#too many alternate time lines and storylines it's hard to keep track

[hopeswriting]

KHR x The Umbrella Academy AU

I need to get this out of my system before I think too much about it and want to write an actual story about it lol. With the Arco as MCs because I’m very predictable. TUA spoilers.

Words: 2579

Kawahira is Reginald because who else he’d be.

Every generation he gathers the most powerful extraordinary kids to make sure there will still be a world come next generation for him to do it again.

The current Arcobaleno he gathered are, well, the Arcobaleno lol.

Maybe there are the ones who’ll be smart enough to find another way around the Tri-ni-sette that doesn’t involve human sacrifices too, or strong enough to fight back against him and not let him kill them even if it means the world burns, or even strong enough to straight up kill him and put him out of his misery.

A dead man can’t be blamed to not give a shit about the end of the world after all or make it his problem.

(Well, this went dark real quick lmao.)

But why does he give a shit while he lives you ask?

He met this one human that one time and love sure has a way to make you care like the dumbest of humans.

(Yes I’m talking about Sepira.)

------

An Anti Tri-ni-sette Movement is born in this generation only, but not so much because of the whole human sacrifices thing mind you.

By design they just so happen to actively trying to prevent it, but they don’t care enough to come up with an alternative to stop the apocalypse.

Not that stopping the apocalypse was ever their end goal because yeah, it’s Byakuran and his Guardians that lead the movement, and Byakuran would just like to say if Kawahira wanted the most powerful extraordinary kids, he was right there.

Also playing the anti-hero (when he’s actually a chaotic neutral bad guy lol) sounded like a lot of fun.

------

The Commission is also still a thing because, well, someone still has to keep track and protect the timelines, right?

And as I’m writing this I realize it would have make more sense to have Kawahira leading it, or even Byakuran, but whatever.

Among their many assassins there’s this one elite squad the Commission tries very hard to keep them out of the field as much as possible (and fails), because they always need to send others agents after them to sort through their collateral damage and actually keep the timelines as they should be.

Yes I’m talking about the Varia.

Byakuran is very acquainted with them (both the Varia and the Commission), because they keep trying (and failing) to kill him.

Because Byakuran keeps using his power whatever the way he fucking wants, even while being very much aware of how timelines work.

Because of course he is lol.

------

Reborn and Verde are number one and two respectively, and always butt heads.

Not because of jealousy or because Kawahira trying to pit them against each other works on them or anything like that, they just infuriate each other at a very deep level lol.

Especially because they recognize (and begrudgingly admire/respect/trust) each other’s respective strengths.

They just don’t agree/approve on how the other uses them.

(Does Reborn need to be such a huge show off all the time? Being confident in his strengths enough to play with his enemies before winning against them is one thing, showing all his cards for the world to see just so he can win against them after they tried their hardest to defeat him is just incredibly stupid.)

(Does Verde have to be so straightforward and play by the book every time? Being the smartest in the room is one thing, walking out of the room alive because of it is another one entirely.)

------

A mission goes wrong and Reborn is dying, so Kawahira injects him with the Deus Ex Machina whatever-it- is, and he gains super healing.

And the super villains and every day villains are in for an entirely new level of Reborn wiping the floor with them lol.

(And yesI know, I’m shallow, but come on Reborn is too pretty to become half-ape, half-human.)

Reborn doesn’t go on the moon.

(They all turn eighteen and Kawahira isn’t even allowed to breathe in their direction anymore, let alone send them on the fucking moon.)

------

Fon is number three.

I have this headcanon he’s a bit of a manipulator, and uses his nice guy persona to wrap people around his finger.

Or he can be anyway, but it isn’t nowhere near in the first options he considers, because I also headcanon he’s genuinely a nice guy.

Anyway he doesn’t exactly hate his power, but he doesn’t trust it himself for shit, and wants to rely on it as little as possible.

So he also ends up a martial artist in this universe, and a very quiet guy.

(He remembers all too clearly what kind of words he can speak while under emotional stress.)

(The awful, horrible, haunting feeling of realizing even he can’t take them back.)

(Lal remembers it too.)

(Then Kawahira makes it so everyone forgets.)

(And Fon makes himself forget.)

------

Colonnello is number four.

Yeah I know, it could be Skull, but let’s go with him.

Reborn is number one but it’s Colonnello who’s daddy’s good little soldier boy.

For a very simple logic that goes like this: the more he behaves, the better he is at being and doing whatever Kawahira wants, the less traumatic encounters with his power he’s forced to have.

(Colonnello was never afraid of the dark, but then he’s thrown into the mausoleum again and again, and he never stops being afraid of the dark.)

So he doesn’t turn to drugs because he can’t afford to not be at the top of his game, but he does turn to Lal and her music.

If he closes his eyes and listens hard enough and it’s loud enough, he forgets the ghosts for as long as the music goes on.

------

On the other hand he can’t help having a bit of one-sided strained relationship with Reborn, with a lot more resentment than he’d want.

(Meaning zero because in an ideal world they’re best friends, and it’s really easy to tell the rare times when Kawahira isn’t looming above their relationship.)

It’s not even like he can’t see where Reborn is coming from, taking a stand against Kawahira and defying them and crossing the line further and further each time (of course he does), but he really could do without the collective punishment.

All in all, number four is doing very good, while Colonnello is doing very bad, and maybe does become an addict as soon as he doesn’t have to play superhero anymore.

------

Viper is number five.

They’re very happy with their teleportation power, and is right there with Colonnello in being daddy’s obedient child until they can hightail it the hell out of there.

Kawahira is very invested in their training and making them take the next big step with their powers.

Viper is smart so they know of the possibility of them being able to time-travel, but no surrogate A+ parenting dad is getting them in no time-travel shenanigans, nu-uh, they don’t think so.

 But then a mission goes wrong, and instead of the little jump back a few minutes in time they wanted to do, they jump in the future.

They keep jumping in the future as they try to go back, and oh, look at this, the end of the fucking world.

And his siblings’ dead bodies.

And a very alive, adult Skull??

(This is such a relief.)

(Skull is so happy to see them again.)

------

Something goes wrong when they try to jump back to the present, and only Viper makes it back.

In their thirteen year old body, because stopping a goddamned apocalypse isn’t enough to deal with already.

Their siblings are useless and no help and broken and very traumatized dysfunctional adults and alive, and they’re so, so happy to see them again.

(If they tear up and cry a bit later when they’re alone, that’s no one business.)

They hug (only) Skull, to no one surprise, and keep hugging, which does surprise everyone, and Skull may have written that book but he’s no monster and it’s Viper, so he hugs back.

(Of course he does.)

Viper still doesn’t know he’s immortal.

(Because Skull is a dumbass and kept waiting for the right moment, and what do you know, it never showed up, but to be fair with him they had a lot to deal with.)

------

No number six even though I do like the Ben, and dead!Ben, and ghost!Ben storylines.

But it there was a number six, I guess it could be either Skull or Viper maybe?

------

Luce is number seven as in she’s the most OP of them all. Not in a “raw strength” sense of course, but seeing the future?

I think Byakuran demonstrated perfectly how OP a power it is if you’re willing to weaponized it.

She doesn’t see the end of the world coming (where would be the fun if she did?), or at least doesn’t understand it’s the end of the world she’s seeing, and not just some big scale catastrophe.

She is not daddy’s good girl even though he shows a particular interest in her power, but he can go fuck himself actually.

She’s a bit of a number four too as in she hates her power, and it certainly gives her her fair share of nightmares.

It’s a special kind of gut wrenching feeling to see when and how people will die, and not always being able to save them even if she wants to.

(Nothing terrifies Luce more than when she sees her siblings in her visions.)

------

Skull is also number seven as in he’s the ordinary one who’s actually the most extraordinary of them all.

They just never figure out he’s immortal because Kawahira doesn’t push them that far in training, and he doesn’t go on missions.

He’s shunned and isolated by everyone, except for Viper and, hear me out, Luce.

Viper is afraid of heights, and maybe it shouldn’t matter because of the “jump” way their teleportation works, but sue them it does and they can’t help it.

Skull is the only one who takes the time to help them with that in another way that isn’t telling them to get over it, or making them dangling over edges.

Their friendship starts from there.

------

Luce on the other hand approaches him for selfish reasons.

Skull is the safe sibling, the one if she were ever to see his death, she can only hope it won’t be a too brutal one (or a brutal one at all).

But then, well. Skull is Skull, and he’s fun to be around with and funny, and he’s so good at keeping you out of your own head and thoughts, and he is such a breath of fresh air from her usual, unbearable routine, and—

He’s better than her at keeping his resentment and envy of her extraordinariness at bay than she is at doing the same with his ordinariness, and she’s so grateful he doesn’t push her away for it.

------

Skull is still very much treated like dirt, and he rolls with it as best he can.

Mostly because being left out of this whole extraordinary superheroes stuff lets him see how truly fucked up it is.

Skull is the one who wakes up at night not because he can’t sleep, but because the others can’t, and they don’t always manage to be silent about it.

He’s the one who sees them coming back from missions injured like no children should ever be, who assists Kawahira during their training and has to help them up at the end of it because they can’t move anymore.

He’s the one who watches them never really growing close with each other as much as he is the only one shunned, because Kawahira only has enough favors in him for only one of them.

Except he doesn’t even have that of course.

Skull is the only one who hasn’t blood on his hands, and he always feels guilty and awful at how relieved and lucky he feels whenever he sees that look in their eyes.

So he rolls with it, but not quietly, and forcefully makes himself a place among them even if it’s only to be their Lackey, because these guys are in dire need of ordinariness, no matter what Kawahira made them believe.

No matter what Kawahira made him believe.

It doesn’t work a lot of times, and only work a little when it does, but it’ll have to do.

Skull of course still hurts and is forced into his own traumatic childhood, so he still writes the book.

------

Skull figures out he’s immortal as soon as he’s left alone into adulthood because he is a dumbass.

The others learn about it because Luce saw the vision of his first death, and they were quite literally there to stop it from happening.

But instead they saw him coming back to life.

They don’t talk about it.

(None of them are in the right head space to talk about it).

And then they’re back at having no contact between them until the next time Luce has a vision of his death.

(Because he’s immortal now, but what if he’s not anymore?)

(Skull is so sorry of this new layer of fucked up he added to Luce’s visions.)

It’s very awkward when Viper comes back and tells them Skull is the only one who survived the apocalypse though they don’t know how, and they have to break the news to them.

------

Lal is also number seven as in she’s the one being medicated to keep her powers at bay.

She’s The White Violin, if only because one of them needs the raw strength and ability in their power to blow up the moon lol.

Lal is extraordinary until she isn’t.

She’s thirteen, and the mission goes wrong, and she’s losing control of her powers, and Fon says some unfortunate words.

Then Kawahira makes him say other unfortunate words, and Lal never has been extraordinary.

(Because she’s too powerful, and he’s trying to keep the world turning, not end it whenever she’ll feel too strongly too much.)

Her relationships with the others kind of fall short because it kind of feels hollow/shallow now, and she ends up isolated too.

But because of their respective unique circumstances, Skull and her unfortunately never bond.

Colonnello and her stays close, because if Lal can be useful with her music that way, she’s more than happy to do it.

And on an entirely unrelated note, I really like the idea of musician!Lal actually.

------

Sepira is Mom.

Yeah I know, the similarities with Luce would be very obvious, but let’s pretend it wouldn’t be.

And they don’t have a chimpanzee uncle, but they do have pets from that one time they gang together against Kawahira.

But they never said what kind of pets they wanted to have lol.

------

So it goes something like this:

Number One: Reborn – Super Strength and Super Healing

Number Two: Verde – Either The Smartest Man In The World or controlling the trajectory of weapons (while still being the smartest man in the world even if it isn’t in the “super” way), or both

Number Three: Fon – The Rumor

Number Four: Colonnello – The Seance

Number Five: Viper – The Child

Number Six: Luce – The Prophetess

Number Seven: Lal – The White Violin The (Extra)Ordinary One

Number Eight: Skull – The Immortal The Ordinary One

*

I actually have AUs of this AU, but let’s not make myself too comfortable in this hole lol. Hope you enjoyed it, and feel free to add!

[sinceileftyoublog]

Billie Marten Interview: Quiet Confidence

Photo by Katie Silvester

BY JORDAN MAINZER

“Where are you calling from?” I asked Billie Marten during our Zoom last month.

“East London,” she replied, “Like everyone else,” simultaneously rolling her eyes at and embracing the scene in which she’s found herself embedded.

The 22-year-old’s wry sense of humor, observations, and self-awareness complement the earnestness she’s shown on her three LPs, especially last month’s terrific Flora Fauna (IMPERIAL/Fiction Records). Though the rawer aesthetic of the record was influenced by a spontaneous, drunken purchase of a bass guitar, and many of the album’s instrumentals were fleshed out in the studio with producer Rich Cooper, Marten both dug deep within her psyche and branched out to the world around her to tackle the album’s themes of self-care and empathy. Opener “Garden of Eden” doesn’t waste any time, its drums rumbling and guitars scraping as Marten compares caring for people to tending to plants. It’s a sentiment that hits even harder after a year-plus of lockdown-induced isolation, when for many of us keeping our pets and plants alive was the only thing we felt like we could control. Throughout the record, Marten’s honest about her relationship with herself, relatable in her alternating between endurance and self-doubt. “Trying hard to teach myself a lesson / Give my body patience to bree free,” she sings on the hip hop-influenced “Heaven”; even if a partner or folks in the world around her think they’re already self-actualized, Marten’s looking out for her own mental health. On the flipside, a chaotically fuzzy stomp like “Ruin” has Marten declaring that treating others like she treats herself would be bullying: “Got a war with my body / Never win, never lose,” she sings desperately. 

Flora Fauna is much more than a collection of the good days and the bad days, though. Marten communes with all sorts of living things, from street pigeons to gardens. And perhaps the most consequential song on the album is “Human Replacement”, a song about women not being able to walk alone at night, inspired by a seemingly increasing rash of violent attacks on women in the UK over the past few years. In its juxtaposition of infectious groove and essential, in-your-face subject matter, it reminds me of U.S. Girls’ weighty “Incidental Boogie”. For Marten, putting herself in others’ shoes, in a sense, allows her to become something else. On minimal closer “Aquarium”, over strummed acoustic guitar, she sings, “Do you wanna go to the aquarium? / I feel I lately wanna drown / Sit down, stare out, shut up, and swim around.” She’s able to nurture an environment by immersing herself in it, like how dirt finds its way on her face and between her teeth on the album’s cover.

Marten’s getting ready to get back out there, with some festival dates in the summer and a UK tour in July. For now, she’s relishing reflection and admissions. Towards the end of our interview, in which she had her camera on but I didn’t, she told me, “I like that your camera’s not on. It feels like I’m in a confession booth.” Flora Fauna’s got to be the greenest confession booth in the world.

Since I Left You: How did you approach the order of the tracks on Flora Fauna?

Billie Marten: I definitely wanted it to follow the classic storyline writing/curve. “Garden of Eden” starts off with the plant, everything’s open, and you really get the main feel of the album there, and “Creature of Mine” is twisting you up to this darker, punchier world, and “Human Replacement” is very in-your-face. “Liquid Love” would be the plot twist. Then, eventually, we float down to the second side of the album and get back into that acoustic-y world slightly more, but it’s definitely still different from the first two albums. Laid bare with nothing but an acoustic...on the last song of the album. I love that it’s quite a loud beginning but very quiet ending, which is what a lot of album campaigns end up being. You’re selling this thing you’ve made for two years, and it’s all, “Look at me, here I am, here’s what I’ve been doing, here’s how much better I am.” That air of improvement has to be there. But in the end, it is what it is. Take it or leave it. I’m not a naturally outgoing, competitive person, so I quite like finishing it with an air of quiet confidence rather than being brash and loud.

SILY: "Garden of Eden” almost has its own quiet confidence. It starts like you’re already in the middle of a conversation.

BM: I definitely wanted it to be immediate, like you’re dropped into my life without any warning. Have you seen Soul?

SILY: Yes.

BM: What did you think?

SILY: I thought it was very good. What about you?

BM: I loved it, and I thought it was the best philosophical education you could have in two hours. It made me think of it that way, because he drops to the real world. I wanted that feeling here.

SILY: I read an interview you did that had the title “We really are just plants,” and I was thinking that while reading about the record before it came out and eventually listening to it. Was it important for you to start the record with a song that compared us to something that’s also living but we don’t always think about as living?

BM: Absolutely. Well said. We’re actually really easy to take care of. That’s why I wanted to simplify it down in the melting pot. Take away emotion from it. In the end, we just need water and light and a bit of space, but not too much, to survive. I was very aware of that whole concept. Especially in London, it’s, “Look how much I’ve grown or will be growing in the future,” not, “How’s everyone else doing? How’s your soil?”

SILY: On “Liquid Love”, you sing about “wanting to wake up as a human every morning.” Does that song point to an eternal optimism?

BM: That was very much an affirmation type line for me. That line about waking up every morning was about how glad I was able to do that, because not everyone gets to do that for a long time. The song’s a love/hate relationship with drinking, which I was doing quite a lot of in the first few years of music. I get hangovers really badly. It doesn’t take me a lot to be completely out of action for the entire next day. That line was about just waking up and feeling proper and normal as a human, because I’ve spent a lot of days not being able to function, and it was really getting to me. We rely on our conscience to remind us to take care of ourselves all the time.

SILY: Is your relationship with drinking now different?

BM: It’s definitely a lot better, and I’m a much happier person. I don’t use it the same. I don’t need it in my life; I just enjoy it. 80% of us probably have the same struggle with it. It’s something you can control, and something that takes us out of real life entirely. It takes up your attention for hours and hours at a time. It’s an incredible mask for genuine problems. With music, it’s around a lot of the time. Some people just can’t function without it. I have big realizations all the time. My body’s telling me to stop doing it and stop smoking as well. I keep getting tonsillitis every month. I think it’s its way of saying to chill out.

SILY: The theme of being able to control certain things seems to pervade the record. It relates to nature, too. On the album closer, your garden seems to represent a balance, a place where you can influence nature but not control it.

BM: I have a really strong urge to protect an environment. I use the word cradle a lot. It’s important that humans can do that with other ones. I wanted that side of confidence I’ve developed but to let people know it’s okay to be and remain vulnerable. I think those are some of the best sides of people. If I think of my friends, I don’t think of them as who they are when they know they’re being watched. I tend to think of what they’ve been through, their low points, who they are when they’re being honest. “Aquarium” is very much that sort of confessional poem.

SILY: There are other natural entities in song titles on here that symbolize something, like “Walnut” and “Pigeon”. I think I read the latter is a yoga pose?

BM: No. I was literally referring to the one-legged pigeons that hang around London that are all gammy and rough and ready and tough characters.

SILY: The pigeon is really smart and historically used for a lot but we think of them as rats.

BM: They’re complete vermin.

SILY: It’s almost like the way we treat nature and/our ourselves.

BM: Exactly. There’s such a different between a rural pigeon and a capital city pigeon. They’re almost completely different species. It’s funny. I’m getting a lot of misconstrued things coming out of this record, people saying I’ve left London, I’ve found spirituality, the pigeon thing. All of these things just aren’t true.

SILY: That’s sometimes a good thing. Of course there’s a line where someone says something completely wrong and claims it to be true, but do you like in general for people to be able to interpret your lyrics the way they want to?

BM: Yes. I’ve had a lot of experience [with the former], especially because we’re doing these things on Zoom, and then you read the written piece and it’s so different from how the conversation went. It’s an interesting social experiment. But I love when people take images and phrases and meanings for themselves and make them their own. It’s a great sign someone’s getting something from your music even when it’s not happening in your head.

SILY: On “Creature of Mine”, that post-apocalyptic, “this is our last chance” type vibe--Is that a scenario you often entertain, and how do you feel about it?

BM: I’m a sucker for diving deep into rumination in a very large, existential plane. Thinking just spirals until it gets bigger and bigger and you get to a point where you’re completely irrelevant. Like watching Cosmos or David Attenborough. [It puts] your existence into a tiny hole. I think sometimes that’s really positive because it helps me understand when I’m nervous for a performance or gig, it’s good to put yourself in perspective. However, it sometimes makes you not want to do things because they’re ultimately not important. It’s a fine balance with that style of thinking. It’s automatic for me. It’s my constant thought train.

SILY: Are there other places on the album, even if not in the same context, where you refer to that spiraling thought process?

BM: I think “Ruin” is especially difficult in that I was noting down my thought process, and that’s what the verses are. I don’t know why I do it, but it makes me feel good. I needed to do that to get it out of me and understand how ridiculous that thought train is. The chorus tries to put this analogy of [wasting] time being a crime. That’s what I was doing: I was wasting a lot of time thinking about it, so every time I sing it, it’s a weird slipstream universe type thing.

SILY: I asked the question hoping you would say “Ruin”. When you sing, “Got a war with my body / Never win, never lose,” it reminded me of that thought process. It goes in a circle. It’s not a linear thing.

BM: There’s no point in putting an element of battle into it. There’s no opponent. It’s just you. You could try and find opponents with other people, but that doesn’t usually work out either. This whole album is fleshing out these huge subjects I ultimately have no control over. Putting my two cents in and leaving it at that, making these musical, experimental creations. 

SILY: “Human Replacement” seems to be one where the juxtaposition between the instrumentation and subject matter is sort of contrasting. It’s this funky strut, but the song’s about women feeling and being unsafe alone at night on the streets. Were you conscious of that contrast making that song?

BM: Me and my producer [Cooper], that was the first song we did together in this album, so it needed to come out very immediate. I just had that [sings melody], and he sat on the kit just trying it out. I had no idea what I wanted to talk about. I was going into this Queens of the Stone Age, grungy, late-night mood. I didn’t have the narrative because what they sing about wasn’t relevant to me. I was looking outside and hearing all the sirens and hearing about what was happening in the news every day, and it was a subject that needed to happen. I wouldn’t say I’m in any way a political writer, but it is a massive problem. It’s a shame that narrative came out of me. The subject matter had to match the severity of the song. I couldn’t really talk about my own feelings in that song. It had to be a bigger subject.

SILY: Are songs like those more or less difficult to perform live?

BM: I don’t know. I worried about playing that one live because it’s so serious. My between-song chat is very much not serious. It’s my personality, which is who I am when I’m not performing. So I was worried I wouldn’t give it the air time it needs. Then again, most people don’t even listen to lyrics. They just like the way a song feels. It’s important to entertain those people as well. It can’t be all doom and gloom. I would say it’s harder than talking about myself, which I’ve been doing since I was 12.

SILY: How was playing your gig?

BM: It was at Banquet [Records], a record store in South London. I thought we were gonna be in the actual shop, me and my long-term collaborator and bandmate and TM Jason. He just makes a bit of [drum] kit, and I’m on acoustic. It turned out to be in this proper venue in this theater. It was a gig. I’m really glad we got pushed into that environment. Anything else would have been a lot more daunting.

SILY: Was it your first time playing many of these songs?

BM: Yes. There are still ones I have no idea how to play. I need to figure that out quite soon. [laughs]

SILY: Are you looking forward to touring?

BM: Yes. Massively. I really needed this break to make me realize that because I think gigs can be really hard for people. I definitely find that. There have been certain moments where I wish I wasn’t going on stage. Now it’s just like we have been given this gift again of living normally. It would be incredibly inappropriate to feel otherwise.

SILY: What else is next for you?

BM: Definitely writing. I want to start recording again. I can do it now since we’ll be so busy. It’s shaping up into a completely different soundscape again, which is interesting. You’re always going.

SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading lately that’s caught your attention?

BM: This band called Coco. I don’t even know how I found them. They’ve got no information about them whatsoever. I think they’re American. They have 3 songs on Spotify. They’re very very good. To be honest, I’m not very good at watching things at the moment. I watched Nomadland and loved that. Mostly it will always be The Simpsons. To be honest, I’ve been too busy recently. I’ve been looking forward to June. Wait, we are in June! It’s the 2nd day of June. Well, I’m looking forward to this month, where I can do more domestic things again and stop talking about myself. [laughs]

[dawnrider]

All 30 of the writer ask :) ♡

HOOOOEY, @hnnwnchstr So I’m going to cut out the ones I’ve already been asked and the ones that are asks for specific fics.

1. What was the first fandom and/or pairing that you wrote fic for?

Inuyasha, InuKag. Followed closely by (Vision of) Escaflowne, Van/Hitomi

2. Do you participate in any writing events or challenges throughout the year? If so, what do you like about them?

I did Inuvember last year, which was the first time I’d participated in anything like that. It was good for me to get over some of my anxiety about posting new story ideas.  I also participated in the impromptu Valentine’s Day “event” and then the more organized Inuyasha White Day earlier this year which we had a lot of fun with!

3. Do you write fics from start or finish, or jump around?

Definitely jump around.  It’s a curse for finishing plots, but it does help keep me from getting really really stuck.

4. Do you outline before you start writing? If so, how far do you stray from that outline?

Almost never?  I did a bit for Masquerade, the Inuparents side story, but mostly to make sure I didn’t forget anything and to keep it within the plotline of what I’d already written for Your Lying Smile.

5. What is the perfect environment for you to write in?

Coffee Shop, hands down. But I rarely get to do that, so often the next best thing is a comfy couch spot in my house.  I really need a better armchair...

6. If you’re really concentrating, how many words can you write in a day?

UHHH. I don’t really keep track of that very well.  I tried one of those apps that tracks it, but it was hard when I typically have multiple story tabs open at the same time.  But I think in one day, my top was like… 5000 words, give or take?  Recently.  Back before Grad School and kiddo, I probably did more in a day than that over multiple stories.

7. Which part of writing do you struggle with most?

Drawing out the plot.  My plotlines are always too short and not… complicated enough, for lack of a better word.  It’s something I’m working on.

8. Do you listen to music while you write? If so, share a song that’s been inspiring you lately.

Sometimes.  I have a Spotify list of “liked” songs that range from punk to R&B to alternative to pop.  I don’t have any specific story for it yet, but Sara Bareilles’ Once Upon Another Time has been haunting me lately.

9. Do you prefer to write AUs, canon divergence, or canon-compliant fic?

Based on my Drive folders, I’mma say AUs (43+ is hard to argue with), but Canon-Divergent is probably next in line.

10. Do you enjoy writing dialogue, exposition, or plot the most?

Exposition.  My writing is pretty description heavy with dialogue sprinkled in.

13. Is there a trope you wouldn’t write if it was the last trope on earth?

Darkfic.  I can’t not have them have a happy ending in some capacity.  It might be a little bittersweet (some of you probably know the fic I’m thinking of) but ultimately they end up together and happy.

14. If you were stuck on a desert island with only two characters, which would you pick?

Specifically from Inuyasha?  Inuyasha and Sango, because Sango would come up with a plan to get us off the island and Inuyasha would make it happen.  Also Shirtless!Inu...

16. What is your most underrated fic?

This is a weird question.  Anyway, um… I guess To Sleep Perchance to Dream?  I haven’t updated it in a while so I think it’s fallen off people’s radar.

17. What fic are you most proud of?

Return to Me, I think?  Short as it is, I think I accomplished what I set out to do in that storyline.

18. What is a line/scene you’re really proud of? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene.

Oh Lort…  Too many stories to sift through… Most recently, a scene between Izayoi and an OC in the upcoming chapter for YLS: Masquerade.  She’s understandably distraught from her ordeal and she’s trying to buck up because she knows crying won’t help anything.  But the OC, one of the other women who was taken, comforts her and reminds her that it’s alright to lean on others sometimes.  I like the tenderness of a woman being a shelter and a rock for another woman, even who don’t know one another well, instead of it being that a man comforts her.

19. Who is the easiest/hardest character for you to write about? Why?

Easiest: Inuyasha. Aside from the fact that I feel like I’ve gotten his speech patterns down decently well… I identify with him in a lot of ways.

Hardest: Erm… Miroku?  I have a hard time pinning down the intelligent grifter/perv/thoughtful monk balance.  In my AUs I tend to make him some other field rather than have him be a monk because in a different context, I doubt that would have been his path. Scholar, doctor, advisor, professor/teacher… Those make sense for him to me.

21. What is the one fic that got away?

I’m assuming this means one that I meant to write but didn’t… But that’s not really my thing.  LOL.  I keep all the WIPs. I may not keep writing all of them, but I keep them all in my “pocket” for a rainy day.

22. Have you cried while writing a fic?

Yes.  Not much, I’m not much of a crier, but I got teary writing Inuyasha’s fear/pain/regret in Given and the mutually angsty scene in Underlying Truth.

23. If you had to remix one of your own fics, which would it be and how would you remix it?

Given is actually a remix of an earlier fic I called A Demon’s kiss which started with the same premise, but focused more on them talking out their feelings and without quite the depth of emotion. But for something I’ve posted and needs a reboot, it would be A Silent Affair. I need to rewrite huge swaths of the interpersonal interactions, particularly between Inuyasha and Kagome.

30. Tell us an idea for a longfic you want to write in the future.

I mean, LONG is not really my forte (see aforementioned issues with plot development), but I have shared little bits of my post “apocalypse” fic Gone and my other space fic Caged Bird which could be longer.  I also have the Farscape AU which I haven’t officially named… still… But that will be more episodic than plot driven.

[videogametim]

My Top 10 Games of 2018

2018 was a solid year for video games. There were a lot of games that I ended up liking a lot more than I thought I would, and a couple of indie surprises as well. I think 2017 was a very hard act to follow and as such I’ve had a tough time deciding the order this time around, but in the end I still feel very good about the 10 games on this list.

10. Return of the Obra Dinn (Lucas Pope)

What a surprise this turned out to be. I bought Obra Dinn based solely on the fact that it was Lucas Pope’s next game and much like Papers, Please, it’s a very unique type of game. In Obra Dinn you are charged with investigating the mysterious return of a ship thought to be lost at sea, whose crew had all mysteriously perished or disappeared. You walk around looking for dead bodies of the crew, and using your magic compass you are able to view a tableau pinpointing the moment of their death. Using this information it’s your job to fill in the journal and figure out how each and every member of the 60-person crew died and who or what killed them. There’s a lot of guesswork involved since you aren’t given a lot of detailed information, but thanks to the fantastic audio cues it was one of the most satisfying and rewarding games I played all year.

9. Tetris Effect (Monstars Inc./Resonair)

Tetris Effect is easily the coolest edition of Tetris made to date. In addition to being a wonderful VR experience on the same level of Rez Infinite or Thumper, Tetris Effect features almost everything a good Tetris game ought to have. Plenty of different game modes are included such as classics like Marathon or Sprint to the weirder ones like new Purify or Mystery modes. But the standout is definitely Journey mode. Functioning as a campaign, this mode takes you across almost 30 unique stages each featuring its own incredible dynamic music that progresses as you clear lines, and beautiful visuals that are greatly enhanced in VR. I expect this will be the game I keep coming back to from this year to play every now and again, and will definitely be my go-to Tetris game.

8. HITMAN 2 (IO Interactive)

A follow-up to 2016′s HITMAN (and my personal #2 game of that year), HITMAN 2 expands upon it in almost every way. The briefcase is back. Blending mechanics have been added for big crowds and bushes. The levels are orders of magnitude larger and while there’s only 5 of them, they’re all of the quality of 2016′s Sapienza level. There are also a couple of new modes too. One of which is a Sniper Assassin level where you are perched in a sniper’s nest overlooking a wedding and given many targets to take out, and the other is a multiplayer versus mode where you race against another player to take out a target faster. 

But perhaps the most pleasantly surprising improvement has been in the quality of writing, specifically for 47′s character. You can tell they spent a lot more time ensuring he has lines for some of the more whacky scenarios he can end up in, especially when he gets the chance to talk directly to his targets. HITMAN 2 is ultimately more of the same, but it’s a lot more and definitely the game worth picking up if you’re a fan of the series or stealth games in general. 

7. Yakuza 6 & Yakuza KIWAMI 2 (SEGA)

Unlike last year with 0 and KIWAMI, I feel very similarly about the two Yakuza games that came out this year so I thought they should occupy the same spot. The main thing that sets these new releases apart from previous entries is the new Dragon Engine. It’s a pretty big departure in feeling from the previous combat engine, but it allows for a lot more freedom since street battles are no longer constrained to an arena. You can run as far as you like, you can drag enemies into nearby shops and restaurants, and the new ragdoll physics are utterly hilarious. Both games also feature a new side activity (a tower defense style game in Kiwami 2 and a reverse tower defense style game in 6) that ties in with well known members of NJPW. 

As far as story goes, I think both of them are pretty good. Having never played 2 back in the day, it definitely holds up to and even surpasses some of the later games’ stories with one of the best antagonists of the series in Ryuji and an even better partner character in Kaoru. KIWAMI 2 also incorporates the cabaret club minigame from Yakuza 0 with a whole new storyline, and some great new substories. Yakuza 6 on the other hand is a pretty decent finale for Kiryu’s story. It makes some callbacks to previous games (especially 0 and 2) and some fun new characters along with the vibrant new location of Onomichi. It’s sad that Kiryu’s story is over now, but I still have a strong hope for the future of the series.

6. Deltarune (Toby Fox)

Certainly the biggest surprise of the year was Deltarune. A new project from Undertale’s Toby Fox, Deltarune most notably features a new party system for battles and more detailed graphics. It’s got all the writing and music I’ve come to expect and love from Toby, a new cast of characters, and a promising story. Deltarune isn’t finished yet and it will be a long time before we see its conclusion, but Chapter 1 is an incredible start.

5. God of War (Santa Monica Studio)

I didn’t expect to like the new God of War as much as I did. I grew up with the series and I wasn’t sure how to feel about this completely new over-the-shoulder direction. My worries were quickly put at ease however, with how much fun Kratos’ new axe was to use and all of the abilities you could unlock throughout the game. Perhaps my favourite part is the map itself; while it is an open-world game, it is the exact right size. It respects your time and you never take long to get somewhere interesting, and your exploration is rewarded adequetly. This design philosophy seems to be lost on a lot of modern open-world developers and its refreshing to see it done right in God of War. As for the story, it goes in a very interesting direction and the dynamic between Kratos and his son Atreus unfolds in some satisfying ways, managing to give Kratos some real character development beyond angry bald man. They are definitely using this one to setup more God of War games, and they have revitalized my excitement for the future of this series for the first time in a decade. 

4. Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country (Monolith Soft)

The Golden Country takes place 500 years before XC2 and outlines the events leading up to it. There are many familiar faces, and the story expands upon many events Rex and his party learn about in the base game. Much of the game takes place on Torna and its a varied location with lots of different environments and enemy types. The biggest improvement from XC2 is the battle system. It’s a lot more straightforward this time around because there’s no more core crystal system where you have to do gacha pulls to get new random blades. There’s just the 3 party members and their two main character blades which makes for guaranteed combo and chain attack potential throughout the game, whereas before you would have to get lucky and try to optimize for it. Clocking in at about 30 hours, I think one could definitely make the case for playing this expansion either before XC2 to see the story setup, or playing it after for appreciating the character development. You can tell a tremendous amount of love and care went into making this expansion, and being included in the XC2 season pass makes it a tremendous value.

3. Monster Hunter World (Capcom)

It’s been awhile since I got so obsessed with a specific game that I wanted to do nothing else but play it when I wasn’t at work or asleep but Capcom did it. Having only played 4U previously on the 3DS for about 60 hours, it cannot be overstated how much work they put into making this series more palatable. Whether it’s through streamlining weapon upgrades by showing us the weapon paths, or getting rid of consumable whetstones, or just showing us the direction the monster is in after collecting a couple of tracks, or finally upgrading from god damn PS2 models, or just putting it on a proper console again so I don’t have to get carpal tunnel from the 3DS. The list goes on and on about all the things that made this Monster Hunter the one that got me hooked. They’ve supported the game with a ton of free post-launch content too including new monsters and fun crossover skins. If there is any game to point to and say Capcom has cleaned up their act these last couple of years, this is it.

2. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Sora Ltd./Bandai Namco)

There are a lot of things I could say about Ultimate, but I think the most important thing to remember is that it is an incredible collection of fighting game content. There are a ton of characters, stages (with 3 variants of each!), and almost a thousand songs. Sakurai has gone to even greater lengths to ensure that this game can be enjoyed by players of any inclination. Whether you like to play with stocks or stamina, or if you wanna use all items/no items/whichever items you like, there’s probably a rule setting for you. This is finally the Smash game that has gotten me interested in the competitive side, fighting one on one without items and as such I have an appreciation for it now. New characters like Incineroar, Simon/Richter, and K. Rool are a blast to play, and characters I missed in Smash 4 like Corrin, Ryu, Cloud, and Duck Hunt have been a blast too. The game has really rekindled my enjoyment of the series and I’m trying all sorts of characters I never would’ve before. I would be totally okay if this was the last Super Smash Bros. game, and I look forward to seeing what the future DLC characters end up being. 

1. Valkyria Chronicles 4 (SEGA)

VC4 is assuredly my favourite game of 2018. I’m a big fan of the fantasy alternate-universe WWII setting established in the first Valkyria Chronicles, and VC4 takes place around the same time. It follows the tale of the Federation Army’s Squad E led by commander Claude Wallace. Nearly every character is likeable in some way and all of them get some meaningful character development; the main characters through the story and the side characters through their own events where they interact with other members of the squad. The english voice actors really do a tremendous job selling these characters and their weird quirks. The gameplay is very similar to the first game with some new features like the Grenadier unit class or the halftrack APC you could use to quickly move multiple troops around the battlefield. If you are a fan of turn-based strategy, alternate history, or just straight up great characters I cannot recommend this game enough. 

That’s all for my 2018 list. There are a few more games that I’d like to acknowledge from the year that didn’t quite make the top 10, but I’ll do that in a seperate post next week. If you’ve read this far, thank you so much for doing so. I’m very excited about the upcoming year in games!                                                   

[shirlleycoyle]

What Alternate Reality Games Teach Us About the Dangerous Appeal of QAnon

This story was originally published on mssv.net by Adrian Hon (@adrianhon)

The far-right QAnon conspiracy theory is so sprawling, it’s hard to know where people join. Last week, it was 5G cell towers, this week it’s Wayfair; who knows what next week will bring? But QAnon’s followers always seem to begin their journey with the same refrain: “I’ve done my research.”

I’d heard that line before. In early 2001, the marketing for Steven Spielberg’s latest movie, A.I., had just begun. YouTube wouldn’t launch for another four years, so you had to be eagle-eyed to spot the unusual credit next to Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, and Frances O’Connor: Jeanine Salla, the movie’s “Sentient Machine Therapist.”

Close-up of the A.I. movie poster

Soon after, Ain’t It Cool News (AICN) posted a tip from a reader:

“Type her name in the Google.com search engine, and see what sites pop up…pretty cool stuff! Keep up the good work, Harry!! –ClaviusBase”

(Yes, in 2001 Google was so new you had to spell out its web address.)

The Google results began with Jeanine Salla’s homepage but led to a whole network of fictional sites. Some were futuristic versions of police websites or lifestyle magazines; others were inscrutable online stores and hacked blogs. A couple were in German and Japanese. In all, over twenty sites and phone numbers were listed.

By the end of the day, the websites racked up 25 million hits, all from a single AICN article suggesting readers ‘do their research’. It later emerged they were part of one of the first-ever alternate reality games (ARG), The Beast, developed by Microsoft to promote Spielberg’s movie.

The way I’ve described it here, The Beast sounds like enormous fun. Who wouldn’t be intrigued by a doorway into 2142 filled with websites and phone numbers and puzzles, with runaway robots who need your help and even live events around the world? But consider how much work it required to understand the story and it begins to sound less like “watching TV” fun and more like “painstaking research” fun. Along with tracking dozens of websites that updated in real time, you had to solve lute tablature puzzles, decode base 64 messages, reconstruct 3D models of island chains that spelt out messages, and gather clues from newspaper and TV adverts across the US.

This purposeful yet bewildering complexity is the complete opposite of what many associate with conventional popular entertainment, where every bump in your road to enjoyment has been smoothed away in the pursuit of instant engagement and maximal profit. But there’s always been another kind of entertainment that appeals to different people at different times, one that rewards active discovery, the drawing of connections between clues, the delicious sensation of a hunch that pays off after hours or days of work. Puzzle books, murder mysteries, adventure games, escape rooms, even scientific research—they all aim for the same spot.

What was new in The Beast and the ARGs that followed it was less the specific puzzles and stories they incorporated, but the sheer scale of the worlds they realised—so vast and fast-moving that no individual could hope to comprehend them. Instead, players were forced to cooperate, sharing discoveries and solutions, exchanging ideas, and creating resources for others to follow. I’d know: I wrote a novel-length walkthrough of The Beast when I was meant to be studying for my degree at Cambridge.

QAnon is not an ARG. It’s a dangerous conspiracy theory, and there are lots of ways of understanding conspiracy theories without ARGs. But QAnon pushes the same buttons that ARGs do, whether by intention or by coincidence. In both cases, “do your research” leads curious onlookers to a cornucopia of brain-tingling information.

In other words, maybe QAnon is… fun?

ARGs never made it big. They came too early and It’s hard to charge for a game that you stumble into through a Google search. But maybe their purposely-fragmented, internet-native, community-based form of storytelling and puzzle-solving was just biding its time…

This blog post expands on the ideas in my Twitter thread about QAnon and ARGs, and incorporates many of the valuable replies. Please note, however, that I’m not a QAnon expert and I’m not a scholar of conspiracy theories. I’m not even the first to compare QAnon to LARPs and ARGs.

But my experience as lead designer of Perplex City, one of the world’s most popular and longest-running ARGs, gives me a special perspective on QAnon’s game-like nature. My background as a neuroscientist and experimental psychologist also gives me insight into what motivates people.

Today, I run Six to Start, best known for Zombies, Run!, an audio-based augmented reality game with half a million active players, and I’m writing a book about the perils and promise of gamification.

It’s Like We Did It On Purpose

Perplex City “Ascendancy Point” Story Arc

When I was designing Perplex City, I loved sketching out new story arcs. I’d create intricate chains of information and clues for players to uncover, colour-coding for different websites and characters. There was a knack to having enough parallel strands of investigation going on so that players didn’t feel railroaded, but not so many that they were overwhelmed. It was a particular pleasure to have seemingly unconnected arcs intersect after weeks or months.

Merely half of the “Q-web“

No-one would mistake the clean lines of my flowcharts for the snarl of links that makes up a QAnon theory, but the principles are similar: one discovery leading to the next. Of course, these two flowcharts are very different beasts. The QAnon one is an imaginary, retrospective description of supposedly-connected data, while mine is a prescriptive network of events I would design.

Except that’s not quite true. In reality, Perplex City players didn’t always solve our puzzles as quickly as we intended them to, or they became convinced their incorrect solution was correct, or embarrassingly, our puzzles were broken and had no solution at all. In those cases we had to rewrite the story on the fly.

When this happens in most media, you just hold up your hands and say you made a mistake. In video games, you can issue an online update and hope no-one’s the wiser. But in ARGs, a public correction would shatter the uniquely-prolonged collective suspension of disbelief in the story. This was thought to be so integral to the appeal of ARGs, it was termed TINAG, or “This is Not a Game.”

So when we messed up in Perplex City, we tried mightily to avoid editing websites, a sure sign this was, in fact, a game. Instead, we’d fix it by adding new storylines and writing through the problem (it helped to have a crack team of writers and designers, including Naomi Alderman, Andrea Phillips, David Varela, Dan Hon, Jey Biddulph, Fi Silk, Eric Harshbarger, and many many others).

We had a saying when these diversions worked out especially well: “It’s like we did it on purpose.”

Every ARG designer can tell a similar war story. Here’s Josh Fialkov, writer for the Lonelygirl15 ARG/show:

“Our fans/viewers would build elaborate (and pretty neat) theories and stories around the stories we’d already put together and then we’d merge them into our narrative, which would then engage them more. The one I think about the most is we were shooting something on location and we’re run and gunning. We fucked up and our local set PA ended up in the background of a long selfie shot. We had no idea. It was 100% a screw up. The fans became convinced the character was in danger. And then later when that character revealed herself as part of the evil conspiracy — that footage was part of the audiences proof that she was working with the bad guys all along — “THATS why he was in the background!” They literally found a mistake – made it a story point. And used it as evidence of their own foresight into the ending — despite it being, again, us totally being exhausted and sloppy. And at the time hundreds of thousands of people were participating and contributing to a fictional universe and creating strands upon strands.”

Conspiracy theories and cults evince the same insouciance when confronted with inconsistencies or falsified predictions; they can always explain away errors with new stories and theories. What’s special about QAnon and ARGs is that these errors can be fixed almost instantly, before doubt or ridicule can set in. And what’s really special about QAnon is how it’s absorbed all other conspiracy theories to become a kind of ur-conspiracy theory such that seems pointless to call out inconsistencies. In any case, who would you even be calling out when so many QAnon theories come from followers rather than “Q”?

Yet the line between creator and player in ARGs has also long been blurry. That tip from “ClaviusBase” to AICN that catapulted The Beast to massive mainstream coverage? The designers more or less admitted it came from them. Indeed, there’s a grand tradition of ARG “puppetmasters” (an actual term used by devotees) sneaking out from “behind the curtain” (ditto) to create “sockpuppet accounts” in community forums to seed clues, provide solutions, and generally chivvy players along the paths they so carefully designed.

As an ARG designer, I used to take a hard line against this kind of cheating but in the years since, I’ve mellowed somewhat, mostly because it can make the game more fun, and ultimately, because everyone expects it these days. That’s not the case with QAnon.

Yes, anyone who uses 4chan and 8chan understands that anonymity is baked into the system such that posters frequently create entire threads where they argue against themselves in the guise of anonymous users who are impossible to distinguish or trace back to a single individual – but do the more casual QAnon followers know that?

Local Fame

A Beautiful Mind

Pop culture’s conspiracy theorist sits in a dark basement stringing together photos and newspaper clippings on their "crazy wall." On the few occasions this leads to useful results, it’s an unenviable pursuit. Anyone choosing such an existence tends to be shunned by society.

But this ignores one gaping fact: piecing together theories is really satisfying. Writing my walkthrough for The Beast was rewarding and meaningful, appreciated by an enthusiastic community in a way that my molecular biology essays most certainly were not. Online communities have long been dismissed as inferior in every way to “real” friendships, an attenuated version that’s better than nothing, but not something that anyone should choose. Yet ARGs and QAnon (and games and fandom and so many other things) demonstrate there’s an immediacy and scale and relevance to online communities that can be more potent and rewarding than a neighbourhood bake sale. This won’t be news to most of you, but I think it’s still news to decision-makers in traditional media and politics.

Good ARGs are deliberately designed with puzzles and challenges that require unusual talents—I designed one puzzle that required a good understanding of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs—with problems so large that they require crowdsourcing to solve, such that all players feel like welcome and valued contributors.

Needless to say, that feeling is missing from many people’s lives:

“ARGs are generally a showcase for special talent that often goes unrecognized elsewhere. I have met so many wildly talented people with weird knowledge through them.”

If you’re first to solve a puzzle or make a connection, you can attain local fame in ARG communities, as Dan Hon, COO at Mind Candy (makers of the Perplex City ARG), notes. The vast online communities for TV shows like Lost and Westworld, with their purposefully convoluted mystery box plots, also reward those who guess twists early, or produce helpful explainer videos. Yes, the reward is “just” internet points in the form of Reddit upvotes, but the feeling of being appreciated is very real. It’s no coincidence that Lost and Westworld both used ARGs to promote their shows.

Wherever you have depth in storytelling or content or mechanics, you’ll find the same kind of online communities. Games like Bloodborne, Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Dwarf Fortress, Animal Crossing, Eve Online, and Elite Dangerous, they all share the same race for discovery. These discoveries eventually become processed into explainer videos and Reddit posts that are more accessible for wider audiences.

The same has happened with modern ARGs, where explainer videos have become so compelling they rack up more views than the ARGs have players (not unlike Twitch). Michael Andersen, owner of the Alternate Reality Gaming Network news site, is a fan of this trend, but wonders about its downside—with reference to conspiracy theorists:

“[W]hen you’re reading (or watching) a summary of an ARG? All of the assumptions and logical leaps have been wrapped up and packaged for you, tied up with a nice little bow. Everything makes sense, and you can see how it all flows together. Living it, though? Sheer chaos. Wild conjectures and theories flying left and right, with circumstantial evidence and speculation ruling the day. Things exist in a fugue state of being simultaneously true-and-not-true, and it’s only the accumulation of evidence that resolves it. And acquiring a “knack” for sifting through theories to surface what’s believable is an extremely valuable skill—both for actively playing ARGs, and for life in general.And sometimes, I worry that when people consume these neatly packaged theories that show all the pieces coming together, they miss out on all those false starts and coincidences that help develop critical thinking skills. …because yes, conspiracy theories try and offer up those same neat packages that attempt to explain the seemingly unexplained. And it’s pretty damn important to learn how groups can be led astray in search of those neatly wrapped packages.”

“SPEC”

I’m a big fan of the SCP Foundation, a creative writing website set within a shared universe not unlike The X-Files. Its top-rated stories rank among the best science fiction and horror I’ve read. A few years ago, I wrote my own (very silly) story, SCP-3993, where New York’s ubiquitous LinkNYC internet kiosks are cover for a mysterious reality-altering invasion.

CITYBRIDGE/NYC

Like the rest of SCP, this was all in good fun, but I recently discovered LinkNYC is tangled up in QAnon conspiracy theories. To be fair, you can say the same thing about pretty much every modern technology, but it’s not surprising their monolith-like presence caught conspiracy theorists��� attention as it did mine.

It’s not unreasonable to be creeped out by LinkNYC. In 2016, the New York Civil Liberties Union wrote to the mayor about “the vast amount of private information retained by the LinkNYC system and the lack of robust language in the privacy policy protecting users against unwarranted government surveillance.” Two years later, kiosks along Third Avenue in Midtown mysteriously blasted out a slowed-down version of the Mister Softee theme song. So there’s at least some cause for speculation. The problem is when speculation hardens into reality.

Not long after the AICN post, The Beast’s players set up a Yahoo Group mailing list called Cloudmakers, named after a boat in the story. As the number of posts rose to dozens and then hundreds per day, it became obvious to list moderators (including me) that some form of organisation was in order. One rule we established was that posts should include a prefix in their subject so members could easily distinguish website updates from puzzle solutions.

My favourite prefix was “SPEC,” a catch-all for any kind of unfounded speculation, most of which was fun nonsense but some of which ended up being true. There were no limits on what or how much you could post, but you always had to use the prefix so people could ignore it. Other moderated communities have similar guidelines, with rationalists using their typically long-winded “epistemic status” metadata.

Absent this kind of moderation, speculation ends up overwhelming communities since it’s far easier and more fun to bullshit than do actual research. And if speculation is repeated enough times, if it’s finessed enough, it can harden into accepted fact, leading to devastating and even fatal consequences.

I’ve personally been the subject of this process thanks to my work in ARGs—not just once, but twice.

The first occasion was fairly innocent. One of our more famous Perplex City puzzles, Billion to One, was a photo of a man. That’s it. The challenge was to find him. Obviously, we were riffing on the whole “six degrees of separation” concept. Some thought it’d be easy, but I was less convinced. Sure enough, fourteen years on, the puzzle is still unsolved, but not for lack of trying. Every so often, the internet rediscovers the puzzle amid a flurry of YouTube videos and podcasts; I can tell whenever this happens because people start DMing me on Twitter and Instagram.

This literally came a few days ago

A clue in the puzzle is the man’s name, Satoshi. It is not a rare name, and it happens to be same as the presumed pseudonymous person or persons who developed bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. So of course people think Perplex City’s Satoshi created bitcoin. Not a lot of people, to be fair, but enough that I get DMs about it every week. But it’s all pretty innocent, like I said.

More concerning is my presumed connection to Cicada 3301, a mysterious group that recruited codebreakers through very difficult online puzzles. Back in 2011, my company developed a pseudo-ARG for the BBC Two factual series, The Code, all about mathematics. This involved planting clues into the show itself, along with online educational games and a treasure hunt.

To illustrate the concept of prime numbers, The Code explored the gestation period of cicadas. We had no hand in the writing of the show; we got the script and developed our ARG around it. But this was enough to create a brand new conspiracy theory, featuring yours truly:

My bit starts around 20 minutes in:

Interviewer: Why [did you make a puzzle about] cicadas?

Me: Cicadas are known for having a gestation period which is linked to prime numbers. Prime numbers are at the heart of nature and the heart of mathematics.

Interviewer: That puzzle comes out in June 2011.

Me: Yeah.

Interviewer: Six months later, Cicada 3301 makes its international debut.

Me: It's a big coincidence.

Interviewer: There are some people who have brought up the fact that whoever's behind Cicada 3301 would have to be a very accomplished game maker.

Me: Sure.

Interviewer: You would be a candidate to be that person.

Me: That's true, I mean, Cicada 3301 has a lot in common with the games we've made. I think that one big difference (chuckles) is that normally when we make alternate reality games, we do it for money. And it's not so clear to understand where the funding for Cicada 3301 is coming from.

Clearly this was all just in fun – I knew it and the interviewer knew it. That’s why I agreed to take part. But does everyone watching this understand that? There’s no “SPEC” tag on the video. At least a few commenters are taking it seriously:

I am the “ARG guy” in question

I’m not worried, but I’d be lying if I wasn’t a touch concerned that Cicada 3301 now lies squarely in the QAnon vortex and in the “Q-web“:

Here’s a good interview with the creator of the “Q-web”

My defence that the cicada puzzle in The Code was “a big coincidence” (albeit delivered with an unfortunate shit-eating grin) didn’t hold water. In the conspiracy theorest mindset, no such thing exists:

“According to Michael Barkun, emeritus professor of political science at Syracuse University, three core principles characterize most conspiracy theories. Firstly, the belief that nothing happens by accident or coincidence. Secondly, that nothing is as it seems: The “appearance of innocence” is to be suspected. Finally, the belief that everything is connected through a hidden pattern.”

These are helpful beliefs when playing an ARG or watching a TV show designed with twists and turns. It’s fun to speculate and to join seemingly disparate ideas, especially when the creators encourage and reward this behaviour. It’s less helpful when conspiracy theorists “yes, and…” each other into shooting up a pizza parlour or burning down 5G cell towers.

Because there is no coherent QAnon community in the same sense as the Cloudmakers, there’s no convention of “SPEC” tags. In their absence, YouTube has added annotated QAnon videos with links to its Wikipedia article, and Twitter has banned 7,000 accounts and restricted 150,000 more, among other actions. Supposedly, Facebook is planning to do the same.

These are useful steps but will not stop QAnon from spreading in social media comments or private chat groups or unmoderated forums. It’s not something we can reasonably hope for, and I don’t think there’s any technological solution (e.g. browser extensions) either. The only way to stop people from mistaking speculation from fact is for them to want to stop.

Cryptic

It’s always nice to have a few mysteries for players to speculate on in an ARG, if only because it helps them pass the time while the poor puppetmasters scramble to sate their insatiable demand for more website updates and puzzles. A good mystery can keep a community guessing for, as Lost did with its numbers or Game of Thrones with Jon Snow’s parentage. But these mysteries always have to be balanced against specifics, lest the whole story dissolve into a puddle of mush; for as much we derided Lost for the underwhelming conclusion to its mysteries, no-one would’ve watched in the first place if the episode-to-episode storytelling wasn’t so strong.

The downside of being too mysterious in Perplex City is that cryptic messages often led players on wild goose chases such that they completely ignored entire story arcs in favour of pursuing their own theories. This was bad for us because we had a pretty strict timetable that we needed our story to play out on, pinned against the release of our physical puzzle cards that funded the entire enterprise. If players took too long to find the $200,000 treasure at the conclusion of the story, we might run out of money.

QAnon can favour cryptic messages because, as far as I know, they don’t have a specific timeline or goal in mind, let alone a production budget or paid staff. Not only is there no harm in followers misinterpreting messages, but it’s a strength: followers can occupy themselves with their own spin-off theories far better than “Q” can. Dan Hon notes:

“For every ARG I’ve been involved in and ones my friends have been involved in, communities always consume/complete/burn through content faster than you can make it, when you’re doing a narrative-based game. This content generation/consumption/playing asymmetry is, I think, just a fact. But QAnon “solved” it by being able to co-opt all content that already exists and … encourages and allows you to create new content that counts and is fair play in-the-game.”

But even QAnon needs some specificity, hence their frequent references to actual people, places, events, and so on.

A brief aside on designing very hard puzzles

It was useful to be cryptic when I needed to control the speed at which players solved especially consequential puzzles, like the one revealing where our $200,000 treasure was buried. For story and marketing purposes, we wanted players to be able to find it as soon as they had access to all 256 puzzle cards, which we released in three waves. We also wanted players to feel like they were making progress before they had all the cards and we didn’t want them to find the location the minute they had the last card.

My answer was to represent the location as the solution to multiple cryptic puzzles. One puzzle referred to the Jurassic strata in the UK, which I split across the background of 14 cards. Another began with a microdot revealing which order to arrange triple letters I’d hidden on a bunch of cards. By performing mod arithmetic on the letter/number values, you would arrive at 1, 2, 3 or 4, corresponding to the four DNA nucleotides. If you understood the triplets as codons for amino acids, they became letters. These letters led you to the phrase “Duke of Burgundy”, the name of a butterfly whose location, when combined with the Jurassic strata, would help you narrow down the location of the treasure.

The nice thing about this convoluted sequence is that we could provide additional online clues to help the players community when they got stuck. The point being, you can’t make an easy puzzle harder, but you can make a hard puzzle easier.

Beyond ARGs

It can feel crass to compare ARGs to a conspiracy theory that’s caused so much harm. But this reveals the crucial difference between them: in QAnon, the stakes so high, any action is justified. If you truly believe an online store or a pizza parlour is engaging in child trafficking and the authorities are complicit, extreme behaviour is justified.

Gabriel Roth, editorial director for audio at Slate, extends this idea:

“What QAnon has that ARGs didn’t have is the claim of factual truth; in that sense it reminds me of the Bullshit Anecdotal Memoir wave of the 90s and early 00s. If you have a story based on real life, but you want to make it more interesting, the correct thing to do is change the names of the people and make it as interesting as you like and call it fiction. The insight of the Bullshit Anecdotal Memoirists (I’m thinking of James Frey and Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris) was that you could call it nonfiction and readers would like it much better because it would have the claim of actual factual truth, wowee!! And it worked! How much more engaging and addictive is an immersive, participatory ARG when it adds that unique frisson you can only get with the claim of factual truth? And bear in mind that ARG-scale stories aren’t about mere personal experiences—they operate on a world-historical scale.”

ARGs’ playfulness with the truth and their sometimes-imperceptible winking of This Is Not A Game (accusations Lonelygirl15 was a hoax) is only the most modern incarnation of epistolary storytelling. In that context, immersive and realistic stories have long elicited extreme reactions, like the panic incited by Orson Welles’ The War of the Worlds (often exaggerated, to be fair).

We don’t have to wonder what happens when an ARG community meets a matter of life and death. Not long after The Beast concluded, the 9/11 attacks happened. A small number of posters in the Cloudmakers mailing list suggested the community use its skills to “solve” the question of who was behind the attack.

The brief but intense discussion that ensued has become a cautionary tale of ARG communities getting carried away and being unable to distinguish fiction from reality. In reality, the community and the moderators quickly shut down the idea as being impractical, insensitive, and very dangerous. “Cloudmakers tried to solve 9/11” is a great story, but it’s completely false.

Unfortunately, the same isn’t true for the poster child for online sleuthing gone wrong, the r/findbostonbombers subreddit. There’s a parallel between the essentially unmoderated, anonymous theorists of r/findbostonbombers and those in QAnon: neither feel any responsibility for spreading unsupported speculation as fact. What they do feel is that anything should be solvable, as Laura Hall, immersive environment and narrative designer, describes:

“There’s a general sense of, ‘This should be solveable/findable/etc’ that you see in lots of reddit communities for unsolved mysteries and so on. The feeling that all information is available online, that reality and truth must be captured/in evidence somewhere”

There’s truth in that feeling. There is a vast amount of information online, and sometimes it is possible to solve “mysteries”, which makes it hard to criticise people for trying, especially when it comes to stopping perceived injustices. But it’s the sheer volume of information online that makes it so easy and so tempting and so fun to draw spurious connections.

That joy of solving and connecting and sharing and communication can do great things, and it can do awful things. As Josh Fialkov, writer for Lonelygirl15, says:

That brain power negatively focused on what [conspiracy theorists] perceive as life and death (but is actually crassly manipulated paranoia) scares the living shit out of me.

What ARGs Can Teach Us

Can we make “good ARGs”? Could ARGs inoculate people against conspiracy theories like QAnon?

The short answer is: No. When it comes to games that are educational and fun, you usually have to pick one, not both—and I say that as someone who thinks he’s done a decent job at making “serious games” over the years. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but it’s really hard, and I doubt any such ARG would get played by the right audience anyway.

The long answer: I’m writing a book about the perils and promise of gamification. Come back in a year or two.

For now, here’s a medium-sized answer. No ARG can heal the deep mistrust and fear and economic and spiritual malaise that underlies QAnon and other dangerous conspiracy theories, any more than a book or a movie can solve racism. There are hints at ARG-like things that could work, though—not in directly combatting QAnon’s appeal, but in channeling people’s energy and zeal of community-based problem-solving toward better causes.

Take The COVID Tracking Project, an attempt to compile the most complete data available about COVID-19 in the U.S. Every day, volunteers collect the latest numbers on tests, cases, hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every state and territory. In the absence of reliable governmental figures, it’s become one of the best sources not just in the U.S., but in the world.

It’s also incredibly transparent. You can drill down into the raw data volunteers have collected on Google Sheets, view every line of code written on Github, and ask them questions on Slack. Errors and ambiguities in the data are quickly disclosed and explained rather than hidden or ignored. There’s something game-like in the daily quest to collect the best-quality data and to continually expand and improve the metrics being tracked. And like in the best ARGs, volunteers of all backgrounds and skills are welcomed. It’s one of the most impressive and well-organising reporting projects I’ve ever seen; “crowdsourcing” doesn’t even come close to describing its scale.

If you applied ARG skills to investigative journalism, you’d get something like Bellingcat, an an open-source intelligence group that discovered how Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was shot down over Ukraine in 2014. Bellingcat’s volunteers painstakingly pieced together publicly-available information to determine MH17 was downed by a Buk missile launcher originating from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade in Kursk, Russia. The Dutch-led international joint investigation team later came to the same conclusion.

Conspiracy theories thrive in the absence of trust. Today, people don’t trust authorities because authorities have repeatedly shown themselves to be unworthy of trust – misreporting or manipulating COVID-19 testing figures, delaying the publication of government investigations, burning records of past atrocities, and deploying unmarked federal forces. Perhaps authorities were just as untrustworthy twenty or fifty or a hundred years ago, but today we rightly expect more.

Mattathias Schwartz, contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, believes it’s that lack of trust that leads people to QAnon:

“Q’s [followers] … are starving for information. Their willingness to chase bread crumbs is a symptom of ignorance and powerlessness. There may be something to their belief that the machinery of the state is inaccessible to the people. It’s hard to blame them for resorting to fantasy and esotericism, after all, when accurate information about the government’s current activities is so easily concealed and so woefully incomplete.”

So the goal cannot be to simply restore trust in existing authorities. Rather, I think it’s to restore faith in truth and knowledge itself. The COVID Tracking Project and Bellingcat help reveal truth by crowdsourcing information. They show their work via hypertext and open data, creating a structure upon which higher-level analysis and journalism can be built. And if they can’t find the truth, they’re willing to say so.

QAnon seems just as open. Everything is online. Every discussion, every idea, every theory is all joined together in a warped edifice where speculation becomes fact and fact leads to action. It’s thrilling to discover, and as you find new terms to Google and new threads to pull upon, you can feel just like a real researcher. And you can never get bored. There’s always new information to make sense of, always a new puzzle to solve, always a new enemy to take down.

QAnon fills the void of information that states have created—not with facts, but with fantasy. If we don’t want QAnon to fill that void, someone else has to. Government institutions can’t be relied upon to do this sustainably, given how underfunded and politicised they’ve become in recent years. Traditional journalism has also struggled against its own challenges of opacity and lack of resources. So maybe that someone is… us.

ARGs teach us that the search for knowledge and truth can be immensely rewarding, not in spite of their deliberately-fractured stories and near-impossible puzzles, but because of them. They teach us that communities can self-organise and self-moderate to take on immense challenges in a responsible way. And they teach us that people are ready and willing to volunteer to work if they’re welcomed, no matter their talent.

It’s hard to create these communities. They rely on software and tools that aren’t always free or easy to use. They need volunteers who have spare time to give and moderators who can be supported, financially and emotionally, through the struggles that always come. These communities already exist. They just need more help.

Despite the growing shadow of QAnon, I’m hopeful for the future. The beauty of ARGs and ARG-like communities isn’t their power to discover truth. It’s how they make the process of discovery so deeply rewarding.

What Alternate Reality Games Teach Us About the Dangerous Appeal of QAnon syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[ramajmedia]

The Leftovers: 10 Storylines That Were Never Resolved

Despite having had its grand finale in June of 2017, The Leftovers left a big impression on fans. The scintillating series aired for a full three action-packed years, from June 29 of 2014 and during this time included many intriguing, suspense-filled narratives.

RELATED: Where Are They Now: The Leftovers Cast

These were centred around police chief Kevin Garvey and his family, and their struggles to adapt to life after The Departure. Problem is, some of these storylines were never quite resolved. Here are just 10 storylines from The Leftovers which were never fully resolved before the series' grand finale in June 2017:

10 Remaining questions over the series' main theme

The Leftovers is a fascinating glimpse into what it might be like for those ‘left over’ after the occurrence of the Biblical rapture. In the story, on October 14, 2011, 140 million people vanish into thin air. This is a full two percent of the world's population. No one can say where they have gone to. Have they gone to Heaven, or is there a special place reserved for ‘The Departed’? And what about ‘The Guilty Remnant’? What will ultimately become of them? While Scripture offers an answer to this, such an answer is never fully presented in bold technicolor.

9 What is Kevin's resurrection secret?

The character of Kevin appears to be completely resilient to everything set against him. Viewers of the series are never given a clear answer or resolution as to how it is that Kevin keeps resurrecting back to life. Can his resurrections be explained away by science?

Did he really survive all those multiple drownings? Did John's bullet miss his vitals? Scriptwriters never fully resolve the issue of this miraculous feat of coming back to life again, and again, and again... is it that he is just incapable of dying?

8 Questions over Mapletown

At the series’ conclusion, many viewers were left wondering what really became of all of the residents of Mapletown, New York. The show made a shift from Mapletown to Jarden but viewers were left with big questions. What happened to Lucy Warburton and did she ever find out the secrets of Kevin Garvey?

RELATED: Hunger Games: 10 Storylines That Were Never Resolved

Then there is Aimee. What happened to her after the series shifted its focus to Jarden. Also, the Frost twins. These storylines never seemed fully resolved and fans are probably still wondering...

7 The future of Kevin and Nora

The series ended with things looking good between Kevin and Nora. However, if past behavior is a predictor of future behavior, then things aren't looking as good as might seem for the couple into the future, as both don't have the greatest track record of sticking together (or to anyone else, for that matter) for too long.

They entered their relationship with lots of baggage and grief and if they are to make it, this will mean overcoming quite a lot. Their story remains unresolved with the series' end.

6 What happened to the guilty remnant?

The series' conclusion doesn't answer what happened to the Guilty Remnant after the drone attack which caused a shaking explosion. We know that at the end, Evie was standing outside the building after the drone attack and that she might have somehow survived, but it is hard to say.

RELATED: Mad Men: 10 Storylines That Were Never Resolved

What can be concluded is that it definitely wasn’t a gas explosion. For one thing, there were visible drones, and for another, Meg was seen smoking- and if it was gas, the cigarette would have ignited it.

5 What did Nora shout out?

As the waters of the LADR Device rose over Nora's head in the series finale, she shouted something out. Fans of the show will never know what. More than likely, viewers were made to believe her words were something along the lines of, 'Stop!' but later she revealed she actually did go through, making it unlikely she shouted out 'Stop!'. This narrative was never fully explained and many fans still wonder what exactly transpired in the waters.

4 Who is the tiger?

Faithful viewers of the show The Leftovers are never completely let in on who exactly the tiger is in the Siegfried and Roy analogy. There are bound to be many questions around this. Was this analogy linked to Meg and to the Guilty Remnant? This seems plausible. They are surely the ones who betrayed Evie? Or does the 'tiger' refer to the government, whose agents drone attacked the building. Fans might not be quite sure of this or even around the motives behind the drone attack.

3 The identity of Sarah

Who is Sarah? Some fans believe her to be a counterpart or alternate identity of Nora. Could this really be true? There are many indications of this and what’s more, the intricate, complex storyline lends itself to countless possibilities. Even the name Sarah seems to have some Biblical significance, with Sarah being the mother of the patriarchs and children of the covenant of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel who is the author and initiator of the Rapture around which the series revolves.

2 The Great Flood

Remember Kevin's father, as he sat on the roof of a house, waiting for a flood which never arrived? Viewers probably remember him sitting with his son, asking in all sincerity, "What now?" when the Great Flood he anticipated did not come. There was never any clear resolution to this storyline and fans are left wondering whether he was able to recover from his ordeal and find refuge from what seemed to be voices speaking to him in his head. The non-existent apocalypse he anticipated never arrived but did he manage to put his life back together, accepting it could be a beginning for him and not the end.

1 Laurie's will to live

Fans might have been left wondering about Laurie and her intended suicide. It is related to viewers that she never killed herself, however, questions remain as to what really transpired on the diving expedition during which she had intended to take her own life. What caused her to change her mind? Was it her children calling her which tweaked her conscience and awoke her to the dreadful reality which would ensue should she end her life? This was never fully resolved during the series.

NEXT: Frasier: 10 Storylines That Were Never Resolved

source https://screenrant.com/the-leftovers-unresolved-storylines-plotholes/

[negrek]

Negrek Finishes Gates to Infinity

Okay, so a while back I started playing through Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity after @phoenixkratos generously loaned it to me.

Overall, I'd say this is probably the clunkiest entry in the PMD series, but it doesn't deserve the hate it gets. It's clearly rushed and in the ugly-duck stage of transitioning from 2D sprites to full 3D, but there are the seeds of a great game here. I actually finished the main storyline quite a while back, up to the point where the protagonist inevitably returns to the human world and the credits roll; just recently I picked it up to finish things up to the point where the protagonist inevitably returns to the world of pokémon. Full, spoiler-y thoughts under the cut. (Apologies for weird typos, my keyboard's inexplicably sticky all of a sudden.)

I'll start with the story, since I think that's what most people play the PMD series for, and I think they definitely took things in an interesting direction with this game. As usual, there's some cataclysmic world-ending event about to go down, courtesy legendary pokémon, but the source of the trouble this time around is very different than in previous PMD titles. Rather than being some external force, like a meteorite or out-of-control legendary pokémon, the culprit here is in a sense the common pokémon themselves: their despair and cynicism has manifested as the world-destroying bittercold that threatens to plunge everything into darkness forever. As the bittercold grows, its influence feeds into the very feelings that first spawned it, causing pokémon to distrust one another and grow ever more disconnected and sorrowful

At least, well, that's what the story wants to sell you on. My biggest criticism of the game is that the supposed dissolution of pokémon society just isn't actually there in the way the game plays out. The pokémon of Post Town are generally friendly, hospitable types, and despite having supposedly given up hope, they put an awful lot of faith in an overenthusiastic pikachu and his best bud.

Things start off great with an introductory mission where you confront Gurrdurr, who was injured in an accident, became unable to work, and turned to crime out of bitterness and desperation. Like, that's actually a really mature and nuanced plotline for a pokémon game, or most video games, period? Way better than fighting some generic evil-just-because bandits, and it plays right into the game's theme of pokémon having given up and turned their backs on one another out of despair.

The issue is... that's the only mission you actually get like that. The rest are pretty standard adventure fare, with rescues and treasures and explorations to be had. And it would have been easy to make things feel more genuinely cynical. For example, what if instead of taking Umbreon in and healing him up, he'd instead come to the town begging for help, and the townsfolk had turned him away, being distrustful of outsiders, and the player/partner had had to go out and rescue him and Espeon despite their disapproval? What if they rejected the whole notion of the Entercards and refused to help the players/eeveelutions with their quest, on the basis of it being pointless, with only a couple exceptions? Ultimately, Post Town as presented in the game is just too supportive and welcoming a place for me to buy that pokémon society is in any way fallen apart. I mean, they're complaining about their literal happiness rainbows disappearing. And I mean, that's sad and all, but really, now. If Chunsoft had really committed to the narrative the games were trying to pitch, it could have been soooo gooood. But they weren't willing to go all the way, and as a result I think it just doesn't work.

I also didn't care for the heel-face turn of the villains towards the end of the series. Again, if you're going to have me buy that munna and company were really devoted to each other and had decided that the world was too sick to go on, but at least they could all face the end together, you need to actually have some scenes with the villains cackling at each other and chasing the player character down and acting generically evil. Like, even just something like the heros manage to . And again, if they actually could have SHOWN the dynamic between munna and her companions at work instead of just mentioning it when the villains needed redeeming, it would have been soooo gooood. I honestly think a fanfic following the basic plot of the game but actually making all the informed attributes visible in the narrative could be really, really good.

I was also a little disappointed by the fact that we never got much of an explanation of what the partner's deal was. There were some hints that his past wasn't very happy at all, and that he was kind of clinging to the whole "paradise" idea as a way of coping with that, but iirc that never actually went anywhere. And I don't think it needed to, necessarily--I think little hints here and there could paint a really sad picture without wallowing in "and then his twelve brothers and sisters were left destitute on the streets and three of them died horribly of pneumonia" or whatever. (Alternatively this was resolved somehow and I just completely forgot about it, which probably means it didn't have the impact I presume the writers would have wanted it to have.)

I mean, I know, looking for subtlety or nuance in a pokémon game storyline, but they were so close! Come on, guys, you could totally have pulled this one off!

Also, a small thing that bugged me was the whole "Hydreigon as spirit of life" or whatever that was. It seemed out of place for a pokémon game, like I don't think we've previously seen any sort of direct evidence for mystical, god-like forces outside legendary pokémon. I don't know why this guy couldn't have just been an ordinary hydreigon who happens to know about the connection between the human and pokémon worlds.

I did find the route they took with the player character's role interesting; very meta. Like, the player is only one of many humans in the world, and they're also LITERALLY YOU, not some character who's turned into a pokémon for reasons, but literally a person interacting with the pokémon world through the medium of the 3DS. The fourth-wall-breaking in the epilogue kind of weirded me out, but it just unsettles me in general when game characters turn and stare directly at you through the screen, aaaa. (Ghost Trick being the game that most freaks me out with this, of course.) But this was the first PMD game to try and address things like, doesn't the player miss their friends and family back in the human world? And overall I think it was well done.

On the mechanics side, I found this game to be incredibly easy. However, my team was also axew/pikachu, and I'm made to understand that axew is easy mode par excellence. Low-level dragon dance and dual chop is absolutely absurd, and beating Kyurem in two attacks was a little anticlimactic. But assuming the difficulty is more reasonable if you choose something like oshawott or snivy, then that's fine--although I like the personality quiz, having a sort of easily accessible "selectable difficulty" option is a good thing, although it would be nice if it were more clear which were the hard vs easy picks. (Okay, I know, I know, dragon, but still.)

I'm of two minds about the fact that inactive party members gain experience along with the active party. On the one hand, the total lack of grinding is pretty cool. On the other, it means that once any of your team gets too high-leveled for a certain level of dungeon/mission, then there's never going to be any challenge in playing that kind of mission again, because all of your pokémon will completely curbstomp it with no problem. And although they did a good job of speeding up the EXP-gain process once an underleveled pokémon actually gets to a dungeon, it's still a pain to have to click through party members learning eight new moves and evolving at the start of an expedition. On the whole I think it's a good thing, but it did irritate me at times.

The speed-up inside dungeons is mostly welcome, too, but combined with the changed field of view it often resulted in my last partner cheerfully wandering off to die and me not noticing until I'm all the way across the map because my character's dashing like a maniac. This became much less of a problem once I discovered reunion scarves and the fact that even equipping them from the other side of the dungeon will zap a wayward party member back to their rightful place, but for a while there I was rather stressed about keeping track of my party members at all times.

One common complaint I saw about the game was that there wasn't much pokémon variety. I didn't think this would bother me much, personally, but I actually found it very noticeable. Although there's a pretty large absolute number of species available (around 100, I think), when you consider how many different species are necessary to round out a dungeon, and then how many dungeons you'll go through over the course of the game, the lack of variety really does become noticeable. This was especially an issue for me at the beginning of the game, where a couple particularly irritating species (looking at you, litwick and klink) were EVERYWHERE. It meant that different dungeons felt same-y, even if the environment tiles were quite different. It didn't help that the pokémon are very heavy on Unovan lines, which by and large aren't my favorites.

Also the text speed... there is no effing excuse for the slow, fixed text speed. Same deal as with SuMo there. The cutscenes did not need to be longer!

But all in all I think the mechanics were an improvement over previous incarnations, and even the storyline, to some extent. It was just the blatant unfinished nature of the game and a couple seriously irritating elements that got introduced as a result that stopped it from being a top-tier entry in the series. It's disappointing, really, because I think they were trying to do something different and cool with this one, and just couldn't commit enough time and attention to make it work.

[aion-rsa]

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Deadpool: The 15 Best Non-Deadpool Deadpools

Who would have guessed that this character, who is basically an amalgam of preexisting heroes, would become such a cultural phenomenon? Then again, there is no denying that his voice is a unique take on the cape and cowl genre. Regardless of how you see it, the gutter-mouthed, juvenile anti-hero known as Deadpool is the king of the world right now. Or is that… multiple worlds?

RELATED: 15 Darkest Versions of Superman 

With Marvel’s multiverse acting as an infinite… pool… of alternate Wade Wilsons, there’s plenty of the Merc with a Mouth to go around; almost too much, in fact. Thats why we’ve decided to put together a list of our 15 favorite alternate universe versions of the Regeneratin’ Degenerate. Because, as the movies and the comics have shown, one universe just can’t seem to contain all that is Deadpool.

FUTURE HORSEMEN DEADPOOL

Not to be confused with Deadpool, Horseman of Apocalypse, who appeared in “Cable & Deadpool” #46 (2007), the Deadpool we’re talking about here debuted in “Extraordinary X-Men” #8 (2016) as one of Apocalypse’s Horsemen. Presumably, he became “Death” in Apocalypse’s equation more than a thousand years in the future. This issue was part of the “Apocalypse Wars” crossover, which followed Colossus and a group of Jean Grey School students as they were accidentally transported into the future. Colossus is separated from the youngsters when they run into The Horsemen. When they finally meet up with Piotr again, he has somehow become Apocalypse’s new Horseman, War.

The initial line-up of this version of the Horsemen included Moon Knight, Venom, Man-Thing and Deadpool. During the second battle between the X-Men and these future Horsemen, it is revealed that Deadpool’s mouth has been sewn shut (an homage to “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” perhaps?). When Iceman makes a joke about it, Pool cuts open the stitching and breathes out a swarm of winged insects.

GWENPOOL

Visually, Deadpool is basically Spider-Man if you turned up the contrast and lost the webbing, a fact that isn’t lost on anybody. It has been played up again and again in everything from Deadpool covers homaging classic Spider-Man covers, to the popular comic series starring the two as a duo. Spider-Gwen, on the other hand, is Spider-Man, just from a parallel universe. On Earth-65, Gwen Stacy became Spider-Woman while Peter Parker died tragically. This character was initially introduced as part of the Marvel’s huge “Spider-Verse” crossover event, but was so popular, she got her own series by Jason Latour and Robbi Rodriguez.

Here’s where is gets interesting: in 2015, Spider-Gwen’s popularity warranted having Gwen Stacy variants of all 20 titles that dropped in June of that year, one of which struck a chord with fans: the Gwen variant of “Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars” #2. This gender swap of the Merc with a Mouth sports his familiar costume but in a pink/white color scheme, a look that was immediately adopted by the cosplay and fanart communities, and this momentum granted her a backstory in the 616, and even her own series in 2016 by writer Christopher Hastings and a rotating who’s-who of artists.

DEAPOOL THE DUCK

This brand spanking new character currently stars in his own miniseries written by Stuart Moore with art by Jacopo Camagni, the first issue of which hit newsstands in January 2017. He is not to be confused, however, with the Deadpool the Duck who debuted (and then died) in the “Deadpool Kills Deadpool” (2013) miniseries, this Deadpool the Duck is a literal mash-up of Deadpool and Howard the Duck.

The story goes that Deadpool is hired by S.H.I.E.L.D. to capture a “high profile E.T. rampaging across the High Plains.” When he tracks the target down, it’s Rocket Raccoon and he has contracted space rabies. Rocket has also crash-landed his ship into Howard the Duck’s car by complete coincidence. A battle ensues, and when Rocket bites into Pool’s teleporter, Howard and Pool are somehow merged because of their close proximity. He may have just been introduced but the Merc With A Bill is already one of the most noteworthy Deadpools ever!

NEW BROTHERHOOD DEADPOOL

In Brian Michael Bendis’ “All-New X-Men” run, he not only brought Professor X’s original students to the current 616 continuity, he also gave us a look at the future that would now occur due to the original X-Men being time-displaced. In “X-Men: Battle of the Atom” #1, we were introduced to a team claiming to be X-Men from the future, who brought a warning that if the past X-Men did not go back to their time, it would lead to the end of the mutant species.

This team was made up of Xavier II, a female Xorn, an all grown up Molly Hayes, a more beastly Beast, Ice Hulk, Katherine Pryde and Deadpool. However, it turns out they are actually the New Brotherhood, but that is not their only deception. Pryde is actually the shape-shifting son of Mystique and Professor X, Raze, and Xorn is past Jean Grey. On top of that, Xavier II is mind-controlling all the members, sans his half-brother. This version of Deadpool appears without a mask, yet has the black eye-markings from his mask now on his face.

CANADAMAN

The year 2009 saw Marvel release the mammoth 104-page special “Deadpool” #900, followed in 2010 by the also over-sized “Deadpool” #1000. Neither were anywhere close to the official “Deadpool” issue count, but that was the whole point. This was a jab at DC’s practice of relaunching titles, but also keeping a running issue count so they can tout their milestones.

These two issues each featured a number of fun short stories by various creative teams that celebrated the Regeneratin’ Degenerate. Of the many versions of Deadpool in these stories, Canadaman was our favorite. A company in Toronto going by Canadacorp wanted to sponsor a Canadian super group with a big name hero heading it up as Canadaman. They pitch Deadpool, but he isn’t interested in the slightest… until he sees the pay check, that is. The rest of the team includes Moositaur, Beaver, Puck-Man and Ms. Puck-Man. Their transport is a red, Maple leaf-shaped jet. Pool quits on their first mission upon being told Wolverine and Northstar were offered the Canadaman position first, but turned it down.

DEAD MAN WADE

This Warren Ellis and Ken Lashley spin on Deadpool first reared his ugly head in their “X-Calibre” (1995) miniseries. This was part of the “Age of Apocalypse” storyline, and like many AoA versions of fan-favorite characters, Dead Man Wade was a darker take on the Merc with a Mouth. Instead of the side-splitting (literally and figuratively), fourth wall-breaking prankster of the 616 Universe, the AoA Wade was despondent and clearly brain-damaged. At one point, Apocalypse mentions that Wade was part of a eugenics program that deeply traumatized him.

In this alternate future, Apocalypse did not only have his staple Four Horsemen, he also had armies of Infinites, the Madri cult, the Brotherhood of Chaos and his assassins, the Pale Riders. Dead Man Wade was one of three Pale Riders, with Danielle Moonstar and Damask rounding out the crew. Both ladies seemed to hate Wade and each other, and they all took great pleasure in either torturing or killing.

ULTIMATE DEADPOOL

In 2011, Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley introduced Wadey Wilson in “Ultimate Spider-Man” #91, which was the first part of a four-part story aptly titled “Deadpool.” In the Ultimate Universe (Earth-1610), though, Deadpool seems to be an amalgamation of Wade Wilson and Donald Pierce. He has a costume and arsenal very similar to Deadpool, but instead of Wade’s familiar scarring under the mask, this Pool is a cyborg who has had his nose, the skin on his face and part of his skull removed, and covered in a hard transparent casing. He is the leader of a squad of soldiers with cybernetic enhancements known as The Reavers, just like Pierce of Earth-616.

Wadey’s anti-mutie rhetoric is very Pierce as well. However, these Reavers are the stars of a reality TV show produced by Mojo where they hunt down mutants. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Mojo does pretty much the same thing in regular continuity. In the “Ultimate Spider-Man” animated series, there was an episode in Season 2 dedicated to Deadpool. While it was titled “Ultimate Deadpool,” the appearance and portrayal of the character seemed to be that of regular ol’ 616 Deadpool.

DEATHSTROKE OF THE ANTIMATTER UNIVERSE

There is no denying that Deathstroke The Terminator, who was introduced in 1980, influenced the creation of Deadpool, introduced in 1991. In fact, his co-creator, Fabian Nicieza, openly acknowledges the similarities. Their names are Slade Wilson and Wade Wilson, and both underwent secret experimentation to make them the ultimate mercenary. Plus, there may be a color difference, but Pool’s costume bares a striking resemblance to The Terminator’s.

Writer Joe Kelly played on this “creative borrowing” when he wrote “Superman/Batman Annual” #1 (2006) and gave us the Antimatter Universe version of Deathstroke. The Antimatter Universe is the reverse of our own (eg: good is bad), and this Deathstroke is an exact replica of Deadpool, but in blue and orange. He has a katana, a healing factor and manic dialogue that might as well have been pulled right out of Pool’s speech bubbles. In his single comic appearance, he is contracted by Mister Mxyzptlk to protect Owlman.

EVIL DEADPOOL

Evil Deadpool may be an “on the nose,” almost silly name, but he is a great concept. During his lengthy four-year run on “Deadpool” (2008-2012), Daniel Way sent Pool to the loony bin in jolly ol’ England at one point. Then he revealed that one of the psychiatrists, Dr. Ella Whitby, was obsessed with Wade and broke him out, ala Harley Quinn and The Joker. Well, maybe she is a tad more twisted than Harley, as we find out she collected and froze the pieces of Wade that were chopped and shot off over the years. The bits of flesh and body parts even all have different costumes!

When Wade discovers her selection of choice Deadpool cuts, he pukes… then proceeds to track her down. Later, he circles back to her apartment to dispose of his scraps in a dumpster. Problem is, even Pool’s pieces have his healing factor, and once combined, they regenerate into a whole new Pool… Evil Deadpool! Other than his patchwork look, Evil Deadpool’s most defining feature is that he has two right arms, and is really damn evil.

AGENT X

The original run of “Deadpool” ended with #69 in 2002… sort of. It was replaced by the “Agent X” series, which started with the same creative team as the last arc of “Deadpool” (Gail Simone, Alvin Lee and Udon Studios), and continued where the prior ongoing had left off. It was a big mystery who Agent X was, as he arrived on the scene with amnesia. He had Deadpool’s healing factor, most of his skill set and bits of his personality, but at the same time, he had refined tastes that were very un-Deadpool. X also had scarring all over his body, but not nearly as severe as Deadpool’s.

In “Agent X” #14 (2003), it was revealed that powerful telepathic assassin Black Swan had swapped parts of his, Deadpool’s and Agent X’s minds, as well as their powers, when an explosion threatened to kill all three. Agent X was actually a Japanese merc named Nijo but he had gained the abilities and personalites of Swan and Wade.

LADY DEADPOOL & THE DEADPOOL CORPS

The Deadpool Corps is full of awesome parallel universe Pools, and we would feature them all if this was a “50 Best” list. We will at least mention the initial line-up, which consisted of Deadpool, Lady Deadpool, Headpool, Dogpool and Kidpool (not to be confused with Kid Deadpool or Deadpool Kid). The Corps was also brought together by one of the Elders of the Universe, The Contemplator, to combat a cosmic threat known as The Awareness. The Corps later bolstered its ranks to stop the killing spree of the Evil Deadpool Corps. Some of the hilarious recruits included Veapon X, Motorpool, Grootpool, Chibipool and the ferocious Pandapool.

However, our focus here is sometimes leader of the Corps, Lady Deadpool, aka Wanda Wilson of Earth-3010. She first appeared in “Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth” #7 and was created by Victor Gischler and Deadpool’s co-daddy, Rob Liefeld. On her Earth, she had joined a group of rebels fighting a fascist government led by Captain America. She defeated Rogers in their first showdown, as well as their rematch… although she did have help from Deadpool and Headpool in both instances.

MASACRE

Put simply, Masacre is the low budget, Mexican Deadpool. He is a former Catholic priest who, after hearing Deadpool’s confession, decided he needed to take a more pro-active role in making the world a better place. Masacre’s first appearance was in “Deadpool” #3.1 (2015), which was an issue focusing on this violent vigilante’s exploits. Donning a badly stitched together imitation of Deadpool’s costume, he goes about cleaning up Mexico. Masacre uses machetes instead of katanas and a good ol’ fashioned shotgun rather than Deadpool’s fancy selection of automatic firearms. He also has a pet jaguar named Justicia that has her own Deadpool-inspired costume.

Masacre’s ultimate goal was to team up with his hero, Deadpool, and after eliminating one of Mexico’s major crime bosses, he set off to do just that. Traveling by motorbike with Justicia in the sidecar, he headed to the U.S. Upon arrival, he quickly joined up with Deadpool’s newly formed Mercs For Money organization in “Deadpool” #5 (2016).

WATARI

Acclaimed writer Peter Milligan wrote an under-appreciated five-issue miniseries in 2011 called “5 Ronin.” Each issue told the story of a different Marvel hero, but in the context of 17th Century Japan. The series came out for five weeks consecutively, starting with Wolverine, followed by Hulk, Punisher, Psylocke and finally Deadpool.

This realm’s Deadpool is named Watari and like all the stories in this series, his is about revenge. He was once the most dangerous samurai in the land, but was betrayed by his friend in the heat of battle and left for dead. When he dug his way out of a pile of dead bodies, he had lost his humanity, but was intent on retribution. His friend had gone on to become a ruthless Daimyo, who had also wronged Butterfly (Psylocke), Monk (Hulk), The Ronin Who Cannot Die (Wolvie) and Punisher. However, out of the five, it is Watari who manages to get his vengeance.

ZOMBIE DEADPOOL (HEADPOOL)

If a character has been around for long enough and a number of writers have put their stamp on his/her history and personality, continuity tends to get muddy. Well, Robert Kirkman’s creation, Zombie Deadpool, may have only been around for five short years, but his story, development and death played out cleanly without need of a single retcon.

When Earth-2149 was overrun by a zombie plague, Deadpool turned out to be the Prime Carrier. He somehow reached Earth-616, where the extra-dimensional security agency known as A.R.M.O.R. orchestrated his capture. His body was torn apart in the battle, but they still took what was left of him back to HQ for safe keeping. His head then manages to escape with the help of Golden Age hero, Zombie. At this point, he is renamed Headpool and continues his adventures without a body. This Deadpool is a founding member of the Deadpool Corps, and is the first Corpsman to die at the hands of the Evil Deadpool Corp. Say that three times fast.

DREADPOOL

This version of Deadpool is from Earth-12101. In this universe, the X-Men committed him to the Ravencroft Asylum to deal with his psychosis. The plan backfires because the head doctor at the asylum is actually classic villain Psycho-Man in disguise. He manages to quiet the voices in Wade’s head, but also awakens a new voice that instructs Dreadpool to kill everyone.

Dreadpool was created by Cullen Bunn, who gave him the name, even though he has never used it in a comic. This is the Deadpool that killed all the superheroes in “Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe” (2012), then all the characters from classic tales like Frankenstein and The Jungle Book in “Deadpool: Killustrated” (2013), and finally decided to hunt down every last Deadpool in the multiverse in “Deadpool Kills Deadpool” (2013). For that last and most ambitious mission, he started the Evil Deadpool Corps and recruited the most foul Pools he could find. Of course, Evil Deadpool was one of the first members, as was our #10 entry, Dead Man Wade.

Which alternate universe version of Deadpool was your favorite? Let us know in the comments!

The post I Can’t Believe It’s Not Deadpool: The 15 Best Non-Deadpool Deadpools appeared first on CBR.com.

http://ift.tt/2j61eYT

[wristwatchjournal]

The Petrolhead Corner – The Dutch Made Exception, the Donkervoort Story

We Dutch are a small, but proud nation. When someone does something unusual and does that well, we tend to see them as one of us, as part of the people. Max Verstappen, for instance, is basically public property. When talking watches, we gladly share stories about Grönefeld, Van der Gang, Holthinrichs or other impressive Dutch watchmaking initiatives. If we’re talking about cars however, our nation seems to lack a comparative storyline, but there is at least one car maker that is very much worth mentioning; Donkervoort.

What led to this very article is a) the fact Donkervoort is very Dutch and b) they claim to have built the first road-legal sports car capable of pulling 2G of lateral acceleration through corners. A little history lesson is perhaps needed though, as I can imagine not many of you know about this small but determined car manufacturer from the Netherlands. 

Joop Donkervoort in 1978, next to one of his earliest cars

The story starts in 1978, when Joop Donkervoort made his first steps into the car-building industry, in a very small Dutch town called Tienhoven. He started by acquiring a license to import kit-cars from the UK. These kit-cars lacked an approval to be driven on Dutch roads, and following the necessity to change the chassis to comply with regulations, Donkervoort as a car builder was born.

Joop Donkervoort today

For over 40 years now, Joop Donkervoort has been searching for the perfect driver’s car, the perfect sports car. Inspired by Lotus-founder Colin Chapman’s philosophy of lightweight construction. Chapman famously once said that adding power makes you faster on straights but removing weight makes you faster everywhere. And thus, weight saving has been key for Donkervoort from day one in achieving the perfect car. Their slogan says “No Compromise” and that fits the bill quite perfectly. As a result of this, even the most hard-core, high-tech cars like the latest Donkervoort D8 JD70 weigh less than 700 kilograms. 

The very first car built was the Donkervoort S7, heavily relying on the Lotus 7 by Colin Chapman and Lotus for inspiration. The similarity is pretty obvious, and more famous cars are based on this brilliant, lightweight concept. Caterham and Westfield for instance, have been building similar cars for years too. Where Caterham’s and Westfield’s interpretation remains pretty true to the original, the Donkervoort story heads into a very different direction over the years. The S7 was followed by the S8 or super-eight. 

Donkervoort S7

Donkervoort S8

The first cars were fitted with a 1.6 litre Ford engine, later to be replaced with a 2-litre engine. Power was between 100 and 120 horsepower, pushing the lightweight car to a top speed of close to 200 kilometres per hour. Not superfast, but quite an exhilarating ride in such a small, low-slung little sports car. As the years progressed, the engines evolved alongside the car, with a 2-litre turbocharged engine in the S8AT pumping out 170bhp. In terms of design and construction, the width of the chassis was increased, safety features were improved, the wheel-arches were retouched and the front section of the car got a more distinctive look. In 1983 the company moved to the nearby town of Loosdrecht, to a larger factory. Until that moment, about 140 cars were built.

The Donkervoort D10

For its tenth year anniversary in 1988, the limited edition D10 was introduced at the Paris Auto Salon, with a run of only 10 cars. It lacked a windshield, further enhancing the driving experience. The car was done in a bold red paint, including the wheels and a matching helmet. This car achieved a record with the fastest accelerating vehicle to 100 kilometres an hour in 1989. On a closed road, it reached the 100kph mark in 4,85 seconds. 

Moving into the nineties, the cars were gradually fine-tuned as the years passed. Small changes in design, like cycle-fenders as an option and engine updates kept the car up to date. Still using Ford engines at the time, but with increased power, the car was still able to go head to head with the most illustrious sports cars of the time. In 1995 Ford introduced a new engine, developed with Cosworth, which found its way to the Donkervoort D8 Cosworth. This new engine propelled the car to 235kph, with acceleration from zero to hundred in four seconds. But, as the production of the Ford Zetec and Cosworth engines reached its end, an alternative was needed for Donkervoort in order to continue. 

The Donkervoort D8 Audi-powered

The newly found engine supplier was none other than Audi, happily supplying the 1.8-litre turbo engine also found in the Audi TT, to Donkervoort. The benefits of the new engine was a lighter, more compact build, contributing to the Donkervoort approach in building cars. With the introduction of the Audi partnership, Donkervoort also started developing and producing their own chassis in-house. The lighter and stiffer chassis made the D8 a serious car to be reckoned with, both on and off track. Since then, multiple versions of the D8 have been introduced, again gradually updating and improving the car. At one point it also held the acclaimed record lap time for production cars on the Nürburgring. In 2004 and 2005 it smashed the previous records, held by Porsche at the time, by an astonishing 15 seconds with their Donkervoort D8 RS and D8 270 RS. 

In 2007 Donkervoort shocked the automotive world (relatively speaking of course) with the introduction of the D8 GT, a closed version of their critically acclaimed D8. Prior to the D8 GT, every Donkervoort has been an open-topped car, with the option of installing a soft-top if needed. The D8 GTO followed the same principle as all other cars have, again tipping the scale at under 700 kilograms. 

Following the D8 GT, the D8 GTO was introduced in 2012, which was basically an entirely new car although the design remains very much recognizable as a Donkervoort. Power came from Audi’s 2.5 five-cylinder turbocharged engine, producing between 340 and 380bhp. The D8 GTO is considerably larger than its predecessors though, with a 35 centimetre longer and 15 centimetres wider body. Despite the increase in size, the weight remains the most important factor and thus it tips the scales at less than 700 kilograms. After the introduction of the D8 GTO, it evolved into a few different versions while remaining true to the original.

To this very day, even after about 40 years of continuous development on their concept of pursuing the perfect sports car, the Lotus 7 roots are still very visible. Even in the most technologically advanced, modern iterations, you can still recognize the cigar-shaped inspiration. Take for instance their latest creation, celebrating the founder Joop Donkervoort’s 70th birthday; the Donkervoort D8 GTO-JD70. As mentioned, this article was sparked by their claim this car can pull 2G in a corner. And I believe them when they say it, as the numbers and technology in the car seem to back it up.

The turbocharged 2.5 litre 5-cylinder engine pumps out 415bhp. The car weighs only 680 kilograms as almost the entire body is made of a patented carbon fibre weave, left bare if desired. It features a double diffuser to push the back end down without the need of a massive wing. All this means this car is really, really fast! Zero to a hundred kilometres an hour goes by in 2,7 seconds, zero to two hundred in 7,7 seconds and it will go on to a top speed of 280kph. These specs, at least in terms of acceleration make it a threat to Ferrari’s, Porsches, Lamborghini’s, McLaren’s. Heck, even Pagani’s and Koenigsegg’s will have a hard time shaking this in a straight line (to 200kph at least). But when cornering is concerned, there’s probably not much road legal stuff that will keep up with this, whether driving on the road or on a track. Spending time behind the wheel in this is undoubtedly a hair-raising experience, especially considering the fact it lacks a roof (Soft-top is optional I believe) and your backside is only inches off the ground. A quick-release steering wheel (making getting in and out a bit easier) and a carbon fibre racing bucket further enhance the race-car feel.

And don’t mistake this for a crazy, one-man show being built in a shed. Oh no, the facility Donkervoort cars are built-in, is pretty state of the art and they have access to a test-track nearby to hone their cars. Of course, there are far more expensive, more powerful or luxurious cars on the market but you can’t really get more focused on the sheer experience of driving itself than something like this. No driver assistances, extremely manoeuvrable, very fast but seemingly usable fast, and still very, very exclusive. Since that very first Donkervoort S7 about 1,100 cars have been sold and only 70 Donkervoort D8 GTO JD-70 will be built. The starting price is just under EUR 200,000, and vast customizing options are available for each lucky owner. Now, I have always wondered if I can fit my 2.01-meter frame into one of these things to have a go. People at Donkervoort, care to try and find out perhaps?

More information on this very special company and their very impressive new car on Donkervoort.com.

The post The Petrolhead Corner – The Dutch Made Exception, the Donkervoort Story appeared first on Wristwatch Journal.

from WordPress https://ift.tt/3gsz9sa via IFTTT

[juliettespencerus]

Top Book Writing Apps

If you are thinking ” Hmm..Do I really need a book writing app?”, I’ll tell you why you do.

There are a lot of people out there who want to become writers, maybe even published authors. I’ve met a number of people who had brilliant ideas for books, but just don’t know how to start.

Now, that’s something I can identify with. You see, when I first got into writing, I started off with a lot of enthusiasm, but quickly found myself running out of gas. I just couldn’t seem to get myself organized and as a result, found it hard to muster up any motivation to keep writing.

Writing started to become a chore – just like my day job – rather than the magical creative process that I had imagined earlier. I didn’t feel like I was making any progress and I was on the verge of quitting.

What changed my life is when I put in time to research the whole writing “Process”.

I realized that if I have to accomplish anything at all, I needed to start looking at it as a step by step process, get myself organized and focus on smaller goals rather than the entire book.

That’s right. You need the craft and you need the tools. There are a number of courses out there that teaches you the craft. We will focus today on the tools that will make your life a lot easier and a lot more fun.

So, let us start with the basic questions – What book writing apps should you use? OR what are the best creative writing apps out there to help you fulfil your dream?

You may not need some of the tools you will find here to become a good writer. However, there are some her that every writer must have in his or her toolkit. So, whether you are an absolute beginner or a published author, a blogger or a fiction writer, you will find tools and writing software here that will help you become a more productive writer. So, go ahead. Check out these book writing apps and software and pick the ones that suits your need.

Which are the best book writing apps and software available today?

Remember, all book writing apps and software are not created equal. So, in this article, I will give you my assessment of the various writing apps and creative writing software. Some of them are free to download and try out. 

There are a number of free book writing software for beginners. You may not need to invest a lot of money in shiny tools if you are just starting out.

However, some of the paid creative writing software have many more powerful features and can really help you make more productive and organized. But I will leave it to you to judge which writing app is good for you and which is not.

Scrivener: The king of book writing apps

Scrivener is one writing app that I would recommend to all writers – whether you are looking for fiction or nonfiction. Scrivener was created with only one type of user in mind – The writer.

What sets Scrivener apart from other book writing software or even word processors like Microsoft Word, is the fact that it takes the complexity out of projects and helps you to efficiently organize your thoughts and content. This makes writing a far less tedious process than it would otherwise seem – Especially if you are writing long content or maybe even books.

I have used Scrivener for writing all forms of content – Long blog posts, eBooks or even Fiction to publish on Kindle.

A number of writers I know absolutely swear by this writing software. What I like best is the distraction-free writing experience it provides. With Scrivener, you get complete flexibility when it comes to writing, formatting your content or even organizing your book. This is great especially if you are planning to self-publish.

Scrivener writing software is a perfect tool for fiction writers because it makes plotting out storylines a breeze. Scrivener also lets you export data from many of the other writing tools and platforms and that is a big plus.

Another thing I like about this writing tool is its drag and drop feature that makes it easy to use and organize your content.

With Scrivener, you can easily create outlines, plot your scenes, organize your content by moving them around and pretty much do anything that you need to do as a writer. There are some great templates available too to help you write quickly.

Another plus I see in Scrivener is comes is available for various platforms – As a desktop writing software, or an Android or IOS writing app. So now you don’t have any excuse why you can’t complete that project.

Another Scrivener feature that makes writing easier is, it has keyboard shortcuts that will make the writing process a breeze. If you need any help with Scrivener writing, you should check out these videos.

Before you actually decide to buy Scrivener, what you need to keep in mind is that it will take you a little bit of time and effort to master this writing software. But the effort you put in to learn will soon pay rich dividends and your productivity will skyrocket.

In my opinion, Scrivener is most powerful book writing app out there.

I totally understand if you are not ready yet to spend money on a writing software. There are some great alternatives out there although most of them may not offer you all the features that Scrivener has. Another great writing tool I have used is yWriter.

yWriter: A great Scrivener alternative that’s free to use

For those of you who are looking for a free book writing app, yWriter is a great choice. It is writing tool created mainly for novelists. I was really impressed with some of its features.

Whether you are writing a scene or just outlining a character, yWriter software gives you the ability to add notes. That’s a huge benefit (especially if you on a complex project) that will help you stay on top of things.

yWriter focusses on scenes and this can help you stay focused and on track if you are a fiction writer. Once you have a written your scenes, you can quickly organize them into a novel format. yWriter writing app is currently available for Windows, Android and IOS. If you have a Mac, you have some great writing apps available like the IA Writer and Ulysses.

Ulysses Writing App – A great writing software for Mac users

Ulysses is feature-rich book writing app that focuses on simplicity and practicality. It is available for Mac users. It’s a great writing software and what I really like about it is its core design philosophy. It has markup-based text editing features. You can increase your productivity using its keyboard shortcuts.

It also has a library feature to help you organize your notes. This is a great feature that will help you if you sometimes find it difficult to keep all of your notes and ideas for your book organized.

Some of the other cool features include ability to set your goals for writing and also to publish directly to other platforms like WordPress. It is also available for mobiles and tablets. A great writing app to use for both small projects like writing your blog content or larger ones like writing a book.

IA Writer book writing app

If you frequently tend to get sidetracked by distractions, IA Writer is a writing app that you should consider. It’s great for small blog posts and articles. You could call it a Scrivener for small projects.

IA Writer is available for Mac, iPhone and iPad. It has a cool feature called Focus mode that helps in distraction-free writing. It enables you to fade out all parts of the document other than the line you are typing. So, you can focus on the highlighted line in full screen mode and shut off all other distractions.  It’s simple, easy-to-use and you can quickly sync your project across all my devices.

Final Draft writing app

Final Draft is the best screenwriting app out there. It is used by more than 90% of scriptwriters. It helps paginate your script to the correct industry format. So, if you are using another book writing app like the Scrivener, you can easily export your project to Final Draft to format it for for submission or production So, whether you are writing a screenplay or writing a comic book, Final Draft can help make it easy for you with its more than 300 templates.

Book Editing Apps

So now you have a fair bit of idea on what book writing app is best for your specific needs. Once you have written your draft, the next step is to edit it and check for errors. Here are 2 great book editing apps that can take the pain out of the editing process.  

Grammarly – The best software to edit your book

Grammarly is a great web-based application that has a comprehensive grammar and spell-checking system. So, you can check for typos, spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes with ease. If you pick up the premium version of Grammarly, it can even help in improving your writing skills. Grammarly helps you by giving you editing suggestions. With Grammarly, you can write without constantly worrying about whether you have used too many long sentences, or you are overusing passive voice in your book.

Hemingway Editor App – Another great editing app

Hemingway Editor is a superb tool for writers to improve their writing and self-editing skills. All you have to do is, simply paste what you have written into the Hemingway editor and scroll through.

The application will highlight words & passages that can be improved and provide its suggestions. For example, it might suggest that you reframe a particular sentence from passive to active voice or shorten long, hard-to-read sentences.

It will also suggest alternatives to words or phrases to improve readability.

One thing I liked about the Hemingway editor is that it can help you reduce your word-count while keeping the core idea intact.

The book writing apps that I spoke about here are all great tools that will help you enhance your writing skills and improve your productivity. Writing a book involves a lot more than picking the right book writing app. While a good writing software can definitely make your easier, if you want to succeed as a writer, you need to master your craft and keep writing. http://bookwritingapps.com/

[viraltnteam]

Top Book Writing Apps

If you are thinking ” Hmm..Do I really need a book writing app?”, I’ll tell you why you do.

There are a lot of people out there who want to become writers, maybe even published authors. I’ve met a number of people who had brilliant ideas for books, but just don’t know how to start.

Now, that’s something I can identify with. You see, when I first got into writing, I started off with a lot of enthusiasm, but quickly found myself running out of gas. I just couldn’t seem to get myself organized and as a result, found it hard to muster up any motivation to keep writing.

Writing started to become a chore – just like my day job – rather than the magical creative process that I had imagined earlier. I didn’t feel like I was making any progress and I was on the verge of quitting.

What changed my life is when I put in time to research the whole writing “Process”.

I realized that if I have to accomplish anything at all, I needed to start looking at it as a step by step process, get myself organized and focus on smaller goals rather than the entire book.

That’s right. You need the craft and you need the tools. There are a number of courses out there that teaches you the craft. We will focus today on the tools that will make your life a lot easier and a lot more fun.

So, let us start with the basic questions – What book writing apps should you use? OR what are the best creative writing apps out there to help you fulfil your dream?

You may not need some of the tools you will find here to become a good writer. However, there are some her that every writer must have in his or her toolkit. So, whether you are an absolute beginner or a published author, a blogger or a fiction writer, you will find tools and writing software here that will help you become a more productive writer. So, go ahead. Check out these book writing apps and software and pick the ones that suits your need.

Which are the best book writing apps and software available today?

Remember, all book writing apps and software are not created equal. So, in this article, I will give you my assessment of the various writing apps and creative writing software. Some of them are free to download and try out. 

There are a number of free book writing software for beginners. You may not need to invest a lot of money in shiny tools if you are just starting out.

However, some of the paid creative writing software have many more powerful features and can really help you make more productive and organized. But I will leave it to you to judge which writing app is good for you and which is not.

Scrivener: The king of book writing apps

Scrivener is one writing app that I would recommend to all writers – whether you are looking for fiction or nonfiction. Scrivener was created with only one type of user in mind – The writer.

What sets Scrivener apart from other book writing software or even word processors like Microsoft Word, is the fact that it takes the complexity out of projects and helps you to efficiently organize your thoughts and content. This makes writing a far less tedious process than it would otherwise seem – Especially if you are writing long content or maybe even books.

I have used Scrivener for writing all forms of content – Long blog posts, ebooks or even Fiction to publish on Kindle.

A number of writers I know absolutely swear by this writing software. What I like best is the distraction-free writing experience it provides. With Scrivener, you get complete flexibility when it comes to writing, formatting your content or even organizing your book. This is great especially if you are planning to self-publish.

Scrivener writing software is a perfect tool for fiction writers because it makes plotting out storylines a breeze. Scrivener also lets you export data from many of the other writing tools and platforms and that is a big plus.

Another thing I like about this writing tool is its drag and drop feature that makes it easy to use and organize your content.

With Scrivener, you can easily create outlines, plot your scenes, organize your content by moving them around and pretty much do anything that you need to do as a writer. There are some great templates available too to help you write quickly.

Another plus I see in Scrivener is comes is available for various platforms – As a desktop writing software, or an Android or IOS writing app. So now you don’t have any excuse why you can’t complete that project.

Another Scrivener feature that makes writing easier is, it has keyboard shortcuts that will make the writing process a breeze. If you need any help with Scrivener writing, you should check out these videos.

Before you actually decide to buy Scrivener, what you need to keep in mind is that it will take you a little bit of time and effort to master this writing software. But the effort you put in to learn will soon pay rich dividends and your productivity will skyrocket.

In my opinion, Scrivener is most powerful book writing app out there.

I totally understand if you are not ready yet to spend money on a writing software. There are some great alternatives out there although most of them may not offer you all the features that Scrivener has. Another great writing tool I have used is yWriter.

yWriter: A great Scrivener alternative that’s free to use

For those of you who are looking for a free book writing app, yWriter is a great choice. It is writing tool created mainly for novelists. I was really impressed with some of its features.

Whether you are writing a scene or just outlining a character, yWriter software gives you the ability to add notes. That’s a huge benefit (especially if you on a complex project) that will help you stay on top of things.

yWriter focusses on scenes and this can help you stay focused and on track if you are a fiction writer. Once you have a written your scenes, you can quickly organize them into a novel format. yWriter writing app is currently available for Windows, Android and IOS. If you have a Mac, you have some great writing apps available like the IA Writer and Ulysses.

Ulysses Writing App – A great writing software for Mac users

Ulysses is feature-rich book writing app that focuses on simplicity and practicality. It is available for Mac users. It’s a great writing software and what I really like about it is its core design philosophy. It has markup-based text editing features. You can increase your productivity using its keyboard shortcuts.

It also has a library feature to help you organize your notes. This is a great feature that will help you if you sometimes find it difficult to keep all of your notes and ideas for your book organized.

Some of the other cool features include ability to set your goals for writing and also to publish directly to other platforms like WordPress. It is also available for mobiles and tablets. A great writing app to use for both small projects like writing your blog content or larger ones like writing a book.

IA Writer book writing app

If you frequently tend to get sidetracked by distractions, IA Writer is a writing app that you should consider. It’s great for small blog posts and articles. You could call it a Scrivener for small projects.

IA Writer is available for Mac, iPhone and iPad. It has a cool feature called Focus mode that helps in distraction-free writing. It enables you to fade out all parts of the document other than the line you are typing. So, you can focus on the highlighted line in full screen mode and shut off all other distractions.  It’s simple, easy-to-use and you can quickly sync your project across all my devices.

Final Draft writing app

Final Draft is the best screenwriting app out there. It is used by more than 90% of scriptwriters. It helps paginate your script to the correct industry format. So, if you are using another book writing app like the Scrivener, you can easily export your project to Final Draft to format it for for submission or production So, whether you are writing a screenplay or writing a comic book, Final Draft can help make it easy for you with its more than 300 templates.

Book Editing Apps

So now you have a fair bit of idea on what book writing app is best for your specific needs. Once you have written your draft, the next step is to edit it and check for errors. Here are 2 great book editing apps that can take the pain out of the editing process.  

Grammarly – The best software to edit your book

Grammarly is a great web-based application that has a comprehensive grammar and spell-checking system. So, you can check for typos, spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes with ease. If you pick up the premium version of Grammarly, it can even help in improving your writing skills. Grammarly helps you by giving you editing suggestions. With Grammarly, you can write without constantly worrying about whether you have used too many long sentences, or you are overusing passive voice in your book.

Hemingway Editor App – Another great editing app

Hemingway Editor is a superb tool for writers to improve their writing and self-editing skills. All you have to do is, simply paste what you have written into the Hemingway editor and scroll through.

The application will highlight words & passages that can be improved and provide its suggestions. For example, it might suggest that you reframe a particular sentence from passive to active voice or shorten long, hard-to-read sentences.

It will also suggest alternatives to words or phrases to improve readability.

One thing I liked about the Hemingway editor is that it can help you reduce your word-count while keeping the core idea intact.

The book writing apps that I spoke about here are all great tools that will help you enhance your writing skills and improve your productivity. Writing a book involves a lot more than picking the right book writing app. While a good writing software can definitely make your easier, if you want to succeed as a writer, you need to master your craft and keep writing. http://bookwritingapps.com/

[lewiskdavid90]

The DevLearn eLearning Rockstars Stage: Now Starring…

Ah, DevLearn. This glorious multi-day event in Las Vegas, Nevada is considered by many to be THE eLearning conference to attend. We take it pretty seriously. We are especially serious about delivering the best booth experience for everyone who stops by our booth—ie, free swag and super friendly faces and lots of orange. Last year, we extended that level of awesomeness to our very own eLearning stage.

If you haven’t been to the DevLearn expo before, DevLearn offers six educational stages that run throughout the event for anyone attending the conference—with either a full-conference or an Expo+ registration. The stages feature a wide range of presentations, discussions, and demonstrations from industry experts and suppliers. We sponsored a stage for the full two days last year and loved that we could bring you so many cool speakers. So of course, we’re doing it again this year!

This year, on the DevLearn eLearning Brothers eLearning Rockstars Stage…

Wednesday, October 24

10:00-10:45 am | Industry Leader Panel: The Future of eLearning Development

The eLearning industry is changing quickly, and it can be hard to keep up. Put that on top of ever-evolving tools, mobile vs. desktop development, xAPI integration, and other feature requests, and it’s enough to make you want to throw your computer out the window. But what if you knew what the tool developers had planned for the near future?

For this session, eLearning Brothers asked, “What would happen if we put the industry’s leading tool developers, including Adobe, Trivantis, Claro, and Adapt, on the same stage?” Come to a fantastic panel discussion that explores what’s currently exciting in rapid eLearning development and what’s coming down the pipe. Where would you like to see the technology go? SaaS vs. license purchase? Mobile development on mobile? Come get a peek into what will be in a developer’s toolbox in a few months, years, and beyond.

11:00-11:45 | Creating a Learning Strategy for Maximum Impact

Marty Rosenheck, eLearning Brothers

You’re charged with a high-stakes, high-visibility learning challenge. Perhaps you need to prepare an entire hospital staff to work effectively on day one of a move to a new hospital building, or you need to get a salesforce ready to sell a new product line. How do you do it? There’s no quick fix, no single method that will get full impact. You need to create an integrated learning strategy.

In this session, you’ll get a framework for creating an integrated, multifaceted learning strategy. You’ll see how to design and build a systematic set of learning experiences using technology appropriately, guided by sound learning science principles. You’ll see examples of role-based learning paths that employ eLearning, microlearning, on-the-job learning, coaching, video, workshops, simulations, performance support, and fun reinforcement activities. You’ll learn how to apply learning experience design principles including design thinking, active learning, spaced practice, scenarios, and on-demand content. Finally, you’ll see how to implement an iterative, collaborative design and development process that involves all stakeholders to achieve maximum impact.

12:15-1:00 | What Can You Build Today in VR

John Blackmon, Trivantis

You’ve heard that VR training experiences have a proven higher retention rate, with retention gains reaching 75 percent in comparison to standard video, eLearning, or textbook training. What you need to know is how to create and deploy VR training quickly and cost-effectively with the systems you have today.

In this session, you will learn the differences between VR, AR, and MR, and how you can apply each of them in the training that you are creating today. You will learn about a new tool, CenarioVR, that allows you to rapidly create VR training by linking together multiple 360-degree images and videos to create an immersive story. This session will also cover the creation, editing, publishing, and tracking of VR training. It will highlight the potential learning applications for using VR, and how you can integrate it into your current learning environment.

1:15-2:00 | Training That’s “Lit”: Engaging with Generation Z Learners

Misty Harding, eLearning Brothers & Jim Cogdal, Sigma Chi

Sigma Chi Fraternity’s existing, traditional learning methods for incoming pledges weren’t received as well as hoped. Young learners reported the training was too long, too “boring” and not “lit.” What changes could Sigma Chi make that would truly connect with Gen Z pledges while still effectively preparing them for their membership in the fraternity?

In this session, you will see examples of how traditional training methods (eLearning, classroom, video, etc.) were redesigned to be shorter, more engaging, and more effective while appealing directly to Generation Z through the use of things like graphic novels, social media–themed interactions (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tinder), digital magazines, gamified interactions, and more. You’ll also hear about the reaction new pledges are having to this redesigned material and the difference it’s making for Sigma Chi Fraternity.

2:15-3:00 | Using Games to Make Your Training More Effective

Karl Kapp, Professor of Instructional Technology and Director of the Institute for Interactive Technologies – Bloomsburg University & Stephen Baer, Managing Partner – The Game Agency

Employee training expenses in North America exceed $70 billion each year. Unfortunately, much of that learning is passive, dull, and uninteresting—in other words, not effective. An alternative to this type of training is to provide active, interesting, and engaging instruction—in other words, effective instruction. This session will showcase how game-based training motivates learners, improves retention, and drives better business results.

This session will explore six performance objectives and align a unique game mechanic with each one. You will create and play a meaningful, motivational, and memorable game and compete for real-world prizes. This session will provide you with a new toolkit for game-based training and some exercises that you can bring back to your corporate classroom.

3:15-4:00 | Making 508 Accessible to Developers

Daryl Fleary, VP Business Solutions – Trivantis

Being 508-compliant is meant to make your courses more accessible, but creating 508-compliant courses can be very difficult. Different requirements, changing definitions, and clarifying expectations will add hours to any project.

When it comes to tools for helping developers create 508-compliant courses, the industry has come a long way. This session explores some of these tools and shows how 508 compliance can be much more accessible for everyone.

Thursday, October 25

10:00-10:45 am | On the eLearning Horizon and Beyond

Alessio Artuffo, Director International Business Operations – Docebo & Curtis Morley, eLearning Brothers

The eLearning industry is constantly changing. It can be difficult to keep an eye on what advancements are coming while also trying to manage current budgets and technology restraints.

Gain in-depth understanding on how the eLearning landscape is shifting and evolving, as well as how to make the most of emerging trends including social, microlearning, gamification, and mobile trends you need to know before 2019.

11:00-11:45 | Flip Learning Like a Rockstar!

Chris Willis, eLearning Brothers

eLearning and instructor-led classroom training both have inherent strengths and weaknesses. Why not take advantage of the best of both worlds?

Join this session to explore a creative and flexible flipped classroom approach you can bring back to your organization. Explore ways to add interactivity and engagement to your learning using low-cost enhancements to your existing courses. See how blending in eLearning Brothers Customizable Courseware titles can help you build on the training you already have to create a rockstar learning curriculum.

12:15-1:00 | The Hero’s Journey: Exploring Elements in Learning Games

Rich Vass, eLearning Brothers

This session will explore often-overlooked game elements that focus on the story—the narrative—which can take surprisingly little time to craft, but can make all the difference. You’ll explore a proven model with examples that demonstrate these elements in detail. Core concepts from the hero’s journey apply to all incredible stories—from Rocky Balboa to Indiana Jones, these elements are the reason people care to dedicate their attention.

This session defines key elements of effective storytelling popularized by Joseph Campbell in his 1949 work “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.” Campbell was influenced by Carl Jung’s view of myth and the compelling nature of stories that draw people into alternate realities where they ultimately learn about themselves through protagonists and antagonists. Attendees will be encouraged to “up their game” when it comes to learning games. Take the narrative deeper, and leave behind uninspiring games that so often dominate the landscape of learning. With just a bit more thought and creativity, online learning games can become so much more.

1:15-2:00 | Getting Started with xAPI in Rapid Authoring Tools

Bill Milstid, eLearning Brothers

The whole industry seems excited about xAPI. It’s a spectacular option for gaining deep insights into learner actions—or opening up the learning environment entirely. Exciting stuff indeed. Getting excited is easy; getting started is another story. How do you get started with xAPI? How can you use the rapid authoring tools you’re already familiar with to tap into the reporting potential of xAPI?

This session will look at how the big three rapid authoring tools handle xAPI. It will start with a very brief xAPI introduction. Then, you’ll take a deep dive into each tool: how Storyline, Captivate, and Lectora work with out-of-the-box statements; how to send custom statements with each tool; and constructing a launch path and testing xAPI statements.

2:15-3:00 | Half the Work for Twice the Results

Andrew Scivally & Curtis Morley, eLearning Brothers

With so many options at your fingertips, it’s easy to spend hours and hours wading through countless images, backgrounds, interactions, and templates. It can seem overwhelming and bottomless. If you aren’t careful, you can get distracted and lose focus.

eLearning Brothers has completely revamped its search features, template designs, display layouts, Customizable Courseware offering, and everything else. Creating rockstar content is even easier than before! Come hear about the exciting changes eLearning Brothers has rolled out.

Whew, that’s a lot of awesome presenters and some really great, off-the-moment topics there! My typing fingers are tired. Which presentations are you more looking forward to?

Visit us at booth #528 at DevLearn 2018. Talk to a friendly account rep, enter into a raffle for a chance to win an iPad, and check out all these amazing presentations at the eLearning Rockstars Stage!

from Free Online Courses https://elearningbrothers.com/blog/the-devlearn-elearning-rockstars-stage-now-starring/

[cloakedsparrow]

It was recently announced that a Deadpool animated series will be making its way to FXX lead by Atlanta creator and Community star Donald Glover. This will be the second co-production between Marvel and FXX, the first being the psychedelic X-Men-adjeascent series, Legion. This is exciting news indeed, since we’ve seen before in cartoons like Hulk vs. Wolverine and Ultimate Spider-Man that Deadpool lends himself rather well to animation— the character’s zaniness and borderline insanity are reminiscent of old cartoons like Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry.

While we are beyond elated at this news, we are just as cautious. Superhero animation has had a great track record from both major publishers — shows like Batman the Animated Series and Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are loved by fans and critics alike — but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been a few flops. An animated series of the merc with a mouth could be a whole lot of fun, but it would have to be done right — though we definitely trust Glover’s track record. With that in mind, we here at CBR decided to come up with a few things we need to see in the Deadpool cartoon, and a few we don’t.

15. NEED: GREAT VOICE ACTING

The two main voice actors that have portrayed Deadpool are veteran video game actor Nolan North, and voice of Terry McGinnis on Batman Beyond, Will Friedle. North voiced Deadpool in Hulk vs. Wolverine and in the character’s solo video game (as well as in Marvel vs. Capcom 3). It’s pretty up in the air who plays the character better, and even more unclear who might play him in the upcoming series.

On top of the titular character himself, the show definitely needs to feature some great cameo voice acting from comedians. Why comedians you ask? Well, Deadpool is a comedic character by nature and also had a long comic run written by comedian Brian Posehn, a prominent voice actor himself. Posehn is just one of the many comedians who should make cameo appearances as various members of Deadpool’s posse and/or rogues gallery.

14. DON’T NEED: MEME-MACHINE

Deadpool’s humor has gone through different interpretations with each decade and each writer who has taken him on. Along the line, Deadpool’s humor became derivative of the very culture that came to love him so much. As the merc began to get used in memes of all variety, his humor started to reflect that. Deadpool became a meme and reference-spouting machine, and still sort of is to this day.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; some of these jokes are genuinely funny, but it does get tired after a while. Further, with how long the animation process takes, references and memes that are current at the time of writing an episode will become out of date and fail to hit as hard by the time the episode actually comes out. A reference here and there would be fine (Deadpool is a nerdy character after all), but let’s not go overboard.

13. NEED: COLORFUL ANTAGONISTS

Though the Deadpool film is, without a doubt, fan-freaking-tastic, it did suffer from one thing, lack of color. We’re not talking about the look of the film or the costumes, though. No, we’re talking about the bad guys. Besides Ajax’s costume at the end of the film, there are no colorful villains to be seen, most of Wade’s enemies being nameless thugs in typical tactical and/or gangster outfits.

Half the fun of Deadpool’s character comes from the fact that he shows up almost exclusively for the purpose of messing with other Marvel characters, usually getting paid to steal something from a supervillain and getting caught up in a wacky adventure in the process. Under that notion, it a no-brainer that the Deadpool cartoon should definitely feature a wide variety of supervillains for him to annoy, perhaps even voiced by the aforementioned comedian cameos.

12. DON’T NEED: TOO MANY CHARACTERS

While this may contradict the above entry, there should definitely be a limit to just how many other characters show up Deadpool’s animated adventures. Villains are one thing; they can work, but allies are another story. Deadpool has had team-ups with the likes of Cable, alternate reality versions of himself, and a plethora of other popular Marvel heroes, but maybe those should be pulled back, at least for season one.

If characters do show up to help Deadpool, they should be for one episode maximum, and the series shouldn’t include more than three out of the 10 episodes that were ordered by FXX. Otherwise, it would take too much away from Deadpool himself. This isn’t to say that Deadpool doesn’t need a supporting cast, but we think the focus should be on Deadpool, perhaps saving the team-ups for a second season.

11. NEED: CABLE

Yes, yes, we know we said that there shouldn’t be too many characters taking up Deadpool’s screen time, but we also said there could be, like, three team-ups. One of those team-ups definitely has to be with the time-traveling cyborg mutant, Cable. The character, also created by Rob Leifeld, has had a long comics history interacting with Deadpool, the two forming a surpassingly strong bond considering how much Cable seems to hate Wade.

If there is to be a Deadpool animated series, then Cable is an absolute must. Who knows how they would work him in, maybe he recruits Deadpool to save the future (though he has to pay him) or maybe one of the comics’ storylines will get adapted into an episode. Either way, we need Nathan Summers to show up in the Deadpool cartoon.

10. DON’T NEED: COPYING THE MOVIE

Marvel has made multiple attempts to unify every one of their outlets. In other words, they have started to make the comics, cartoons and video games closely resemble the movies. It’s a move that makes sense for the most part because the movies are more popular than the comics by a long shot, and therefore new readers will most likely be MCU fans. This hasn’t always worked out for the better though, since it sometimes results in alienating fans who enjoyed prior iterations of the characters and stories before the MCU gained a massive following.

Who’s to say if this trend will also effect the Deadpool movies, but we say avoid it. The Deadpool movie was great, don’t get us wrong, but the whole Fox/Marvel legal confusion doesn’t seem to affect their animation department, giving the animated series some freedom with storyline and character access, thus allowing it to do it’s own thing.

9. NEED: INNER VOICES

Speaking of veering from the film, something that the Deadpool movie lacked was the character’s inner voices. Depicted as white and yellow dialogue boxes, the voices were also featured in the Deadpool video game and were a staple of most of Deadpool’s comic career. It was eventually revealed that one of the voices in Wade’s head was villain Madcap, a character with a healing factor that got his vaporized particles mixed with Deadpool’s after both were zapped by Thor. The animated show might avoid this explanation in order to give the character his signature inner voices.

Other than the video game, Deadpool’s inner voices have not been featured outside the comics, and a cartoon is the perfect place for them. Not only would it be a lot of fun in the voice acting department, it could also help play up the humor of the series.

8. DON’T NEED: NERFED WADE

Hopefully the Deadpool animated series will get a properly mature rating, or else the depiction of the character might run into a problem. Aside from the obvious language and blood censorship, a “nerfed” Deadpool would mean the character’s fighting skills and healing factor might be reeled back quite a bit, since he would be dealing out and receiving less injuries and violence. Now, we don’t want that do we?

Deadpool is a violent character yes, but he is also highly skilled, he’s just sort of a buffoon about it. The character might say “bang! bang! bang!” when he shoots his gun, but he’s still hitting his targets. If Deadpool get’s nerfed for the sake of a rating for his own show, then that just wouldn’t be Deadpool, would it?

7. NEED: THE DEADPOOL-VERSE

One of the strongest points of the four-season run of Disney XD’s Ultimate Spider-Man was the adaptation of the Spider-Verse comic storyline. The event featured Spider-Man teaming up alternate universe spider-men and women to stop a force that threatened each of their realities.

Though it might not come in the first season of the upcoming Deadpool cartoon, we would love to see the series go in a similar, albeit much stranger, direction. A “Deadpool-verse” event would be a hell of a lot of fun, since it could include all the media versions of Deadpool: The original Liefeld version, the movie version (to be voiced by Ryan Reynolds of course), the video game version and even the now-obscure ultimate comics version.

6. DON’T NEED: CONVOLUTED STORIES

As it goes with comic characters that have been around for a long time, there tends to be a lot of confusing, convoluted storylines hanging from their histories. Deadpool is no different. He’s had his fair share of confusing stories that were either the result of big-event tie-ins or even editor interventions.

Animation provides a great solution to this issue, since, much like the MCU, it provides a canvas on which to paint a much clearer picture of the events and characters of the comics. We’ve seen these kind of adaptation choices go incredibly well in the DC animated universe (otherwise known as the Timmverse) as well as the streamlined world of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. For the sake of making the Deadpool cartoon more enjoyable, it should probably keep things simple.

5. NEED: FOURTH WALL BUSTING

Now this one is a given since Deadpool has always been aware of the fact that he is a fictional character in a comic book. We get plenty of this in the comics and we’re sure that the FXX animated series won’t forget it any time soon, but as it was with the film, it needs to have it’s own unique spin.

With the Deadpool film, Deadpool talked to the audience like the comics, but took it further by having his narration play around with how the film was cut and edited. In an animated format, Deadpool’s fourth-wall breaking would be best suited in the form of saying things like “Hey you like my show? Well buy my toys or else it get’s cancelled!” or even talking about how the animation progress works, finding his way into the studio as animators are drawing him.

4. DON’T NEED: JOKE-A-MINUTE

While comedy is a HUGE part of Deadpool’s character, it shouldn’t be the whole series. The show was reported to be a comedy/action, which is good since a joke-a-minute writing style is not the way to go. Of course, having moments where it’s laugh after laugh isn’t a bad thing, but we don’t want the show to become something like Family Guy. Even in the movie, the jokes were prominent, but there was a plot tying everything together, one that wasn’t just a loose thread to get us from one joke to the next.

The Deadpool cartoon would definitely need to find a balance between humor, action, and dramatic timing/plot. It’s unclear if the show will follow a villain-of-the-week format or if it’ll be one long story arc, but let’s hope there’s at least some connecting thread, lest it suffers from “joke fatigue.”

3. NEED: ZANY CARTOONISHNESS

Deadpool’s fourth-wall busting is a great way to poke fun at the animation industry, in more ways than one. On top of talking about the process and even stepping into the animation studio, the series could have a lot of fun switching between animation styles for different types of moments. The more cartoonish antics of Deadpool could evoke a Looney Tunes style of animation while more action-intense fight sequences could mimic anime studios like Trigger. Hell, there could even be moments of CG animation that Deadpool could say happened “because the animator’s hands got tired.”

Animation provides a great playground for which Deadpool to mess around in, not only because there are so many different styles, but also because the character himself is basically a cartoon. While the Deadpool cartoon might not incorporate multiple styles, animation is still a great medium for the character.

2. DON’T NEED: CHEAP ANIMATION

Speaking of the animation, quality is a big issue with a show like this. Other action/comedy cartoons like The Venture Bros.  and Black Dynamite have beautiful high-quality animation (which is why there is so much time between seasons), but on the other end of the spectrum are shows like The Awesomes or Major Lazer feature somewhat lower-quality animation (though the latter is somewhat on purpose to evoke an ’80s feel). What we’re trying to say is that the Deadpool animated series shouldn’t spare any costs on animation.

This isn’t to say that it can’t be flash animated (there have been some beautiful shows animated in flash, like Disney XD’s Motorcity), but whatever studio is hired for the show should definitely have a good track record. We don’t want the glory of a Deadpool cartoon to be weighed down by bad animation, do we?

1. NEED: A MATURE RATING

At last we come to the most important thing we need in the Deadpool animated series: a mature rating. The Deadpool movie worked hard to get a rating that would allow the character to receive the adaptation he deserved, and as the first R-Rated superhero movie, it helped lead to the similarly-rated and critically-acclaimed Logan. Like the movie, the animated series deserves the right rating, and it shouldn’t be for children.

Of course it’s not exactly an option for the show to be for kids, what with the blood and such, but let’s not skimp on the violence and curse words, shall we? The Deadpool cartoon both deserves and needs the most mature rating you can give a TV show, if only for the chance to see how freaking nuts it can get.