the story of this game that playing Homefront: The Revolution in the apocalyptic year that is 2020 makes it hit much different than it would have in 2016. For example, the USA neglecting it’s citizens while spending billions on military weaponry is far too close to reality to even be called satire at this point. However, the he game is very ‘gung-ho’ in it’s expression of American values and honour - which clashed with my current view of the country.

At this point in time, seeing America do things wrong is something that happens on a monthly basis - and seeing people who want to shift the blame for that onto other people is an equally common occurrence. So seeing America ruin itself definitely removes a lot of the sympathy I have for the country as a whole - I of course still sympathise for the common citizen underneath this new regime, but seeing America complain about a foreign power using military might to seize their natural resources isn’t something I can sympathise with the American government suffering through at this point.

Speaking of regimes, seeing Americans actively fighting against a regime who happily deploy lethal force against American citizens (who resist and go against their military police enforced status quo) has also sparked many comparisons to recent events in the US in my mind. I mean, how can it not at this point?

The game does make some effort to comment on the fact that you’re creating more bloodshed and destruction through your actions, but that voice is drowned out by two of the main characters - who’s attitude is “Fuck you, this is America and this is war.” Seeing these characters passionately talk about standing up against the exact evils that America is committing right now makes the whole thing smack of hypocrisy - which isn’t the games fault, but I’d be disingenuous if I didn’t admit it has coloured how I viewed the plot heavily.

Overall, I think the plot does more to explore the themes of the setting than the original Homefront did, but it’s still bogged down in presenting America as the flawless and eternal hero who channels the ‘American Spirit’ through their actions. And this absolutely smacks of hypocrisy in the nightmare-world of 2020.

Also, there is an area of the game where you have to wear a gas mask to survive, but none of the other characters do. They’re expressing their freedoms to breath deadly toxins, I guess?

When it comes to gameplay, it’s not quite true to say that Homefront: The Revolution is a open world game - rather the game is split into a number of open world areas that you unlock as you progress. Keeping different parts of the world silo’d off from each other definitely has benefits from a programming point of view (you don’t have to account for players deciding to go from one side of the map to the other without a loading screen, for one) it also has interesting design implications.

Instead of having to level-gate certain areas of the open world, the game can properly pace each area to your current skill and gear level. You’re also introduced to the different types of zones in a more natural way, and their different mechanics are able to exist separately.

There are two types of area in the game - red zones and yellow zones. These both behave differently in how they express the thematic oppression through gameplay, but I was impressed at just how effective the systems in both areas are at making you feel oppressed.

And that brings me to one of the best things about Homefront: The Revolution - the sense of oppression it expresses through gameplay. It’s important to note that I was playing the game on the hardest difficulty, so this might colour my perception slightly, but I always felt outgunned during almost all my time in the game.

The red zones play similarly to a Far Cry open world, with objectives to complete, collectables to hunt and roaming enemies to attack/get attacked by. Unlike Far Cry however, the environment being full of ruined buildings adds a degree of verticality to the encounters and exploration that makes the smaller world feel much denser than the jungle floor ever did. Here, the game expresses the oppression of the player character through the constant vigilance of patrols and ever-present seeker blimps. These patrol the sky and scan the ground (think the flying drones in Terminator) and will always call in enough reinforcements to kill you. Having to hide under the ruins of collapsed buildings to avoid their search light as they slowly flew overhead always felt tense.

The yellow zones play more like the open world sections of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, with a bigger emphasis on stealth and avoidance of security cameras etc. These areas are typically much more dense than the open red zones, with plenty of corridors and corners to help you break line of sight with enemy patrols. The sheer density of enemies and ways to get spotted in these areas makes you feel constantly on edge, especially when fighting your way out is often a risky option.

And while it doesn’t have as much of an impact, even the health system helps contribute to this sense of oppression. Gone is the regenerating health system, now replaced with a more traditional health bar that must be topped up with healing kits. When you get spotted and enemies take some of your health away, they’re actively chipping away at your resources. This makes each encounter far more threatening, because even if they can’t kill you, they can still whittle you down.

I’m not really a gun guy when it comes to games. It usually takes a game going above and beyond, like in DOOM (2016), to make me actually notice the guns in a game. And oh boy, did I notice the guns in Homefront: The Revolution. Not only do they sound amazing, but they’re extremely well animated and customisable.

The coolest gameplay mechanic in the game is by far the gun customisation mechanic. To summarise, each weapon has two drastically different alternative modes that effect how the gun performs. For example, you can change the stealth-enabling crossbow into a room clearing flamethrower should the need arise. And you can do this on-the-fly while you’re in the game.

Hoping behind cover to change my assault rifle into a sniper rifle in order to take out distant enemies never stopped feeling cool. Seeing the detailed animation of you customising the gun yourself went a massive way in that feeling of coolness. You can also add attachments to your weapons such as silencers in order to adapt to situations as they arrise.

Having you perform these actions yourself adds a lot to the feeling of being a scrappy resistance fighter, having to create your own tools for the job at hand.

Despite all this praise, I can still see why this game sits at a 6/10 rating. Numerous times during my playthrough I would get hard crashes that would require a complete exit from the game. At one point, an NPC blocked a doorway and I needed to reload from a recent checkpoint to escape my new NPC created prison.

I’ve heard that on launch the game was even worse technically, and while the game is definitely good in my eyes, I can see how technical issues could make you easily lose patience with it. It doesn’t quite reach the levels of praise where I’m willing to fully overlook the crashes I’ve experienced, and if it was worse I could see that effecting my view of the game.

Also, the stealth system leaves much to be desired. Despite coming out 4 years after Far Cry 3, the game does nothing to improve on the basic stealth system that game established of “If I see you, my triangle is going to get bigger until I really see you”. This under-baked stealth system led to me mostly abandoning stealth once I’d gained enough gear to handle encounters, despite me being a big fan of stealth options.

Overall, I’m glad that I gave Homefront: The Revolution a shot after all these years of it sitting in my Steam library. At this point, open world titles have a long list of ‘must haves’ thanks to the ubiquity of Ubisoft titles refining the genre. When looking at these titles then, it becomes a case of looking at what is done differently, and the gun system, feeling of oppression and divided world have definitely left an impact on me as a game design nerd.

If you’re looking for an open-world game and don’t mind the occasional crash, it’s definitely worth looking past those 6/10 reviews for the 7.5/10 game that is lurking underneath.

[archer3-13]

Thoughts on Other Students in 3H

in no particular order

Hubert: evil snake boi, i kinda like you. i just wish there was more actual meat to ya then what there is. still, he does his role effectively and unlike edelgard plays into the whole evil empire thing with more gusto so i ironically find him more palatable because atleast the game isnt trying to pretend he isnt shady as fuck.

Dedue: oddly charming despite his straight laced attitude, he gets some interesting nuance in how well he highly respects (cough loves cough) dimitri and likes individual people from the blue lions, he doesnt have any particular fondness for faerghus as a whole which is definitely understandable given his history. hes essentially using the camus/murdoch aspect of undying loyalty and even borrows elements of the female camuses line of romantic interest in their liege however heavily implied it might be and applying that to a male playable character. Plus he just has some fun and interesting interactions with other characters in general.

Lorenz: I have difficulty saying whether i like him. on the one hand, he ended up being more multidimensional then i thought he was going to be with his internal conflict between keeping up appearances for the sake social status and societal order and his desire to pursue his own personal interests and ideals against the needs of his father and thus societal conventions. on the other hand, the game never really runs with this as much as it should and hes still treated as a bit of a joke character so... c+ to b? 

Ingrid: the token heterosexual of the blue lions whos still kinda gay anyways, her whole struggle with being a knight over a housewife seems a bit odd on the surface considering theres plenty of female knights and no one throws much of a fuss in universe, until you learn that it isnt so much that society expects her to do it as matter of course and more so that shes struggling with whether to pursue personal duty to her family or personal desires and ideals kinda like lorenz. in that respect she hits the mark a bit better then he does.

Raphael: kinda insubstantial but i liked him anyways, his sheer exuberance can be kinda refreshing in the games darker moments and hes got a few angles of his own such as his refusal to consider his parents deaths as part of a larger conspiracy so as to not hurt his friendship with ignatz nor ruin his own life and his sisters. plus hes just generally a nice guy. like a big huggable bear. just a shame that being a nice kinda dumb huggable bear is all thats really done with him.

Ignatz: his painting stuff and personal insecurities about wanting to do it over being a knight which his parents want him to do, more of that duty over desires and ideals thing again, is well enough and his probably misplaced guilt over raphaels misfortunes is definitely a highlight of him but he never really grabs as a character for some reason. probably because theres a lot of other characters in the game that hit those same marks and do it better then him.

Sylvain: has a lot of aspects that never really feel like they get proper follow up, his big thing is less womanizer and more so that he covers up his own mistrust and personal feeling by pretending to be a shameless flirt and philanderer. basically, maybe the emotional pain will go away if i flirt with girls and act the fool. but again there never really feels like theres any proper follow up for all this, others comment on it and then its more often then not dropped in story. hes fun enough but never really realized if that makes sense.

Caspar: shonen protagonist is kinda an apt word to describe him honestly, and that idealism of his clashes with the more grey on grey morality of the world hes within which is never a particularly bad direction to take the shonen bois in if done well like hunter x hunter. And he is done well, or at least satisfactorily to the point that hes another one i ended up liking more then i thought i would. his problem is more so that his interactions with most other characters in the main cast which feel duller then they should on most occasions.

Dorothea: probably gonna get a bit of shit for this, but i have no interest in her. her insecurities about her future and getting a good husband is well and interesting but manuela does that better honestly and outside of that dorotheas a bit... not shallow but hazy and insubstantial if you will. she obviously has appeal to people but like ignatz she failed to grab me in part because others did what she did and better within the game itself.

Ashe: soft boi chose to be soft instead of hard, one of the characters i found liking and one i expected to kinda like to begin with. in game he gets accused of being childish and naive a lot but i dont see it personally, hes not naive but more so tries to look for the best in people and in life like lonato did all those years ago for him. that said, the speed with which lonato dies damages his identity as a character a bit by happening before we really get a chance to feel for his relation to lonato, its not to big a bug bear as it doesnt hurt his character all that much but it does feel a bit frustrating.

Felix: teenage angst personified, his main gripes seem to be a distaste of warrior culture and its glorification of bloodshed and sacrifice but instead of approaching it with sadness or pacifism, he lashes out against what he feels is the unfairness of the world. hes not exactly wrong in his feelings and as a character it makes sense and works for his abrasive attitude, and its an interesting twist to the navarre type to have their isolation come not from stoicism nor sheer blood lust or a combo of the two but rather from a rage against the machine of society mindset.

Ferdinand: he got more interesting as i got farther along, and i personally feel he works the best as a character when going against edelgard since thats where more of his personal drama comes from. hes eager to succeed and prove himself worthy of his title over time and holds a chivalrous mindset very similar to others in the cast but his growth is less about learning how to hold onto those ideals in the face of reality for the sake of personal fulfillment but more so about learning to define himself by himself and not by societies needs. ultimately he comes to value chivalry not because its what people tell him to value but because he truly values it and i enjoy that. but its also why i feel he works better on other routes then edelgards since there hes still valuing himself not for himself but for the expectations society or edelgard in this case is placing him under, one tyrant for another in a sense. i admit i dont remember much about him on edelgards route though because i just like him more on the others.

Leonie: poorly timed support aside, she has an odd charm to her that a lot of modern fire emblem characters just dont have anymore. but knuckling past jeralt senpai shes an interesting blend of stingy and work effort that goes to inform itself and her relations to others. and like a lot of the golden deer she has a lackadaisical attitude of ‘i might not know what the fuck is happening, but i do know someone needs an ass whooping!’ and it works especially well in her case since her character is very attuned towards focusing more on her personal matters then the grand scheme of things because she has rent due in a few months. if she was in a more traditional fe set up she would definitely be a beowolf archtype that you need to pay to recruit. in fact im surprised thats not an option on other routes to begin with for her.

Hilda: honestly suprised me by not being a pure serra type. she has aspects of that on the surface with the selfish almost vain attitude towards life and others bur well serra is more about puffing herself up to hide insecurity and contribute towards a desperate desire for grand social status, Hilda downplays herself and her abilities due to living in her brothers shadow if unintentionally and seeing the stress it can bring. they’re both lazy and vain, on the surface anyways, always getting others to do their work for them but well serra seeks more social status to escape it hilda seeks less social status to escape it. plus it was kinda funny to see hilda act as claudes unofficial number 2 you could still recruit.

Lindhart: Sleepy boi needs a nap and thats kinda it really. exaggeration maybe but unlike a lot of characters in the game and the series as a whole he really doesnt have a reason to be there as a character. as a unit certainly but not a character, in terms of motivation anyways. He hates blood, fighting and violence, hed rather sleep or pursue personal interests then work or politics, hes insightful and intelligent but the important players in the plot have other advisers and hes not interested in stepping up in that regard anyways. his only real reason for being there is academic interest and even then a pin has to be put in that when war breaks out. hes not a bad character overall though, his sleepiness and insight make for an interesting double act along with his blunt mannerisms, i just have trouble pinning down motivations for him.

Mercedes: big team mom energy, which i suppose goes along with the whole being older then everyone thing. a bit dopey and airheaded at first glance shes one of the more receptive characters to how others are feeling and well she does try to nurture shes not above scolding if she feels it would help someone more then praise and reassurance. of course shes also very detached to events of the world mostly just there to help the people around her from the bottom rather then the top which is not an insult and more one of the things i find fascinating about her. it all makes for a very interesting character and one of my personal favorites of the cast.

Annette: overworker, issues with her dad, magic bubbly, and hits things with axes. a nice recipe of a character but it never feels as if the game can get it all to blend properly. more so to the point is that most of these elements work independently of each other and not to inform each other despite the games insistence. theres a lot of dramatic potential involving her father as well and though the game makes the best use of those aspects its not to the benefit of the rest of her character. it doesnt hurt her either though and she has some appealing dialogue with other characters.

Marianne: I had trouble getting to like her, perhaps more so then any other character among the other students. not because i hated her but because shes, well, very boring. alot of the characters in the game are into the self deprecation thing already and well her personality aspects of acting quite and submissive to fall into the background from a lack of self confidence it also feels like the game came up with two different explanations for it and couldnt settle on whether it was because of her adoptive fathers pressure or her families history and instead of weaving both together decided to use them interchangeably. Sometimes shes a wallflower because of her father and a lack of confidence to state her mind and self loathing over that lack of confidence, other times its because of her lineage and self loathing over her cursed history. never really at the same time.

Bernadetta: another odd favorite for me. recent support changes aside, the basic gist of her history remains the same in that her father was a tyrant in regards to her future which caused her to grow up with no confidence and a crippling fear of society, so shes already off to a good start as a character by basically doing mariannes schtik but better. well its hard for me to definitely say she ever grows past that as a character, thats fine in my opinion because her development is less stop being a recluse because society demands you dont and more so about making actual friends and learning that not all people are garbage fires just most of them. in most of her supports anyways. she just feels the most rewarding to interact with alright, and she was the one i always felt the most upset to mess up a speak thing with. Let us hug and stay inside watching cartoons together.

Petra: i went in wanting to like her and really liking her at first, but shes hit a middle of the road for me now. her speech gimmick wasn't particularly egregious and gets even less noticeable after the timeskip, but her actual character is a very straight forward ‘national pride demands independence’ package and doesnt really escape past that boundary all that much. its very understandable motivation, id even go so far as to say that shes the one with the best reasons to betray the empire of the black eagles characters, so like ferdinand i feel she works better outside of the black eagles in term of her own character identity and motivation/development as she finally stands up for her peoples right to exist on their own in an fe6 echidna kinda fashion. outside of that though shes... foreign to the other characters. thats kinda it.

Lysithia: as a unit she hits like a truck, as a character shes functional but hardly revolutionary for the series. i mean i did like her since i have a fondness for her archtype of weird magic prodigy poor social skills, but more so that she doesn't hit any particularly new notes in that regard. Shes a lot of lute, with some delthea childishness in her, some of sanakis sharper political wit and dark history, and a bit of miriels scientist on top. that said its all blended very nicely and she has some nice scenes for herself that got me to feel and care for her, some kinda adorable moments, and a history well woven into the games background and more so then most of the other deer and a lot of the other characters from across the houses in general. for a minor character anyways.

you may now all stone me to death.

[stillrecruitingrp]

The D.A. has recruited Nicky to the character of Padma Patil with a faceclaim of Naomi Scott. Sorry Padma, we didn’t see you standing there behind Parvati. Speak up next time, won’t you?

OOC Details

Name: Nicky

Age: 30+

Pronouns: she/her

Activity Level: medium; I should be able to post multiple replies three to four times a week, with an at least cursory online presence more often than that. Sometimes I get bogged down with other projects or deadlines, but I will always try to alert via the ooc when that is/will happen so my interaction partners aren’t left wondering where I’ve gone!

Acknowledgement: I acknowledge the potentially triggering themes and look forward to the uncertainty and excitement of the roulette.

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General IC Details

Name: Padma Patil; very occasionally called “Pads” (pronounced pahds or pods) by close friends or by people exasperated with her

Age: seventeen, Seventh Year student

Ships: I have no preconceived thoughts about ships for this character but in general the possibility of exploring hetero ships holds less interest for me than queer ones.

Gender/Pronouns: female-presenting lesbian who uses she/her pronouns (see “explorations” below for more details)

Face Claim: Naomi Scott (backup choice if unavailable: Alia Bhatt)

Desired Changes: no changes requested, but please note that I am more than happy to discuss changing any and all backstory elements presented here in order to better mesh with a prospective Parvati player’s ideas!

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BIO Questions

This game is Canon Divergent after the beginning of Deathly Hallows. This means, if a character is not at Hogwarts in canon, that can be altered (maybe Fleur goes to collect her husband’s little sister and ends up unable to leave the rest of the children there? Perhaps Harry comes back earlier…but why, and how? All of these things can be addressed and should be in your application!) Feel free to be creative!

Biography:

Please write at least two paragraphs describing your character’s background. While many characters have a lot of canon details, there are equally as many who do not. To check if your character has “set” information in this game please see the CHARACTER PAGE.

A child of wealth and privilege, Padma’s youth was easy and comfortable despite the occasional moments of culture clash between her parents (her mother’s family has had roots in Scotland and England since before there was a Scotland or England, while her father’s family only moved from India three generations ago when Padma’s father was still a baby). It was also a sheltered life, the outside world and its troubles being kept at a safe distance behind tall hedges and carefully-curated playdates with children of suitable upbringing. Reyansh and Adelaide Patil were protective (some might say, overprotective) parents who wanted to keep their precious little girls safe not only from danger, but from unhappiness as well.

Unfortunately for their parents’ plans -- but perhaps fortunately for the character and development of the twins -- they were curious girls who soon developed a knack for eavesdropping on the sort of serious adult conversations they were not supposed to be privy to. Thus when they entered Hogwarts at the tender ages of eleven, they were not as shocked as they might have been to discover that there were a wider variety of people and unpleasantness in the world than their parents would have liked them exposed to -- although the cossetted twins were still by no means jaded.

What was truly shocking was the separation that followed their arrival: Padma and Parvati had never so much as spent the night in different rooms before, but the Sorting Hat placed the one in Ravenclaw and the other in Gryfindor. This was horrifying and destabilizing for poor Padma. As a child she had always been content to follow Parvati, letting her sister take the lead so she could hang back and assess the data garnered by her brash interactions with the world from a safe distance before choosing her own course of action -- whether that be to follow Parvati’s lead, or run to mummy or bapu to fix whatever had broken (usually Parvati). She had never planned on how she would deal with a world without her sister to trail and consequently grew rather timid at first, sticking to her sister’s side as much as she could outside of class. She did make friends in Ravenclaw, but none of comparable closeness as Parvati’s new best friend and fellow Gryffindor, Lavender Brown (whom Padma spent a few years being incurably jealous of), and she was often quick to ditch those new friends to dog Parvati’s heels instead.

Some of her fellow Ravenclaws scorned her for her apparent fixation on fashion and gossip over more traditional academic pursuits, but curiosity takes many forms -- and Padma was a smart girl as well as a pretty one, and enjoyed learning magic. She simply also enjoyed giggling over the latest articles in Witch Weekly with Parvati and Lavender. When her sister suggested that they join an illicit student groups to practice for their DADA O.W.L.s, Padma was quick to go along with her both for the academic opportunity and for the chance to socialize more with Parvati and her friends. For once, she didn’t stop to think through the possible consequences -- but even if she had, how could she have predicted all this?

School Year So Far:

Please provide at least one paragraph describing your character’s experiences so far this year. If your character stays at Hogwarts over winter break, you can focus on that as well as if they left (why or why not) during the holidays. If your character should not be at Hogwarts, this is the space to develop how and why they came to be here. Note! Your character doesn’t have to start out at the school; if you’d be interested in having your character’s return be an event please make note of it here.

Reyansh and Adelaide Patil did not want to let their daughters go back to Hogwarts, but after the Ministry’s new policies went into affect they didn’t have a choice. They thought about leaving, maybe fleeing to Reyansh’s distant cousins in India -- but the risk of running seemed worse than the danger of staying. Besides, they knew their daughters were good girls who wouldn’t get up to any trouble; they would be all right for one more year.

Unfortunately for Reyansh and Adelaide, neither of the twins were very keen on behaving this year. It was Parvati who returned them to the ranks of the D.A. of course -- she was the one who shared a common room with Neville and Ginny, after all -- but Padma was quick to second her sister’s commitment for the both of them when the news was shared with her. She was less keen on some of the more bold (some might say, foolhardy) activities that the D.A. engaged in; speaking-up in class to politely argue with a teacher (even a very bad teacher, who accepted dissent with even less grace than had Professor Snape) was one thing but painting slogans on the walls and trying to sabotage parts of the school was something else. What if they were caught? What if they weren’t? It wasn’t until the Carrows moved from theory to practical lessons on the Unforgivables that Padma was willing to accept that they were a lot worse than merely bad teachers -- they were monsters.

That was what finally pushed her over the edge into enthusiastic, albeit still nervous, support of the D.A. and shored her participation up into more than lip service. She hasn’t managed to summon the courage (the stupidity?) to do anything alone yet...but as long as she has company to cling to, Padma is willing to put her neck on the line. To sneak around the school after hours and paint slogans, to mess with lesson plans, to booby-trap classrooms and offices, to eavesdrop, to pass contraband and secrets... The fact that her neck being pure means she has less to risk than many of the others is both comfort and goad: Padma never asked for special treatment...but does it make her a terrible person if she finds comfort in that little slice of comparative safety?

(I would like to make it clear that I am happily amenable to changing anything in here in order to find a compromise with the headcanons or background of any player wishing to join as Parvati Patil! I love collaborative character building!)

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OOC Questions

Writing Sample

Padma’s wand wobbled in her hand as badly as if she were still a clumsy, nervous first year fumbling with an unfamiliar bit of wood rather than the natural extension of her arm that the smooth haft of ash had grown to be over the last seven years. Of course, she had never felt so sick or afraid as a first year -- not even on her first night alone up in Ravenclaw Tower, although that had come close. But not even her first separation from Parvati compared to being instructed to cast the Cruciatus Curse on another person.

She glanced sideways at Professor Carrow, wondering if she could get away with begging off the lesson -- but then she looked at the rest of the class, and knew with devastating certainty that being excused would be the worst thing of all. Too many of her fellow Ravenclaws already resented her for her status as a pure-blood and the indulgence that afforded her. She couldn’t let them see her take such blatant advantage of her blood-status; they would never believe that she wasn’t a blood-supremacist herself, if she did that...

But that meant she had to cast the curse.

Padma swallowed, adjusted her grip on her wand (a useless effort; it felt alien in her hands no matter how she fiddled her fingers), and tried to look at Michael without meeting his eyes. It was hard; he seemed to be going out of his way to glare at her, or maybe that was just her imagination under stress...did he think she was enjoying this? He hadn’t hesitated for very long before he’d cast the curse on Terry during his turn, and they were much closer friends than she was with him...was he angry because he didn’t think she’d be able to do it, and he’d be Crucio’ed by Professor Carrow instead? The whole class knew that would hurt worse than being cursed by a novice, it was why they knew they had to hurt one another instead, to spare their classmates from even more pain...

Was he just resentful of the fact that as a pure-blood, she was less likely to be chosen to suffer the curse than any of the half-bloods in their class, like Michael or his friends? That wasn’t her fault, though! She hadn’t asked for the Carrows to take it easy on her, any more than Morag or Stephen did...but of course they weren’t in the D.A., so perhaps Michael didn’t take it so much to heart that they weren’t suffering as badly as the rest...

“Crucio,” Padma snapped, letting her annoyance surge out of the end of her wand. Michael yelped, cowering away from her, and Padma was horrified by what she had just done -- by what she had had no choice but to do. Beside her, Professor Carrow was nodding and smiling, and Padma felt sick.

At the same time, a distant part of her brain merely thought calmly, Interesting. Most spellwork was vulnerable to strong emotions, easily marred by the distraction that an unsteady mind would cause if not properly channeled; the Cruciatus Curse, on the other hand, seemed to be strengthened by emotion -- just as Professor Carrow had told them. Padma wondered why that was, wondered if the Unforgivables were perhaps part of a whole separate, unique branch of magic -- something as distinct as Transfiguration or Charms -- that had never been properly catalogued or explored, an entire subset that relied on heated emotion rather than eschewing it. The idea of anyone studying such magicks was repellent--

But, yes, also interesting. She couldn’t deny that; couldn’t deny that while mostly she wanted nothing more than to turn and run, to shove her wand deep in her pocket and never look at it again, to find somewhere private to vomit or shake or both...there was a part of her, a tiny but unmistakable part of her, that wanted to cast the curse again to see how different it would be if she was in a different mood. A part of her that wanted to study the Cruciatus Curse, to discover how it worked. A part of her that was curious.

A part of her that made her sick...but that wouldn’t be ignored.

When Padma returned to her seat, she put her head down on her desk and cried.

Exploration

Please provide four things you’d like to explore. This could be a character changing sides, darker themes, or basic fiction tropes.

Blood-Purity: Padma didn’t grow up with a lot of direct blood-prejudice in her life, but she did grow up in a culture that told her she was better than other people because of her bloodline. (She couldn’t help but internalize some of that, even if in her case it manifests more as “oh wow, that was a really good spell, especially for a Muggle-born!” than it does as “ugh get away from me, filthy Mudblood!”) Given the current political and social climate, it would be easy for someone like her to bury her head in the same and pretend she doesn’t see what’s happening to other people, pretend she doesn’t notice how wrong it is -- but despite her appearance as a spoiled pure-blood princess, Padma isn’t doing that. She’s fighting back. However...that doesn’t mean she doesn’t sometimes thing about how much easier things would be if she stopped fighting so hard for other people. It doesn’t mean that she doesn’t sometimes wonder if those same people resent her over the fact that she doesn’t risk consequences as severe as the ones they face; doesn’t mean she doesn’t sometimes resent that, because how dare they? She didn’t ask for this privilege, didn’t ask to be protected by the so-called “purity” of her blood; how dare they blame her for that? Shouldn’t they be grateful instead, that she’s putting her neck on the line for their sakes? It’s an ugly train of thought and she’ll be ashamed every time it crosses her mind, but that doesn’t mean it won’t show up sometimes. I want to explore the nuances of blood-supremacy from the angle of a “good” pure-blood -- someone who’s fighting against Voldemort, and who didn’t have to turn her back on her family to do it (her parents her to stay out of the fight because they’re afraid she’ll get hurt, not because they’d burn her off some family tapestry if she gets too cozy with “the mud”), but who comes from the same world as so many of his most lauded followers. I also want to explore the opposite side of that coin: what kind of prejudices do the Muggles have that wix like Padma don’t? (We know from word-of-god canon and implied book-canon that racism and homophobia aren’t major issues in the wizarding world, although how that actually works is a little wobbly...but I think it does mean that at least on a superficial level, the wizarding world is a lot more color-blind and accepting of diverse sexualities -- and possibly genders, too -- than are the Muggles, especially in the 1990s. I intend to play Padma’s family like that at any rate, however other players choose to go with theirs.) How would someone like Padma react to finding out that several of her friends come from families who think it’s a sin for someone like her to kiss another girl -- or a white boy, for that matter? She won’t take it well, that’s for sure...but could it be enough to push her away from the D.A.? Enough to make her briefly betray one of her fellows out of hurt feelings or anger, even if she regrets it after; even if she never meant to hurt the D.A. as a whole, but just to take one ugly bigot down a notch? It doesn’t seem likely that it would be enough to push her far enough to inspire her to join the other side...but to make her sit out the fight? Possibly...or possibly it could lead to a schism within the D.A., with the pure-bloods and more traditionally magical children like Padma still committed to the fight against Voldemort but on their own terms...and the D.A. is far too small and fragile to survive a division like that for long.

Curiosity: Padma is a Ravenclaw. That makes her inherently curious, and while her curiosity has always been turned more toward gossip and fashion and giggling with Parvati and Lavender, she’s curious about other things too -- like weird, old, forbidden magicks. (Who wouldn’t be curious about things like that?) Magicks that Hogwarts students never learn...but that the Durmstrang students who were here a few years ago talked about, when begged and flattered and bribed. Magicks that the Carrows now have them learning, even practicing on one another. Padma is the good girl that her parents always wanted her to be; she hates the very idea of the Unforgivable Curses, hates the fact that they are forced to use one another for practice; hates the fact that they are even being made to cast them at all. But she can’t help but be curious, too; can’t help but be interested in what they’re learning. It isn’t a type of magic that she ever thought she would have either the opportunity nor the motivation to study, and frankly she’d still rather refuse the chance...but since she doesn’t have that choice, she might as well make the most of it, right? That isn’t an attitude that is going to endear her to many of the other members of the D.A.; maybe isn’t even an attitude that her own sister would be able to face without horror. It isn’t a very Gryffindor way of looking at things...but Padma isn’t a Gryffindor. She’s not her sister, even if sometimes she’s wished she could be. She’s a Ravenclaw. And she likes to learn. But oh, the lessons the Carrows offer this year...are they the kind of lessons that anyone can draw anything positive from? Or is all use of Dark MagIc by its very nature corruptive and evil? Maybe it’s possible to use the ugly lessons they’re learning for good, for the good of the D.A. and of Hogwarts at large; wouldn’t that be a good use of what they’re so unwillingly being taught? But even if that pragmatic attitude has merit, can Padma get anyone else in the D.A. to agree -- and if she does, what’s the price she (or they) might have to pay?

Friends on Both Sides: growing up in the upper echelons of pure-blood society didn’t just mean that Padma had a comfortable, indulgent childhood; it also meant that she had friends from that society long before she came to Hogwarts. Maybe they weren’t close friends (she has a twin sister, so she didn’t need to make close friends with anyone else, back then, before the Sorting separated them) but she knew them, played with them, laughed with them. People like Pansy Parkinson, Daphne Greengrass, Neville Longbottom, Draco Malfoy...she knew them, before they all came to school and went their separate ways. (Padma couldn’t even being to count how many dolls’ tea parties she shared with Pansy Parkinson, once upon a time, even if she wanted to.) And now those people are her enemy? Just because they don’t agree on who deserves to have magic, on who deserves to be in charge of the world? It’s hard for Padma, because unlike so many members of the D.A. who only ever saw the bad sides of the people they’re fighting against now, Padma’s known them from birth. Sure, some of them she’s disliked from birth...but the rest of them are just people. They aren’t (weren’t) monsters, they were friends...and fighting friends hurts. It isn’t exactly like having divided loyalties -- but it is very, very close to being that. And if approached by one of her old friends, what would Padma do? Would she cut them off, turn her back? Or would she listen? Would she care? I’d like to explore the difficult situation that Padma’s social position and childhood history put her in. It’s not something that many of her fellow D.A. members would understand or sympathize with, but it’s got to be hard for her to look at a person she knows as a childhood pal and think “that is my enemy.” From Harry’s perspective, which the books are narrated from, they all fall pretty neatly into their slots as “bad people he never liked to begin with” but that isn’t how someone like Padma is going to feel about it; she’s going to see them as people she’s known all her life, as friends and parents of friends. As people who might have come to her birthday parties, or who would wave and smile at her in Diagon Alley, or who shared jokes over homework in the library. Maybe she doesn’t have any close friends among the “enemy camp” (and maybe she does) but they aren’t strangers, and they aren’t villains. They’re people -- and that means no matter what she does, she’s going to feel guilty because she’s hurting people she knows. Maybe even people she likes, but definitely people she knows. Maybe that will make her more lenient, more trusting, more inclined toward mercy; maybe it will be the opposite, with Padma being especially firm in her commitment to Dumbledore’s Army because she doesn’t want to be called-out for sympathizing with the enemy. Either way it isn’t going to be neat, isn’t going to be cut-and-dried for her. And that’s fascinating to me. She could wind up being torn in two if someone playing one of her old friends seeks her out (either genuinely or through ulterior motives) and tries to play on her sympathies, on their old connection; she could use those connections to insinuate herself in their confidences and play spy for the D.A.; she could use what she knows about them to hurt them by helping plan strategy to take advantage of weaknesses the others aren’t familiar with; she could sabotage D.A. plans to avoid hurting people she still likes too much to turn her back on completely; she could take them at their word and inadvertently court disaster for her friends; etc!

Gender Twins: if a prospective Parvati player is interested in exploring the twins’ gender identities I would be delighted to jump on board with that, whether that involves making one or both of them trans or nonbinary (maybe they’re “identical” twins because the one is regularly Polyjuicing the other in order to get a body she feels comfortable in? Maybe one of them is really a boy who was assigned female at birth, and he hesitates to “come out” because he doesn’t want to risk growing apart from his sister? Maybe they’re both trans, and the label of “prettiest girls in school” is something they worked hard for -- or something these nonbinary twins resent? etc). I thus hesitate to specify Padma’s gender identity in too much detail yet beyond the basic label of “female presenting” because I want to leave that open for possible later shared exploration with my fellow player. (If no Parvati player materializes in the opening weeks of the game, I may still end up exploring these themes on my own...but I’d rather do it in concert with an in-play Parvati than with a made-up NPC one, of course!)

[gadgetsrevv]

PSG vs. Real Madrid is biggest game of CL group stage but behind the scenes, both teams are a mess

This should be about the game. About a club, Paris Saint-Germain, taking yet another crack at winning the biggest prize in club football after three straight seasons of controversial exits by wafer-thin margins. And their visitors Real Madrid, the game’s ultimate blue bloods, halfway in rebuild mode as they pursue their 14th European Cup as an antidote to consecutive nightmarish domestic seasons.

But it’s not. It’s the Dysfunction Derby between two icebergs with far too much going on beneath the surface.

Real Madrid finished third in La Liga last year and the year before, by an average of 19 points: way off the pace of the eventual champions in both seasons, Barcelona. The unprecedented Champions League three-peat alleviated some of the rancour but most expected a revamp, particularly after the departures of Ronaldo and the resignation of Zinedine Zidane in the summer of 2018.

Instead, Zidane is back and rather than a rebuild, we’ve had a minor tweaking, with Eden Hazard and goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois (who arrived last summer and has been less than stellar at times) the only flashy newcomers. Nine of their 10 most frequently used outfield players thus far were also there for the first of their three straight Champions League titles; the other, Vinicius Junior, doesn’t turn 20 until next summer.

– Laurens: Don’t expect PSG to succeed in Europe this year – Summer of unwanted stars: Why Bale, Neymar didn’t move – Ogden: Breaking down the Champions League groups

PSG was supposed to be the rising, Qatar-fueled force in European football, boasting both the heir apparent to the Cristiano Ronaldo–Lionel Messi duopoly (Neymar) and the next in line (Kylian Mbappe). The former tried every which way to leave, the latter is injured. As for the Qatari cash, it may have moved the needle until two seasons back but now, because of FFP and overly optimistic financial projections, they’re forced to break even like any old mom-and-pop operation.

Just this past weekend Neymar, the most expensive player in the history of the game, finally made his return to action for PSG and was met with a cacophony of boos, insults and banners inviting him to get the hell out. Which, of course, he would have been only too happy to do if the club had reached a deal to send him back to Barcelona. Instead, as Neymar himself pointed out, PSG “blocked” the move. (Or, because every story is its own Rashomon with multiple sides, “refused to sell a star player for less than they thought he was worth.”)

Neymar, though, is nothing if not a pro. A maddening, infuriating, occasionally liberty-taking pro with a weird tendency to pick up injuries around the time of his sister’s birthday, but a pro nonetheless. And one who can conjure magic out of thin air, as he did deep in an injury-time with a highlight-reel buzzer-beater that earned PSG a win over Strasbourg.

He won’t be involved on Wednesday — the result of a three-match ban for an expletive-ridden Instagram post berating referees after PSG were eliminated from the Champions League last year — but his shadow will continue to loom large over the club’s fortunes this season.

Less than 24 hours later and some 600 miles away, Real Madrid president Florentino Perez faced the club’s annual general meeting amid murmurs and discontent. “People say I know about numbers, but if there’s something I know about, it’s football!” said Perez. “There are clubs who win a league and then don’t win anything in Europe for God-knows-how-many-years. And why are we great? Because we’ve won the European Cup 13 times.”

Gareth Bale, left, and Real Madrid are in transition even with their star power. The question is whether they can put the drama aside to handle PSG in the group stage.

Perez also had to fend off a question from the floor about club captain Sergio Ramos. The Spanish defender contributed greatly to four of those cups, most recently 16 months ago, but to some he’s become a distraction and Ramos himself had to call a news conference last May to announce that he was going nowhere. Perez’s questioner lamented Ramos’ passion for social media, outside projects (like the Amazon fly-on-the-wall documentary about himself) and the fact that he “wore a pink hat that made him look like a Swedish tourist.”

Tumultuous doesn’t quite do the situation justice at either club. We crossed the “entertainment brand” rubicon years ago, so perhaps the above shouldn’t be entirely surprising. But there’s the collateral damage that comes (along with, let’s face it, collateral revenue via sponsors and brand recognition) from hoarding superstars: both clubs’ rosters groan under the weight of hefty veteran contracts they can’t shed and the self-inflicted hurt these clubs brought upon themselves.

Then there’s the fact that few saw this coming a year ago, which only makes this worse for both clubs.

PSG are on a knife-edge in terms of Financial Fair Play, UEFA rules that regulate each club’s spending. This year and last, PSG’s roster has been made up of a core of pricey superstars — Angel Di Maria, Thiago Silva, Edinson Cavani, Marquinhos — but also a smattering of youngsters and blue-collar role players. Guys like, say, Colin Dagba, who is 21 and made his top-flight debut only last year, or Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, who made 31 appearances last year after joining from Stoke, a side that finished second-bottom in the Premier League the year before. It’s also why, after years of free spending, they actually made a profit in the summer transfer window, padding out the squad with free agents (Ander Herrera from Manchester United), swaps (signing goalkeeper Keylor Navas from Real Madrid and sending Alphonse Areola the other way) and loans (Mauro Icardi from Inter).

The definitive story of Neymar’s failed Barcelona return

Navas and Herrera were on the bench for most of last season and Icardi was unwanted by Inter to the point that he was suspended for six weeks in the middle of the season last year and was told, publicly and repeatedly, his services were no longer needed. All three are pedigreed veterans with a chip on their shoulder and you can see the logic in tapping into their desire to resurrect their careers. But, perhaps most crucially, all three were also cheap.

Neymar’s summer-long transfer saga has cast a shadow over his relationship with PSG and the fans. He won’t feature in Wednesday’s clash but will be expected to make up for it later in the competition.

Real Madrid had the opposite sort of summer, lavishing nearly $250 million on four players: defenders Ferland Mendy and Eder Militao, winger Hazard and forward Luka Jovic. The problem is that we haven’t seen much of them yet — between them, they’ve started just one game — which makes it hard to get overly excited. Much of that has to do with injuries (Hazard only made his debut on Saturday) but much of it has to do with the fact that this is a side in flux.

Zidane has rotated systems and personnel and you should expect to see more of the same in Paris: Ramos is suspended while Marcelo, Isco, Marco Asensio and Luka Modric, stalwarts of the previous Champions League run, are all injured.

What Madrid fans have seen plenty of instead this season are Gareth Bale and James Rodriguez, two players they spent most of the summer trying to shed. Bale, one of the highest-paid players in the world, was told flat out by Zidane he was surplus to requirements. But unwilling to take a pay cut — and with nobody wanting to match his $30 million-plus annual salary and pay a transfer fee — he went nowhere.

Bale, whose performances have ranged from stellar to anonymous to M.I.A. (due to frequent injuries), was often harangued by fans and media alike for such crimes as failing to learn decent Spanish and being too obsessed with golf. (He has a nine-hole course in his ample backyard and some of his injuries have been blamed on his practice swings.) But when Zidane realized he was stuck with him, he took his lemons and made lemonade: Bale started Real Madrid’s first three games and he, like James, has been one of the better performers.

Bottom line? Things have not been what either side expected and maybe that’s at the heart of the discomfort and restlessness among fans of the two clubs.

In these situations, the Champions League is a respite, albeit a double-edged one. A strong performance and a result and you can start to spin the narrative in your direction. If you’re PSG, you remind folks that Mbappe will be back (though not on Wednesday: he’s sidelined as are Edinson Cavani and Julian Draxler). And if you’re Madrid, you sell the line that you’re still the Gold Standard in Europe, that Zidane is still the alchemist Galactico whisperer and that Hazard is, in fact, a game-changer.

But there’s a downside, too. Take a beating and it’s more salt in the open sores. Restlessness and discomfort live in the same neighbourhood as frustration and anger.

For both these clubs, it’s time to get out of town.

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[tumblunni]

Random Long Post About Charon!

This is random, but I feel like fans often don’t take into consideration what Professor Rowan says during the Rotom event. I think his words actually make it very clear that Charon was the kid who wrote the diary and shines some light on Charon’s motivation for acting like a jerk to Rotom. I’ll explain why I believe this:  “Ah, imagine finding you here! You must be eager to fill your Pokédex to be searching even here. What am I doing? I visit a professor I know in Eterna every so often. He tells me intriguing rumors of rare Pokémon sightings and such.” This part isn’t particularly relevant (though I do sort of wonder if the Professor Rowan visits is actually Charon himself), but this next part definitely is: “A Pokémon that slips into electric appliances, you say… Hmm… That is somewhat off from what I’ve heard about it. Hmm… This is what I’ve heard. Long ago, there was a Pokémon that merged with a toy robot. Should that Pokémon be recognized as a new species or not… Debates over the issue were about to start when they were rendered moot. The very topic of discussion–the Pokémon-infused robot–disappeared…” Okay, so the first thing that is really important to note here is that Rowan doesn’t have the exact same information as the player. This means Charon has done research that he was keeping to himself, and fits in with Charon writing that he wants his Rotom research to be a “secret.” But we also learn here that other scientists were at least introduced to Rotom somehow despite this.  Now, as for the “topic of discussion… disappeared” part–because Charon’s lab is secret, these words don’t refer to Rotom leaving the lab. Instead, they must refer to Charon putting it in that lab to keep it a secret. This might seem odd at first–why would Rotom have been introduced to scientists in the first place at all then…? But I actually think this all makes sense. Here’s a stripped-down version of the backstory based on all these details: –Charon obtains information about Rotom “by pure chance,” as he writes in the journal we know for a fact is his. –Other researchers somehow knew about it and were going to start debates about it. –Rotom is locked away in the lab by Charon so that he would get all the credit for describing it.  –Rotom eventually leaves the lab.  This still haves a lot to be desired. Is Charon the same person who found Rotom as a child? It seems that way, since the speech patterns and diction are the same. But then how and why did other researchers learn about Rotom in the first place? Why did Charon want all the credit only after this happened? Here is where analyzing Charon’s character makes everything clear.  Obviously, Charon is a greedy person. Specifically, he seems to be someone who is pragmatic to the point of being a cynical jerk. He desires money for himself and his team, but we know from his dialogue that it’s because he thinks people can’t achieve anything without it. We can also see that Charon has a high opinion of himself (he says so), but it also seems like he may have a low opinion of himself at the same time. The fact that he keeps trying to assert his self-worth, brag, and explain that he has a place in Team Galactic every time he speaks in-game hints at this. Also, Charon’s own co-workers hate him. Considering his plan at the end of the game, we know that if Charon were presented with a way to make himself known to all, he would do everything he could to make that happen. He also at one point says “I like seeing children try their best,” which sounds a bit weird out-of-context, but makes perfect sense if the Rotom kid’s childhood was his.  Putting together all of the information I’ve discussed, here is my interpretation, applying Occam’s Razor the whole way through, of the story behind the Rotom event:  –Charon came across information about Rotom “by pure chance.” How? When it came out of a lawnmower in his childhood. –At some point, Charon was excited to tell everyone about Rotom. They were probably still close friends at this point.  –Other researchers were going to start debates on Rotom after Charon gave them some information about it. –Because of Charon’s greed, desire to belong, and selfishness, he became possessive and wanted to get “all the credit.” He freaked out and locked Rotom away in his secret lab. –Everyone was confused because it had disappeared, and debates couldn’t continue.  –Rotom was upset and tired of being stuck in the lab and left. I’m almost certain this is the story the writers intended.

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Bunni’s comments! (is it a tad awkward that you keep sending these as submissions? have you thought about posting your thoughts on your own blog and then I could reblog them? sorry to make you go to all this trouble!)

REALLY LONG THOUGHTS BELOW THE CUT:

This is a really well reasoned theory!! I dunno if we’ll ever really be able to know what story the writers intended until we actually get this plotline expanded in a remake HINT HINT NINTENDO But it does definately seem to me that Charon = kid who had that cute backstory in that journal literally in Charon’s lab written like Charon talks and nobody else does. That seems very much like the simplest option to me, and it makes this character so much more well-developed, yet its kinda not a popuar theory.. alas... I don’t completely follow this exact sequence of events in my headcanons but I do think it fits perfectly with everything we know so far. You’re so good at analysis!!

Personally I think maybe people forget about Rowan’s few sentences at the start of the event... just cos the event is really hard to find. Practically nobody actually played this thing, I certainly never got a chance to do it until a decade later when i was able to emulate + use gamesharks. So before that I got my information secondhand through script-dumps and lets play videos, and a lot of people seem to leave out the rowan bit. A lot of people actually leave out the diary too! It seems even people who actually played the event didnt realise it was there, just grabbed their new rotom form and left. Alas poor Charon, ignored even in a meta sense! Also on Bulbapedia the script-dumps are organized weird. The actual page for the event and the Rotom Room as an area don’t contain it, its just got the diary part and the rowan part cut off separate and put on charon and rowan’s pages respectively.

Anyway, my personal thoughts + alternate interpretation to add to this!

To me it didnt sound like someone else discovered a rotom and tried to start these debates, then Charon freaked out at the competition and became paranoid. To me it sounded like Rowan was talking about someone (Charon) who started a debate and then suddenly vanished on the day it was going to take place. i dunno, just the way it was phrased seemed to come off like this was some relative unknown who popped up with this information about rotom, and then everyone assembled to hear him out. Cos specifically the ONLY information Rowan knows is that its ‘a pokemon that can possess a toy robot’, you’d think if multiple scientists were debating the existence of rotom for a long time then they’d have more info than that, info that isnt super specific to Charon’s situation. Or, at least, you’d think that if they were still researching rotom AFTER this one failed conference, they would have gained more info by now? I dunno, its hard to explain what I mean.

So, the basis for all my deductions is this interpretation that Charon (at least for that moment) had decided his rotom research was finished and wanted to reveal it. For me, the big question is... why didnt he?

WHY would Charon not want to boast about his discovery in this ‘debate about rotom’? We know at least one famous pokemon professor was gonna be there! Charon’s whole thing is (supposedly) wanting to become famous cos of rotom, absolutely no attatchment to it except as a revenue source, yep totally, no lies here. So you’d think that joining in a big debate with a bunch of high ranking scientists and making his great reveal would be.. like.. exactly what he wanted?? Why did it not happen?? 

My interpretation of this is kind of a mushy one linked to my general irrational decision that this man is potentially redeemable and totally has a soul. Alas, why can I never leave the grampademption train! I think that maybe this was some sort of major moment where the good and bad sides of his character clashed. REALLY CLASHED. He’s spent so many years trying to lock off himself into two mutually conflicting boxes, the innocent kid who sees this pokemon as a friend and the bitter cynical old bastard who wants to become famous off it. And now he has to choose, and it led to a complete mental breakdown! He initially chose money over rotom, he was gonna go ahead with the presentation. But then his better side won out and he cancelled it at the last second. He got cold feet, being scared of losing his best friend. Maybe he was actually going so far as to do some sort of morally repugnant deal, he was gonna sell rotom off to the highest bidder and never see it again? Or it’d have to be dissected as the first specemin of a new species, or locked up forever and experimented upon? Or maybe its just simply.. when you only have one friend in the world you kinda wonder if they’d want to keep you around if they found another friend. Maybe he thought rotom only needed him because of his research, maybe he thought it would become just as greedy as him if it got the chance? Maybe he thought that it would leave him if he let anyone else know it existed, which is what led to his growing paranoia and decision that his research was perpetually ‘not done yet’. (Cos seriously, what you see of his lab and stuff seems pretty finished???)

So that’s my interpretation of why he and rotom ‘vanished’ at that point, but then there’s the question of how they ended up separated. this is now going into complete fanfic territory, I dont really have evidence for any of it. In my image of how this whole scene would go down, mid-freakout Charon would have snapped at rotom and it led to an argument that ultimately resulted in like... triple decker bonus back of Regrettable Decisions. Charon’s been shown to kinda dig himself further into his own grave whenever his plans go wrong. So here we go, scene is set with Charon suddenly grabbing everything and running the fuck out the fire exit, five seconds before the meeting is about to start. From rotom’s perspective, it has NO IDEA what is going on, it just listens when he says to get in the pokeball. And now we have Charon in the position of having NO CLUE how to explain this all when he opens that pokeball again, he’d never just be honest about his feelings. Hell, he’s such an emotionally stunted guy wrapped up in his own neuroses, i don’t know if he’d even be honest about his feelings to HIMSELF! He just sitting here having a panic attack like ‘why did i do that?? I was about to become rich??’ Giant neon sign flies overhead saying ‘YOU HAVE EMOTIONS’, he ignores it. I figure he’d also exaggerate it in his head and destroy his entire scientific career just because he thinks he’s embarassed himself too much to go back. And he’s decided that this somehow proves that being a good person will only ruin all your dreams, and you have to be as bitter as possible to succeed. this is where he went from a dubious guy who occasionally breaks the law to ‘well I’d better jump off the slippery slope forever and join a space based evil team, literally just because of One Social Anxiety Moment’. (Relateable, amirite?) And ironically everyone he met that day is literally just thinking ‘oh god what happened to that guy, is he okay?’ and would have totally understood if he just explained his damn self... So all his panic comes to a head and he decides to blame rotom rather than actually do some in-depth analysis of his own life choices. I feel bad because I don’t want to hurt my friend?? I personally value friends higher than money? No, nonsense, you’ve somehow CORRUPTED ME! How could you do this, don’t you know how important that meeting was? WAS THIS YOUR PLAN ALL ALONG??? It was my ONE CHANCE! (apparantly, according to me)

So even though he just ran away because he didn’t want to lose rotom.... he throws away rotom. (just imagine the internal screaming this man must have experienced for the next twenty years)

It was a stupid, STUPID decision based on misdirected anger that he should have been aiming at himself. Nope, can’t believe that the great charon might have made a mistake, that friendship might indeed be a thing that exists in your dried up old heart. Instead it has just proven that friendship = weakness! And now because of this you’ve turned a salvageable situation into the worst disaster possible, yet again. (Man, I feel like Charon can barely survive without rotom. Its not just his conscience but a large chunk of his common sense...)

And rotom of course has NO IDEA why its suddenly been abandoned, so it probably was a really depressing time sitting alone in its trainer’s old house, hoping he’ll eventually come back so you can apologise for something that you don’t even know what it is... And at the same time we have Charon freaking the fuck out for decades, too caught up in his own neuroses to make the very simple decision of just turning around and walking back to where he left that pokeball. And even if he got there, what would he even say? Would he actually have the balls to admit he was wrong, or would he make excuses? ‘Oh, I was just too busy to visit, so much work to do, don’t make a mountain out of a molehill’ In his darkest moments he even considers that maybe he’s wrong to regret this decision at all. ‘But I did the right thing, I don’t need rotom, I don’t need anyone, I have to sacrifice everything to be famous...’ He’s probably even managed to get all the way to the door of the old chateau before running away yet again, leaving rotom thinking it just imagined seeing him outside the window :( Its like in his past when he startled rotom and it thought it had hurt him, but this is if he didn’t chase after it and just left time frozen on that moment. Well, he wishes it was, that he could just choose any second to take back his decision and everything would go back to normal. Never that easy, though...

I APOLOGISE FOR OVERLY LONG POORLY EXPLAINED FANFIC THOUGHTS WHILE I AM SLEEP DEPRIVED ok i need to go cry over dumb grandpas and then probably get some damn rest

oh wait one last random headcanon! i think that charon’s secret lab in team galactic eterna building is actually something he only built after the big moment of abandoning his pokemon Why does Charon have a rotom lab here if he doesnt have a rotom anymore? sure it could just mean he lost his rotom relatively recently, but since my fanfic idea places it earlier in the timeline I like to think that maybe he’s made this room in case he ever gets rotom back. He made a bunch of form-machines even better than the old ones, and decorated the place all fancy, and hopes that maybe it could be at least a small apology for all the suffering he’s put his friend through. Though he doesnt understand that rotom isnt as superficial as he is, so he cant just buy back its love... He just sits in there are rereads his journal whenever he gets nostalgic, he hasnt actually done any science in there for years. Also, it would maybe explain the duplicate rotom lab in silph co in HGSS? that’s the original, and he’s tried to make his new galactic lab as similar as possible because of how guilty he feels, and how he wants to just escape that guilt by turning back time instead of actually saying sorry.

A big thing I always struggle with in writing redemptiony fics is whether I’m lessening a character’s evil and forgiving them too easily and all. I think this series of events would definately still qualify as A Total Dick Move, even if its one that actually has a reason to it other than just ‘i’m evil’, and hurt himself as much as he hurt rotom. And man its so frustrating, seriously I’m here like ‘DUDE STOP IGNORING YOUR EPIPHANIES, JUST GO APOLOGIZE’ yet I also know that if I make him do it immediately and have everything resolved without conflict it’ll be so much less of a believeable redemption arc :P so yeah believe me i still wanna slap charon just as much as everyone who hates charon does, just for different reasons XD Also he needs a hug too. But he needs to do a lot of development before he could actually earn it!

[eisforeidolon]

Episode: Twigs & Twine & Tasha Banes

I think I'm just going to end up damning this one with faint praise:  it was definitely better than last week's.  I do honestly feel I'd appreciate this episode more if it was in a different season, but when you start every week wondering is this even going to try to make sense? you're constantly left looking for the point where it all goes south.  And that makes what might otherwise be entirely forgivable hiccups stand out more than they probably should.

I did love seeing the twins again!  I loved the family dynamic between the two of them with the bickering up front and clear love later as well as the dynamic between them and their mother.  I liked how Max went straight for praising Dean's car, because there's not many better ways to make Dean's day.  I thought it was an interesting choice to make only one of the twins a witch.  The acting from all three of the guests was fantastic – especially Max's dismissal and guilty horror when they find out what's going on and Alicia's worry and the confusion of her simulacrum at the end - all of it was well written and expertly brought to life.  The visual effects for all the witchcraft stuff were gorgeous, and the villain witch and her twig dolls were just as creepy as I could have possibly wanted.  The way they presented the mystery of showing us that Tasha was killed and then showing Tasha seemingly alive again was a well-executed twist that had me wondering.  I liked the paralleling with Sam and Dean's sibling relationship.  Heck, I even thought the title was really clever, referencing the witch's specific power.  And hey, at least Dean got to kill something again this week!  I also can't help but feel the Winchesters purposely left Max there with the ring and his sister's body and left that decision to him knowing he might make the extreme choice.  It, combined with their conversation in the car, was a great (and somewhat unusual) moment of self-awareness that they really can't judge the extremes anyone else might go to.  

Although I did seriously wonder why, if Max could burn his sister's actual body at the end, the witch was keeping all her old kills just laying around stinking up the place?  I mean if it was just the last kill, it'd be one thing, but one of 'em had been dead long enough to have missing posters!  Yeah, she could be just sloppy or crazy enough to not give a hoot, but it bugged me a little how transparently it seemed done just to solve the mystery easily.  I also think the episode leaves a lot of hanging questions about just how much the dolls have of the original person.  Personality?  Yeah.  Soul?  ?  Adding in that the power comes from a demon and may be corruptive along with the siblings clashing personalities at the beginning likely leading to a temptation to use the ability for control the spell gives ... Which doesn’t even mention the part where it’s a baffling disappointment they kill one of the twins and their mother before the BMOL cull even kicks off and when Rapey McBitchface, Blonde Scrappy Doo, and the Groundhog Angel all have seemingly impenetrable plot armor.

Also, I'm not impressed with the idea of deal-making demons so sloppy they'd make a deal that would allow witches to cheat at the last minute.  That seems contrary to everything we've seen about demon deals in the past, and I hate every instance of them making the demons and angels weaker to prop up whatever lesser player is around any given week. Still, there was definitely a lot worthy of praise in the MotW parts of the episode.

As to the rest of it, well, it was more mixed for me.  They've done a lot of surface-level callbacks to catchphrases and moments from earlier seasons.  Some have worked really, really well.  Some have just felt super cheap, and for me, the whole 'hunting trip' line fell flat. Likewise, bringing back pretty much anything from Bloodlines can only be a mistake, especially that shifter rewrite nonsense.  Way to go writers, take something that actually makes your canon unique and creepy and fuckin' toss it.  Bravo.  Also, when Dean is the one traditionally most mechanically inclined and has been more often shown dealing with their weapons and equipment, why is it presented as if it's on Sam, specifically, to try and fix the Colt?  They seem to be leaning heavily towards giving only Dean the desire/ability to express negative feelings, and only Sam the ability to be effective - and it's a mutual disservice in both cases.

Furthermore, the Winchesters just worrying about Cas being taken over again is annoying, because it so blatantly (and unfortunately not unexpectedly) skips right over all the shit he did when it was his choice.  Yeah, if we're going with them considering Cas “family”, getting his ass un-whammied is more pressing than being pissed at him.  Still.  How many times do we have to do this and just have the Winchesters shrug it off?  Even if Cas' betrayals of them were unarguably on an equal level with Sam and Dean's of each other, which isn’t given *coughhellwallcough*?  The two of them actually spend an insane amount of time together in between major relationship fractures – giving them a chance of building their mutual trust back.  Castiel usually flits off until the next time he's due to fuck up after a vague apology and occasional effort at reparations the Winchesters have to force him into.  It leaves the idea of them being family coming off as more and more like a joke every time, and not the funny kind.  Sure, they’re limited by the fact Misha is a regular rather than a lead, but the answer is to not give Castiel huge unforgivable idiot balls all the freakin’ time.

Then, of course, we have the BMOL stuff.  Yeah, I honestly want to throw up in my mouth a little every time someone parrots how Mary is such a ~*great hunter*~.  Worse, I do not give a fuck how many times they try to present her as being a “parent” who is disappointing because she's “just people”.  NO.  She's disappointing because she has zero consideration for her kids!  She abandoned them by choice without communicating for long stretches, actively chose to deceive them about working with people employing a personal enemy who tortured them, and intentionally endangered their lives to grab an object the BMOL apparently didn't even have specific plans for.  And then she tried to guilt them for being upset about it!  That's not being fallible, that's, again, actively choosing to be a callous asshole.  Mary hasn't chosen to move towards actually getting to know and caring for her sons as real people rather than abstract concepts, and in turn I can't be bothered to care about Mary – which leaves so much of this episode falling flat for me.  

I mean, some of it would anyway, because anyone who spends five minutes with Ketch and can't figure out he's a sadist probably shouldn't be capable of tying their own shoes.  Obviously the writers want her to suddenly care, so bam! she does.  I mean, they do give her a great fight scene – and it really is a good one! - but when I can't even care about Mary for the sake of her being someone not-actively-screwing-over her sons?  Eh, whatever, wake me when Toni's dead.

I do hope the whole thing with Mary finding Mick's conveniently undisposed body in a place she can access and seeing the wall o' hunters that all happen to be people she knows (or her sons know) is an intentional set up by Ketch to flush out her loyalties.  Rather than, you know, the most ridiculous convergence of coincidence and timing in quite a while.  Since Ketch is waiting right outside the door for her, I'll give them some benefit of the doubt on that one.  

So overall, yeah.  Way better than last week, but that’s a low bar to clear.

[stepphase]

best iPhone games offline / the top iPhone games / best iPhone games for free

Of course, a lot of mobile games need an internet connection to play. In fact, if you do not want to use the internet connection on your phone to play games. Also, you can choose plenty of offline iPhone games that are equally alluring and engaging. As well as, here are Apple best 10 iPhone games you can play offline.

Minecraft: Pocket Edition

Minecraft: Pocket Edition comes first in our countdown. Also, the game is designed for these five and more, but adults can also have fun in this creative sandbox. Of course, Minecraft allows you to create almost anything. You are limited only by what your imagination can come out of the game. In fact, some players have even created a Millennium Falcon in the game!

On top of that, Minecraft: Pocket Edition also has some great role-playing elements in the game. There's an ultimate boss you can handle. As well as, you'll just need to make sure you're gathering the resources needed to make some of the best armor. Just to deal with the evils found in the world of Minecraft. Your path is up to you - create beautiful structures or gather resources to make armor and weapons to fight. Also, The evils that lurk in the world of Minecraft.

best iPhone games offline / the top iPhone games / best iPhone games for free

Plants against zombies 2

Next, we look at Plants vs. Zombies 2. This is a beautiful and lively game with some arcade-style games. Of course, You put plants in the garden, each of which has its own weapons and abilities. You can collect your favorite plants such as sunflowers and peas. Along with hundreds of other plant-based options that are used to fight oncoming zombies.

As you progress, the levels become progressively difficult, which requires modernized plants to fight the tougher zombies. In fact, you can earn items called seed packs that can activate attacks, speed up planting time. Also, acquire entirely new abilities. See how far you can go!

Crossy Road

Crossy Road is a super-simple arcade game where you play as a chicken. And your goal is to cross a busy road. Since the launch of the game in 2014. It has been downloaded over 150 million times and the developers have released a number of add-ons. Of course, That adds new challenges and skins. Crossy Road has unique pixelated graphics that make the game instantly appealing to players of all ages. And further, enhance the fun factor. After all, Try Crossy Road to see if you can add your name at the top of the rankings.

Asphalt 8

Asphalt 8 is a popular racing game with realistic graphics that can push even the latest iPhone to its limits. You can either play offline, or you can connect to the Internet to access exclusive deals, play multiplayer. Participate in special events, receive notifications of new deals, buy car packages, collect various prizes. Download new ones. maps and access Gameloft help. Asphalt 8 has been translated into most major languages ​​and developers often release updates. That fix bugs and add new features, keeping the game fresh and interesting.

Oxenfree

Oxenfree is an innovative adventure game that combines the supernatural horror of 1980. With realistic characters and a cleverly designed dialogue system. Of course, If you're a fan of Stranger Things (and you can't wait for the second season). Oxenfree will give you the excuse you so long for. The game costs $ 4.99 and works on all iOS devices with iOS 9.1 or later.

To the moon

Next to the Moon is an RPG-oriented RPG that initially debuted on a computer, but was recently ported to iOS. The game is about two doctors who travel back to the memories of a dying person to artificially fulfill a wish. What this desire is and how the story ends is something we want you to find out for yourself. If you are not a big fan of role-playing games due to their complexity and time required. That To the Moon is very light for RPG game mechanics and is played more like an adventure game.

best iPhone games offline / the top iPhone games / best iPhone games for free

Super Mario Run

Super Mario Run is the first official version of iOS for Nintendo. And the interesting behavior of the favorite platformer with which so many of us grew up. Unlike the Super Mario series that you can play on your TV, the Super Mario Run is controlled by touch. Your goal is to get your cranes to pull stylish jumps, spins in the middle. And walls to collect coins and reach the end of the level. You can download and play Super Mario Run for free, the game will cost you a one-time investment of $10. Just to unlock the entire mushroom kingdom.

The Guardians of Peace

Step into the shoes of Diego. A young aspiring squire training to become a paladin in The Guardians of Peace Corps amid. The darkling invasion led by the sinister Commander Selfish!

The Ultimate Carnage 2

Get behind the wheel of over 20 different vehicles, from the simple little car to the huge bus. And race through the traffic at full speed.

Clash of Crowds

Be the last one standing! Become the biggest crowd on the farm by absorbing your rivals and converting the humans. Choose from 22 different adorable animals to play with while you grow your way to the top.

best iPhone games offline / the top iPhone games / best iPhone games for free

South of the Circle

Cambridge academic Peter stumbles from the wreckage in search of help, fighting the cold. As his attempts to escape the ice grow more desperate, the lines between his past and present begin to blur.

A love story between colleagues Peter and Clara, set against the backdrop of the Cold War. South of the Circle is a narrative adventure game about memory, survival. And the consequences of not dealing with the past.

Misk Schools Quest 

In the year 3020, the earth became so polluted that humans built floating cities above the cloud. And filled them with service robots to take care of most aspects of life. But now, those robots turned against civilians due to a mysterious virus, and as Elite Robot Officer Mask 802. Your mission is to cure the robots to save the city of Alpha Cloud.

FR Legends

From driving legendary FR (front-engine, rear-wheel-drive) drift cars at the world’s most iconic circuits. To customizing everything on your car including engine swaps and wide-body kits.

best iPhone games offline / the top iPhone games / best iPhone games for free

House Flipper: Home Renovation

House Flipper is the best free one-man makeover crew on the market. Become an interior designer and start your very own business. Carry out orders, renovate, decorate houses, and sell them with profit afterward! Get new skins for your tools.

Space Marshals 3

Join the rowdy Space Marshal crew on their latest misadventure in outer space. Strap those boots on, gear up, and get ready to hunt space crooks!

FGTeeV Goozy

Explore a house full of weird technology and slimy surprises as you attempt to save the FGTeeV family. Take control of the powerful Multitool to help on your adventure around the mysterious house of Dr. Jax. The Multitool is your ultimate weapon when it comes to solving the many puzzles that exist in-house.

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After all, you can contact us to let us know if we are missing something on our page. I hope you like it and thank you for your visit.

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[mastcomm]

Envisioning a Champions League on Tour, a Soccer Promoter Issues an Ultimatum

Stephen M. Ross, the real estate developer and principal owner of the Miami Dolphins, flew to Paris this month to speak with leaders of Europe’s most powerful soccer clubs, teams that have benefited from the billionaire’s largess in bankrolling a summer tournament in the United States and beyond.

For seven years Ross has plowed millions into the International Champions Cup, an annual showcase that has become very lucrative for the superstar-laden clubs that receive a coveted spot in the competition. But for Ross and RSE Ventures — the sports investment company he co-founded that controls the I.C.C. — the price of running the event has grown to more than $100 million, with no signs of a profit.

Addressing management and owners from the likes of Manchester United, Juventus, Paris St.-Germain and Liverpool, Ross and RSE executives said something had to change — organizers could not keep losing money.

According to multiple people familiar with the talks who requested anonymity to discuss a private meeting, the clubs were told that either the event — which teams treat as little more than a preseason tuneup — had to become more meaningful or RSE would be forced to turn off the spigot.

While the I.C.C.’s games have drawn some of the biggest crowds in soccer history — 109,318 squeezed into Michigan Stadium in 2014 to watch Manchester United beat Real Madrid, 3-1 — it has failed to attract the type of investment from broadcasters and commercial partners that is necessary for a profitable future.

Since the event coincides with Europe’s preseason, most clubs use it as an opportunity to build up players’ fitness and test out new, unproven talent. Top performers and big names often play limited minutes — if any — to the annoyance of fans.

Ross’s group wants the teams to commit to a tournament with legitimate stakes, one with the kind of competitive tension seen in other events — something akin to taking the Champions League, Europe’s wildly popular club competition, on tour.

The teams were told that, if they agreed, they could make much more money than they currently do from I.C.C. games, while Ross would finally be able to see his investment pay off.

Ross’s trip included a meeting with European soccer’s governing body, UEFA. The I.C.C. organizers want to secure UEFA’s backing for any new event by having it partner with them or allow them to use its branding to give the tournament the sheen of excellence and importance they crave.

Ben Sosenko, a spokesman for Relevent Sports, a division of RSE that promotes the tournament, declined to comment.

The clubs acknowledged that the tournament needed changes, but no decisions were reached in Paris. Instead, the teams agreed to set up a joint working group with Relevent to study whether another high-profile event was desirable or feasible in global soccer’s increasingly crowded calendar. They are expected to report back in the spring.

The talks came during a critical time for global soccer, as the game’s influencers are competing to shape the future of the sport and carve out their own interests.

A week after the meeting in Paris, some of the same club officials traveled to Zurich for talks with Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA. Under Infantino, FIFA has created its own international club tournament, a 24-team event to be held every four years, starting in China in 2021.

The fortunes of FIFA’s new event depend on the complete buy-in of its 12 European participants, and their meeting with FIFA concluded with the clubs asking for a seat at the decision-making table and the ability to have some control over the tournament, similar to an agreement they already have with UEFA for European club tournaments.

A FIFA spokesman declined to comment.

Player unions may offer resistance to the I.C.C.’s plan, as they become increasingly wary of stakeholders adding to players’ workloads in pursuit of new revenue streams. Two days after the meeting in Paris, FIFPro, the main global player’s union, announced it had founded a new council that includes Vincent Kompany, the Belgian star who has spoken out about the number of games players are expected to appear in.

Top leagues may also be an obstacle. They have been largely opposed to suggestions for new competitions.

The Champions League itself is expected to add at least four more games starting in the 2024 season, and may even overhaul the competition entirely by implementing a so-called Swiss model. Under that proposal, all participants would play 10 games in a league format, with the top eight teams qualifying directly for the knockout stages, while the eight teams below would compete in a playoff to join them.

The idea of Champions League on tour, similar to what the I.C.C. would like to become, isn’t a new one. In fact, UEFA was considering a something along those lines when Infantino was its chief administrator, before he was elected FIFA’s president in 2016.

To earn UEFA’s seal, the I.C.C. would most likely have to modify its invitation-only model, according to a person familiar with the talks. Clubs would have to be considered on merit, the person said, rather than factors like marketability and the size of their fan bases.

If such an event came to fruition, it could compete with FIFA’s competition and create another front in the often bitter relationship between soccer’s two most powerful figures, Infantino and UEFA’s president, Aleksander Ceferin.

The two have spent much of the last two years clashing over various issues, including FIFA’s World Cup. Most recently, tempers flared after details leaked from a meeting between Infantino and Florentino Pérez, the Real Madrid president, over Pérez’s desire to create a Super League that would unmoor the biggest teams from the domestic competitions in which they have played for decades.

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[tipsoctopus]

Klopp's CL weapon: Anfield's intoxicating history behind scintillating Liverpool drama

Liverpool’s famous European nights are so embedded in our footballing culture that two distinctly different connotations have grown from them. The first is a sincere acknowledgement of the passion and the glory that has led to umpteen unforgettable evenings and eleven continental cups.

The red half of Merseyside undeniably have an almost unique (only Real Madrid can rival it) emotional connection to European competition that goes back several decades; a heritage and affinity that transcends their many success stories to the drama and faith that made them manifest.

The other connotation places the ‘famous’ part in those opening few words within heavily sarcastic quotation marks. It is written or spoken with a figurative or literal curling of the upper lip.

That’s because when any aspect of our lives – involving sport or otherwise – becomes embedded in culture inevitably cynicism becomes the equal of sincerity as clichés abound and the simple fact is that unless you’re the beneficiary of a cliché they can intensely annoy. The Kop sucking the ball in. The banners and the flags. The anthem and the miracles. These are tropes that Liverpool supporters are justifiably very proud of. These are tropes that rival fans mock. And of course those two things don’t square up. This is football and only results make sense.

So which connotation runs through this: cynicism or sincerity? Unquestionably it is the latter, and how can that not be the case after what we witnessed last Tuesday as Barcelona rocked up to Anfield three goals to the good and arrogantly believing that their supreme passing game and world conquering talent trumped a depleted opponent fired up by a frenzied atmosphere.

They left like others have before them; like Manchester City’s centurions-in-waiting last season and Herrera’s indomitable Inter Milan in 1965 and countless others in between. They left broken and defeated with thousand yard stares. What just happened? How did it happen? And why do our insides and heads feel like they’ve just gone several rounds with a 20-year-old Mike Tyson?

Some fairness is required here because the Catalan giants cannot be blamed for thinking their supernatural ability in possession would have the measure of desire and song. How often have Messi and his disciples displayed their wares on foreign soil and every time the malevolent hosts scream the place down and raise the decibels all to little affect. They are as immune to fiery environs as you or I are to music being played a tiny bit too loud. This was Anfield though. This was Europe. More so, this was fifty thousand plus Scousers with their backs against the wall. Even the best succumb to that.

When trying to make sense of Liverpool’s relationship with European football it is necessary to begin with their pedigree but only quickly because in the main their pedigree is the end product, not the genesis.

On five occasions a Liverpool captain has lifted the jug-eared trophy, twice in Rome, and in Paris, Istanbul, and at Wembley and the tales and memories these adventures brought to vivid life prompted a love affair between club and tournament that partly explains what unfolded last week. Additionally, the enormous success also led to supporters inherently believing they were continental ‘royalty’ and this too has played a part in some incredible fixtures down the years. It means when Barcelona come to town the general consensus is something like this: you may be the better of us but you don’t get the better of us.

Such self-assuredness coupled with powerful ardour is one hell of an intoxicating combination but even these can only take you so far, they only turn the lights on. The electricity is faith and for the origins of that we must go back to a see-saw quarter final clash with St Etienne in 1976 with Liverpool desperately in need of a late decider. When it arrived, courtesy of David Fairclough in the 84th minute Anfield went ballistic and an enduring strand of folklore was born. Phil Neal later said of that memorable encounter: “When the ball was up the other end of the pitch I couldn’t help but look up in amazement as the crowd. The whole stadium seemed to be moving, even the people in the stands. They were bobbing up and down, swaying and bouncing, You couldn’t better that night.”

They did, though, in Istanbul nearly thirty years later and despite the fact that nine members of that side who somehow over-turned a three goal half-time deficit to AC Milan were not even born when Fairclough the Supersub struck against the French don’t discount the lineage that began from it. The inherent credence that anything is possible if you want it hard enough.

That credence – shared by club and fans alike – has propelled Liverpool through all manner of storms. It was behind their three goals against Olympiacos in 2004, putting extra fizz into Steven Gerrard’s thunderous late shot that almost exploded the net. It was behind their extraordinary four goal second half performance that undid Borussia Dortmund three years ago, a comeback that had a shell-shocked Thomas Tuchel saying later: “You can describe a game like this, but you can’t explain it.”

Self-belief, love and faith. There’s the explanation.

Yet still there is something more. Because we can eulogise about the ferocity of Liverpool’s support – the swaying and bouncing – but still something doesn’t sit right. In reality how much louder and intense is Anfield for a visit of Barcelona in the Champions League than, let’s say Manchester United in domestic competition? Slightly. That would cover it, and slightly doesn’t sap all strength and learned behaviour from the greatest side in the modern era. So instead we must look at the nature of that support and here we discover something interesting.

Even now, even these days with Messi and Suarez so familiar to us all a visiting team from abroad is ‘other’. They are eleven – exceedingly skilful and dangerous – props. It’s nothing personal in beating them. They’re a name. A famous shirt. A well-known face.

So it is that Anfield is not distracted by taunting an enemy, out-singing a rival, while desperately willing the opponent in question to be bested. Every effort, sinew and vocal chord instead focuses on raising their own players; inspiring them to victory. It is a celebration of self rather than the negating of others.

There is a lesson there for all of us.

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[armstrong48-blog]

The War Against Wrestling

Especially whenever there's a pay-per-view one week away with numerous championships at stake. You may opt not to wrestle freestyle. Some could envision themselves standing on the surface of the podium in 1st location. The song selection is fine. Following that, take your pick through the dumpster so far as very good tag teams go. There are some fundamental differences in freestyle making it an enjoyable and strategic style to take part in. The Wrestling Cover Up Rayne is attempting to make separation. The shoulder has to be in alignment with the arm to prevent injury. The aging fighter is not unusual. To get additional details on john cena cardboard cutout kindly visit https://www.superstarcutouts.com/john-cena-cardboard-cutout. Nakamura may be called up and create the challenge his very first night (highly unlikely). While Lesnar will be searching for revenge, there are a number of other clashes in the night to seek. 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For now, things are as they ought to be. If you stay near a beach, it's something to be on the lookout for as it may be coming to your town. Ruthless Wrestling Strategies Exploited Braun angry Big Dog not wish to have match. Deciding on what's ideal for you. To start with, one reason I stand by Reigns is the guy can do the job. Wrestling Options There's nothing cushioning the slam. The promo Orton cuts is totally ridiculous. The fans in attendance weren't only counting in the last 10 seconds of a moment but in the center of a minute too. What You Should Do to Find Out About Wrestling Before You're Left Behind Limit the quantity of things people can register for ahead of time. Even in the event the early phases of a career, a lot comes to the company that is kept. Some even altered the surface of the business entirely. Both of these guys are both doing some of the greatest work of their careers at the exact time, in the identical firm. The strange and ever-changing world of pro wrestling is a tricky place to comprehend initially, particularly in this case with a ton of language and cultural barriers. With each match that you compete in you're gaining valuable experience, even if it's the case that you don't know that it's happening. restling: the Ultimate Convenience! The ranking was the sole thing close. Perhaps better than anyone else, the business used the emerging communications tools of the web to amplify the interactivity which makes pro wrestling such a distinctive and captivating artform. If you want to start out your search with a reliable company that you are able to try out Resilite Wrestling Mats. Then you'll have a better idea when it actually counts. The following thing is they will need to make a determination on what skills they need to concentrate on. The response is it would ring false with the audience. Wrestling Wrestling won't miss you. Freestyle youth wrestling resembles folkstyle and a lot of moves may be used for both. It is exactly just like this. Blanchard dumps Rayne from the ring. Brock Lesnar is easily among the most protected Superstars in WWE history and he's got a WWE huge contract which likewise will come with limited dates. Some wrestlers can have a lucky tee shirt. The Debate Over Wrestling Champions have an absolute urge to win. It is one of the sports that provide entertainment for the viewers or fans. For non-wrestling fans, it's simple to compose professional wrestling for a joke. Jackson's best season for a football player would arrive in 1989. The game appears to be a compelling combination of old and new talents of WWE superstars. Match-3 games were the king of the cell gaming hill for a lengthy time, with games like Bejeweled and Candy Crush making MILLIONS of dollars each week. Wrestling and Wrestling - The Perfect Combination In the past few years, mixed martial arts have come to be ever more popular for kids and adults of all ages. In just two or three short decades, girls wrestling in Colorado has come a very long way. Things have changed over time. The End of Wrestling There aren't any running collisions which can lead to concussions and as a result of the fluid nature of wrestling there aren't any repetitive motions that can result in major joint damage like in baseball. If you're looking to receive absolutely free energy in castleville then you've reached to the proper place. Don't starve yourself, just make certain you eat healthy though or else you'll have a challenging time cutting weight and not have a lot of energy whatsoever. Grip training to enhance hand strength on a sustained period will directly impact a wrestler's performance very fast and ought to be added to each program. Each day was dedicated to a particular portion of your entire body. The program contains a string of exercises each performed at several stations in the gym. Braun angry Big Dog not wish to have match. The particular fan The New Day attracts is the sort of fan who would like to be the meme. To start with, one reason I stand by Reigns is the guy can do the job. What You Should Do to Find Out About Wrestling Before You're Left Behind Help contribute to the website! Western nations also have developed series using that specific style. WWE is going to have particular hashtag for each sector of the show, thus following Jayar Donlan's promise to its fans of producing content they want on a platform they want. Then you'll have a better idea when it actually counts. First principles thinking isn't straightforward ifthenthinking, has the capability to reorient and release complexity. If you would like to succeed in indie marketing, you're likely to need to be a little bit of a spectacle. Ruthless Wrestling Strategies Exploited The freestyle season might be a time that seems a little more relaxed. Fast and simple spot to acquire the gear you demand! The only slight distinction is that often the face or heel signfier isn't a universal description. A show is only going to contain block matches from one of both blocks. Like golf and tennis, it's only likely to attract a certain kind of fan. The larger picture was obviously the match for a whole. What the In-Crowd Won't Tell You About Wrestling Not everybody can be their very own hype man. Factions and a good deal more six and eight man tags would help protect a great deal of their feuds for larger shows. You are able to guess who the decent guys are. Ideas, Formulas and Shortcuts for Wrestling One particular interesting facet of wrestling is what it requires to prepare for your matches. If you think like many individuals, the very first thing you imagine when you think about wrestling is the violent, choreographed mayhem of WWF-style expert wrestling. The majority of people have a general understanding of sumo wrestling games. The following suggestions will help you develop your wrestling strength and stay it throughout the season! When you take a youthful child to tournaments throughout the place make sure it is fun for him. There's tons of room on earth for one more side scrolling indie platformer with a large headed protagonist in a scary planet, but only as long as you're prepared to further innovate on such a concept. The Pain of Wrestling You may simply rehearse the moves and skills you would like to improve upon for as long as you desire. The punt kick isn't creative in any respect. So, practice doesn't need to be drudgery. 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Vital Pieces of Wrestling There are lots of rules which are almost on the border of ridiculousness, like the simple fact that wrestlers are banned from driving their own cars on account of the chance of a significant accident. To put it differently, deliberate practice takes a considerable amount of work and is not enjoyable. There's always a plan in place, and even though we might not always see it, WWE is trying to create relationships with different companies due to the fact that they know in order to keep on top they will need to think long-term. Basically the ideal collection of wrestling stuff you're going to find in the region. The matches are predetermined but of course that's the whole purpose of the company. Grabbing hold of any industry share in an industry that's been dominated by WWE for decades are going to be a tall job. Introducing Wrestling Cena's reputation for a man is one which has never been tainted. Breaking the rules can lead to fines and in certain cases suspension. WWE makes a whole lot of questionable decisions. What's Truly Happening with Wrestling From that point, Barrett's WWE career appeared to be full of lots of false stars and non-finishes. A great deal of wrestlers have a tendency to jump around to and from other promotions but The Undertaker proved to be a massive portion of WWE for his whole run there, 27 decades. The match with Reigns here showed exactly why Balor belongs on the principal roster and once more, I cannot discount the operation of Roman Reigns. Because wrestling is fixed, obviously a few of the wrestlers will have to lose. Brock Lesnar is easily among the most protected Superstars in WWE history and he's got a WWE huge contract which likewise will come with limited dates. Some wrestlers can have a lucky tee shirt. Up in Arms About Wrestling? One of my finest friends once told me the difference between a fantastic booker, and an amazing booker. It can be hard at times to come across an idea that could be successful and you will love doing at exactly the same moment. In the world today, life is outside the home. The Key to Successful Wrestling There aren't any running collisions which can lead to concussions and as a result of the fluid nature of wrestling there aren't any repetitive motions that can result in major joint damage like in baseball. If you're looking to receive absolutely free energy in castleville then you've reached to the proper place. Don't starve yourself, just make certain you eat healthy though or else you'll have a challenging time cutting weight and not have a lot of energy whatsoever. You can't wrestle if you don't have any energy. Freestyle provides a small change of pace from folkstyle and you might not be as concerned about maintaining a particular weight. Ideally, in case you have chosen the proper exercises, participants ought to be in a position to experience an entire cycle 3 times. You are going to be more able to dodge or slip from a tight hold. A pin can be turned into anywhere. The match wasn't perfect, it was not a travesty either. A show is only going to contain block matches from one of both blocks. In addition, it's simple to create a tag team online. When you watch the chess match that's Freestyle, the smaller details might be lost on the typical fan. The Hidden Treasure of Wrestling In the past few years, mixed martial arts have come to be ever more popular for kids and adults of all ages. My very first love was music and have been in the business for twenty decades. Fighting for an advanced age is apparently a trend. New Step by Step Roadmap for Wrestling Being on the top of WWE ranking can be accomplished with the exemplary training and very good gaming strategy. It is one of the sports that provide entertainment for the viewers or fans. Beach wrestling is fun for everyone. Therefore, you've been playing cityville for some time now or perhaps just started. To the extent you've got an interest in playing wrestling on the web, you're going to be very happy to hear you can now play these games without actually having to pay any money. There's tons of room on earth for one more side scrolling indie platformer with a large headed protagonist in a scary planet, but only as long as you're prepared to further innovate on such a concept. Wrestling at a Glance If, say, you need to capture your entire body, you'll need a screen that trails along the ground with a lengthier length based on how far away your camera will be and how much is shown. There's a big quantity of discipline that comes with the lifestyle you're choosing when you sign on. Don't starve yourself, just make certain you eat healthy though or else you'll have a challenging time cutting weight and not have a lot of energy whatsoever. You can't wrestle if you don't have any energy. Freestyle provides a small change of pace from folkstyle and you might not be as concerned about maintaining a particular weight. Ideally, in case you have chosen the proper exercises, participants ought to be in a position to experience an entire cycle 3 times. Top Choices of Wrestling Lifting weights should also be useful for your forearms. The standing arm wrestling appears to be somewhat simple but its not. The aging fighter is not unusual. The Battle Over Wrestling and How to Win It A number of the anime series had a massive influence on the cultural aspects as people started to learn more about Japanese cultural influences. Western nations also have developed series using that specific style. WWE is going to have particular hashtag for each sector of the show, thus following Jayar Donlan's promise to its fans of producing content they want on a platform they want. The Do's and Don'ts of Wrestling The decade of destruction is really as soon as the streak began to get steam. To put it simply, Brock Lesnar remains in the majority of ways undefeatable, unless of course there's some type of interference or outside assistance, the same as Undertaker appearing at Battlegrounds when he fought Rollins. There's almost always a fresh roster which never loses credibility. Most Noticeable Wrestling If you merely practice your favourite moves to be able to earn practice enjoyable then you might not continue learning and improving. To put it differently, deliberate practice takes a considerable amount of work and is not enjoyable. There's always a plan in place, and even though we might not always see it, WWE is trying to create relationships with different companies due to the fact that they know in order to keep on top they will need to think long-term. Type of Wrestling Tons of different states are creating an increasing number of opportunities for girls wrestlers. Mental rehearsal can possibly improve your skill development. Hager isn't alone in locating another career in actual combat sports. It ought to be part of every significant strength training regime for wrestlers. It's this sort of weight-loss that has made athletes choose different sports rather than wrestling. Their chemistry for a team is legendary. A Secret Weapon for Wrestling It's also called Folkstyle wrestling on occasion. The wrestling ring has come to be the key scene. Therefore, attempting to use periodization for wrestling may appear impractical. But What About Wrestling? The Aerial Assassin is already so utilized to the greatest heights, he can just live comfortably there whenever the time is proper. Bubba finally receives a tag and downloads. Miguel was extremely valuable. The Basic Facts of Wrestling Finally, it's an established actuality that John Cena is the best wrestleman to get ever lived and would be an even greater father. Jericho's promos and segments build until the moment where someone is going to wind up on the list, or will receive this, or will get called a stupid idiot. The movie actually offers two stars trying to escape their TV roots for the purchase price of one.

[abarahman-richard-chignell]

Christchurch: Muslim reaction is to lash out!

Media coverage and indeed the killer himself may make you think that the default Muslim reaction to the massacre on Friday 15th March 2019 is to lash out. I'm here to tell you that, alhamdullilah (all Praise is due to God), that just ain't so. 

This media narrative and desire by the killer in his manifesto to create an overreaction and division is simply ill-conceived and is going to spectacularly backfire.    Actually what you see happening is that it makes us stronger as a community of Muslims and indeed grow our ranks. Let me elaborate on the non-Muslim and Muslim reaction and show how this kind of thing is only going to backfire, why it always is going to backfire, and why if you hope for division you're going to be sorely disappointed. The overwhelming majority of the non-Muslim Western world community members are intelligent, humane, educated, and events like this horrify them and cause their hearts to go out to their neighbours. Hatred is not alhamdullilah widespread in communities and never will be. Misunderstanding, lack of knowledge, mixed levels of inter-community bonds.... maybe.... but hatred towards the 'other' not the case! These extreme groups will never prevail as they simply don't have the numbers that sympathise. Our Western communities are more mindful, intelligent and loving than that.   (As a minor caveat: I focus on Western due to the nature of the attack and the desire according to the killer's manifesto to specifically incite European and Western (over)reactions) For many non-Muslims, this will be their first real interaction with Muslims and this shared pain as well as learning about what Muslims are really about and like, will knit the communities together and remove much of the media-induced fear. When statistics show that so few actually 'know anything' about Muslims and often times haven't even had a conversation with a Muslim, this real-world interaction will break down barriers. You see humanity is disgusted by this kind of thing. It always will be. Slaughter hurts people at their core. That pain transcends hate-filled ideologies. Even the most atheist and irreligious feel the pain and the senseless in acts like this. Westerners as a whole have a live and let live attitude. We have for the longest time respected an individual's freedom to worship, even if we may disagree, and will stand up for the right to that worship. Whether it is liked, accepted or altogether understood, the fact is that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. Incidents like this or even those by extremists claiming to act in the name of the religion force many to research and study about the religion. The numbers show, and indeed I can attest to this from personal experience, many will start a journey as a result of the Christchurch massacre where they will end up embracing Islam as their own religion. Let's ignore politicians and country heads for now, although most have called this terrorism (finally), shared in our pain and shared many genuinely heartfelt things: let's look at the actual non-Muslim community reaction around us.   Well, actually I should clarify that! Alhamdullilah the reaction has been so broad-based that I am just going to pick an indicative few: Flowers and condolences cards by the hundreds in Christchurch alone, the broader community showing their care and support, other religious communities embracing their Muslim neighbours and offering support in any way they can. Far away from New Zealand, community members standing guard outside mosques so that their friends and neighbours can feel safe praying. Police and community support officers standing guard outside mosques in a demonstration of solidarity to the Muslim communities in their neighbourhoods. I am a huge rugby fan and one of the biggest events in the rugby calendar the 6 Nations was concluding this weekend with packed stadiums.  I watched the matches in Cardiff where you had Wales vs Ireland and in Twickenham where you had England vs Scotland and at both heartwarmingly you had 70,000 plus fans and dignitaries hold a minutes silence for all those lost. This was of course broadcast to households everywhere. The rugby community showing its solidarity for the disgusting slaughter of innocent people in their house of worship.   Wales went on to win the 6 Nations and with a Grand Slam to boot and whilst jubilation for the players and fans I think it is significant that New Zealand born Hadley Parkes dedicated their Grand Slam to the victims of the attacks on the two New Zealand mosques. I could go on with these but I will simply say that it is clear that for so many 'regular' folk Muslims are part of their community, not some 'alien other'. They stand with us in times like this, as we do with them, in any times of hardship. We are all one and the same, we all have families, we all bleed the same blood and we all have hearts that feel the same pain. Now, what about the Muslim reaction? It's perhaps interesting how I view these things with 37 years of 'western' education prior to becoming Muslim. I have the ability to put on two different hats (pre and post-Islam) and am always going to have a foot in both camps identity speaking.  I also found I took this incident incredibly hard as I'm as western as they get, well educated, white, but also 100% Muslim. This kind of disgraceful killing hits at me from multiple different angles. I'm going to address and try to unpackage elements of this in a series of posts. In this one, I am going to try to stick to the topic of community reactions. So, let me get back to it: Let me tell you what I have seen personally as the Muslim reaction:  A global community checking up on each other. Phone calls, emails, messages within moments of the news breaking about the attacks. The immediate reaction being dua (prayer) for the victims, the families, the community. In every single communication. Over and over again. There is great pain for our Brothers and Sisters who were harmed. We are told by the Prophet pbuh in an authentic hadith “The parable of the believers in their affection, mercy, and compassion for each other is that of a body. When any limb aches, the whole body reacts with sleeplessness and fever.” This was incredibly evident in the aftermath of this event. As believers, as an ummah (a community), we felt the pain as if one. This is what Brotherhood and Sisterhood really mean. The realisation that however horrid, those killed were martyred (an incredibly noble death in the view of all Muslims), in the best of places (to be martyred in the mosque whilst worshipping their Lord), on the best of days (on a Friday a holy day for Muslims). The messages were reminding us of what a blessing this actually was for these people, what a noble and honoured status they have with Allah swt.   Specific prayers for the martyred that they would be accepted by Allah swt as martyrs and granted the highest levels of Jannah (heaven). Prayers for the injured and that they would be granted healing. Prayers for the family members that they would be granted patience and ease to their emotional suffering. Prayers for the broader Muslim community around the world in the face of this tragedy. Prayers for the non-Muslim community during this trying time. Over and over again we Muslims make duas, pray to Allah swt, say Ameen to other peoples prayers. The default reaction is prayer and remembrance of Allah swt. Due to timezone differences here in the UK, it was soon time to go to the mosque for our own Jumaah (Friday Prayer). I have to confess my feeling was that nothing was going to stop me. An event like this has an internal reaction with someone like me of increasing my already strong commitment to represent. I asked my wife if she was comfortable with going to the mosque and was pleasantly unsurprised when she said why would I not? Upon arriving at the mosque Epsom police force had sent community support officers to stand guard at the front of our mosque. More examples of the broader community pulling together for their own. The mosque was full. Do you want to scare us? Seems we don't scare so easily? In fact, it is quite the opposite.  You have a few nutters who back you up - there are a billion plus of us and we have the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth backing us up! Allahu Akhbar - God is Greater!!   Naturally, the Imam covered the incident in Christchurch in his Khutba but rather than reactionary and incendiary as the media might have made you think it would be, on the contrary, it was heartfelt, measured and balanced - like our religion always is. From what I remember he covered: 1) That we never know when we are going to die 2)  That those killed were martyrs: martyred in their place of worship, on a blessed day, in a state of remembrance of Allah swt, in congregation. 3) On the importance of community and personal responsibility to build it with the local non-Muslim communities in our own town. 4) Not to share the horrific imagery as it furthers the aims of the murderer, hurts the families of the victims, dishonours the victims, and can create fear amongst our community around the world. There were more duas and prayers in the masjid and everywhere I seemed to turn. Intelligent reactions from Imams and Scholars in the West in khutba's (sermons), articles, being shared amongst the community. Even materials on how to cope with trauma from US-based Sisters with psychology expertise in these matters. There was NOT ONE angry, lashing out style, clash of civilisations type of message or reaction that I saw or read. What there has been on other hand is the first reaction that Muslims should have. That first reaction is to call on Allah swt. It is an incredibly optimistic sign that as a global community we remember our Creator and ask of our Lord before anything else. This is Islam (submission) where you try to hurt us and it does nothing but strengthen us. You want a reaction, it is not going to be one of hate like your life is filled with, the real Muslim one is going to be one of prayer and worship.  Do you want to see how real Muslims behave? Who the followers of Islam are? Then simply look to your communities after Christchurch. We are Muslim and this is what we do. Let me end with my own dua (prayer): I pray for all those murdered that Allah swt makes them martyrs and offers them (Jennah al Firdaus) the highest levels of heaven. May He give shifa (healing) to all those injured in these attacks. May He give the families of the victim's patience and steadfastness during this incredibly trying time. May Allah swt bring the Muslim community closer together and deepen our resolve to worship none but The Most Merciful and Most Kind. May our bonds with our broader communities strengthen based on our shared humanity. And may the remembrance of Allah swt always be on our lips, the following of His final Messengers example our aim, our community bonds strengthened until we are also inshaAllah in the company of our Brothers and Sisters taken from us in Jennah al Firdaus (the highest level of heaven). Ameen.