#yes this is in reference to the apparent new limit on how many tweets you can see per day

[dragon-spaghetti]

The fact Elon seems utterly convinced that if he keeps adding more and more verified-exclusive bs to twitter then users will give him money instead of just. Stopping using the site. Is honestly laughable

[leakinghate]

Chasing the Ghosts of Season 8

Let’s skip the flowery intros and get to the point, because this is important.

Lotor’s vindication and reunion with Allura were originally part of VLD s8 and I can prove it. Most animation relating to this plot was excised, while other clips were re-purposed to make it look like he was dead all along: but some are still in there.

The removal of this plot line was one of the major factors in completely messing up season 8, and it was a change that was made very recently; no earlier than August in fact. There is a significant, non-zero chance that an unedited version of Season 8 exists in its entirety; completely finished.

The evidence is below the cut.

Trigger Warnings: Gore - that image and discussion of it, body horror, sexism, and major character death.

There’s something rotten in the house of Voltron, and by that I mean Dreamworks animation, because for reasons yet unknown the season 8 we got was not the one the writers had planned to give us.

The people involved likely can't talk about it due to NDAs, but I follow *most* of the cast and crew on social media, and from the way many of them were talking prior to the drop it’s obvious that whatever they'd recorded had led them to expect a very different season.

The almost total radio silence afterward is also telling.

So far as I can tell, AJ (Lotor’s VA) is the only one actively posting about it, and his posts have been expressing his distress over what happened to Lotor - a stark contrast to his excitement about the season prior to its airing. It’s very apparent that he thought Lotor would have a very different fate than he appears to. At the moment of the season drop he tweeted out “Lotor was framed”, and later didn’t seem to realize that ‘Allura’ was trending because she’d died.

Some of the other VA’s scarce posts lead me to believe that they’re having similar reactions: a now deleted post from Bex (Pidge’s VA) about having watched up to episode 6 consisted of an image of DOTU Lance captioned with “[internal screaming]”. Bex has since removed all references to VLD from her bio.

I’m certain that the VLD s8 we got was NOT the s8 that was originally planned. Or the one the writers and VAs had been alluding to in various interviews up until recently.

We know there were some very last minute changes to season 8. I guarantee you that Ezor was actually dead before the backlash over Adam in August, and you're kidding yourselves if you think that epilogue existed before then either.

Kihyun Ryu's 'last Shiro' tweet - that we now know to be from the wedding epilogue - was posted on September 13th, 2018. Less than two months ago these changes were still in progress. Less than a month before the first trailer premiered at NYCC these changes were still being made.

And those was absolutely not the only things which were changed. It was hinted we should pay attention to the s7 episode "the Feud" to spot some foreshadowing. Well? I've seen both that episode and s8 and I sure as heck can't find it.

This was beyond last minute.

JDS and LM were still talking in ways that would lead us to expect Lotor’s redemption roughly up to s7 in August; so whatever happened, it went down between August and November. Which is probably why s8 is so shitty; with such a terribly compressed timeline to make edits.

And edits they were, because with those time frames season 8 was either completely finished or very near to it when someone decided that things had to change.

I can prove it.

Do you know how?

Because the animation was recycled and altered to fit the new story, with only small parts made new for it. And because it was something else first, it’s still possible to partially reconstruct the original Season 8 from it.

Lets start with the big one, the one I’m sure you’re here to read: Lotor’s redemption and reunion with Allura.

One of the most frustrating things about season 8 is that it leaves the colony unexplained. The big question, the thing that results in Lotor’s murder at the hands of people he calls friends, and leads to a power vacuum that causes the deaths of untold billions of people. What was Lotor doing at the colony?

It’s never addressed or given an answer.

At least in the version of season 8 that we got.

Or is it?

Because they might have removed the conclusion to that plot thread, but they couldn’t get rid of it entirely.

In e8 ‘Clear Day’. Allura's suffers from several nightmares/dream sequences. They don't make any sense in context, and it’s never explained what caused them. Except, they make perfect sense, if you watch them as the first step towards understanding The Colony. 

Allura sees herself standing in a Juniberry field on Altea. Her mother greets her and proclaims that Allura has arrived just in time, and that only she can save them, “Only you can protect us.”

A Galra fleet passes over head, raining down laser fire.

Allura suddenly finds herself the pilot of one of the white mechs. She plunges her spear into the ground, draining the quintessence, and then fires on the fleet; obliterating it.

But as she grins in victory she realizes that the quintessence she siphoned from the planet has turned her immediate landscape to ash, including her mother. Allura is horrified, but as her mother crumbles away her voice echoes, telling Allura she is so proud of her.

In case me describing it wasn’t clear enough: what just happened to her was that Allura was literally put in Lotor’s position, operating one of his mechs. The places and the people were those that Allura cherished deeply, so that she could understand how terrible Lotor felt about what he had to do. It literally puts Allura in Lotor's place: having to take the responsibility of destroying parts of something she loves in order to protect the whole. 

And her mother? The Altean who was ‘sacrificed’ in this scenario? Praised her for taking the actions she did, because Allura was the only one able to do it. And the only choice was to save most of Altea, or none of it.

When Allura eventually does take the entity into herself we see the lights of Honerva’s mech’s faceplate lighting, then flash to a scene of Lotor in Sincline. He’s laughing, grinning as he did during s6′s finale, and as the camera zooms in on his face he shouts “Follow me!”

Briefly we see Voltron in front of the planets of Earth’s solar system, which is drowned out by a peculiar scene transition: an intense white light that appears to obliterate everything as though in an explosion.

None of these scenes are ever explained, but it’s reasonably comparable to the flash of images that Haggar sees in season 3 when she is first confronted with Zarkon’s memories. We’re left with the impression that we’re about to be enlightened, and the end of the episode reveals that Allura has passed out on the floor unconscious.

In this version of season 8, we never are told what exactly caused Allura to experience those visions. We can guess: was it perhaps the entity tempting her with its dark magic? Honerva attempting to place her under a spell?

But is the entity really dark magic? It’s different from the types of magic we’re used to, and the colors of it are certainly dark, but it in itself never actually causes Allura harm. Any harm she suffers after taking it into herself is caused by Honerva exploiting it.

Could it be a spell by Honerva? Unlikely. It took her almost two whole episodes of the paladins fooling around inside her mind for her to notice they were even there. If Allura had never taken the entity none of Honerva’s plans would have ever been found out. Yes, she did steal all the energy from the Atlas’ crystal, but she did that primarily to combat the Atlas and disable it. She didn’t need to get it from there, the energy her Komars were able to provide was all she needed.

So what caused those visions?

Lotor did.

Once he was free of the rift he was able to connect with Allura somehow and reach out to her. That was really him. Where he is now, trapped under Haggar’s control, he has no means to combat the witch. But Allura does. Everything he says to her? Is true.

The next episode, s8e9 “Knights of Light: Part 1″ begins with Allura awaking, Coran and Lance by her bedside. She’s been asleep for two quintants (days). She has apparently come up with a plan to infiltrate Honerva’s mind, but from whence she gets this plan is never explained. That’s because we’re missing an entire episode between these two. This is where Lotor’s redemption happens, where he and Allura finally reunite. God knows what else was in that episode, what else was happening while the paladins were waiting for Allura to wake. Lotor bids Allura to follow him, to finally allow him to tell his side of the story, and for some reason we weren’t allowed to hear it.

But from what we did get to see? It all but confirms @crystal-rebellion‘s Colony Theory. Albeit, the white mechs were built by Honerva, but Lotor was attempting to keep the colony safe in the only way he knew how. The Alteans who died did so willingly; to preserve the lives of all the others.

There’s a repeated narrative that the only person who encourages Allura to take action, to strive and push forward, is Lotor. Sometimes others accept it, but they never encourage her. Everyone else seems to consider her too fragile, or not capable of making her own decisions. They want to protect her and coddle her, don’t believe she should be taking any risks. They are supportive emotionally, but want to limit her physically. They care about her, but don’t truly trust her judgement or want her to be making her own choices.

With Lotor though, it’s different. He truly sees her as an equal, respects her judgement in her areas of expertise. This plot line revolving around the entity is a prime example. Lotor provides Allura with the information, that she has everything she needs to take down Honerva right in front of her; she just needs to utilize it. But from the moment Allura wakes the people closest to her doubt her decisions and choices.

And yes, those choices lead to painful consequences, but in the end they are proven to be the right ones, to have been necessary. Allura took a calculated risk, and it pays off - if she hadn’t they’d have never caught Honerva in time to stop her from destroying everything. They wouldn’t even have discovered her plan in the first place.

If Allura hadn’t made the choice to listen to and trust Lotor, by her own judgement, reality itself would have ceased to exist.

Both Coran and Alfor are given specific scenes this season where they judge and approve of Lance in his pursuit of Allura. But key, neither of them ever ask - or even mention - Allura’s feelings on the matter. The s8 we got, rather disgustingly, portrays this as the right thing. I believe the original s8 was meant to subvert this. Because Lance is everyone else’s choice for Allura, but when Allura was allowed to make her own choice? She chose Lotor.

Allura once again ends s8e10 ‘Knights of Light: Part 2′ unconscious. I firmly believe we are missing more moments  - if not an entire episode - with Lotor here, in s8e11 ‘Uncharted Regions’ - probably explaining somewhere along the way how exactly he is able to contact her in this manner.

Which, uh... as to my personal theory on how that is, well... what did Lotor and Allura do together that might have crafted a unique spiritual bond between them?

What did you two experience in the quintessence field Lotor?

But, those were happier times...

I also think this is the episode, this missing one, that that particular image properly belongs to. We now see it in the previous episode, as one of Honerva’s memories. But the reason we see it is that the paladins apparently see it too. The only problem is, they don’t react to it at all. They literally have a stronger reaction to finding out they can see Honerva’s memories in the first place. There’s no possible way that Allura saw the melted corpse of the man she loved and had no discernible reaction. We see her reactions to Lotor’s presence multiple times over the course of s7 and s8, and they’re always intensely emotional ones.

But speaking of that image, since we’re on the topic. That’s a very detailed image.

There’s details there you don’t immediately spot, because you’re too distracted by the horrific imagery of the corpse of a main character. A character who’s tragic, abusive childhood was the focus of almost an entire episode earlier in the season.

Details such as the motes of light floating up from his body.

Motes of light we’ve seen in exactly two instances before: from Zarkon and Honerva’s eyes immediately after they were restored back to life by the rift.

And from Zarkon’s body: vanishing after he died.

Yeah guys, I’m about to make that image much worse.

That’s not Lotor’s corpse, because he’s not dead.

He’s still in there, in that state, and he’s been in there for over three years.

Melded, physically and mentally, with Sincline by his time spent in the quintessence field.

What. The. Fuck.

As the season progresses it becomes much more difficult to tell what was supposed to be happening because of how badly it’s been chopped up, re-arranged, and edited.

But there is a very distinct difference between Sincline’s two appearances in action - that is, it’s only in the first one that it actually is in action.

The last time we see Sincline move of it’s own accord is e6 ‘Genesis’. From the moment he reappears Lotor is on the attack; he is stopped only two times, once of his own accord and once by Haggar’s mind control.

And that one time he stops himself? Is when he takes aim at Allura. She’s running across the ground, about to strike Honerva with her bayard, when he raises his right arm and takes aim. We see her in his sights, through his eyes. And the view zooms in on Allura’s face.

Lance sees what’s happening and dives in Red to stop him, but is blocked by one of the white mechs.

Yet. He lowers his arm and doesn’t take the shot.

Lotor never fires.

But immediately afterwards the white mech lingers too close and Sincline impales it with it’s tail. It’s not an aversion to killing that stayed his hand.

It’s that it was Allura.

This scene unambiguously shows that Lotor is both alive inside that mech and somewhat aware of himself. He’s become a robeast.

Yet after that episode the mech never moves again. It hangs lifeless in space during the battle at the pyramid; the white mechs having to do the fighting. The lights on it’s chest have gone out, only relighting when it is charged with quintessence from the Komar. For all intents and purposes, Sincline is empty.

Oh, and speaking of Sincline, up until s8e9 it’s only ever referred to as “Lotor’s mech,” but suddenly, in e11 ‘Uncharted Regions’ they’ve learned its name and Allura calls it “Lotor’s Sincline”.

I think that at some point between ‘Knights of Light’ and the second half of e11 ‘Uncharted Regions’ Lotor was to have been rescued. 'Uncharted Regions’ is one of the worst episodes this season for flow: it’s extremely choppy and hard to follow - flicking back and forth between scenes without anything really happening in them.

But the most telling thing?

‘Uncharted Regions’ begins with Honerva in her haloed mech searching Alternate realities for her ‘perfect’ one. We see several clips of her doing this, the mech floating in front of the pyramid, alone, with the spinning disk of its wings as a viewport.

Suddenly, almost exactly halfway through the episode, we get an image of Honerva kneeling inside the pyramid, in her Altean commander uniform, one uniformed Altean to either side. She says “The princess has awakened,” and then the scene changes.

When next we see Honerva she’s floating above the pyramid, the silent and immobile Sincline by her side.

The entire time this is happening there is combat going on around the pyramid, first with the coalition fighters and then with the Atlas itself. This sequence appears in episode as though it all happens successively in a very short period of time. But it doesn’t make sense like that. Why should Honerva stop what she’s doing, and exit her mech just to check if Allura is awake?

In this scenario why does Honerva even care if Allura is awake? By this point she’s apparently found her perfect reality and is prepared to move on to it? She doesn’t need Allura for anything, none of her plans require Allura. Why should she even bother to announce that Allura is awake, as though this is something she’s been waiting for?

This entire episode, including the fight scenes, has been chopped into little pieces and rearranged. Other scenes have had edits to their animation, or were re-done entirely. What we have in ‘Uncharted Regions’ is a frankenstein’s monster of an episode constructed of the tiny remnants of of at least two, possibly three, original episodes.

If you watch this episode carefully you’ll notice that there’s a clip out of order. The lights on Sincline’s chest are dark until it’s charged with the quintessence from the Alteans on the Atlas. But. The close up shot of Sincline the paladins see immediately upon exiting the wormhole in front of the pyramid has the lights lit up. This clip clearly is part of the sequence we see later in the episode just before the mechs combine. So when the crew on the bridge of the Atlas is shown reacting in horror, whatever they’re actually reacting to has been cut out.

These original missing episodes would have contained what I’m fairly certain was our big Alchemist vs Alchemist reprisal fight between Honerva and Allura; something we’ve been waiting for since season 2′s finale.

Why was such an anticipated fight removed?

I think it’s because the fight was over Lotor, and ultimately Allura would have rescued him.

Every time Allura uses the powers she obtained in Oriande it’s mentioned where she got them, and often that she has them because of Lotor.

She’s shown again and again restoring life and health.

What happened, what we’re missing, is her using the abilities she has thanks to Lotor, to save him.

Allura is supposed to storm that pyramid, infiltrate it, and rescue Lotor from the evil witch holding him captive. She’s supposed to find him in that horrible state we saw him in, and she’s going to heal him. She’s going to fight for him, to protect him, when no one else in his life ever has.

There’s also a clear switch. When Sincline is active and alight Honerva several times refers to it as ‘my son’ but afterwards, she stops and uses Sincline as a tool for her to reach an Alternate Reality and obtain a ‘new’ version of Lotor. With the exception of one shot, where, since we can’t actually see her speaking it seems that the audio and animation are sourced from different original scenes, Honerva ceases treating Sincline as Lotor after the lights go out.

The line that causes Honerva to snap s8e12 ‘The Zenith’ is when the little alt Lotor says “My mother is dead”. It’s framed like a deliberate callback, like it should be echoing something. But it’s a line we’ve never heard. I’d hazard that this final rejection, this line was spoken by *our* Lotor as Allura is rescuing him.

Lotor was not dead in there, he was alive, and he was saved.

There is a really good theory going around, my friend @tsunemori told me about it. I don't know who first came up with it, but I fully support it, because I noticed the scene in question was really off too.

But the theory is that that hospital bed scene? Was originally Lotor in the bed after they rescued him, and Allura was in Lance's place. Which makes total sense, because after that scene, when Lance takes Allura to the bridge? His height is all wrong, and he is hanging onto her for support instead of the other way around: it should be Lotor there.

Do I have any concrete proof of this one? No. But there is something off about that scene. It just doesn’t feel right.

So yeah, if I ask myself, “Is this a scene that might have been re-animated, the characters traced over and re-drawn as different ones?” I can absolutely see that. When looking for places where actual edits to the animation have been made you have to factor in several things: the complexity of the animation - how many characters, how many settings, how much movement, who is the focus/moving/talking.

This is both a pivotal scene, and an incredibly easy one to alter, comparatively. Two characters, one laying still in a bed and only getting a single one-syllable line - the other character’s name, which might have been taken from anywhere. Lance has a long string of dialogue, but he’s sitting beside the bed the entire time, and he moves very little.

I strongly believe this scene was either altered significantly or created whole-cloth for this edited version of s8.

Things that are much harder to alter, because they’d be much more expensive, are the fight scenes. It’s where I started looking once I suspected what had happened with season 8, and it’s where I started finding things.

S8e12 ‘The Zenith’ is one of the best episodes in terms of flow, and I believe that’s because it suffers some of the least editing.

We are however missing at least two scenes: a farewell between Allura and Coran - presumably as Allura boards the Blue Lion - and an explanation as to how Voltron followed Honerva into her destination reality after the rift closed on them. I believe both of these scenes were edited out because Lotor was key in them; several scenes in the following episode s8e13 ‘The End is the Beginning’ lead me to believe that he spent the final battle in the Blue Lion with Allura.

Two scenes during the fight stand out to me: the first, a split screen where Keith is mysteriously given a double width section as compared to the others. It’s especially noticeable, because he’s not even centrally placed and he’s scaled to a different size than his fellow paladins. In the entirety of the series we have never before seen a split screen cut among an even number of characters where one of them is given odd prominence like this. The screen is arranged so the characters appear in a color gradient, Keith is red-black and immediately to his left is Allura who is blue. If there was a missing section here, the color space would correspond to indigo/purple - and those are Lotor’s colors.

The second is a moment when Allura is speaking facing forwards and very clearly looks to the side and makes eye contact with someone. Now, VLD does have moments when the paladins will react in their own lions as though they can see each other, but this isn’t like that. It’s the way her eyes move, and look, she’s talking to someone who’s point of view we’re seeing her from. And that person is Lotor.

There’s also a peculiar moment in this episode where the same split screen is used twice; another thing which has never before happened in the series. It appears first about a quarter of the way through the episode as the paladins enter the stage for the final showdown and then again as they push Honerva into the glowing whiteness at its center. I believe that the second one of these is its proper place, and that the one that originally went in the first instance had Lotor included in it.

Finally, and this is going to take several images, so be warned. When the paladins appear before Honerva in the heart of it all, fading into view, they’re spaced very strangely.

There’s six of them, so you’d expect they’d be spaced something like this:

But they’re actually spaced like this:

(yes, I know Honerva would be blocking someone there. She moves. I just picked this cap so you could see all the shadows; there’s no point showing you the empty space)

It rather looks like there’s someone missing.

The last half of the final episode is so heavily manipulated that it’s difficult to say what actually happened. But we have two very strong clues from which we can reconstruct it.

Remember the leaks?

Now that we know the leaks were real, it begs the question, why was this scene one of them. Unlike the others, which were all from the epilogue, this scene is from roughly halfway through the episode.

Well, I believe we have the answer now: whoever leaked them chose those because they were the scenes they had on hand. These were the scenes that were not originally part of VLD s8, and were added only in the last minute edit.

This one in particular is another where I think it’s taken an actual scene and traced over it to make it into something else. Lance is far too tall here, and doesn’t look like himself hardly at all.

It’s also very clear from the framing of the shot where Allura is going down the line of paladins and hugging them that Lance should be getting a send off in sequence to the others, not apart like this.

No, I think Lance was animated over Lotor here, and the audio was spliced in parts from Lance’s actual goodbye scene and Allura’s “I will always love you” comes from somewhere else. That portion of the line is said in a distinctly different tone of voice than Lance’s name beforehand. There’s different emotions to it than the rest of their conversation, and I’d guarantee we’re hearing it out of it’s original context.

I don’t know what else changes in the ending, but I’m very certain that it was not supposed to be read as Allura dying.

The reason we now read it that way is that Allura and Honerva are seen greeting the spirits of people we know that are dead. I’m fairly certain this scene is either new, or it was only Honerva going to meet them, and of course, that Lotor wasn’t among them.

And I think it was Allura and Lotor who stayed behind to do the work of restoring all realities. My proof of this is one of the very best and strongest among my evidence: the very last closing shot of Voltron: Legendary Defender, after the credits.

The lions of Voltron take off to rejoin their new Cosmic Entities; Allura and Lotor. Whoever was responsible for editing Lotor out of this picture only actually slightly blurred him.

Thanks to @articianne for the outline!

If you play around with the image contrast and brightness it’s even more obvious that the both of them are there, back to back.

It only looks like Allura dies because the spirits but without them there? It looks like they ascended to a higher plane of existence or something.

They haven’t died at all. They’ve become, of all things, like Bob, the gameshow host from s7e4 ‘The Feud’. An ‘all-powerful, all-knowing interdimensional being’.

And y’know? Bob was perfectly able to interact with the paladins no problem.

I don’t understand why these changes were made. To me? This looks like a perfectly happy ending.

What else was cut I don’t know. But I found all this evidence by looking for the things that weren’t there, that a competently structured plot would lead me to expect would be. Chasing ghosts, as it were.

A short list of additional things I strongly suspect were cut?

Several scenes between Keith and Shiro.

A pivotal scene between Allura and Coran.

A follow up event with Pidge referencing her sacrificing her videogame to get Allura a dress.

A scene between Lance and Pidge, possibly referencing said videogame.

A resolution to Lance and Pidge competing to get Allura the best present.

A conclusion to Axca’s sub plot.

A Hunk and Shay scene, to explain how and why the Balmeras all show up in s8e12 ‘The Zenith’.

An additional scene with the blade for the same reasons.

Actually, y’know what? I’m not just going to leave this, because I have a strong suspicion what one of the other cut subplots was about.

You see, the other half of ‘Clear Day’ isn’t entirely filler - it’s specifically a callback to the season 2 episode ‘Space Mall’, and it’s not the only one in this season. The little shopping trip from s8e1 ‘Launch Date’ is also one. Specifically they’re part of a plot for Pidge about her feelings for Lance.

In ‘Space Mall’ Pidge and Lance spend their time scrounging up change to buy a videogame console. The game that they purchase is part of a series that Pidge later trades the only copy of the latest version of to get Allura a dress. During ‘Clear Day’ Pidge and Lance both spend their time trying to get the best present for Allura (hint hint, Pidge is the one who actually got the ‘”something sparkly”).

Now, as I’ve already covered, there’s missing content between ‘Clear Day’ and the next episode. Part of that content should have been what the other paladins were doing while Allura was unconscious. And in series, we never actually see Allura receive either of those presents that were bought for her. So where did they go?

I think Pidge and Lance spent the time waiting for Allura to wake up together, and they got to talking about how Lance has once again failed to acquire the sparkly thing Allura would like. Perhaps Pidge trades her mining helmet for Lance’s signed Blue Lion, and then it comes up how both times Lance went to get a present for Allura he ended up getting one for Pidge.

And that first time was the video game wasn’t it? A perfect place for Lance to find out what happened with the video game in s8e1.

So why did Pidge trade that game? To make Allura happy, yes, but also to make Lance happy. Because Lance likes Allura and Pidge wants them to have a good time, because Pidge likes Lance. Like, check e1 when Allura tells her she's going on a date with Lance, Pidge's reaction... isn't really a happy one.

I think this should have been the turning point for Lance, where he learns the difference between infatuation and sincere affection. I think very soon after this his relationship with Allura would end, and he would naturally progress into a different sort of relationship with Pidge.

As much as I love s8e7 ‘Day Forty-Seven’ I don’t think it was originally part of season 8. I also get the feeling that s7e2 ‘Shadows’ may be composed of scenes we were supposed to have gotten throughout the later half of season seven - though I expect that this change was made in a much earlier spate of edits, likely when s7 was re-done. It’s been confirmed that this happened, and that s7e4 ‘The Feud’ was made to ease the pressure on the exhausted animators who’d been working overtime to get the other episodes done in time. It’s never been confirmed what exactly was changed about season 7 or why, but I highly suspect it was to include more content with the MFE fighters, who the higher ups at Dreamworks might have been hoping to spin off into a sequel.

I suspect that the episodes were shifted forwards, because the first half of the season has no 'event' episode. s8e6 ‘Genesis’ should have been that, and what we're missing is the mid-season event. Which was where they would have saved Lotor. They excised an entire climactic fight between Allura and Honerva, reprising their battle from season 2. The alchemist vs alchemist fight that was repeatedly alluded to being inevitable, yet we never got.

It was animated and voiced to be Lotura and Lotor's vindication.

But someone wanted that changed.

We know when and why ‘The Feud’ was created, and because we were teased in several interviews to pay attention to it so that we might spot some foreshadowing, we can definitively say that the mucking around that was done to season 8 happened at a much later date.

In fact, the animation portion was likely completed all the way back in June. These are two bumper images that were used to advertise Season 6, which released on June 15th.

We haven’t yet seen this image of Lotor appear in the show (for what it matters, the full color one is the correct way around; Lotor’s hair always curls up over his right shoulder, the left can go either way), we have scoured every frame of him to find it, but it’s just not there (yes I know it looks like it should be from s5e4 ‘Kral Zera’, but trust me it’s not). Every other image that’s ever been used in these promotional bumpers has been from somewhere in the show, but this one is so far absent. Therefore it’s from a piece of animation yet to appear, and one which was made by the time these images showed up in June.

Now that we know what the truth is, I am sure we will get the full story eventually. It's only a matter of time before it filters out.

But right now is the key time if we want to convince Dreamworks to release the original season 8. Tweet at them, email them, snail mail if you have the time! Sign that petition!

The fandom response now will determine if we find out what really happened sooner rather than later - and later could mean years.

We are the only people who can make this happen. The cast and crew are all bound by NDAs, and publicly reacting negatively towards a show you worked on is practically career suicide.

It has historically been fans who’ve made a difference when companies interfere with their favorite shows. Fans have been able to effect change in the past, and they will again in the future; lets make sure this is one of those times. We need to fight to get the VLD we should have gotten in the first place.

Just remember to apply your energies in the right places. JDS and LM aren’t perfect people (no one is!), but this isn’t their doing. This is someone above them responsible for the mess that was s8. Dreamworks Animation is the culprit. There is a very real chance that the original season 8 is completely finished and able to be released, and we just might get it if we’re persistent enough. 

Be polite, be reasonable, but be firm. Take this proof and use it. Show them that we know they changed things and that they can give us the original if they so choose.

The messages they inadvertently pushed with this slap-dash edit are vile and toxic, and people far more knowledgeable than I in those areas are speaking out about them. This needs to be fixed.

They need to say something. They need to tell us why they changed it. They need to give us the original Season 8.

Click here for Part 2: Seek Truth in Darkness

I, and any of you who enjoyed this meta, owe @nomadicism a huge thank you. She reminded me of that strange "Follow me!" scene, which prompted me to crack open 'Clear Day' for another watch... and I realized that Allura's dreams weren't nonsensical at all.

As always, thank you to my many friends in the Lotura Discord. You give me the strength and encouragement to keep going. I couldn’t have done this without you.

[iainwrites]

The Rise of Skywalker Likes and Dislikes

This is going to talk very bluntly and blatantly about things that happened in the movie.  So if you’ve been holding off on seeing it, here’s your warning.  Or if you don’t want to read someone criticizing something you enjoyed.  Skip past everything.

Likes:

-Finn at the beginning.  It’s nice to see his character growth from oblivious and try-to-hard former Stormtrooper, to still a little blundering Resistance fighter but still shows he’s capable, to a man confident in himself/in himself/in his friends and allies.

-When Chebacca learns of Leia’s death.  That’s the look of someone who has lost their oldest friends and don’t even have the strength to be angry.  There’s just loss.  THAT is one of the most powerful moments in this whole movie.

-Fine.  Ben’s “Okay bitches.  Now we can do this.” shrug before carving through the Knights is a great bit of physical acting and (I guess) comedy.

-The new main trio meet at the end and… hug.  No kissing.  No pairing off.  Three people who just survived a war and are happy that each is still alive.  Especially Finn.  This is his family and they’re okay.  Not everything has to end with hook-ups or resolved love triangles.  

Dislikes and Opinions:

-Palpatine.  Why?  He did his bit in the prequels, died in the OT, had no bearing in either TFA or TLJ.  So why bring him back now?

-What was the point of Rose in this?  She gets limited screen-time and doesn’t move the plot along.  The movie could have used this as a means to continue its slow show of representation, but apparently that’s a bridge too far.  But we did get Naomi Ackie as a supporting character of color with screentime and lines?  So we… traded?  Maintained?

-The fuck was with that Finn “I have something to tell you” line?  There was no lead in from any of the prior movies at all.  And no, it doesn’t count if it was revealed in the novelisation of either of the previous films.

-So Rey can sense Chewie is on a ship… but can’t tell that he’s on a different ship than the one she blows up?  Or that he’s not on the ship that she’s telekinetically fighting over?

-D-O is cute factor and nothing more or better.  Add onto that: Babu was there for cute factor.  And people shit on Jar Jar (me included) because he was written as something to entertain children.

-Rey is a Palpatine.  Why was that a choice that was made?  Why does she have to be related to anyone pre-existing in the Star Wars canon?  And why did things have to be explained not in the movie, but in tweets, interviews, the novelisation, etc?  Like the fact that Rey is a Palpatine.  Movie made you think that one of her parents was Sheev’s child, right?  Which one?  Sorry, didn’t tell us.  Oh, and it was her father, by the way.  Oh, and he wasn’t Palpatine’s child; he was actually a failed clone of Palpatine.  And that’s just one part.

-How does the blade work in the grand scheme of things?  Was it made after the destruction of the Death Star (because how else would it be able to line up so well with the wreckage)?  Who made it?  Why didn’t they pillage Palpatin’s hidden room of important shit?  Why didn’t they pass it on immediately to Kylo if he’s the second coming of Vader?

-Leia’s death.  Yes, all they had was archival footage.  So you mean to tell me that they couldn’t have done anything with that miraculous CGI technology to create a facial/vocal facsimile?  That they had no point of reference of ever doing that?  That there was absolutely no budget?  Or that rewrites were an impossible thing?  Because “Leia lays down, dies, and gives her son a moment to pause and get stabbed” isn’t doing right by Carrie Fisher or respecting her legacy.  That’s “Well, this is what we have.  Guess all we can do is use only what we have to make something and not put any more effort into it.”

-”We have no source material!” Except the whole “Emperor trying to find a new body” thing was done in Dark Empire.  As was the fact that the Emperor we saw was a clone that decayed rapidly without a Force-strong host.  And the fleet of ships to turn the tide of things was done with the Katana Fleet.  And Force Heal has been done in games like the GBA version of Revenge of the Sith.  And and and.

-Han Solo forgives his son!  Except it’s not Han, or a Force Ghost of Han (because Han wasn’t Force sensitive or trained to become self aware in the Cosmic Force after he died because that’s the explanation that they’ve been establishing in the Clone Wars TV series since the end of Season 6), but a figment of Ben’s imagination.  So Ben imagined that his father forgave him for murdering him.  … That’s not how it works.  If you’re imagining your murder victim forgiving you, there’s probably some deep psychological shit to deal with.

-People have talked about it, so I’ll hop on the train: how in the hell did Lando travel quickly enough to get that many ships when a distress call put out by Leia herself couldn’t shift asses?  How can he cover that much area, gather all those ships, then get through the mists or whatever the shit surround Exogal when one of those tracking beacon/map thingies have been set up as the only way a ship can travel through?

-For everything that Abrams did to negate TLJ, Palpatine’s monologue of Rey’s actions is very similar to Snoke’s monologue of Ren’s actions.  Down to the “HAHA PSYCH!” moment.

-The Knights of Ren are just a shit-show.  The name sounds cool, though, right!  Aaannnddd they’re killed off without a single line said or them proving to be any sort of threat representative of their “feared” name.

-Here’s something: when all the past Jedi are talking to Rey, you’re told who the male voices belong to (including stuff like Young Obi-Wan and Kanan).  But you only get Female Jedi 1 and Female Jedi 2.  That’s kind of fucked up and sexist, right?

-They set up Rey’s anger throughout the trilogy as being her path to the Dark Side (going as far to show what she could be like if she gives into those darker urges)... and never really do anything to resolve it.

-They REALLY lean into the idea that Finn is Force sensitive in this movie, don’t they?  Despite no evidence of it in any other movie.

-The random scene of just revived Rey grasping Ben’s hand and the frames drop (maybe that’s just my copy, but it's still a standout).  If it’s something everyone gets… then why the hell is something that glaring still in the movie.

-The kiss.  The novelisation said that the kiss was one of “gratitude,” but seriously?  Rogue One had a moment of gratitude where Jyn and Cassian are together and they… hug.  That’s it.  Piss off with your gratitude; there was a kiss because this movie substitutes sense with forced fanservice and they knew that people wanted to see Rey and Kylo together at some point.  Just like they likely kept Rose out of the movie because people gave Kelly Marie Tran shit.  Like that could have made the movie even possibly worse.

-Ben dies and fades away… and Leia’s body fades away at the same time.  Even though she’s been dead for a day+ at this point.  Because… she connected her spirit to her son?  See, that’s something I pulled completely out of thin air, but wouldn’t it be nice if that was the truth and the movie actually explained that was what happened instead of just giving random ass coincidences?

-Rey Skywalker.  Why does she have to be Rey Anybody?  There could have been such a positive spin to what she said earlier in the movie.  “Just Rey.”  Have her say it with pride and ownership now.  She’s her own person, unburdened by the names of those who have gone before.  She doesn’t have any name to live up to.

-Fuck you for your obvious, blatant and unecessary fanservice and self pleasing imagery where the twin suns are arranged to look like BB-8.  He’s not so important that one of the last lingering moments has to be of your new creation, Abrams.  You’re not so essential to Star Wars that you have to make a “HEY LOOK AT ME THE GUY WHO MADE THIS MOVIE” made-for-screenshots image.

Meh

-There’s no meh.  There are just rare moments of contentment amongst a constant feeling of disappointment and frustration.

Random Asides

-Kathleen Kennedy did an interview with Rolling Stone in November of 2019 leading up to The Rise of Skywalker.  You may have seen it float around, but she said “Every one of these movies is a particularly hard nut to crack. There’s no source material. We don’t have comic books. We don’t have 800-page novels.”  It’s in relation to how difficult it is to write and direct the movies, but come on.  There’s TONS of source material, dating as far back 1977 for the comics AND the novels.  There might not be 800 page novels, but there are trilogies, doulogies and massive story arcs that exceed those numbers (NJO and Legacy of the Force may not be your thing, but they’re there).  Rebels went and borrowed Zeb’s look from the original script AND took characters directly from Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy; Clone Wars pulled from Legends while Legends were still considered canon and afterwards.  Not all of it is good; it’d be difficult to translate a lot of it to screen without heavy edits these days.

“I love that we have these amazingly passionate fans who care so much. And I know sometimes they may think we don’t listen, but we do, and I thought it was fantastic that people got that engaged. It just showed me and everybody else how much they care. And that’s important for all of us that are doing this. We really look at them as the custodians of this story as much as [we are]. We look at it as kind of a partnership.”  Except when we’re not happy with a product that turns out to be sub-par.  Piss right off.

-Billie Dee Williams seems like he’s dropped in from a different movie entirely.  Not a bad thing; his delivery and presence is just so different from anyone else’s.

All In All

-It’s my least favorite of all the movies.  Worse than any of the prequels.  And say what you will about the prequels: at least they had a connecting story and the director didn’t try to kneecap something that happened in the middle movie before burying it in a shallow grave while taking a dump on the things left behind that didn’t fit in their vision.  It’s worse than Solo.  No amount of fanservice can fix the fact that the movie was by-and-large unenjoyable.   

[hanzi83]

Mix Bagged Thoughts of the Last Couple of Months

This part was written March 4th, 2020 before the Coronavirus quarantine began but instead of deleting it, I am continuing the thought because if I have to be scattered brain, then you will have to as well, as I list off my concerns the past couple of months with the incorporation of what this virus means to the world, in my interpretation.

March 5th, 2020

I haven’t done one of these blogs in the last several months, or at least it feels like it. And yes to answer your questions, to the select few who are able to read my extremely scattered brained thoughts in a really unorganized manner due to the fact that I have not organized my thoughts in a (not so) private journal on my laptop, since I can’t write physically in a notebook since I can’t read back my thoughts, and it was never like I would read them back when I wrote down irrational opinions, and testing the waters to see who was really monitoring this due to the moving of my cursor, that the trolls that have familiarized themselves with me for the last decade plus, have continuously denied, so I have been doing more periscopes, and writing more random threads of tweets just to see how my theories hold up. Let’s face it, for the most part I am a dumbed down guy, who decided to go with whatever the the majority would say because I did not have the facilities to think for myself for years, whether it was going along with a narrative rooted in neoliberalism, while thinking I was being nice and considerate, to wanting to be a contrarian, to being a conspiracy theorist, almost getting himself in the alt right mind set, because you don’t believe MSM, but then you find out that the contrarian conspiracy theorists have been hijacked by the right wing so going by the limited narrative wokeness that exists in the neoliberal, to finally realizing what the difference between a leftist, and a neoliberal is. 

I find that with the limited platform I have, I try to talk to people, who don’t really have the power that the ones in charge do, to maybe deprogram them from the propaganda, because even when this Trump shit went down, I really did not want to give anyone who was leaning conservative a chance, because they want to be with the ignorant, and that is not to say the so called progressives, who only are as progressive as the neoliberal think tanks allow them, are just as much a problem. It is funny because it feels like leftists rightfully compare the neoliberals to the neoconservatives, while the neoliberals point at the leftists as the same as the far right, and it has been done by design. That is what my basic conspiracy theory brain has conjured up, that they place truth tellers in with the racists, misogynists, homophobes etc which is why you can compare Bernie Sanders’ movement to Trump because they have become populists in this era of political theatre. Now the way you can compare them, and this is probably where leftists will hate me, because they insist on their movement to be completely organic and nothing can be compromised, and my point is, that every clique had some type of funding, but it does not mean the leftist is some evil shit, so sure you can compare different cliques being the same as in they are probably funded by big people. But you cannot compare what each one stands for because the far right has been funded by people who are on the evil side. By the way anything that I put out, that has not been confirmed yet, is just a theory in my fucked up brain. 

It feels like when I don’t organize my thoughts, and I need to write something down to express and vent my feelings, I don’t know where to start and how to transition smoothly with my segues, so I feel good about setting it up and then as I continue, my brain continues to get exhausted with all of the stuff I have read and absorbed from a television show or movie, in fact I have not been caught up on movies, television shows. It is like I don’t care but then immediately I go to regret because I don’t understand the latest references going on, on social media. It fucks with me, then I convince myself that maybe my experience in life has been so interesting, maybe I need to focus on that rather than trying to watch a new television show or movie just so I can pretend to tell the difference between a show with good politics and bad politics, and then questioning if I am even comprehending what I am watching, listening to, or reading, and when I have debates, I can barely retain, so I have to examine the world in my fucked up way since I never paid attention to details, and I never expected to live this long, and each year that passes, and as each hair on my face begins to turn even grayer than the prior time I had facial hair, I just try to simplify it in my head. I still hold out for the death card, because I think i want to transfer my consciousness to another entity, or maybe if I cross over to the other side it will be a lot better than the mental hell I have dealt with. I have to believe we are far more advanced and things are far more organized. I have tried shutting that part of my thoughts down ever since I fully became entrenched with the conspiracies, but the fact that so much of my family and friends have been kind of secretive, and now putting the pieces together from the past, it makes me wonder what kind of world have I been pulled into and all it took for me to realize this was being an (at times voluntarily) being exploited by the show, so others can gain from it and profit off it, and the fact that these things are not to be focused on, on the surface, me bringing it up was not good for anyone, because the perceived people in charge behind the scenes, did not like that I was being transparent. And all of these years, I am not content I have all the factors right, or not but I do realize, in my opinion, that I am not going to believe anyone of any clique is giving you the truth 100 percent, and that doesn’t mean it is all meant for evil, I have stated multiple times before if you can spread propaganda for evil, you can have a clique that serves the power of good to spread propaganda for the sake of good. It just difficult to figure out all of this because the roles are kind of hitting a grey area, we don’t know what is the good guy or the bad guy, because depending on which circles you follow, they can convince you people who are evil are the ones who are being victimized, or that good ones are being made to seem evil, it basically how wrestling fans are debating if someone is a good guy because they did something kind of unethical. 

March 25,2020 

So I wrote that last part prior to this forced quarantine shit, and now it even rings true in some regard to me at least, especially with how pretentious some of these celebrities are acting by doing a sing a long of John Lennon’s “Imagine” and keep repeating the Sarah Silverman part to debate if she is really obnoxious, or if she is self awarely being a cornball, either way too much thought has been put on that, then you have the “clone” billionaires deteriorating right in front of you and making asinine statements, where they are justifying many deaths to save the economy, and to save my head from even thinking of the horrible death that is heading our way because I believe people are being sacrificed in masses by unethical people having control and hoarding knowledge and tools to keep them safe while the rest of us probably have to die, so in order for me not to break down at that thought because it has weighed on my head, that the reason I did not sell my soul was because I don’t know if I could have been quiet with some of the fucked up things happening behind, so now I just put weird ass conspiracies together because I think we are given hidden truth in our fiction, and I wonder if people dying, are we so advanced, that our consciousness can be transferred or have we given our governments enough DNA over the time we have lived where they can secretly clone us again? It makes life more exciting thinking it like that, but as much as I want to express these theories, I want to make it clear you should never listen to me about these things, I am just someone who has no one to talk to and since they fuck with my journal entries, I am almost a year behind and I need to write long winded blogs, that no one will pay attention to, I just need to get this out and think out loud because over the last year so many thoughts have been building up, one minute I want to vent about this, but then a few days pass and my mind is onto something else and I still have these notes jotted. Now the list I am looking at does not seem as important when this stuff is going on. 

I am scared about what is happening because I don’t know if we are being given the right information or if that there is bits of truth but the hucksters who have taken over the conspiracy movement are also giving us false information, because apparently everything is a fucking hustle. Is this something we already have but other factors play into if the virus will be extracted or is it as organic as they say it was, it feels the more the oppressed groups are starting to rise and gain traction, the neoliberals and neoconservatives are discrediting anything other than the establishment view. Part of me feels like it is wrestling where they neoliberal types are passing the torch but a lot of shit is going to have be sacrificed because this is some elaborate game/reality show that we witness, and the public figures are playing roles that seem relatable to the rest of us but their plight is more symbolism than what is actually going on. I wonder if this world is so organized that it is already pre planned who is going to die and are the celebs getting it, a ploy or is it symbolism that they are escaping this planet because they know where the world is heading. I still believe a lot of the elite type and their associates have clones and some of the ones we see are not the real ones, but that is another story. 

I don’t know if anything happens to my elderly parents, how I will survive. I never wanted to be alive during something like this because I don’t feel I am useful to this planet anymore and I feel I am meant to just be a target for people to bug because they know if I snap then it will always reflect badly on me, because I can’t fight back and if I do then they can play that I am mentall unstable part. It really fucks with my head. I know I will never get back all the years I missed with my family and friends, and I know that the longer I will be alive, I will question if people who are supposed to be close with me are setting me up for something or do they really love me. This fame shit has fucked my head up. I have to deal with trolls who constantly threaten me and I never know at what level they are keeping this, they have showcased they can misplace my documented thread on twitter of the evidence of people threatening me and hinting something bad will happen to me, I don’t know if something will or are they continuously instilling fear into me, since my last blog I went into the specifics of that extra terrestrial lady who thinks I owe her a platform because she is allegedly going through the same harassment, while catering to the trolls who hate me, but she claims she is training them, and while one of them has been more peaceful, I don’t know if that is a ploy to have a front row seat to be allowed to troll, he will bring up every irrational thing I have said, and not provide context in hopes to embarrass me in front of new people I meet on periscope, and if that does not work, they will have to endear themselves to those people so it makes me uncomfortable, this specific troll tried to convince me that him getting me banned on twitter and facebook for a week and month was his doing and that is why he is the reason for me meeting new interesting characters on the periscope app. It feels like this Gorilla Bacon dude thinks he is entitled to being into my life, he claims he is joking. I hope him nothing but luck if he is truly changing but it does not feel like it, and I notice since I have made peace with the guy who was hanging out with that “alien chick” it has caused madness, I am unsure what their friendship is like, but the private conversations regarding my podcast has made people lose their mind. Even people who thought they gained my trust and now that their ways are kind of becoming transparent, I am being ganged up on from this woman at times. Before I continue, even though all this is documented within the videos I have on facebook from my periscope, whenever I bring up the inconsistencies in their argument, I am somehow considered to be lying and slandering her name, when people have been witness to it. I personally think, and I emphasize “personally think” since there is a group of patriots always bugging her, the ones she gives me shit for not blocking, even though I am worried if I do so then some of them will fuck with me. They already don’t like that I am not a Trump guy and that I lean more leftist and some of them get upset that I explain the difference between an establishment democrat and an actual leftist, because they always bank on that the democratic side has the full representative of what is leftism. So I feel like maybe she was tied in with them, maybe did not like what they were into but now instead of just moving on she feels threatened that they could be around to get any kind of word out. I tell her not to come in countless times, but then she will come in and just start taking over and bringing up stuff I said while we were in arguments together, and since this is playing out in front of an audience, I do kind of try to be entertaining, because my brain has been trained that way, and then somehow the trolls she aligned with will just fuck with me by playing my old manic calls, even trying to get me in trouble, because recently on a periscope session, I was being fucked with by this new dude I met on there, who has latched on to me, and he normally just talks shit and tries to start arguments and says the most ignorant shit to people when he argues, and it kind of reminds me of how I would think it would be acceptable to have these barbs because I gravitated towards the most ignorant while trying to be somehwhat woke, and because I have been programmed by that kind of entertainment, especially since it gets applauded by Stern Show because being this way makes for more interesting radio, it feels people have to constantly be on. So i try to tell him it’s not the way because my trolls will encourage that because it is someone who they can align with because these people hate watch me and need someone to represent their disdain so this character will fuck with me more and more. So I was in an argument with him, another caller joined in, who happens to be black, he had no idea about what is going on, and when he was busting my balls I lost it on everyone in the panel, and when i said “You said i was virgin and I was a snitch, I went off” he replies “I asked u if you were, if I wanted to be mean i could I have said it” and I stutter my words where I don’t even speak I make sounds, and I said “Nah Nah go ahead again” and it sounded like I said the n word with an a but I didn’t know how my speech comes across, so when they bring up I said it, I even talked to several black people I respect and showed them the clip, some were like I did not say it, but others said they could see how they thought that” this diarreagun account is fucking with the audio and showing that it did sound like it, so I have tried to distance myself from periscope a little more, because if it isn’t people threatening to kill me, or encouraging me to kill myself, they will find news way to just fuck with my head. And because this lady knows I don’t want trouble and I am being extra careful how to address her, she just lashes out at me all the time, and this woman is like 15 years older than me and I just want her to get help and maybe get some medication because I can relate to some of these mood lashes but I am not the enemy. The guy I was at odds with has become helpful with me and even some of my private conversations with him, I even tell him I have my guard up with everyone and any conversation that is happening privately I figure I am always being spied on because when i do a private periscope, there shows one more person into the room to showcase they can bypass the privacy and listen to us. 

I also tried to distance myself from some people because I don’t know who these people truly are. I don’t have resources to use to background check people, so sometimes i think the system is sending problematic people toward me and hide who they are and endear themselves to me and then if it does not work out they show shades of what they are, and I have to watch out for who it is because I am not trying to have a Jimmernam shit happen to me again, and that situation has gotten crazier because the woman that was being harassed by him has decided to forgive him because she was at odds with the original people who were helping her out because they have crude like humor, and at one point I was at odds with him, but we made peace and even though I have outgrown that type of humor on some level, I recognize that they are not worse than what Jimmernam is, and maybe the problem was becoming so friendly with common enemies of that person, that you had to always be with them and then you get sick of them because being this communicative that often in a discord link is probably going to speed up getting fed up with people. That's why I keep my distance because I know its just people wilding out for the shits and giggles because they were brought up on Howard Stern and Opie & Anthony like humor and not that it can’t be funny but I just don’t find it edgy but I am not going to grandstand because at one time I was partaking on that level of humor because I thought the more inappropriate you were with your “comedy” the edgier you were considered. So it is kind of disheartening that Limon went back to Jimmer, she is still cool with me and I have not attacked her for doing so, but maybe she thinks she has to go back because she needs some backup, but if this Jimmernam guy is really a groomer of kids, and I have gone through the history of him, why would you want to be associated with that. It was fucked up that I was associated with him but I had no idea who this person was, and I assumed anyone who is allowed to be out and about is probably not completely evil. It just so happened that after I had reservations in being part of his Stern like show, and then his show imploded, then the rumors of what he was came out and the fact that he tried to save face by modeling his “struggle” with what I really deal with, he figured a common struggle would make me want to partner up with him again. I asked him when he resurfaced and his reddit shit flopped after starting drama in that community, if these rumors are true then how can i do a show with him, and he has said “Well there are rumors about you and I know they aren’t true” and these rumors are most likely started by him. He has hinted many times that my computer is hacked and probably has that, much like WWE shills did a while back, and because I am not tech savvy, where would I go to look if my computer had these? It is fucked up. The fact that I have to forgive trolls who have tried to get my house swatted is really fucked up and because it did not happen they think “Well it didn’t happen so you are not justified to be angry” is such a stupid fucking take. 

Even when I am just flirting on periscope with women, and most of you know I am not really into having a relationship but I use it to just have some fun and maybe start some friendships, it's mainly to practice if I ever become social again, but it feels kind of cool to connect with people and instead of catching up on movies and television etc, I try to meet new people, whether it's interesting characters and create interesting and entertaining dialogue, but I have to be careful because periscope is just a twitter write off and people don’t care what goes on, and if you go on the app and look at random thumbnails of broadcasts, I had to report so many because by the thumbnail it looks like kids are being exploited, so when i do talk to any women on my panel specifically or go into another periscope, I always make sure the people are all 18 and over. Not that I am saying anything super inappropriate I don’t feel comfortable being in a conversation with someone who is under 18 because if they are impressionable I don’t want to be the reason they get a fucked up thought in their head because of my lack of filter but apparently that is even a problem because I am not supposed to be responsible with my platform according to these people, it is kind of like they want me to get caught up in some traps. It feels like they try their hardest, and that is why I am unsure what kind of people I interact with because it is one thing to be a little ignorant and politically incorrect, I can disarm that, but when it comes to someone being part of a hate group and is planning on doing doxxing and ruining people’s lives, I don’t want any part of that, even if that kind of drama gets a bunch of fake views, so people are constantly encouraged to keep doing it because when you have peaceful conversations then they punish you by taking away views because it shows no one cares about your wrestling talk anymore. I don’t know what these people will do to me to fuck me up. I am very scared and maybe that is the intention because I am a piece of shit and people hate me for still having some kind of audience but since Stern Show is not backing me anymore, it seems people can cross the line with their scare tactics, whether its hacking my shit and not doing anything overly dangerous but enough to show they are in control, and now that I have started a podcast, which at this moment I have not publicized, but believe you me, the trolls are spying on me and know where it is, even one of my trolls has sent me a voicemail on the app to condescendly give me the “I am proud of you speech” after me and the dude helping me out have been talking about it in private. Then my fucked up mind goes “Are me and this guy having private conversations, is he trustworthy?” or did the trolls intentionally do that because now I will suspect him for still setting me up with some of these private talks. I don’t fucking know. I did want to record a couple of podcasts, which I am scared to do because I don’t know if I will have thoughts organized, should I do what is happening day to day and because I think in layers, it is hard to articulate, which is why I am writing this blog with a mixed bag of shit to talk about so I can easier articulate it. I wanted to do this podcast and then after a couple of them being recorded I would then publicize it. I just wanted to feel like a winner for once in my life by accomplishing something, even though the podcast setup is kind of primitive but of course the trolls who I believe are paid will try to ruin it and some of these problematic people who want drama with me will not take kindly I am doing this on my own because they feel entitled to be part of it even though I believe they have been instructed to derail me and my thoughts and constantly keep me in a frenzy. My trolls who hate watch me and who tend to have ignorant views are applauded and encouraged, so they chastise me for not wanting to put up with that because me and other mentally ill people might not be best to mesh on a daily basis, especially ones that don’t want to acknowledge they have mental illness and think to cope with it they better just start drama with every other person and lash out because they think by being on my platform that they have an audience watching that they did not have before, and even though they shit on me, they still love me and need to be attached to me because they can’t admit that I serve more importance than the system has lead on since leaving Stern and becoming an irrelevant asshole who still is hanging on to the remaining milliseconds of the 15 minutes that have for the better part been over.

By the way whenever I mention the reddit they use the harassment they always end up closing it, especially when it has to do with some mission happening on certain days where they plan on kidnapping me or some shit. /R/systemichanzi83 but there are rumors more is happening on systematichanzi or systematichanzi83 or something but those are apparently are private. 

[thisdaynews]

Mueller disappoints Trump critics, again

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/mueller-disappoints-trump-critics-again/

Mueller disappoints Trump critics, again

Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller deflected questions and reiterated past points during his long-anticipated testimony Wednesday. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Robert Mueller failed to deliver what critics of President Donald Trump wanted Wednesday, but they must be getting used to that by now.

For nearly two years, many Democrats have regarded Mueller as a Messiah figure who will deliver them from the plague of the Trump presidency through something akin to divine intervention.

From the time the special counsel began rolling out indictments in 2017, liberals became convinced with each arrival and departure of prosecutors from the D.C. federal courthouse that a massive, unifying indictment was looming that would chargeTrump campaign operatives with conspiring with Russia and WikiLeaks to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails.

Perhaps it was already under seal? Some expected a case sweeping in individuals who were charged, like campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump confidant Roger Stone, with others close to the president who’d not been charged, like Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner. There was even talk Mueller might buck Justice Department policy and charge the president himself.

When that round of speculation fizzled amid signs that Mueller was preparing to wind down his probe, attention shifted to the special counsel’s report. Perhaps the veteran prosecutor and former FBI director hadn’t charged Trump, but he would deliver a report that accused Trump of various crimes — akin to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s impeachment referral for President Bill Clinton in 1998.

That, too, proved illusory. Mueller’s 448-page report contained a raft of damaging allegations against the president and outlined at least 10 episodes of potential obstruction of justice, as well as a slew of apparent lies. But the special counsel never directly accused the president of a crime, as many of his opponents had hoped.

After the lengthy report (and its initial framing by Attorney General Bill Barr) failed to interest or resonate with most Americans not already turned off by Trump’s conduct, Democrats experienced a third bout of Mueller-mania, convincing themselves that in-person testimony by the special counsel would be riveting, producing a national teaching moment that would bring his report to life.

Mueller did his best to dissuade them, declaring in a May 29 statement to the media that he would add no new substance if called before Congress.

“Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. It contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. We chose those words carefully, and the work speaks for itself. And the report is my testimony,” the special counsel said, exuding a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before Congress.”

Despite Mueller’s plain reluctance, Democrats pressed on, ultimately subpoenaing him for the hearings Wednesday. The advance billing was so outsized that the reality seemed certain to underwhelm, but it turned out to be even less whelming than that.

Through the first three-hour hearing, before the House Judiciary Committee, Mueller — who also announced May 29 that he was leaving the Justice Department and returning to private life — often seemed ill at ease and had difficulty identifying which lawmaker was questioning him. He repeatedly asked members of both parties to repeat their questions, fouling up the rhythm the questioners were trying to establish.

Answers, when offered, were often curt or monosyllabic, like “Correct,” “Yes” or “No.” But more often, he brushed the question aside, referring to the text of the report, calling the matter outside his “purview” or simply saying, “I’m not going to get into that.”

At times on Wednesday, Mueller just seemed out of it. Under questioning by Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), the former special counsel appeared to deny that his office looked into whether the Trump campaign worked with WikiLeaks or others to steal Hillary Clinton campaign emails.

“That matter does not fall within our investigation,” Mueller said, puzzlingly, given that this was a central focus of his probe.

At another point, Mueller claimed not to know anything about Fusion GPS, the private investigation firm commissioned by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to prepare a dossier of opposition research that appeared to fuel the early FBI investigation into ties between Trump, his advisers and Russia.

Democrats had justified the hearings by saying that, despite Mueller’s caveats, they would at a minimum be able to get him to be able to read parts of his report aloud. But he refused even to do that. The standout moment of the first hearing for Democrats was an exchange with the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.).

“Did you actually totally exonerate the president?” Nadler asked. “No,” Mueller replied.

If TV ads were the goal, an actual sentence from the witness might’ve been nice. When it came a short time later, Mueller used legal jargon that again denied Democrats their soundbite.

“The president was not exculpated for the acts that he allegedly committed,” the ex-prosecutor said.

Democrats seemed to score another small win when Mueller appeared to agree with Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) that the reason Trump wasn’t indicted was because of a longstanding Justice Department policy against charging sitting presidents.

However, at the outset of a second appearance Wednesday before the House Intelligence Committee, Mueller snatched that meager victory away, indicating that he misunderstood and actually disagreed with Lieu’s language. “That is not the correct way to say it,” Mueller declared.

During the later hearing, Mueller seemed more at ease and responsive. On a couple of occasions, he offered what amounted to direct rebuttals of Trump talking points.

“When Donald Trump called your investigation a witch hunt, that is also false, is it not?” asked Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the Intelligence chairman.

“I like to think so, yes,” Mueller replied, adding later: “It is not a witch hunt.”

However, his most quotable comments beyond that were warnings about the dangers of continued Russian interference in U.S. elections, not condemnations of Trump that would provide fodder for impeachment.

It emerged during the hearings that Democrats had been signaled in advance of his unwillingness to narrate his own report. That, like Mueller’s request to the Justice Department for guidelines that he adopted to limit his testimony, should have been a warning that Democrats were facing a rough ride Wednesday. But canceling the hearing once the subpoenas were issued was a nonstarter.

Many impeachment backers seemed to detect that the hearings were not providing the momentum proponents of that approach had hoped for.

“A frail old man, unable to remember things, stumbling, refusing to answer basic questions,” filmmaker Michael Moorewroteon Twitter. “I said it in 2017 and Mueller confirmed it today — All you pundits and moderates and lame Dems who told the public to put their faith in the esteemed Robert Mueller — just STFU from now on.”

Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribetweeted: “Much as I hate to say it, this morning’s hearing was a disaster. Far from breathing life into his damning report, the tired Robert Mueller sucked the life out of it. The effort to save democracy and the rule of law from this lawless president has been set back, not advanced.”

Tribe was more upbeat about the afternoon session, praising Schiff’s questioning.

After Mueller’s five-plus hours on the Hill, Democratic leaders did their best to paint the hearings as a successful showcase of the president’s misdeeds.

“It is the crossing of a threshold in terms of a public awareness of what happens and how it conformed to the law or not,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters. “We think today was really a milestone.”

But the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), sounded more resigned to the possibility that Democrats who want to impeach Trump may have to find the courage of their convictions because many Americans may never engage, and public opinion in favor of removing Trump may never swing Democrats’ way.

“We’re accumulating information and doing the best we can,” Cummings said just after he launched into another urgent appeal to voters. “What the American people do with it, that’s another thing, but we will not stand by and fail to give them the total picture.”

“I’m begging — I’m begging the American people to pay attention to what’s going on, because if you want to have a democracy intact for your children and your children’s children, and generations yet unborn, you’ve got to guard this moment,” Cummings added. “This is our watch.”

Read More

[thomasroach]

Top RPG News Of The Week: June 23rd (Cyberpunk 2077, KH3 ReMind, MHW and More!)

The post Top RPG News Of The Week: June 23rd (Cyberpunk 2077, KH3 ReMind, MHW and More!) appeared first on Fextralife.

Happy weekend from Fextralife! If you’ve been too busy to keep up on the latest in the games we cover or are looking for a refresher we’ve got you covered! Here’s a bite-sized version of the Top RPG news of the week. Taste all the latest news across the Fextralife Wiki Network.

Check out the video above and read on for the text!

Cyberpunk 2077

According to a recent interview with CD Projekt Red, they have confirmed that the upcoming futuristic action-RPG will have multiple endings.

It seems more details have been revealed in a recent interview with YongYea, who asked about Cyberpunk 2077’s narrative and its endings.

While not disclosing the exact number of endings that players can access, Quest Director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz did answer “yes” to whether Cyberpunk 2077 would have multiple endings. This means choices made will matter in the narrative.

While not completely surprising, what was most interesting was what Tomaszkiewicz commented about single-player games.

When asked about his reaction to those who say that single-player games are not doing well, Tomaszkiewicz shared that Cyberpunk 2077 was a way to prove this to be untrue.

Quote: “I want to prove with our games that they are not dying…single-players are still doing quite well for themselves and there is a still a place in the industry for them.”

While we’re still a while away from it’s release next year, these new pieces of information are interesting to learn, knowing that CD Projekt Red are striving to prove that the single-player RPGs are very much still at the heart of gaming. We’re curious to find out how many alternate endings will be possible in this upcoming title.

Cyberpunk 2077 will release on PC, PS4 and Xbox One on April 16th 2020.

To find out more about this news find it here in Cyberpunk 2077 Will Have Multiple Endings.

Phoenix Point

The original creator behind the XCOM series has released a new trailer for the upcoming turn-based strategy title Phoenix Point which was unveiled during E3 and has confirmed that it will launch on Xbox Game Pass for PC.

Julian Gollop was originally one of the developers behind the early X-COM game UFO: Enemy Unknown, and has since launched a FIG crowdfunding project for Phoenix Point, which received over $2 million in backing.

While previously there was some controversy over the announcement that Phoenix Point would launch as an Epic Games exclusive, according to the developer who confirmed in a tweet, it will be on Game Pass for both Xbox One and PC.

It seems Snapshot games has listened to the feedback that the community gave with the initial Epic exclusive news, and has decided to give another option to gamers through Xbox Game Pass which recently launched its beta on PC.

Phoenix Point will releases on PC and Xbox One on September 3rd. It will also be a part of the Xbox Game Pass on both PC and Xbox One. You can pre-purchase on the Epic Games store for $22.99.

To find out more about this news find it here in Phoenix Point Releases September 3rd On Xbox Game Pass And Epic.

Bloodstained Ritual of the Night

The latest Igavania game Bloodstained Ritual of the Night released this week with a new launch trailer.

To have a recap of what this game is about Bloodstained follows the story of protagonist Miriam, an orphan who is afflicted by an alchemist’s curse. In order to reverse the effects of the curse, she must enter a demon infested castle and locate a summoner named Gebel, who is also suffering under the same affliction.

Experience exploration, crafting, levelling and even upgrading abilities. Abilities ranging from shooting arrows to summoning a giant tentacle to strike at your foes. Create weapons from materials you loot or items you dismantle. You can find out why the title took our top spot in Top RPGs of June 2019 as well as more of this month’s releases.

The latest trailer shows the producer Koji Igarashi torturing someone while announcing there will be 13 DLCs for free which includes boss rush mode, nightmare difficulty, co-op and more.

The trailer ends with a peek at Shovel Knight, as a playable character.

Bloodstained Ritual of the Night is available to play on Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC. It will release on Nintendo Switch on June 25th.

To find out more about this news find it here in Bloodstained Ritual Of the Night Releases Today.

Monster Hunter World

The beta for Monster Hunter World‘s first expansion Iceborne will be happening this weekend for those who have Playstation Plus starting June 21st until June 23rd. For all other Playstation players this will start the following weekend on June 28th until June 30th. You can download the beta from the Playstation Store.

If you were wondering if you need the full game to try out Iceborne, according to the official Monster Hunter Twitter account you don’t need to.

The beta was announced on the official Monster Hunter Twitter account and via their Youtube channel which shared a new video featuring “A Tour with the Handler” who introduces all the new features. Hunters will be able to checkout the frosty new area of Hoarfrost Reach after following a flock of Legianas.

The video also shows Hot Springs, some of monsters that inhabit the new locale and news Raider Rides. If you want to catch all the important details that were announced during the E3 livestream be sure to read next Monster Hunter World Iceborne E3 2019 Livestream Reveals.

If you are looking to pick up Monster Hunter World base game, you can now grab it for $19.99 via the Playstation Store.

To find out more about this news find it here in Monster Hunter World Iceborne Beta Dates Announced.

Elden Ring

In a recent article director Hidetaka Miyazaki shared that upcoming Elden Ring will bear some similarities to the Dark Souls series but will have a more open-world structure.

Not all details have been unveiled about the dark fantasy action-RPG Elden Ring, but new bits of information are trickling out in various interviews. In a recent article by IGN, Hidetaka Miyazaki the director of the project shared a few details.

While Elden Ring is set in a new world, the gameplay will be very familiar to those who are fans of the souls series. Miyazaki expresses that although there are some similarities, the new title will have quite a different environment which also changes the way fights play out.

Even the way you travel will be different to  souls titles, as you can ride a horse and even encounter enemies while on horseback.

According to the article Miyazaki has looked a number of open-world titles for reference, but rather than drawing inspiration from one particular title, he is creating a game that draws from FromSoftware’s strengths and experiences.

To find out more about this news find it here in Elden Ring Is A Souls-Like But With A Vast Open-World.

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Director of upcoming Final Fantasy 7 Remake Tetsuya Nomura revealed a little more about the storyline and certain events in the game, as well as confirming the original Honey Bee Inn scene.

In an interview in the latest issue of Famitsu (translated in an article on Gematsu), Nomura confirmed that the Honey Bee Inn scene will very much be a part of the remake but with a modern update.

If you were wondering about what the mystical dark mist that appeared in the E3 trailer are, Nomura has also shared a little of what these phantoms are. He refers to them as “The watchmen of fate” which are a new addition to the game.

While the main story will generally stay the same, there will be new scenes and events that have been added, this also includes new enemies and different scenarios.

One of the major changes for the upcoming remake is the amount of dialogue, according to the article this has increased dramatically due to the number of responses they had to create, which will depend on your choices in conversations.

To find out more about this news find it here in Final Fantasy VII Remake To Have Honey Bee Inn Scene Plus New Events.

The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild Sequel

It was at E3 when Nintendo unveiled the sequel to their highly successful Switch exclusive game Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. The trailer showed a scene where both Link and Zelda travel together.

The first trailer led some to believe that Zelda will be more involved in the adventure this time, due to Link and Zelda exploring a cave which leads them to witness the resurrection of a skeletal figure. Whether this means that Zelda will be available in co-op or if you can play as Zelda in the sequel is unknown.

The trailer suggests that Zelda is now free and has more of a role in the sequel. While Aonoma didn’t really explain the role of Zelda, it looks like this has caught his eye in the way the fans have responded to the trailer saying it was “interesting” that co-op is assumed for the sequel.

But he neither confirmed of denied whether this would be true or not.

To find out more about this news find it here in Nintendo Doesn’t Confirm If You Can Play As Zelda In Upcoming Legend Of Zelda Breath Of The Wild Sequel.

Kingdom Heart 3 Re:Mind DLC

Kingdom Hearts 3 director Tetsuya Nomura reveals some more details about the upcoming DLC Re:Mind.

In the latest issue of Famitsu magazine (which was translated by Gematsu), Tetsuya Nomura from Square Enix talked about the upcoming Final Fantasy 7 Remake but also gave some more information on the Kingdom Hearts 3 DLC Re:Mind. Kingdom Hearts fans should note there maybe some spoilers ahead.

In the latest trailer which was revealed at E3 2019, Riku, Aqua and Roxas are shown as playable characters. The Famitsu reporter asked how these playable characters are going to fight the Organization XIII characters. These fights apparently according to the interview are part of the DLC’s main storyline rather than the “Limit Cut”fights.

Nomura states the Re:Mind DLC will include as many “Limit Cut” bonus battles as the Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix, which means 13 or possibly more.

But the DLC won’t be just these additions, it will also include more story content as well as bosses to best the normal way, secret stories to discover and secret bosses.

Kingdom Hearts 3 Re:Mind DLC has a release window of this Winter, which Nomura has commented that it will release “as soon as possible”.

To find out more about this news find it here in Nomura Reveals More Details About Kingdom Hearts 3 Re:Mind DLC.

Playstation Hits

Adding new titles to the budget game lineup Playstation Hits on June 28th, Nioh, Resident Evil 7, God of War III Remastered and more.

The latest additions to Playstation Hits which puts games under the $19.99 price tag this month on June 28th include Nioh, Friday the 13th, God of War III Remastered, Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition and Resident Evil 7 Biohazard.

Playstation Hits now includes a collection of more than 35 PS4 titles at a price of $19.99 each. This adds to the growing list which previously added such great titles as Persona 5, Bloodborne, Dragon Age Inquisition, The Last of Us Remastered and more.

If you’re planning on taking the action-RPG Nioh be sure to drop by our Nioh wiki.

To find out more about this news find it here in Nioh, Resident Evil 7 And More Get Added To Playstation Hits For $19.99.

Well, that’s it for the Week in Wikis. Please join us next week for yet another great week of gaming! Remember to check out our VIP program for some exclusive supporter benefits, and budding writers should take advantage of our Become an Author initiative! Thanks again for being a part of this great community. Keep checking in with us for news, reviews, YouTube streams and vids, and general wiki goodness!

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The post Top RPG News Of The Week: June 23rd (Cyberpunk 2077, KH3 ReMind, MHW and More!) appeared first on Fextralife.

Top RPG News Of The Week: June 23rd (Cyberpunk 2077, KH3 ReMind, MHW and More!) published first on https://juanaframi.tumblr.com/

[theconservativebrief]

The news that Michael Cohen is cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe is significant, but not exactly surprising. He’s been signaling he planned to do so for months, and he already pleaded guilty to separate charges in New York in August.

The big surprise is that Mueller’s new charge against Cohen focuses so heavily on lying to Congress about a project to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

Trump Tower Moscow (which didn’t end up being built) has been a focus of several news reports about the Russia scandal, but it hasn’t been mentioned in any of Mueller’s charges so far. Now, though, Cohen has admitted to lying to try to conceal how serious the Trump Tower Moscow project was.

Cohen’s plea reveals Trump’s business tried to work with the Russian government on a major real estate deal while Trump was running for president — and Trump himself was well aware of it, while concealing it from the public.

Specifically, Cohen now admits the project was still active late into the presidential campaign, and that he briefed Trump and Trump family members about it often. And for the first time, Cohen admits he had a detailed phone conversation with an assistant for Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, in which he asked for the Russian government’s help moving the project forward. He tried to conceal all of this from Congress.

Whether there’s even more to the story than that isn’t yet clear. The Cohen plea documents reveal some important new information. But they also raise more questions, most notably, whether more charges are coming on Trump Tower Moscow, and whether Cohen is providing damaging information on other topics as well.

Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in an effort to cover up the full story about the Trump Tower Moscow project.

The project remained a secret during the campaign: Trump had tweeted about his hopes for a Moscow tower in 2013 (around the time he brought the Miss Universe pageant to the city), but there had been no apparent further action since then. And while running for president, Trump denied having any deals in Russia.

Word of the project only first leaked out in August 2017, months after Trump became president. News broke that the Trump Organization had signed a letter of intent to build the Moscow tower in late 2015. It certainly sounded like the sort of project Trump would like. The planned tower was to be 100 stories tall, which would have made it the tallest building in Europe.

The problem was that he was running for president by late 2015, and that the key people involved in the project — Cohen and Russian-born developer Felix Sater — were talking about courting Putin’s favor. “I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected,” Sater emailed Cohen. (Sater is “Individual 2” in the new charging documents, while Trump is “Individual 1.”)

So the story Cohen and Team Trump put out last year was that, like so many other odd incidents in 2016, Trump Tower Moscow turned out to be a nothingburger.

Yes, it was talked about, Cohen said (in statements to congressional committees), but not very much. He only mentioned it to Trump three times. He did email Vladimir Putin’s press secretary asking for help, but he said he never got a response back. And by the end of January 2016 (just before the Iowa caucuses), Cohen claimed that the company abandoned the project entirely.

But these were lies, according to the new plea documents.

Cohen in fact talked to Trump about it “more than” three times (it’s not clear how many).

He also briefed “family members” of Trump about the project.

His email to Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov was actually answered, and he had a lengthy phone call with Peskov’s assistant about Trump Tower Moscow, after which Putin’s office followed up with Sater.

And discussions about the project continued for months after January 2016.

The takeaway of all this is that Trump Tower Moscow was a more serious project than Cohen initially wanted to admit. (Though, again, it didn’t end up being built in the end.) The references to Trump and his family also seem significant, and raise questions about what they knew.

In court Thursday, Cohen said that he “made these statements to be consistent with Individual-1’s political messaging and to be loyal to Individual-1.” (Again, that refers to Trump.)

The charging document also says that Cohen wanted to try and “minimize links between the Moscow Project” and Trump, and to “give the false impression that the Moscow Project ended” before the Iowa caucuses “in hopes of limiting the ongoing Russia investigations.”

However, Cohen does not say that Trump personally told him to lie.

As the primary season stretched on, Cohen extensively talked with Sater about two possible trips to Russia for the project, according to the charging document.

One would involve Cohen himself, while the other would be for Trump to meet Putin. (“The 2 big guys,” Sater called them.) Cohen wrote back that he’d go to Russia before the Republican Convention, and Trump could come after it.

The next day, on May 5, 2016, Sater told Cohen that Peskov (Putin’s press secretary) wanted to invite him to the St. Petersburg Forum, a Russian business conference, which would begin on June 16. There, Sater suggested, Cohen might be able to meet Putin. Cohen confirmed he’d go.

But something changed. On June 14, 2016, Cohen met Sater in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, to tell him he wouldn’t make the trip after all.

The tantalizing question, unanswered in the document, is what changed.

Julian Sanchez points out that certain other things were going on around that time. On June 9, Donald Trump Jr. held his meeting with a Russian lawyer. On June 14, news broke that Russia had hacked the Democratic National Committee. “Did Trump or the campaign decide that obvious links to Russia were suddenly undesirable?” Sanchez asks.

Cohen surely knows the answer — which means Mueller now knows it too.

Another revelation in the new documents is that Cohen has met Mueller’s team seven times at this point. According to the plea agreement, these meetings started back on August 7, 2018, before he’d even pleaded guilty to other charges in New York, and continued through Tuesday of last week.

The amount of time Mueller’s team is spending with Cohen suggests they view his cooperation as important.

For completion, we should note the new plea documents contain no indication that Cohen did in fact visit Prague in 2016 to meet Russians, as Christopher Steele’s infamous dossier claimed.

Cohen has repeatedly and vociferously denied that such a trip happened, including to Congress, and including after he struck his first plea deal in New York. No evidence has emerged to contradict him.

According to John Santucci of ABC News, Mueller’s questions for President Trump included one about the Trump Tower Moscow project. We don’t know what the exact question was, or Trump’s answer.

But earlier this year, Mueller’s team told Trump’s lawyers certain topics they wanted to ask about, and Trump’s team assembled a list of likely questions that later leaked to the New York Times. One of those questions was:

“What communication did you have with Michael D. Cohen, Felix Sater and others, including foreign nationals, about Russian real estate developments during the campaign?”

Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani now claims to the New York Times that the president’s answer to the Trump Tower Moscow question was consistent with what Cohen said today. “The president said there was a proposal, it was discussed with Cohen, there was a nonbinding letter of intent and it didn’t go beyond that,” Giuliani said.

The president submitted his answers to certain Mueller questions (after months of excuses and delays) last week. If Trump lied in those answers, he could be in legal jeopardy for making false statements.

Original Source -> 6 takeaways from Michael Cohen’s new plea deal with Mueller

via The Conservative Brief

[investmart007]

ALEXANDRIA, Va | Manafort lawyer: 'So many lies' Gates can't keep up

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/b3P71M

ALEXANDRIA, Va | Manafort lawyer: 'So many lies' Gates can't keep up

ALEXANDRIA, Va.— In a blistering back-and forth, Paul Manafort’s lawyer suggested Tuesday that the star witness in the former Trump campaign chairman’s financial fraud trial has told “so many lies” he can’t remember all of them.

Defense lawyer Kevin Downing began his cross-examination of longtime Manafort deputy Rick Gates by pressing him on his own lies to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators, an extramarital affair and hundreds of thousands of dollars he admitted to embezzling from his former boss.

Downing also ventured into territory both sides had agreed to avoid: discussion of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Under questioning, Gates said he may have submitted personal expenses for reimbursement by Trump’s inaugural committee, which he helped operate. Downing also asked whether Mueller’s investigators had interviewed Gates about his role in the campaign, prompting an objection from prosecutors and a sidebar conference with U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III.

The judge then brought the trial to a standstill late Tuesday afternoon, calling a brief recess.

In general, references to Trump at the trial have been few and far between. Both sides agreed ahead of time to limit discussion of the campaign so as not to prejudice the jury, though they had agreed to allow testimony about the overlap of a bank loan with Manafort’s role in the campaign.

The tough questioning of Gates came after he spent hours telling jurors how he disguised millions of dollars in foreign income as loans in order to lower Manafort’s tax bill. Gates recounted how he and Manafort used more than a dozen offshore shell companies and bank accounts in Cyprus to funnel the money, all while concealing the accounts and the income from the IRS.

Under questioning from Downing, Gates acknowledged he had to plead guilty to false statements after lying during a February interview with federal investigators. At one point, as Gates had trouble recalling the details of his confession, Downing asked him, “Have they confronted you with so many lies that you can’t even remember them?”

Manafort’s defense attorneys have sought to paint Gates as an embezzler, a liar and the instigator of any criminal conduct. They have tried several times to impugn his credibility before the jury. Ahead of that barrage, Gates implicated himself in a vast amount of criminal conduct on the stand, an apparent strategic decision by prosecutors as they hoped to take some of the steam out of the defense’s questioning.

Gates’ testified that he and Manafort knew they were committing crimes for years.

“In Cyprus, they were documented as loans. In reality, it was basically money moving between accounts,” Gates said.

Prosecutors summoned Gates to give jurors the first-hand account of a co-conspirator they say helped Manafort carry out an elaborate offshore tax-evasion and bank fraud scheme. Gates also provided the first witness testimony that overlaps with Trump’s presidential campaign.

Manafort and Gates were the first two people indicted in Mueller’s investigation into potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. But Gates pleaded guilty months later and agreed to cooperate in Mueller’s investigation of Manafort, the only American charged by the special counsel to opt for trial instead of a guilty plea.

The case against Manafort has little to do with either man’s work for the Trump campaign and there’s been no discussion during the trial about whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia — the central question Mueller’s team has tried to answer. But Trump has shown interest in the proceedings, tweeting support for Manafort and suggesting he has been treated worse than gangster Al Capone. On Tuesday, Gates did connect one part of the bank fraud charges against Manafort to his role in the Trump campaign.

The 46-year-old former political consultant told jurors how Manafort asked for tickets to Trump’s inauguration so he could give them to a banker involved in approving a loan at the center of his financial fraud trial. Gates also said Manafort floated banker Stephen Calk’s name for consideration as Secretary of the Army, a post he ultimately did not get.

The email exchange about Calk occurred after Manafort left the Trump campaign but while Gates was active on the Trump inauguration committee. Prosecutors had previously said that Manafort’s interactions with Calk were the only part of the trial expected to overlap with his Trump campaign role.

The face-off between longtime business associates and former senior members of the Trump campaign drew scores of people who waited in line for hours outside the courthouse and then jammed into both the courtroom and an overflow room that contained a video feed of the proceedings.

In testimony Tuesday, Gates laid responsibility squarely at Manafort’s feet for a series of crimes, saying the two had committed crimes together by stashing money in foreign bank accounts and falsifying bank loan documents.

Gates described to jurors how he repeatedly submitted fake financial documents at Manafort’s behest as his former boss became concerned he was paying too much in taxes and, later, that his funds were drying up.

In one email, Manafort wrote “WTF” and “not happy” about tax payments he was going to have to make, Gates said.

In other testimony, Gates recounted how he converted a PDF of a profit-and-loss statement to a Microsoft Word document so he could doctor it to inflate the business’ income. Gates also fabricated a forgiveness letter for what he said was already a fake loan between Manafort’s consulting company and a Cypriot entity he controlled.

Prosecutor Greg Andres pointed out he had created a “loan forgiveness letter between Mr. Manafort and Mr. Manafort.” “Yes,” Gates agreed.

During the testimony, Manafort did not stare Gates down as he did Monday. When the trial broke for lunch, Manafort looked back at his wife, sitting in the front row, smiled and winked at her, followed by a quick shake of his head, seeming to indicate he was unfazed by the morning’s testimony.

In addition, Gates has admitted to other criminal conduct. Gates, who is awaiting sentencing, told jurors that he embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from Manafort by filing false expense reports. He also said he committed credit card and mortgage fraud, falsified a letter for a colleague involved in an investment deal and made false statements in a deposition at Manafort’s direction.

By ERIC TUCKER, MATTHEW BARAKAT and CHAD DAY ,  ,Associated Press

[zeroviraluniverse-blog]

Discover why the future of insurance belongs to Living Businesses

Visit Now - http://zeroviral.com/discover-why-the-future-of-insurance-belongs-to-living-businesses/

Discover why the future of insurance belongs to Living Businesses

Want to transform your insurance organization into a living business? Discover which key traits you need to develop.

In today’s insurance market, disruption is causing costs to rise, and it’s seen as suppressing growth and profitability. But at Accenture, we calculate that disruption could also create an opportunity for revenue growth worth as much as $375 billion over the next five years for insurers willing and able to respond.

However, even though the potential for growth from increased market share augmented by new and expanded revenue streams is real, significant and already available, for many carriers it will remain out of reach. Why?

Their focus on products makes it difficult for them to keep in touch with customers’ changeable, rising expectations.

Their rigid operating models constrain their options and prolong their response times.

Their preference for going to market alone means that potential ecosystem partners are more likely to become rivals than allies.

The answer, we believe, is to become a “living business”—a business that is perpetually hyper-relevant, agile and innovative, and that embraces and becomes expert at change.

What is a living business?

A living business has a profound and dynamic understanding of its customers, based on a sophisticated data and analytics capability as well as an authentic receptiveness to what customers tell them. They also have the ability to convert this insight into meaningful, timely actions. Whereas traditional insurers are often late to learn about changing customer needs, living businesses sync their interactions with key moments in the customer’s life.

Living businesses have more fluid models that let them evolve at the same rate as their partners and customers. Modern platforms and motivated talent enable them to create compelling new value propositions. They look beyond insurance to find new sources of value for customers and new reasons to engage meaningfully with them on a more frequent basis. They strive for flexibility, adaptability and simplicity, rather than worrying about “being right” 100 percent of the time.

What’s in it for insurers?

Insurers that become living businesses should look beyond the traditions of the industry for inspiration. Instead of being threatened by GAFAs (Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple, and other large online platform businesses), they should seek to emulate the secrets of their success. And partner with them to reinforce their brand, reach new customer segments and become part of a larger, more dynamic portfolio of platforms, products and services.

Living businesses thrive within multiple ecosystems. While it’s important that insurers identify and reinforce what is unique to them, in order to defend against insurtechs and other emerging rivals, they should also strive to become more open, receptive and collaborative. This shift in mindset is important because it helps the organization appreciate the significance of its customers, partners and employees, whose commitment to a shared, new and constantly evolving role is indispensable. It enables the organization to re-envision its personality and empowers its people to take risks and innovate fearlessly.

Key traits in the personality of a living business

Living businesses are intelligent, dynamic, credible and engaging. This gives them a differentiated, purposeful personality that is significantly more likely to appeal to consumers. And because they are authentic and supported by appropriate skills, they can respond more effectively to their customers.

Key attributes include being:

Engaging. This means “being there” for customers and commercial clients, a trusted, relevant and empathetic ally as they navigate the uncertainties of their lives and businesses. To achieve this, insurers need to look ahead and proactively offer advice and services that are timely and useful.

Intelligently personalized. By understanding and anticipating customers’ and businesses’ needs, and having the ability to change products and platform features to meet these needs, living businesses can deliver relevant, context-matched offerings at scale.

Credible. Like many financial service providers, insurers have a trust deficit to address. More than just putting the customer at the center of the business, living businesses demonstrate their commitment at every moment of truth, across every channel and end-to-end in the value chain. This includes responding to feedback, participating in social conversations and ensuring employees “live” the brand values at all times.

Consistent. Delivery of the same branded experience anytime, everywhere, across all channels and devices is challenging but essential. It means ensuring that the actions of ecosystem partners reinforce rather than undermine the brand.

Generous. Insurers will not be regarded as the customer’s ally if they are seen to willingly accept regular premium payments but then dig in their heels whenever a claim is submitted. Inexpensive gestures or services offered to customers at no cost, simply to reward them for their loyalty, will help to diminish the “me vs. them” mentality.

Living businesses have a personality that is empowering, both for employees and the people they serve. I believe that insurers who choose this path can thrive.

In my next post, I’ll look at opportunities that are ripe for insurers across all lines of business.

To learn more, read “Insurance as a Living Business: Explosive Growth”

[gamelyplanet-blog]

Cuphead, “casual” modes and hypocrites

I don’t want to spend too much time on this, so I’ll just rant a bit about the recent nontroversy around the indie title “Cuphead”. This is off-the-cuff, blog post stuff, with minimal editing. You’ve been warned.

So, Cuphead, the charming 2D shooter that impressed everyone with its retro-cartoon presentation during E3 2017, has somehow become the center of discussion regarding difficulty in games and the value of design vs accessibility.

Or so games media claim, because make no mistake, before I write down anything else; the only reason the usual suspects opened their mouths to shit out the usual pseudo-intellectual, arrogant drivel is because this entire thing started when the Internet got wind of one journalist, Dean Takahashi of GamesBeat, having trouble with the tutorial of Cuphead during the last Tokyo Game Show.

Let’s also get this out of the way: Dean, dude, I don’t know you. I dislike what passes for games journalism these days, but I’ve never read your stuff or heard of you before. The mockery towards you for that Cuphead footage was, as far as I’m concerned, unwarranted. I don’t have the context to support or condemn you for it; it was during a con, it was an earlier build of the game, the footage looked a little pathetic, but I really don’t know. So, I didn’t say anything against you, but I’m sorry for the shit flung at you.

The problem is that the primary reason this shit even became an issue is that the representatives of games media and their indie hipster buddies started this years ago; and in the last few days, they seem hell-bent on widening the gap between media and gamers in the worst way possible. Blame GamerGate or whatever, but we all know the mocking of journalists’ gaming skills became popular when Polygon posted that pathetic footage of their playing 2016′s DOOM and failing spectacularly at what’s a very basic shooter.

It wasn’t on a whim, either; we’re talking about an entire part of the industry that for years pretended to be an authority on video games; they talked *over* their audience, they talked *down* to their audience, they mocked, they demeaned, they insulted their audience; because they thought they “knew better”. Nobody would’ve really paid any attention to Polygon’s DOOM footage and all that it represented, if Polygon wasn’t a publication that gave “Tropico 5″ a 6.5 by first prefacing the score with the claim a city-builder game should’ve included commentary on dictators and banana republics and authoritative regimes. Nobody would’ve care about Polygon’s DOOM footage (nobody would’ve even seen it, really), if a few years back Arthur Gies hadn’t literally body-shamed 2.5 points off of “Bayonetta 2″, fucking Platinum Games out of their bonus. Polygon are representative of the state of games media right now and they’re not the only ones.

No better proof of all this than how suddenly there are “editorials” on Rock Paper Shotgun and Polygon and Twitter threads by indie game devs that spend most of their time pretending they’re the bastions of intellectuality in game design, whenever they don’t spew shit at their annual circle-jerk that we refer to as the “Game Developers Conference”. John Walker of RPS, when commenting on “Assassins Creed: Origins” new “no-combat” mode, was quick to point out that gamers are hell-bent on maintaining the challenge of harder games, because they are exclusionary. Then, RPS published another article about Cuphead’s “Simple” mode (which prohibits the player from getting the true ending); oh, they were quick to note that it was “satire” toward sites like Kotaku, but any knowledge of RPS or Walker, a senior editor, raises questions to the validity of that claim. Then, Walker himself decided to challenge the term “gameplay” on Twitter because it’s a vague term, apparently never occurring to him that his criticism is pretty fucking vague in itself. Typical overcompensating with which games journalism is rife at the moment.

Rami Ismail, an indie developer who has yet to say a single thing that could be deemed correct or valuable to anyone outside his industry bubble, was quick to link that piece of shit editorial and argue for providing players with the freedom to play a game how they want. I must’ve missed that memo when the market was being flooded with third-rate crappy-looking pixel-art platformers and walking simulators. Suddenly “freedom” and “choice” matter.

Unless it’s the “Mass Effect 3″ ending; if you want choice to matter then, you’re just “entitled”.

Here’s the rub; there’s no discussion to be had. This isn’t an interesting topic or a new discovery for games development. This is as old as gaming itself. Player freedom exists within the developer’s freedom. Player agency is a component of game design, not a handicap. When someone makes a game, they don’t feed data into a generator and then the machine farts out a complete project. Every weapon, tool, and slope or bottomless pit in a level have been designed to complement each other. Difficulty options aren’t bad; quite the contrary. But they’re limited and they can harm the game’s artistic vision irreparably. Do you have any idea how many games I played and found boring on easy mode years ago, only to return and really appreciate them now that I’ve improved? That’s why Walker got shat on for his challenging the term gameplay; his criticism was off-base. The art in games is in the mechanics. Gut the mechanics and the art is degraded to popcorn shit.

Difficulty isn’t just challenge and it’s not just a means to frustrate the player; it’s a tool and it’s a component a lot of the time. The better developers know how to use it to the game’s benefit. It’s also something that’s an umbrella term; what’s difficult for one person and what’s acceptable in terms of challenge differs for someone else. Yes, I’m kind of bumped out I cannot play the Souls series; it seems like it has very interesting combat mechanics, but sparse checkpoints are a no-no for me. I’ll take any challenge you throw at me, but don’t make me retry the same thirty minutes of game all the time. Should I send an angry letter at FromSoftware for not neutering their game for my benefit? I wager those checkpoints are integral to the Souls experience; so, they can stay and I can fuck off to Twitch to watch a stream about it.

Accessibility, for that is the right word and not “inclusion”, is a moot point in this day and age. There are many games to choose from, in different genres, from different developers. There are countless people talking about them and about as many streaming them. The consumer is instantly and easily informed about the specifics and they can make an informed purchase. The notion of being “owed” game progression because you bought the game is ridiculous. Am I owed my money back for not liking that new cocktail I decided to order? Am I owed to see my team win the Champions League (google it Yanks), because I paid for a season pass?

Going back to Walker, after the butthurt for being challenged on his idiotic remarks regarding gameplay, he tweeted that he’s only trying to make gaming accessible. The problem is that gaming, as a whole, is extremely accessible; more now than ever before. All you need to do is download a free game on your phone and lo and behold; access. If you want something more serious, have a look at the simplified, free-to-play MMOs, some even published by AAA companies. The point is, there is not even an admission price to gaming anymore. One niche game for one niche audience isn’t going to turn people away from gaming. What the fuck are you even talking about, John? Nobody in the history of gaming has suggested all games should be Cuphead or Dark Souls. All they suggest is that we make whatever we want and choose what suits us best. You keep raving like a lunatic about “gaming culture” and “toxicity” and “gate keeping” and you’re the only assholes out there to consistently shout, pull rank and cause problems. You are professional trouble-makers, John!

What is fitting is that Ubisoft did indeed announce they intend to add a “skip combat” option in the upcoming “Assassins Creed: Origins”. Is that a good option? I honestly can’t tell, because I’m not familiar with the AC games. I’ve never played one, so I lack the context. If the Assassins Creed games provide a semblance of engaging gameplay by skipping combat, i.e. if exploration is as integral to the AssCreed experience as combat is, then it’s an acceptable compromise. After all, even Minecraft has a casual mode, because hiding from Creepers isn’t the point of that game; mining resources and building shit is.

When the indie portion of the industry started making its mark, we were all delighted; more choice, more games, more space for original ideas and variety, away from the boundaries of AAA publishers. But now, no; now we have a social issue in our hands, now we’re talking about how making the game you want is a matter of “culture” and it’s a discussion that we surprisingly never had before, not even when shitty Twine text apps somehow made it to Steam. Curious that.

“Inclusion” has been the industry standard since at least the days of the original Playstation, when gaming went truly mainstream and turned into a ridiculously profitable industry. The alternative is bad business. There is a reason we now have context-sensitive UIs for everything and why there are more tutorial messages than there are lines of dialogue in so many AAA titles; they want their games sold to and played by as wide an audience as possible. The indies can do something different.

What’s really getting on my nerves in all of this is the hypocrisy; Souls? Fine. Super Meatboy? Fine. Megaman 9? Fine. Bloodborne? Fine. So many hard games, but no, now it’s a “discussion” because a bunch of self-involved writers decided to shit-talk gamers and developers alike for clicks. Again. Fuck, even these very outlets reviewed Cuphead well; but then they found the chance to latch on to a bunch of innocuous tweet and demean their audience again, because presumably their traffic went down. Again. Alas, playing video games isn’t a social issue. The bullshit presentations at GDC that tell you you have a social responsibility when designing video games are lying to you. If you’re a journalist, nobody owes you shit. Do your market research before you buy and let people create and enjoy whatever the hell they want.

Walker’s “Skip Button” word vomit on AssCreed

RPS’ “satire” article on Cuphead

Ben Kuchera’s desperate effort to publish something without saying anything, but only citing what others said, on Polygon

[walkonwalkonwithhopeinyourheart]

Transfer Windows and /r/LiverpoolFC: A Survival Guide via /r/LiverpoolFC

Transfer Windows and /r/LiverpoolFC: A Survival Guide

In February 2001, the European Commission reached a compromise agreement with European football leagues that prevented clubs from cherry-picking the best players from other clubs mid-season. Prior to the 2002/03 season, clubs could sign players all the way up to March (e.g. United signed Cantona in November of 1992). From 2002, clubs were limited to two fixed periods per year (a month in the winter, and two in the summer) rather than a near-year-round free-for-all. As a result, the transfer window has become a biannual tradition involving mass displays of anticipation, delirium and, in the case of Liverpool, various kinds of references to male genitalia.

The start of news and fan discussion about an player movements during transfer windows depends inversely on the team's performance leading up to the window. In other words, the poorer results have been, the more eager fans are to blame the players (e.g. quality, form, injuries, fit), and the keener the daily rags are to kindle transfer talk and provide them with wish fulfillment ammunition ("HAMSTRUNG HAMMERS CHASE CREAM OF CATALAN INIESTA").

This behaviour is largely driven by the prevailing wisdom of the modern "we are in the business of results" world of football that if the problem is results then the business must be "even more players." While, like everything in football, this is only 50% true, you will find many fans convinced that their team is one or two purchases away from promotion/establishing themselves/the top 4/winning the league/conquering Europe. Smelling the sweet scent of click-bait, journalists and particularly, strangers on the internet with access to social media and concerns about their self-worth, will attempt to guess what football clubs probably want to do with your money and your feelings. This is, in fact, also 50%, but I won't tell you which 50%.

By the close of the window, unsurprisingly, clubs will sign a few players and sell a few to balance the books. Once in a Blue Moon, a club will have a massive clear-out with a spending spree to follow, and just as often, that club will have a barren window with as many signings as a Stephen Hawking book tour (I love you Stephen, please don't give me a Newtonian demonstration; of a bullet, its mass and its acceleration). Clubs normally set expectations via journalists by announcing the size of the gaffer's war chest, as if he's some sort of sea-faring empire.

This summer, we've heard numbers ranging from £100m to £200m if factoring in potential outgoings. On the one hand, it provides fans with confidence that the club is trying to improve, but on the other, it provides ammunition for critics of club management should the transfer window not pan out as planned. Arsene Wenger, for example, is a master at not spending money that is apparently been available for almost a decade (2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010). This tradition of feigned excess has continued so long that Arsenal fans, widely cherished for their loveable #banter and self-deprecation, can often be heard amongst the lush birdsong in the serene park atmosphere of Ashburton Grove, calling out, "Spend some fuuuucking money!"

Then there are the ITKs (in-the-knows), an elite set of Twitter accounts that leak transfer and other club information from their internal source, a techncial term for whichever orifice of theirs contains the most bile or shite on a particular day. The term itself originates from football hooliganism, as those who were well-informed about and involved in football firm (hooligan/gang) activities and whatnot were considered to be "in the know." With a similar blatant disregard for human life, the modern ITK wages a brutal turf war with common sense, themselves and occasionally, the English language.

A cynic would say that we should shut everything off and out until September 1st (when the transfer window closes) and just see who the club has signed and sold to avoid having to deal with all the rumourmongers and transfer tattle. But that cynic is a joyless wankstain who:

doesn't read any of the article when it's posted on the sub but has to make a comment about something clearly covered in the second paragraph;

downvotes when they disagree with a comment despite that comment CLEARLY CONTRIBUTING TO THE DISCUSSION;

still thinks that FSG is the absolute worst because they are Yanks and don't care about the culture of a club that they themselves haven't cared about ever, and;

doesn't see the incongruity in wishing for a rich foreigner to buy the club while at the same time not wanting tourists anywhere near Anfield.

The true fan, on the other hand, has already worn down their F5 key, knows the transfer reliability chart by heart, and can tell you in great detail who Amadou, Di Marzipan, Rangnick and Ramy are. Their emotions are tied very closely to the daily news cycle, starting when they wake up and coming to a close as tomorrow's back pages are sent out at 10.30pm each night. Every quote tweeted out by AnfieldHQ (whose logo still looks like a stylised car to me) launches them into delirium or despair, whether it's about pain thresholds, supermarkets or the rides in Blackpool. Theses fans were made for the transfer window and the transfer window is undoubtedly made for them. Long may you suffer, so long as you suffer together.

True fans also have an inexplicable need to relate everything to penises, though this is not always restricted to transfer window shenanigans. "COCKS OUT LADS" and "NO LEAN, NO PEEN" are common refrains. Occasionally these lines get the seasonal treatment when a name-based pun fits: "KLOPPS OUT LADS" or "DIJKS OUT LADS" are more recent examples.

Some go further with TV quotes - "STOP, I CAN ONLY GET SO ERECT" - or talk of edging and violent orgasms. Maybe this is what happens when you have /u/_cumblast_ around. Or maybe it's just #penisbantz amiright, lads? You know, just lads being lads who maybe have some insecurities about penis size, relationships and their sex lives in what is often a senseless, fast-moving world (ha ha!) in which we have struggled to learn how to thrive because we might not have had valuable teenage experiences (omg right?!) to show us how to cope with our fears, anxiety and failures (lol). #CocksOutForFreudianDysphoria, amirite lads?

Speaking of the state of unease or a generalised dissatisfaction with life, let's talk about Blackpool, and more specifically, tapping up. The critical component of tapping dat footballing asset - talking to another team's player about financial terms and whatnot before their club has given the buying club permission to do so - is a grey area. There are obviously rules to prevent this, to prevent clubs from negotiating transfer fees down when they know that a player's head has already been turned. This is why they avoid asking for permission, because it usually requires a fee to be agreed up front. The secret to being happy that nobody tells you about is to just not get caught.

Of course, most clubs do a decent job of keeping conversations with agents and players under wraps and away from prying eyes so that the player's club doesn't have any evidence of their player being tapped up (even if they suspect it). Liverpool are utter, utter wank at this (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). The single-minded determination of this club not to learn from past mistakes is truly admirable.

After convincing van Dijk to ignore advances from Chelsea and City, the press then lauded Liverpool in public over this victory while the club dawdled and didn't make a bid. This is akin to having a wank right before sex with your dream wo/man or to keeping all of your clothes on the entire time you're in bed after - as though /r/me_irl, /r/TIFU and /r/CringeAnarchy were a football club.

By the time late-August rolls around, you will be glad for the football recommencing and some fresh air once you've clambered through the transfer window. We'll be able to go back to watching games, celebrating goals, moaning about decisions/injuries/rivals, harassing /u/HUGE_HOG about WILs, and generally bantering about our penises like proper lads do. Until then, hang in there, there's no getting of Klopp's wild ride.

And just for good measure, here's a quick 8 point survival guide to the transfer window and how to be a better person on /r/liverpoolfc:

Don't get caught

If the answer to the question or suggestion in your post is "no" then don't post it. If the answer is "yes" then post it, unless the answer is just "yes" in which case, don't post it

Be smart

When you are feeling depressed about our transfer activity, remember that you could have paid £45m for Anthony Martial or £30m for Moussa Sissoko and feel better

If you want to know what our line-up is going to look like next season with players we haven't signed yet, then just do it in your head

At the very least, take the weekend off from Liverpool news and transfer rumours; nothing happens on the weekend other than idle speculation. Use the time to craft an amazing hypothetical starting line-up in your head

New players probably don't need songs. In fact, we have plenty of players struggling for one already. I like the Gini Wijnaldum one though - that's a good'un. Do more like that

Here are the transfer window puns I'm aware of, for quick reference. I will add to this if you point me towards any I've missed:

Naby = not be

Keita = key to

Amadou = I'ma do

Dijk = dick

Submitted July 06, 2017 at 06:28PM by djimonia via reddit http://ift.tt/2sR9HDs

[nhlabornews]

AFT-NH Legislative Bulletin: Edelblut's Croydon Bill, Voting Rights, And Kindergarten Funding

May 18, 2017  

The NH House met briefly yesterday, primarily to pass an emergency bridge appropriation to keep the Dept. of Health and Human Services functioning until the end of the budget year on June 30. While there was the usual vocal opposition from those who oppose virtually any governmental spending, the bill passed easily.

The most intriguing moments centered around the Robert Fisher case. As you may know, the committee investigating Robert Fisher (the apparent founder and contributor to the anti-feminist, misogynistic website “The Red Pill”) concluded on a strict party-line vote to recommend no action be taken against Representative Fisher, nor against Sherry Frost. Frost is the representative brought before the committee in a vain attempt by Republicans to muddy the waters charging her with uncivil conduct for tweets made months ago and for which she had already apologized. What is truly irksome is the claim that Fisher’s odious comments and postings, all posted anonymously or veiled behind user-names, are protected by free speech and therefore not subject to House action. Yes, his online rants on rape, women as intellectual inferiors and other such topics ARE protected by the First Amendment, BUT the House does have rules and limits on free speech that its members must follow. For example, a member speaking in the House may not refer to another representative by name, and there are other restrictions regarding references to the NH Senate and general rules regarding civil discourse. So for Republicans to suddenly hide behind the First Amendment is truly disingenuous, and to draw any comparison between Fisher and Frost is ludicrous, since none of her comments were anonymous but were openly acknowledged by her and she took full responsibility for her words.

In the end, Republicans continue to refuse to take any action in the Fisher case, and just hope it will all go away. Representative Fisher, unrepentant to the end, resigned his seat in the House after the investigative whitewash and in the face of a possible perjury investigation. The committee report, one-sided and written only by the Republican majority, will come before the House on June 1. As for yesterday, that self-same majority voted down a motion to print in the permanent journal the remarks of Representative Debra Altschiller, who gave an impassioned speech on May 4 regarding the Fisher case, misogyny and denigration of women as part of a dominant culture in the NH House. Republicans walked out on her speech two weeks ago and yesterday, refused the usual courtesy of allowing her remarks to be printed in the permanent journal. Apparently, the hope is that if no record is kept, all will be forgotten. Time will tell.

Voting Rights  Elsewhere in the State House, the House Election Law committee narrowly voted to amend and recommend passage of SB 3, the voter suppression bill aimed at curbing non-existent voter fraud (even Governor Sununu now admits he has no evidence of any voter fraud). To solve this non-existent problem, the bill will place new burdens on citizens seeking to register within 30 days of an election. The goal is to discourage such groups as college students from voting, and while same-day registration will continue, the paperwork and the threat of subsequent investigations will likely turn many from bothering to register while doing nothing to curb non-existent voter fraud. It is a solution in search of a problem, but the House is likely to pass the bill.

Edelblut’s Croydon Bill The House Education Committee was also active, approving an amendment to SB 8 (the so-called Croydon bill) which completely rewrites the proposed legislation. It is reported that Committee Chair Rick Ladd openly stated that this is Commissioner of Education Frank Edelblut’s bill and that he and the Commissioner worked to design the replace-all amendment. The new version still permits districts to use public funds to send students to private schools when the district does not have schools for certain grades or any schools at all! In essence, it is another version of vouchers. The private school must be non-sectarian (a bow to the constitutional prohibition of public support of religious schools) but there is no provision preventing private schools from refusing to accept students who need special educational services. There is also pitifully little accountability in place, other than a requirement that the private school administer some sort of annual standardized assessment. In other words, the State would be delegating to the local district its responsibility to provide for adequate education by reneging on accountability requirements and by punting on how districts will provide for students with special needs.

SB 8 will now go to the House with the recommendation to pass the rewritten bill. If it does pass, it will be a victory for Commissioner Frank Edelblut, who has long supported Croydon in seeking to use public monies for private schooling and who is a longstanding proponent of charters, private schools, sectarian schools, and home schooling, everything but public education. Perhaps SB 8 should now be called the Edelblut bill, in honor of the commissioner who in his confirmation hearings claimed he would only be an administrator and not a policymaker. Looks like that stance changed rather quickly!

Kindergarten Funding Setback The Senate Finance committee by a 4-2 vote recommended against including full funding for full-day kindergarten and reverted back to the target formula originally proposed by Governor Sununu. Since the Governor’s original proposal he has now supported the position of the House to fully fund full-day kindergarten. However, the committee did support Edelblut’s proposal for a spokesperson to the tune of $83,500 per year. This is not over and we need to make certain members of the House and Senate are reminded of the broad support for funding full-day kindergarten.

Action Needed   So, many important votes lie ahead. Please contact your House Representative and ask her/him to oppose SB 3 (voter suppression), SB 8 (the Edelblut/Croydon bill) and to fully fund full-day kindergarten. And, while doing so, keep your eyes and ears open, as we await the Senate’s version of the 2017-2019 NH State budget.

In Solidarity,

Douglas Ley

AFT-NH, President

  Attached is the bulletin in PDF format you can download and share.

AFT-NH LEGISLATIVE BULLETIN May 18, 2017

AFT-NH Legislative Bulletin: Edelblut’s Croydon Bill, Voting Rights, And Kindergarten Funding was originally published on NH LABOR NEWS

[thomasroach]

Top RPG News Of The Week: June 23rd (Cyberpunk 2077, KH3 ReMind, MHW and More!)

The post Top RPG News Of The Week: June 23rd (Cyberpunk 2077, KH3 ReMind, MHW and More!) appeared first on Fextralife.

Happy weekend from Fextralife! If you’ve been too busy to keep up on the latest in the games we cover or are looking for a refresher we’ve got you covered! Here’s a bite-sized version of the Top RPG news of the week. Taste all the latest news across the Fextralife Wiki Network.

Check out the video above and read on for the text!

Cyberpunk 2077

According to a recent interview with CD Projekt Red, they have confirmed that the upcoming futuristic action-RPG will have multiple endings.

It seems more details have been revealed in a recent interview with YongYea, who asked about Cyberpunk 2077’s narrative and its endings.

While not disclosing the exact number of endings that players can access, Quest Director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz did answer “yes” to whether Cyberpunk 2077 would have multiple endings. This means choices made will matter in the narrative.

While not completely surprising, what was most interesting was what Tomaszkiewicz commented about single-player games.

When asked about his reaction to those who say that single-player games are not doing well, Tomaszkiewicz shared that Cyberpunk 2077 was a way to prove this to be untrue.

Quote: “I want to prove with our games that they are not dying…single-players are still doing quite well for themselves and there is a still a place in the industry for them.”

While we’re still a while away from it’s release next year, these new pieces of information are interesting to learn, knowing that CD Projekt Red are striving to prove that the single-player RPGs are very much still at the heart of gaming. We’re curious to find out how many alternate endings will be possible in this upcoming title.

Cyberpunk 2077 will release on PC, PS4 and Xbox One on April 16th 2020.

To find out more about this news find it here in Cyberpunk 2077 Will Have Multiple Endings.

Phoenix Point

The original creator behind the XCOM series has released a new trailer for the upcoming turn-based strategy title Phoenix Point which was unveiled during E3 and has confirmed that it will launch on Xbox Game Pass for PC.

Julian Gollop was originally one of the developers behind the early X-COM game UFO: Enemy Unknown, and has since launched a FIG crowdfunding project for Phoenix Point, which received over $2 million in backing.

While previously there was some controversy over the announcement that Phoenix Point would launch as an Epic Games exclusive, according to the developer who confirmed in a tweet, it will be on Game Pass for both Xbox One and PC.

It seems Snapshot games has listened to the feedback that the community gave with the initial Epic exclusive news, and has decided to give another option to gamers through Xbox Game Pass which recently launched its beta on PC.

Phoenix Point will releases on PC and Xbox One on September 3rd. It will also be a part of the Xbox Game Pass on both PC and Xbox One. You can pre-purchase on the Epic Games store for $22.99.

To find out more about this news find it here in Phoenix Point Releases September 3rd On Xbox Game Pass And Epic.

Bloodstained Ritual of the Night

The latest Igavania game Bloodstained Ritual of the Night released this week with a new launch trailer.

To have a recap of what this game is about Bloodstained follows the story of protagonist Miriam, an orphan who is afflicted by an alchemist’s curse. In order to reverse the effects of the curse, she must enter a demon infested castle and locate a summoner named Gebel, who is also suffering under the same affliction.

Experience exploration, crafting, levelling and even upgrading abilities. Abilities ranging from shooting arrows to summoning a giant tentacle to strike at your foes. Create weapons from materials you loot or items you dismantle. You can find out why the title took our top spot in Top RPGs of June 2019 as well as more of this month’s releases.

The latest trailer shows the producer Koji Igarashi torturing someone while announcing there will be 13 DLCs for free which includes boss rush mode, nightmare difficulty, co-op and more.

The trailer ends with a peek at Shovel Knight, as a playable character.

Bloodstained Ritual of the Night is available to play on Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC. It will release on Nintendo Switch on June 25th.

To find out more about this news find it here in Bloodstained Ritual Of the Night Releases Today.

Monster Hunter World

The beta for Monster Hunter World‘s first expansion Iceborne will be happening this weekend for those who have Playstation Plus starting June 21st until June 23rd. For all other Playstation players this will start the following weekend on June 28th until June 30th. You can download the beta from the Playstation Store.

If you were wondering if you need the full game to try out Iceborne, according to the official Monster Hunter Twitter account you don’t need to.

The beta was announced on the official Monster Hunter Twitter account and via their Youtube channel which shared a new video featuring “A Tour with the Handler” who introduces all the new features. Hunters will be able to checkout the frosty new area of Hoarfrost Reach after following a flock of Legianas.

The video also shows Hot Springs, some of monsters that inhabit the new locale and news Raider Rides. If you want to catch all the important details that were announced during the E3 livestream be sure to read next Monster Hunter World Iceborne E3 2019 Livestream Reveals.

If you are looking to pick up Monster Hunter World base game, you can now grab it for $19.99 via the Playstation Store.

To find out more about this news find it here in Monster Hunter World Iceborne Beta Dates Announced.

Elden Ring

In a recent article director Hidetaka Miyazaki shared that upcoming Elden Ring will bear some similarities to the Dark Souls series but will have a more open-world structure.

Not all details have been unveiled about the dark fantasy action-RPG Elden Ring, but new bits of information are trickling out in various interviews. In a recent article by IGN, Hidetaka Miyazaki the director of the project shared a few details.

While Elden Ring is set in a new world, the gameplay will be very familiar to those who are fans of the souls series. Miyazaki expresses that although there are some similarities, the new title will have quite a different environment which also changes the way fights play out.

Even the way you travel will be different to  souls titles, as you can ride a horse and even encounter enemies while on horseback.

According to the article Miyazaki has looked a number of open-world titles for reference, but rather than drawing inspiration from one particular title, he is creating a game that draws from FromSoftware’s strengths and experiences.

To find out more about this news find it here in Elden Ring Is A Souls-Like But With A Vast Open-World.

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Director of upcoming Final Fantasy 7 Remake Tetsuya Nomura revealed a little more about the storyline and certain events in the game, as well as confirming the original Honey Bee Inn scene.

In an interview in the latest issue of Famitsu (translated in an article on Gematsu), Nomura confirmed that the Honey Bee Inn scene will very much be a part of the remake but with a modern update.

If you were wondering about what the mystical dark mist that appeared in the E3 trailer are, Nomura has also shared a little of what these phantoms are. He refers to them as “The watchmen of fate” which are a new addition to the game.

While the main story will generally stay the same, there will be new scenes and events that have been added, this also includes new enemies and different scenarios.

One of the major changes for the upcoming remake is the amount of dialogue, according to the article this has increased dramatically due to the number of responses they had to create, which will depend on your choices in conversations.

To find out more about this news find it here in Final Fantasy VII Remake To Have Honey Bee Inn Scene Plus New Events.

The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild Sequel

It was at E3 when Nintendo unveiled the sequel to their highly successful Switch exclusive game Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. The trailer showed a scene where both Link and Zelda travel together.

The first trailer led some to believe that Zelda will be more involved in the adventure this time, due to Link and Zelda exploring a cave which leads them to witness the resurrection of a skeletal figure. Whether this means that Zelda will be available in co-op or if you can play as Zelda in the sequel is unknown.

The trailer suggests that Zelda is now free and has more of a role in the sequel. While Aonoma didn’t really explain the role of Zelda, it looks like this has caught his eye in the way the fans have responded to the trailer saying it was “interesting” that co-op is assumed for the sequel.

But he neither confirmed of denied whether this would be true or not.

To find out more about this news find it here in Nintendo Doesn’t Confirm If You Can Play As Zelda In Upcoming Legend Of Zelda Breath Of The Wild Sequel.

Kingdom Heart 3 Re:Mind DLC

Kingdom Hearts 3 director Tetsuya Nomura reveals some more details about the upcoming DLC Re:Mind.

In the latest issue of Famitsu magazine (which was translated by Gematsu), Tetsuya Nomura from Square Enix talked about the upcoming Final Fantasy 7 Remake but also gave some more information on the Kingdom Hearts 3 DLC Re:Mind. Kingdom Hearts fans should note there maybe some spoilers ahead.

In the latest trailer which was revealed at E3 2019, Riku, Aqua and Roxas are shown as playable characters. The Famitsu reporter asked how these playable characters are going to fight the Organization XIII characters. These fights apparently according to the interview are part of the DLC’s main storyline rather than the “Limit Cut”fights.

Nomura states the Re:Mind DLC will include as many “Limit Cut” bonus battles as the Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix, which means 13 or possibly more.

But the DLC won’t be just these additions, it will also include more story content as well as bosses to best the normal way, secret stories to discover and secret bosses.

Kingdom Hearts 3 Re:Mind DLC has a release window of this Winter, which Nomura has commented that it will release “as soon as possible”.

To find out more about this news find it here in Nomura Reveals More Details About Kingdom Hearts 3 Re:Mind DLC.

Playstation Hits

Adding new titles to the budget game lineup Playstation Hits on June 28th, Nioh, Resident Evil 7, God of War III Remastered and more.

The latest additions to Playstation Hits which puts games under the $19.99 price tag this month on June 28th include Nioh, Friday the 13th, God of War III Remastered, Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition and Resident Evil 7 Biohazard.

Playstation Hits now includes a collection of more than 35 PS4 titles at a price of $19.99 each. This adds to the growing list which previously added such great titles as Persona 5, Bloodborne, Dragon Age Inquisition, The Last of Us Remastered and more.

If you’re planning on taking the action-RPG Nioh be sure to drop by our Nioh wiki.

To find out more about this news find it here in Nioh, Resident Evil 7 And More Get Added To Playstation Hits For $19.99.

Well, that’s it for the Week in Wikis. Please join us next week for yet another great week of gaming! Remember to check out our VIP program for some exclusive supporter benefits, and budding writers should take advantage of our Become an Author initiative! Thanks again for being a part of this great community. Keep checking in with us for news, reviews, YouTube streams and vids, and general wiki goodness!

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The post Top RPG News Of The Week: June 23rd (Cyberpunk 2077, KH3 ReMind, MHW and More!) appeared first on Fextralife.

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