#I remember being shocked at $50 3ds games as a kid and now...

[thisselflovecamebacktome]

Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee thoughts/review

So I finally got around to beating the elite four today and while I haven’t done much past that (basically just checked out Cerulean Cave), I thought I’d give my final verdict on the main game. I will say that Kanto is far from my favourite region/games but I went into this game with the mentality that it was just here to 1. pull in new/pokemon go fans and 2. basically be a test drive to fix up any bugs so that generation 8 can run as smoothly as possible so don’t be surprised that this review is more positive than a lot of others, at least the ones I’ve seen anyway. I’m also going to say that I haven’t tried out the multiplayer or pokemon go features yet, meaning there will be nothing about them in this post. So with that in mind lets get to it.

The Good:

- I’m going to start with the most controversial ones. I liked the gym requirements and the catching system. I know a lot of people were fuming over the gym requirements when the trailer first came out saying how “easy” it’d make it, but I think they did a really good job balancing it. I also liked that to enter Koga’s gym you had to have 50 pokemon. Because at the end of the day, pokemon isn’t just about battling and I found it a good way to make sure the player is fully emerging themselves in the game. It also works really well with the catching system being the main way to level up pokemon. However, this is coming from someone who finds the battling in pokemon to be one of the more boring features so I can get that it’s not for everyone.

- The visuals. My god was I impressed. Don’t get me wrong, I was expecting it to be a step above the 3DS but they really outdid themselves. Specifically, as someone who didn’t put much thought into it before these games, Sabrina’s gym blew me away. Just on the note of Sabrina, I was shocked to hear so many people had issues with her because to be honest, Gyrados bodies her entire team. Really the only time I had mega issues in this game was the coach trainer with the primeape and that was mostly because it kept critical hitting me.

- Pokemon following/riding with you. I don’t really think much else needs to be said. Everybody has wanted this for a long time. Specifically I love how unique the pokemon you can ride are in terms of the models. Like riding on Kangaskhan’s shoulder with Eevee in the pouch, Snorax’s front, flying on Charizard etc. My only dislike with this feature is that it felt uncomfortable that fainted pokemon can still follow you.

- The cubone plot. Nothing more to say.

- The incorporation of the gym leaders/elite four in the story. Yes, it was very basic and I hope they do more with it in future games but in comparison to the original games it’s definitely more prevalent and that was appreciated.

- How they handled the Alolan forms. Once again, pushes you to catch more pokemon but doesn’t make it stupidly difficult/annoying.

- Character customisation. Once again, could have been more in depth but definitely still appreciated. Additionally, the fact that minus the crown, it is affordable unlike generation seven was a good step forward.

- The wild pokemon being in the overworld. 100% this feature made Kanto much much better. One of the reasons I could barely get through Kanto before this game is because I found the caves unbearable in terms of encounters and didn’t feel like wasting all my money on repels. Also, the fact they made it easier to get the rare encounter was much appreciated. And people can say they’ve made it “too easy” all they want but I don’t care. Grinding for rare pokemon has always been a pain and really has 0 to do with difficulty, just annoyance, so I appreciate the easier way.

- The little things. Having the gamblers have higher level pokemon because they gamble on luck with the one hit ko moves (or at least the one outside Lavender) and the like was a nice touch.

- Having characters from other games make an appearance. From Blue to Mina to Archer, it was a nice touch. This is especially the case for Jessie and James to be honest because Jessie has always been my favourite pokemon anime character and it adds a bit of feeling toward team rocket.

- Getting rid of the bicycle road. Given rideable pokemon was a major feature in the game, it was unneeded and tbh looks nicer now that you aren’t forced to zoom down it.

- Not necessarily a positive or negative but the trainers and Bill look so attractive in this game? Like nice to look at but I can just imagine the rule 34ers or whatever it is out there having the time of their lives right now.

- The pokeball plus. Okay yes I know it was expensive, but quite frankly, I found catching pokemon far more fun using it as opposed to the regular pokemon controls. 

The Bad:

- The main issue with this game, and really what I’ve found with Kanto over the years is that it feels like there’s very little replayability value. Sure, I love Giovanni as a villain and the game is gorgeous, but truth be told, nothing about the story makes me want to go back to play it once I complete the pokedex and beat the specialised trainers. Likewise, there’s very little postgame, especially for people who are more into the story than battling like myself. Also, this isn’t so much for me because I don’t do challenge runs but I really don’t know how a nuzlocke or the like would work in this game. However, like I said, I basically expected what we got given this is all but a beta game for generation eight to work out the kinks.

- Kinda goes into the above but lack of sidequests. I know there’s one or two, but given the amount in generation seven, it does feel lacking.

- Adding Meowth but having him not talk? Wack.

- Only some trainers had their pokemon out with them. It was cool to see, but I wish it was more commonplace.

- The new eevee/pikachu moves being available so early. I get that they have to make them viable given they can’t evolve and they expect you to use them the whole game, but a 90 power super effective move for the second gym is overpowered. Same with a priority 50 power but always critical hitting move. Also I’m sorry but the eevee move names were ridiculous.

- I say this every game and I know it’s a business move but having version exclusives doesn’t make me want to go buy the other game to be honest. It’s just annoying.

- I’ll be honest and say that I don’t remember Kanto well so maybe I just did this in the wrong order (given the levels I don’t think so though) but outside of Jessie and James, I feel like all the team rocket stuff was lumped in together when it could have been spread out more. Like it feels like it was nothing, then Lavender town to activate the cubone story, game corner, back to Lavender town, silph co building and then nothing again until the last gym badge which really you would have had to do regardless and had nothing to do with team rocket itself. Also, I know he’s a ground gym leader, but it would have been nice to verse Giovanni with a mewtwo at least once, but given how the main story implied his role in the game is done, I doubt that’s happening. I did like mentions that Blue and the rival helping out.

Final thoughts:

This game is beautifully made and something entertaining to do for a few days either by yourself or with the kids. But truth be told, while my disappointments with the games are small, the thing this game makes me most excited for is what comes next. Given we now know the capabilities of pokemon on the switch, it feels like the sky is the limit for generation eight and I for one can’t wait for it.

[vaultt-tec]

How did Fallout 1 ever get made?

PCGameN sat down with the Fallout 1 team and discussed its making.

This is in a read more because it is SUPER long. I added it all here but click the link and read it on their site, there are more pictures!

Tim Caine was at PAX when he first saw Vault Boy as a living, breathing entity - it was a cosplayer of 16 or 17 years old, hair gelled to replicate that distinctive swirl. ‘This is weird’, he thought.

Feargus Urquhart remembers walking into Target and seeing that same gelled haircut and toothy smile, not on a fan this time, but emblazoned across half a metre of cotton. ‘How is it that a game that we all worked on somehow created something iconic?’, he wondered. ‘How did it show up on a t-shirt in a department store?’

Related: the best RPGs on PC.

In the years since, Bethesda have taken Fallout into both first-person and the pop culture mainstream. Vault Boy has become as recognisable as Mickey Mouse. The series’ sardonic, faux-’50s imagery now feels indelible, as if it has always been here. But it hasn’t.

It took the nascent Black Isle Studios to nurse the Fallout universe into being, as an unlikely, half-forgotten project in the wings of Interplay, where Caine and Urquhart were both working in the ‘90s. The pair helped create one of the all-time great RPGs in the process.

“The one thing I would say about Interplay in those days, and this isn’t trying to pull the veil back or anything like that - there was just shit going on,” Urquhart tells us. “It was barely controlled chaos. I’m not saying that Brian [Fargo] didn’t have some plan, but there was just… stuff.”

One day, Fargo sent out a company-wide email to canvass opinion. He wanted Interplay to work on a licensed game, and had three tabletop properties in mind. One was Vampire: The Masquerade. Another was Earthdawn, a fantasy game set in the same universe as Shadowrun. And the third was GURPS, designed by Games Workshop’s Steve Jackson.

The team picked the latter, overwhelmingly, because that was what they played in their own sessions. But GURPS wasn’t a setting - it was a Generic Universal RolePlaying System. And so Interplay’s team had to come up with a world of their own.

“I would send out an email saying, ‘I’m in Conference Room Two with a pizza’,” Caine says. “And if people wanted to come, on their own time, they could do it. Chris [Taylor, lead designer], Leonard [Boyarksy, art director], and Jason [Anderson, lead artist] showed up.”

Interplay at the time was almost like a high school, as map layout designer Scott Evans remembers it: incredibly noisy and divided into cliques. Caine was building a clique of his own.

Traditional fantasy was the first idea to be dismissed. The team actually considered making Fallout first-person, a decade early - but decided the sprites of the period didn’t offer the level of detail they wanted. Concepts were floated for time travel, and for a generation ship story - but one after the other, they were all pushed aside and the post-apocalypse was left.

“One thing I didn’t like was games where the character you’re playing should know stuff that you, the player, don’t,” Caine says. “And I think the vault helped us capture that, because both you the player and you the character had no idea what the world was like. The doors opened and you were pushed out. And I really liked that, because it meant we didn’t have to do anything fake like, ‘Well you were hit on your head and have amnesia’.”

There was plenty about the Fallout setting that wasn’t as intuitive, however. Players would have to wrap their heads around a far-future Earth and a peculiar retro aesthetic, even before the bombs started dropping. The question of how Fallout ever survived pitching is answered with a Caine quip: “What do you mean, pitch?”

For a short while, Interplay had planned to make several games in the GURPS system. But soon afterwards they had won the D&D license, a far bigger property that would go on to spawn Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale. As a consequence, Caine’s team were left largely to their own devices.

As for budget - Fallout’s was small enough to pass under the radar. Although Interplay are best remembered for the RPGs of Black Isle and oddball action games like Shiny’s Earthworm Jim, they had mainstream ambitions not so different to those of the bigger publishers today. During Fallout’s development they were primarily interested in sports, and an online game division called Engage.

“It was almost like a smokescreen,” Urquhart explains. “So much money was being pumped into these things that you could go play with your toys and no-one would know.”

Which is exactly what the Fallout team did, pulling out every idea they’d ever intended for a videogame.

“Being just so happy and fired up that we were making this thing basically from scratch and doing virtually whatever we wanted, we had this weird arrogance about the whole thing,” Boyarsky recalls. “‘People are gonna love it, and if they don’t love it they don’t get it.’

“Part of it was a punk rock ethos of, every time we came up with an idea and thought, ‘Wow, no-one would ever do that’, we always wanted to push it further. We chased that stuff and got all excited, like we were doing things we weren’t supposed to be doing.”

The team laugh at the idea that Fallout might have carried some kind of message (“Violence solves problems,” Caine suggests). To these kids of the ‘80s, nuclear holocaust felt like immediate and obvious thematic material. The game’s development was guided by a mantra, however.

“It was the consequence of action,” Caine puts it. “Do what you want, so long as you can accept the consequences.”

Fallout lets you shoot up all you want. But if you get addicted, that will become a problem for you, one you’ll have to cope with. The team were keen not to force their own views onto players, and decided the best way to avoid that was with an overriding moral greyness. The Brotherhood of Steel - in Fallout 3, a somewhat heroic group policing the wasteland - were here in the first game simply as preservationists or, more uncharitably, hoarders. Even The Master, the closest thing Fallout had to a villain, was driven by a well-intentioned desire to bring unity to the wasteland. His name, pre-mutation, was ‘Richard Grey’.

“Everyone needed to have flaws and positive points,” Taylor says. “That way the player could have better, stronger interactions whichever way they went.”

Although the GURPS ruleset eventually fell by the wayside, the Fallout team were determined to replicate the tabletop experience they loved - in which players don’t always do what their Game Master would like. They filled their maps with multiple quest solutions and stuffed the game with thousands of words of alternative dialogue. “The hard part was making sure there was no character that couldn’t finish the game,” Caine says.

Fallout’s dedication to its sandbox is still striking, and only lately matched by the likes of Divinity: Original Sin 2. It was a simulation that enabled unforeseen possibilities.

“I am shocked that people got Dogmeat to live till the end of the game,” Taylor says. “Dogmeat was never supposed to survive. You had to do some really strange things and go way out of your way to do so, but people did.”

During development, a QA tester came to the team with a problem: you could put dynamite on children.

“Where you see a problem…,” Urquhart says. He is joking, of course, yet the ability to plant dynamite - achieved by setting a timer on the explosive and reverse pickpocketing an NPC - became a supported part of the game and the foundation of a quest. This was a new kind of player freedom, matched only by the freedom the team felt themselves.

“We were really, really fortunate,” Boyarsky says. “No-one gets the opportunity we had to go off in a corner with a budget and a team of great, talented people and make whatever we wanted. That kind of freedom just doesn’t exist.

“We were almost 30, so we were old enough to realise what we had going on. A lot of people say, ‘I didn’t realise how good it was until it was over���. Every day when I was making Fallout I was thinking, ‘I can’t believe we’re doing this’. And I even knew in the back of my head that it was never going to be that great again.”

Once Fallout came out, it was no longer the strange project worked on in the shadows with little to no oversight. It was a franchise with established lore that was getting a sequel. It wasn’t long before Boyarsky, Caine, and Anderson left to form their own RPG studio, Troika.

“We knew Fallout 1 was the pinnacle,” Boyarsky says. “We felt like to continue on with it under changed circumstances would possibly leave a bad taste in our mouths. We were so happy and so proud of what we’d done that we didn’t want to go there.”

Fallout is larger than this clique now. Literally, in fact: the vault doors Boyarsky once drew in isometric intricacy are now rendered in imposing 3D in Bethesda’s sequels. And yet Boyarksy, Taylor, and Caine now work under the auspices of Obsidian, a studio that has its own, more recent, history with the Fallout series. Should the opportunity arise again, would they take it?

“I’m not sure, to be very honest,” Taylor says. “I loved working on Fallout. It was the best team of people I ever worked with. I think it’s grown so much bigger than myself that I would feel very hesitant to work on it nowadays. I would love to work on a Fallout property, like a board game, but working on another computer game might be too much.”

Boyarsky shares his reservations: that with the best intentions, these old friends could get started on something and tarnish their experience of Fallout.

“It would be very hard for us to swallow working on a Fallout game where somebody else was telling you what you could and couldn’t do,” he expands. “I would have a really hard time with someone telling me what Fallout was supposed to be. I’m sure that it would never happen because of the fact that I would have that issue.”

Urquhart - now Obsidian’s CEO - is at pains to point out that Bethesda were nothing but supportive partners throughout the making of Fallout: New Vegas, requesting only a handful of tiny tweaks to Obsidian’s interpretation of its world. “I’ve got to be explicit in saying we are not working on a new Fallout,” he says. “But I absolutely would.”

Caine has mainly built his career by working on original games rather than sequels: Fallout, Arcanum, Wildstar, and Pillars of Eternity. But he would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about working on another Fallout.

“I’ve had a Fallout game in my head since finishing Fallout 1 that I’ve never told anyone about,” he admits. “But it’s completely designed, start to finish. I know the story, I know the setting, I know the time period, I know what kind of characters are in it. It just sits in the back of my head, and it’s sat there for 20 years. I don’t think I ever will make it, because by now anything I make would not possibly compare to what’s in my head. But it’s up there.”

[neverreallythoughtaboutthefuture]

I have a (slightly) bad feeling about this...

Alright, after watching the teaser and the first trailer for “Pacific Rim: Uprising”, I have to admit that I’m still very confused regarding how I feel about the upcoming sequel…  Or how I’m “supposed to feel” regarding its current marketing strategy... First, I know that, within 10 years, there probably would have been some significant technological advances in the world since the war, and it’s likely normal that the new Jaegers would look the way they do – i.e. all shiny, sleek and new, and more or less built from the same overall platform. Still, those Jaegers (and the pilots inside) are moving so fluidly and effortlessly that it’s difficult for me to believe that they are huge, heavy pieces of complex machinery piloted by two tiny human beings. Some of the buildings surrounding the Jaegers also look a bit like what you’d expect to see in a videogame…  I’m not sure if that’s because they wanted to give the new post-war world a more futuristic look, or because they spent a little less time on animation and special effects than they did with the original movie (especially that scene here from 1:50 to 2:15 approx.).

 And you can pilot a Jaeger with just some kind of backpack suit and gloves now?  Once again, alright, I know, new technology, but still!

(Okay, I get that this character is a hacker (I think), and probably a genius, and she seems to have more or less built that Jaeger herself (or with some help) from scrap parts or something, because it appears to be much smaller and have a more rugged look with her feet stuck in some types of boots (as opposed to newer models), etc.  But even that idea seems the tiniest bit too much for me...).

I did expect the Jaegers themselves to be different, and able to do some new stuff (like yes, flying, and perhaps joining together to create a larger robot, etc.), but I think I was still expecting the pilots themselves to require to be a little more solidly strapped in, and still move like their bodies are the size of a skyscraper! Here, they just seem to be able to jump around in the Conn-pod and do acrobatics, and their Jaegers just… copy them?  I dunno…  Perhaps it will make more sense and look better in the actual movie when we get to see more than just quick bits and pieces of some scattered scenes, but I’m having a slightly hard time understanding how you can keep your balance in there doing a round kick with seemingly nothing attached to your feet or even the rest of your body!

Where’s the Conn-pod situated?  In the chest?  The head?  If you’re round kicking and the Jaeger is round kicking with you as well... Assuming you’re in the head of the robot, wouldn’t the platform you’re standing on be sharply shoved to the side while you’re trying to perform that move?

There was already a pretty huge level of suspension of disbelief required in “Pacific Rim” when it came to how well the pilots were able to sustain being thrown around in such large robots…  All you have to do is watch the scene in the beginning where Gipsy Danger collapses on the beach, and imagine that there’s a tiny human being in that head when it hits the ground from such height to know what I mean. Actually, the laws of physics didn’t quite seem to apply to the first movie in general, but the way it was filmed still made it feel so tangible that I was perfectly fine with stopping asking questions, and just going with it! Here, I’m not so sure… Unless they’ve somehow completely altered the gravity inside the Conn-pods?  Otherwise how are you two jumping like this with the lashes and staying suspended mid-jump in the air?  What’s going on?  How are you connected to the Jaeger’s body and sharing a common “nervous system” with it?

Or perhaps they are held in place by some sort of rig in their backs that is also allowing them to pivot? I’m trying to be open to these changes, I really am...  But one of the things I really loved about Guillermo Del Toro’s approach was how he was able to make fantasy look like it was firmly grounded in reality by giving us a solid sense of size and scale, and the illusion that it took a great amount of both physical and inner strength to pilot a Jaeger. Here, it somehow looks like you could easily put the two pilots in a Conn-pod that’s situated outside of the Jaeger to control it remotely, and it would basically do the same thing. I’d have an easier time believing that they’re inside their Jaeger if the Conn-pod was pivoting with them, at the very least...  Perhaps that’s what’s not visually working for me. From the looks of it, the floor of the Conn-pod is still perfectly aligned with the ground, and the ceiling with the sky....  But isn’t the big robot doing the same move as the pilots?  So why is the Conn-pod still perfectly leveled if it’s inside a Jaeger that no longer is? Does that mean the the Conn-pod itself is pivoting inside the Jaeger to compensate for the Jaeger’s movements at all times; therefore ensuring that the two pilots are in an environment where the floor they are standing on remains perfectly leveled, no matter what the Jaeger surrounding them does? Hopefully, the movie will expand more on this... Also, how old are those pilots? I feel like I’m going to be watching “Ender’s Game” meet “Pacific Rim”. Then again, with the previous generation of pilots now either dead, retired, or I suppose assuming positions of command, like Mako Mori, it makes sense that the new recruits could be pretty young… Chuck Hansen did start piloting a Jaeger when he was 16, so it seems that the PPDC does accept candidates that are younger than 17. I guess that, with pilots in the first movie aged 21 to 44, and the relationships between them being diverse (ex: father and son), I just didn’t expect this to be an all teenagers / very young adults (I doubt any of them are older than 25) team of pilots this time around. Actually, everything from the younger main cast to the music choice in the trailer (and the teaser) seems to be geared towards attracting a younger audience.  I’m not sure if that’s because they believe that most people who fell in love with the first movie were teenagers, or because they are hoping to make “Pacific Rim” more appealing to them by having new pilots that are easier for kids to relate to. Even the fact that the only movie novelization I’ve seen so far is called “Pacific Rim Uprising: The Junior Novel”, with the products details listed on Amazon as:

Age Range: 8 - 12 years

Grade Level: 3 - 7

Paperback: 160 pages

Publisher: Insight Kids (March 27, 2018)

Language: English

has me greatly concerned that the targeted audience of the sequel is indeed going pre-teens to teenagers, with very little thought given to more mature audiences. It also makes me question if they are going to be willing to take as many risks as they did in the first by sacrificing so many pilots to the war this time around... I mean yes, “Pacific Rim” was an homage to anime and kaiju-era movies...  But it was a very dark and gritty homage with the perfect balance between drama, humor, tragedy and hope...  People call it “silly” and a movie about “big robots punching monsters in the face!”, but you are given a 15 minutes opening that features two tightly bonded young pilot brothers that deeply kicks you in the guts! Then, the first time you see Cherno Alpha, Crimson Typhoon, and Striker Eureka all get together on a mission out there, two of those teams gets dispatched right away! I remember sitting in the theater looking at the screen in shock and disbelief while asking my friend “Wait.  Did that just happen?  Did they just kill those 2 teams after having barely introduced them - just like that?” And my friend, equally stunned, just going “Yes.  Yes they did.” That’s when shit for me got 100% real for me, and I knew that the movie wouldn’t fuck around.  Yancy had just been the beginning, and no one in this universe was safe.  The stakes got crazy high! So, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but as much as part of me hated the “there are no heroes in a world where heroes can’t die” mentally, it still profoundly resonated with me and gave the movie some weight. Because back then, I happened to be in a situation where I was very sick and disabled, and had to learn a very important lesson in order to be able to cope with and accept my condition - life isn’t fair, anyone can fall.  Bad things happen to good people, and sometimes nothing can be done about it no matter how hard you try to prevent it. (For everything else, there is fanfiction!  Lol!  And thank the PTB for that!) But yes, it broke my heart into a thousand tiny pieces to watch Chuck Hansen die before he was ever given a chance to finally figure out who he was, among others...  But all those things also had a profound psychological and emotional impact, and it did add to that sense of realism in an otherwise very unrealistic universe and movie. Guillermo Del Toro made me believe in the unbelievable.  He made me forget that it was a movie about giant robots punching giant monsters in the face, and experience that movie first and foremost through my heart.  I am also heavily crediting Travis Beacham for the screenplay, the actors for having brought those characters to life, and everyone else that took such great care in building that universe (set designs, costumes, etc.)... But I think that GDT is hugely responsible for giving the movie its soul in the way he directed the actors, and seemingly got involved in every little detail of the movie’s production, including the 3D conversion. This was a work of pure love, and it showed. And even today, the movie is still helping me cope with a certain level of survivor’s guilt, given that I now have access to proper medical cares and treatments; including monthly injections that have gotten rid of about 70% of my symptoms, and allowed me to start living again. .  Meanwhile, I still have friends, that are as ill as I was a year and a half ago, that are still looking for a diagnosis, are left without resources, or then again, share the same diagnosis but don’t respond well to the same treatment I’m taking, etc. It wasn’t fair that I was unable to leave my room most of the time for 7 years, and depended on others to prepare my meals and care for me...  And yet, it’s no more fair that I’m getting better now, when so many of those that are in similar situation aren’t getting better, or can’t... Anyone can fall...  Meaning all I can do is continue to care about those people, and help where I can.  Otherwise, I have to accept that sometimes, things are the way they are.  Life is not about what you deserve, or being fairly rewarded for your efforts; but simply about your ability to live with and take advantage of the resource you do have, while ideally finding ways to share those resources with others, when and if you can. Raleigh’s journey in “Pacific Rim”, to me, heavily reflected that.  Actually, pretty much every character shared a similar journey where they had to learn to trust in others, and let go of the things beyond control. Beyond the Jaegers and the Kaiju themselves, one of the key elements of “Pacific Rim” was that it was, in Del Toro’s words, a movie about “the world saving the world”: “I just wanted to show small stories of people trying to come together to survive, because I didn’t want to make a war movie.  I wanted to make an adventure movie about people who come from all over the world.  We have an African American leader, we have a Japanese girl, we have Korean-Chinese guy, we have an Australian team.  I wanted to show all the world coming together.  It’s not just two characters; among them all they don’t understand each other.  All of them have great differences.  And the thing is as the movie resolves you see these characters be above all those differences.  I wanted that.  I didn’t want to make it just, “Oh if these two guys only got along.”  Everybody, everybody, which is like a movie set.  On a movie set if you don’t come together, we are all very different, but it works.  I really love the idea of coming together without a certain jingoist or, you know, this or this side saved the work.  Everybody did.” That’s why I find many debates regarding who’s the protagonist of the original movie sort of silly, and, like I’ve expressed before, I see Raleigh Becket as being more or less a leading character in a supportive role.  i.e. The story is no more about him than it is about any other character.  Once again, anyone can fall, and anyone in life will do what they can with the internal and external resources they have. Sometimes, someone just happens to be at the right place at the right time with the right resources, and they wind up getting the credit for something that was built through the efforts of countless others before and/or with them. Though history and society will generally tend to remember the leaders, and/or those that used what was done before them to innovate and come up with something groundbreakingly new, we are all connected. Raleigh basically just happens to be the character introducing us to the world of “Pacific Rim”, and whose story arc we are invited to follow first.  But every character in the movie has their own stories, doubts, and issues to come to terms with before they can all save the world together.  And that’s why I’ve connected with this movie so strongly, and why I love it so much. So, regarding the teaser that was first presented to us, for me, in terms of marketing strategy, it heavily missed the mark of what the first movie had been all about. I’m wondering if that was meant to show that, while the Kaiju were gone, world leaders have all been essentially patting themselves on the back on a job well done and taking credit for it.  Were they trying to convey that humanity, once again, has learned very little from history, and its ego has inflated to the point where suddenly Jaegers became all about “Look how awesome we are, and always have been!”, and “Why pilot a Jaeger?  Because YOU’re worth it!” Were they trying to convey that, in the future, humanity has gone back to the mentality of the “glory days” where Jaeger pilots used to be rock stars, and people thought Kaiju no longer posed any significant threat? Was that teaser meant to be an actual recruiting video that would fit within the mindset of that universe, 10 years in the future (which could make sense, and would therefore sort of make up for how weirdly self-centered it was)? Or was it simply how the marketing team in charge of “Pacific Rim: Uprising” chose to promote the movie, thinking that this is what audiences, nowadays, would get massively excited about? Because, yes, I do love Jaegers.  And, of course, John Boyega is a wonderful actor and a pure treasure that can totally rock that drivesuit! But where is the sense that Jaegers are only as good as their pilots (plural), and the stronger the bond between them, the better they fight?  Why having made the choice to show a single Ranger alone (unless that teaser was made very quickly to present fans with some form of publicity, and he was the only actor available to shoot it)? And quite frankly, I don’t personally give a single damn about Jaegers being “me” times a thousand! What is a Jaeger? A Jaeger is the very embodiment of the deep trust and empathy shared by two (or more) people who genuinely love each other regardless of the type of relationship they share.  A Jaeger is that love and that bond times a thousand – two (or more) beating hearts made one that burn as bright as the sun, and have the power to move mountains! You become the most heroic version of yourself through your connection with others – through learning to balance your own needs with theirs, and using the potential you have been gifted with to serve the common good. This is what “Pacific Rim” was all about to me, and this is the message that the teaser, as far as I’m concerned, has sadly failed to convey. And while the actual trailer does show pilots fighting together, and present them all working together as a team and joining forces to survive, once again there’s something slightly off about the vibe I’m getting from it.  Like it’s a movie that is a lot more about new cool Jaegers, and how they and the Kaiju have evolved, rather than the complex human connections that are required to power up those Jaegers. I know I’m probably overthinking this, and most people are likely just going “Whoohoohoo!  NEW ROBOTS, WEAPONS AND KAIJU!  COOL FIGHTS! AWESOME DUDE!” And, like my partner told me, “No matter what they do, given everything the original represents for you and why it means so much, I’m not sure anything else they could ever come up with will ever measure up.” And maybe he’s right. But still, instead of getting me all excited for the sequel, what the teaser and the trailer have managed to do is confuse the Anterverse out of me! Now, I’m sort of scared that they essentially took shortcuts with this movie by using elements of what they thought made the first one so popular with the (apparently young) public, but without understanding the deeper message behind the story, and/or Guillermo Del Toro’s vision of that universe. Every little detail in “Pacific Rim”, from the set pieces to the colors that were used, were filled with tons of symbolism and meaning.  4 years later, I still continue to discover and notice new little things every time I watch it. I’m not expecting the new director to copy Guillermo Del Toro’s style or use the same symbolism, but I’m hoping he’ll find ways to put nearly as much love and thought into every scene, and that the sequel will hopefully have as much depth and soul to it, too. Offer us beautiful robots, monsters, and actions scene, yes; but don’t forget what the movie was about first and foremost – the power, beauty and complexity of human connection. Another thing that sort of completely turned me off about the teaser is the choice of music. The Pacific Rim’s main theme is one of the most addictive and distinctive movie themes I’ve ever heard. The first few notes start to play, and that’s it!  I’m back in that world!

Even the movie trailers of the first installment chose a soundtrack that had strong elements of pure epicness to it.

For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5guMumPFBag , and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUR1IoPdBg8 Everything felt like it was larger than life and imposing. While that “I’m a Beast” song, combined with the would-be flattering message “a Jaeger is YOU times a thousand and tall as a mountain”, seems to have been put out there to appeal to self-centered and easily influenced kids in search of thrills who are supposed to go “Oh yeah man!  I’m a Jaeger, I’m a beast, I’m so cool, dude!” Maybe I’m getting too old for this (I was born barely 6 months after Herc Hansen, after all).  But, to me, it basically looked like the teaser was meant to be the equivalent of a sports car line publicity, with Jaegers replacing the cars! I just…  I don’t get it.  Yeah, this worked for the PPDC’s glory days, I suppose; and if the world has reverted back to that mentality, then please, by all means!  But still, I’m hoping it’s just a phase, and they’ll move out of it soon. And, while the music in the trailer itself takes back some elements of the original soundtrack, it’s weirdly mixed with a rap song, and combined with videogame looking CGI.  Somehow, this makes me feel like I’ve just stepped into a completely different world that has very little to do with the massive scope and depth of the original. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate a good rap song remixed with a movie theme every now and then...  But here, I find it to be heavily distracting, and it makes me disconnect from that sense of awe I get every time I watch those huge robot titans appear on screen in the trailers the original “Pacific Rim”. It works for movies like “The Fast and the Furious”, but here it messes with the overall tone, and gives me the impression that the robots are once again an oversized version of a sports car and next thing you know we’ll be watching them racing each other for thrills! If they keep at it, I’ll start nicknaming that sequel “Pacific Rim: Tokyo Drift”. That being said, there are a few things I’m excited about. Like the return of Mako Mori, Newton Geiszler, Hermann Gottlieb, and the fact that Gipsy Avenger looks like the child Gipsy Danger and Striker Eureka would have had together if Jaegers could make little Jaegers.  Although I am slightly concerned about how they will be using those beloved characters in the new installment. I’m also glad that John Boyega seems like such a huge fan of the first movie, and therefore hoping that’s a good sign, and the storyline will remain true to the first movie, and the extended universe that we’ve gotten thus far. I’m also curious regarding how they will be explaining Jake’s Pentecost backstory, and why Stacker and Mako have never mentioned him in the original movie.  Was Stacker even told he had a son (otherwise, I would have expected him to have some parting words for him as well, regardless of whether Jake was there or not, considering that the missions are usually recorded and/or Mako, Herc, or anyone else who would hopefully survive the mission could have relayed his father’s words to him), and how old was he when his father died? And looking at Stacker’s own backstory, i.e. his father having been killed in a fight with a club owner (where his mother was performing) when he was only 10, and little 10-year-old Stacker burning that club down and attacking the club owner in response… Well… It seems that little Pentecost babies tend to take losing their fathers very seriously, and will come after whatever is responsible for their death with everything they’ve got, apparently.  Which I do find rather interesting. Otherwise, I’m also a little concerned regarding how they will handle Raleigh, Herc, and even Tendo’s absence from the movie… Basically, I still plan on going to see it, but I’m having huge mixed feelings about it, and trying to keep my expectations as low as humanly possible (going down to the breach deep under the Pacific ocean to be sure...). That being said, please don’t let my own doubts, concerns, and personal preferences keep you from being all psyched about the new sequel, and loving the teaser and trailer to death! Truth is, if the original had never existed, and that trailer had been my very first introduction to anything “Pacific Rim”, there’s a possibility I would have been jumping up and down, cheering, and unable to wait to see that movie! I do love “Transformers” (in general), used to be a huge fan of “Power Rangers”, and my favorite TV show as a small child growing up was “Goldorak” (in English “UFO Robot Grendizer”). But “Pacific Rim” had a very different and unique feel to it that felt inspired by those series, without exactly becoming them.  “Go Go PPDC Rangers!” doesn’t sound quite right in my mind... Except here.  Probably the only place where I want to see those two related.  Lol!

[quonit-aceattorney]

1-5 Reaction

Rules:

Q = Me, Quonit.

BF = Bardic Feline, the friend that made me spend 30 dollars on the game and whom I am messaging

I don’t use those when I send the messages close enough my username doesn’t appear.

Any typos (unless they are funny and part of the conversation) will be fixed.

Index

—

Q: I'm doing the next one sorry for all of the messages

wow what was even that opening

what girl?

febuary 2017. I remember this month well.

Q: Who's this girl?

hey she looks like an adult! Second girl without her main feature being boobs :D

no mai is dead I took her spot though, she was in the tutorial level.

:D yay am I better

YES INDEED

yes phoenix please I like this girl a lot

i didn't know my name could also come with one m!!! My name is Emma, I had no idea people could also be named Ema with one m

aww so she isn't an adult I still like her though

phoenix please she's only like 10 years younger than you

BF: Hahahaha yeah, Ema is the Maya stand in for this case

BF: She returns for the fourth game, which takes place 7 years after the third game

BF: Still not very busty, even in her mid twenties haha

Q: :O Interesting!

I like Ema.

Q: What age of people did they think were gonna play this game? If kids then why does it seem they talk down to them so much?

I'll get back to playing

Q: oh so that beginning scene actually meant something

She's know Mia because she was kinda well known

okay why is she bad

how did she even get in teh office in the first place?

hahahaha no im not trading my badge for 50$

what do you mean ''yet''

Q: I LIKE LANA

HER OUTFIT IS GREAT

Q: it's obviously a coincidence that the two siblings are so alike, but if it motivates you then sure I wanna get to the second game

Q: you're telling it from the witness' perspective Lana. Do you remember what happened? What was your motivation?

Q: hi cowboy detective please don't kick me out

what

I AIN'T SCARED OF NO GUN LET ME EXAMINE

Q: why are we having this stepladder conversation again

Q: this office looks like Edgeworth

Q: maybe you wouldn't be low on money if you did your job

Q: five thousand???

MAN edgy must be rich!

BF: The stepladder debate is one of the running gags of the series haha

Q: interesting!

Q: that and Phoenix (and later Apollo and Athena) presenting his badge every chance he gets, and cross-examining non-human witnesses

Q: yaaaaay I liked cross-examining the parrot. 

I still can't believe they let me do that

Q: wait a second the bundle doesn't come with the fourth game just the first 3

oh well it's still a lot

Q: examining the examined. This could be useful.

Q: yeah, no, just the original trilogy

Q: alright, makes sense. Are they still making games for it?

BF: the fourth game came out well after the original trilogy ended, and it only JUST got an updated port to iOS and the 3DS e shop

Q: great an adult woman with a main feature being boobs. I liked the other ones more.

ah, alright. how good/bad is the anime I'm curious

BF: and yes!  in the main series, there are six games total...five and six only came out in digital form for the US, no physical release

don't focus so much on the boobs, it's just drive you crazy

and Angel really isn't THAT busty, she's just got a bust emphasizing outfit

Q: huh, alright. If I feel like it maybe I could get them.

fine. I'm not eating whatever she just handed to me though, she doesn't seem very trustworthy true I guess, not really as bad.

BF: she very much does that on purpose to put you off your guard, btw

she's not EVIL

but she's smart as hell, and she's not necessarily on your side right now.

Q: oh so it's intentional, alright that's more forgiving than the developers just wanted another boob-joke.

Q: angle please we're looking for evidence please stop freaking out Ema

Q: yaaaay edgy! I knew this was your office!

BF: hahaha yep

his office is as frilly as he is

Q: "this office looks like edgeworth"

why is there a dead body in your car that car looks too dirty to be yours it isn't even purple

BF: oh and to answer one of your comments from last night when I was asleep...Phoenix/Edgeworth is an overwhelmingly popular ship, to the point where it can become a bit annoying if you ship either of them with anyone else.

or if you like any of the rarer pairings, period hahah

Q: edgy we know you didn't do it I'm on your side and always will be

except when you're not on my side

With how his dialogue was set up in that chapter I am not surprised how much of the fandom ships it.

Q: Phoenix that was a very cruel joke, remember the case two months ago? Very cruel.

Q: gumshoe isn't dead lol must be mia's fualt he randomly appeared in my head, same with maya

Q: ya why do random flashes of random people keep appearing

how do i investigate this

BF: hah...if it's the bit I think it is, that's just Phoenix connecting him to the INCREDIBLY NEAT AND CLEAN OFFICE

BF: which Gumshoe totally takes times out of his day to keep tidy because that's just the kind of stuff he would do for Mr. Edgeworth, pal!

Q: Well I bet the lunchlady and edgeworth and I'm investigating while edge is in his office.

possibly but phoenix actually commented on "why did i just have ___ randomly appear in my head". whatever I'll keep looking

I guess!

BF: gumshoe just a big old loyal puppy who loves Edgey

lol no that's the reason hahah

Q: gumshoe!!

still needs a better name

Q: I need to copy paste my reaction in a place I'll be able to easily get to later because this will probably be very valuable to me later on.

(Edit: Fuck me for making me do this)

Q: edgy tell me what the trophy thing is

no mumbling

edgy you did good why are you being so defensive over the shield

Q: well the fact it's broken could be important so please tell us

Q: oh ya! I can examine the examined now :D

Q: well 5:12 and 5:15 are very close to each other so this is important that they are so precise

who's this cartoony cop!!! he doesn't look like he's drawn in the same style as everyone else in the game!

Q: noooo i want the report

Q: Edgeworth in the Wild: A Documentary

Q: YABADABADOO

Ema why

Q: huh, so apparently phoenix doesn't just teleport? man that must be so annoying when I don't know where I'm going for them

Q: blue badger looks like a pokemon that is why he seems familiar

Q: yaaay i found gumshoe

ema knows too much poor edgeworth indeed, I hope soon he can get a break

dance till you die

Q: "they make a good pair" so I guess this game isn't against gays, cool.

Q: well i mean the letter probably will get us somewhere if this game is going to progress

Q: oh so is Angel dating Marshal? What a turn of events

yaaaay i can get in now

...I just realized I can use headphones on a DS... Interesting....

Q: the music hahaha. Marshal theme song

Q: don't think too hard on cannibalism and you'll be fine

Q: Marshal is fun

BF: hee hee yeah, I like him.

Q: "well if phoenix showing his badge to everyone is a running joke guess I better help with that by showing it to everyone".

This case is pretty fun so far, not even a single irritating thing yet

BF: LIke Ema and Lana, Jake Marshall is actually deliberately made to be sort of a nod to another pre-existing character haha.

BF: and yeah, Rise from the Ashes is a good case!  I remember finding some of the trial segments to be tricky, but overall, it's solid

tQ: "Noe to self: when finding evidence, think of Texas"

who is this pre-existing character?

BF: and it makes good use of the new mechanics that were introduced for the DS

Q: it does!

BF: you won't meet him until the third game haha

but yeah...Ema and Lana are clearly meant to be nods to Maya and Mia

BF: Jake, less obviously, is sort of a nod to Godot

Q: and thankfully this gets Phoenix motivated again

godot... who's that? I should probably know

BF: Godot plays a MAJOR part in the third game, you'll know him the second you see him.

He...stands out.

to put it mildly.

Q: can't wait to meet him

when will the Y guy (shack guy DL-6) appear again he's already pretty interesting that's probably spoilers

BF: Yanni Yogi?  He only appears in that case, sadly.

though there's a background reference to him in one of the spinoff games.

BF: He's one of Zarla's faves

Q: I assumed... he seems pretty interesting, sad he had to leave so soon. As you saw I was REALLY shocked when a character zarla drew appeared that I didn't even know would be in the game... sad to see him leave so soon.

Q: forgot to talk with Marshall, maybe I can progress through this

oh yay the autopsy report

Q: tell me about yourself marshall, how long has your cowboy career been going on?

why would you kick out gumshoe!!!

D: I don't know if I should break the news to him or not

Q: well that isn't even an option so

the detention center doesn't even update ever

Q: uuuhhhhgggg I hate being stuck like this where can I goooo

Q: still stuck >:( It's been almost an hour

quonit

just let me gooooo

03/24/2018 (Two days later)

Q: FINALLY I DID SOMETHING there was a note in the trunk but it seemed to have done nothing... don't even know if the two people I can talk to would react to it.

as i suspected it did nothing >:(

I think the phone is the key but the only thing it will let me examine is the trap!!!

03/24/2018

Q: I asked my brother to help and he FINALLY HELPED

He found another scroll bar on the examination thing that I never noticed and found it :D

Q: no cowboy pls i really worked hard to get this far

Q: phoenix has a phone? how come we can never use it?

...what do i do with the phone?

how did my brother turn it

= and -... where are those buttons?

Q: going to my brother

Q: why not press the button again???

Q: where do i gooo

Q: i give up I need to draw

BF: hahaaha

BF: aaaah sorry I've been busy unpacking boxes

I wouldn't have even thought to tell you about those double screen investigation rooms!

there are like...at least two of those in this case.

the car park area and the evidence room

Oh, and because this took me FOREVER to figure out when I played it the first time: when you dust for finger prints, you blow the powder away by blowing into the mic on the DS

Q: I don't expect anybody to be on while I send messages. Do not worry, I do not expect responses immediately. Also packing boxes??? did you move :O

double screen investigation rooms? tell me more. If you mean ones where you have to move the screen I did do that a lot... and yet I still can't find much. I finally got the phone in my inventory and tried to check the last call but it still won't do anything THANK YOU FOR TELLING ME THAT IN ADVANCE I GARENTEE I WOULD'VE GOTTEN STUCK

Q: Where I am si that I think I have all of the items in my inventory. A full page and then the phone on the next... am I missing something? I heard that Ema is supposed to tell me that I have everything I need

BF: aaah if you are in the car park, one place you need to check is the muffler of the car

Q: muffler? I got the paper that was in the back, I'll examine the car more I guess

BF: and yeah, the game usually gives you some hint when you've found all the things

BF: I forget if you can get it now or not, but there's some cloth shoved into the tailpipe of the car

Q: dont' think i can thanks though

I'll tell you what I have in my inventory and you tell me what I'm missing for the first part

Q:badge, id card, knife, shield trophy thing, parking stub, blue badge pannel, goddman's autopsy report, note from the back of the car, and cell phone

BF: hmmm....and you've shown absolutely everything to everyone and poked at everything on every available screen?

Q: yeeeesssss

:( I'll try again

BF: (oh and to answer your earlier question, yes, I did move into my house today)

Q: yaaaaay

shouldn't there be a wiki or something for this that says what to do

BF: if you are absolutely stuck, I'd look up the Games FAQ walktrough

Q: :(

why does this game make me so stuck all of the time

BF: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ds/925589-phoenix-wright-ace-attorney/faqs/44304    here, this one is spoiler free, you just gotta get down to the right case

Q: :D thank youuuu

Q: :O HEY IT WORKED

HOW DID I NOT NOTICED THIS

Q: Lana why are you not on edgy's side

Q: of course you don't know everything going on here phoenix, if you did we would win but right now we don't win

this game but we know everything beforehand

Don't believe your client, just believe in them. got it.

Q: oh ya angle exists i forgot about her

BF: haha FIGURING OUT WHY LANA IS DOING WHAT SHE'S DOING IS A BIG PART OF THIS CASE

Q: BACK

I had to trim the grass in the front yard. We got an actual letter saying that we needed to so that was odd. It's done now though

angel will never stop talking, and Edge doesn't seem as annoyed as some of the others. huh.

oh my god judge can't you be a little more professional ARE YOU EVEN ALLOWED TO EAT RIGHT NOW

Q: you decline every offer phoenix until an impossible one pops up. Phoenix why

Q: If you hate prosecutors so much then maybe you could help me

please I'm begging

Q: wait you have more then one boyfriend

did i hear that wrong

ugh so she does

"care to join" If that is what I have to do to get information out of you!

BF: hahaha

yes, Angel and her many boyfriends

Q: Ema's notes are funny

BF: this boyfriend, that boyfriend, the other boyfriend

you know, as you do

Q: "the yet another boyfriend is still open"

I'd like to know who is who

Q: wait isn't B block for defense attorneys not visitors?

Q: how she names them reminds me of the chicken 'mine'

"That's mine, that one's also mine, that's another one of mine, that one is yours, and that one is not yours." we actually considered naming our chickens that haha

Q: Ema is learning my table-slamming technique.

Q: "my boyfriend worked in the photography division" WHICH boyfriend?

Q: "Prosecutors are, by nature, well-versed in the location of a man's vital organs" I already had to prove with twice Edgy did NOT murder anybody!

yes phoenix kill the egg

Q: okay so i learnt as much as I could while pressing, and there seems nothing wrong... I need to find the objection item

Q: THE LEFT-RIGHT HAND TRICK

ALWAYS WORKS

Q: EDGEWORTH

HOW COULD YOU SILENTLY SAY OBJECTION YOU HAVE BERTAYED ME

ALWAYS OBJECT

Q: of course it was planned! We already established whoever the killer is planned to do it in edgeworth's car

Q: "mommy, are prosecutors bad people?" hahaha oh my god

yes lets tell the audience how to commit murder

edgy that pun was terrible and you know it

Q: Ema what is that note

you can't smell his breath from over here what

I do have an objection!

Q: I'd like to know how she got into the food business

Ema you're on MY side

Q: remember?

Q: it's so rare when the thing I immediately think of and object with actually works and the characters see what i see

Edgy you look like you're on my side

Q: Ema do you hate me

Q: The person that seems most on my side in this case is f***ing edgeworth and he is actually the one pitted against me so you're all failures.

Q: >:(

I got so stuck at this part and had to retry a few times and I finally gave up and went to the tutorial and that isn't helping

FLOOR PLANS WHY DON'T YOU WORK

Q: :(

Q: Why can't I just gooooo none of the evidence I have works at all

Q: I PROGRESSED AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I PRESSED

UHHHH

Q: OHMYGOD THE FLOOR PLANS FINALLY WORKED

WHAT CHANGED

Q: she'd lie because as I said she has a grudge

Q: five minuets???

wow that's a long time

Q: if you have evidence please tell me

how was this judge hired

WHY THE SHOE WHY DO YOU HAVE HIS SHOE

what is this blood type it could also be common

Q: why does edgy continue to seem like he is on my side lol

Q: that brings in the question: how many lunches do you actually have in there

Q: if it does how come she was blee- oh ya the hand injury

Q: ohhh to wash away the bloood okaaaay

now to defeat you edgy

Q: Okay so more then one photo, I NEED MORE PHOTOS.

Q: Mia thank youuuuu

oooo the fun music started playing, im onto something

Q: "Yeah! (I'll think later" is the best line in the game

IT SUMS UP THE THOUGHT PROCESS WHEN I PLAY THE GAME

Q: Salmon swimming upstream in a river of quicksand

ya sounds like Phoenix

Q: the muffler in the muffler

Bad feeling about following advice given to you by Marshell??? What a silly thought!

Is something wrong edgy? why are you so upset?

what is bothing you Eedgy pls tell me

OH MY GOD ANOTHER SUPRISE CHARACTER HOW HOW IS HE IN ACE ATTOURNY WHAT ??????????????????????????????????????????????????

is he just gonna stand there or...?

Q: Udgey... that's a new one

afriad indeed, terrified I might say.

Wrighto... also new

Q: when i send my live reaction to the game should i have more context to what is going on

Q: rereading it i think i should

Q: I've been taking more pictures of art I wanna send you but it still isn't doing anything

Q: Alright so i opened the Ace Attorney save file and I have no idea where i am. I'm pretty sure this is right after the first trial

tiny village... where am i and why

i think this isn't my file??

BF: I was about to say...

Q: ruinion and turnabout?

what? something is wrong

BF: if you are in a tiny village, the only one I know of is Kurain. and you don't go there the first time until 2-2

yeah, you are in game 2 there

that's Maya's village.

Q: we fixed it!

My brother wanted to play and he mistook the game two save files as extra save files and he just decided "fuck it im not waiting for her to finish" and just started playing through

interesting :o

OH YA WE'RE TALKING WIT THIS GUY :D

swimming? why that specifically?

little worthy? is that a name?

DISTRICT OF THE POLICE UH NO I DON'T KNOW THIS GUY

aww so if he's number one he probably won't be on my side :(

damon gant, I like this guy

OH YA I forgot about edgeworth! Worthy haha didn't think of that nickname yet. I'll add it to the list. He must be very scared of this man

BF: hahah yesss Gant is great.

Q: so a muffler is a scarf? is that just another name for a scarf or is it a type of scarf?

he just keeps standing there and blinking

edgy back on this feet, finally stopped just sitting there silently in what I'm assuming is anger and fear

BF: it's a type of scarf. I can't tell you what exactly makes a muffler a muffler though. they just wanted to use the pun, though, I think

aaah the Gant stare.

Q: they seem to love naming puns, not just the people's names now.

"That's not fair!" There are a lot of things that aren't fair in this world, edgy.

Q: A WRITTEN APOLOGY

That kid from earlier in the audience: mommy is this how trials usually go? Mom: no. I am not even sure what is going on.

BF: hahah trust me, the pun names get more intense with each game.

Q: I feel bad for edgy haha

I can't wait

oh my god SOMEBODY JUST OPEN THE KNIFE

Q: THEY ADDED  A CLAPPING SOUND FOR HIM

I DID NOT EXPECT THIS

Q: ...the note may have something to do with this

but along with everything else i think of in this game it's probably wrong

nah okay

Q: time to look through my items another 20 minuets and hope the character see what I see

Q: when in doubt press on everything

Q: good job ema! I'll examine the knife!

Q: SL-2... something similar  that wasn't a tag. again was it the note

OH MY GOD IT WAS THE NOTE

Me and gant both love 'objection'. I'm still mad at Edgy for that. I will hold it against him forever.

BF: hahaha NEVER FORGIVE YOU EDGEWORTH

BF: you and your habit of updating the autopsy report

Q: "Do you have evidence?"

"yes! (I'll think later)" is still the best line in the entire game

a habit of mine? is that not something everybody does?

I feel so honored being told "I win, Wrighto!"

BF: heh

Q: :D He'll tell me about the knife now!!!

Q: I only get to hear bout one thing.... better choose wisely.

Where the victem was found could help, seems like it could work How the victim was killed could be a little more risky but all of these are pretty good When the victim died... it could also be 5:15, and I could find a way to show it was planned... but I'm not sure

there probably wont be any consequences though

I'll roll my di

Q: it's 1 so i guess we're going with that

Q: didn't we GO to the evidence room?

Q:

Gant: :long stare: Gant: You two make a great pair! I swear this is intentional. It's not even just that chapter.

Q:

Gant: hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Gant: :long stare: Gant: Sure why not! well alright then! I'm learning about it unofficially :D This is already very casual so why not

Q: why is the victims gender there

that is unimportant WE WANT TO KNOW ABOUT HE MURDER

Q: Gumshoe won't die Phoenix he was in the credits!

Q: alright now not only is edgeworth being called worthy he's being called little worthy

do these two know eachother???

Q: that id is the same as the one we have here >:O

Q: :D the fun music is playing

Q: EDGY REMEMBER WHEN HE SAID HE COULDN'T TELL YOU WERE THE CORPS WAS FOUND

IT'S ALL ON YOU EDGY IT'S ALL ON YOU.

 Q:EDGY WHY DID YOU JUST SHOO OFF MEEKENS

IT'S STILL ALL ON YOU BUT MUCH MORE DIRECTLY YOU THIS TIME

Q: oh my god NOW WE'RE DOING NICKNAME PUNS

Q: hehehe FINALLY Edgy looks like the fool instead of me :D

Q: What i think happened is that they were killed, and their body was dragged through the back of their care, and brought here

oh boy angel's back

Q: Oh my god ANOTHER CASE

WE ALREADY DID DL-6 UGH THIS MUST AT LEAST HAVE AN INTERESTING STORY

Q: What I think happened: somebody killed the detective, put the body in the back of edgy's car, Edgy drove back to where he should, left, later the girl opened the back. something about her stabbing him.

Q: no that doesn't fit

screw this case

Q: oh no I'm defending Meekens now too???

Meekens just looks a lot more cartoony then everything else

Q: why did they let him bring a megaphone

Q: oh so goodman's the villain.

BF: uhhhh...nooot exactly, no

Q: i learnt that quickly

I found gant again! he has his own theme song. Sounds like a king.

Q: Honestly I still feel bad for Edgeworth, hope he gets out of this.

Q: uhhhggggg I just got stuck i really wanna figure this out fast instead of wandering around forever. Not sure if it's just with me or if this game just needs better... instructions maybe?

Q: In court when your stuck press everything. In over world when stuck talk to everyone again, present every piece of evidence again, and examine everything again. Then still find yourself stuck.

BF: this case is one of the worst for that sort of thing, I'll admit. I've played it multiple times and there are still places where I forget how to proceed

Q: I don't like using the tutorial at all but I've had to use it twice to proceed, at least I have that. When this game came out people would just be stuck and never get to f***ing leave, and when they did they would be like "THAT WAS IT THE WHOLE TIME I MUST BE DUMB". Are the later games better at this?

Gant: If somebody just walked up to me and asked for 50$, i'd give them 50$! in that case can i have 50$

Q: You know I want to get to the evidence room but why not let's just sit here and talk with Marshell for another 6 hours

Q: I can finally go the the evidence room yaaaay

Q: See, Gumshoe's got the right idea on those 50$

BF: it varies by case, I'm not going to lie!

Game 2 has some added trickiness because it introduces a new mechanic during investigation mode.

said method is a touch more refined in the third game.

Q: in your opinion what is the best game (random question)

general stuff happens, i didn't comment on it

Q: I'm sorry, the game wants me to go to the secret room, do all these things, get no sign that I found then all, and then go to edgeworth's office???

HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO FIGURE THAT OUT

Q: fine a little bit of a clue but this case really wants players to get stuck

Q: OH MY GOD WHY IS THE BELLBOY HERE DOESN'T HE WORK SOMEWHERE ELSE

Q: hahahaha I can see how you got stuck when the game told you the blow, It did NOT specify in the mic.

Q: non bloody prints???

I can't choose any of the fingers and all 5 are bloody! what do you want me to do im stuck on this sceen

Q: my brother helped :D

BF: heh

BF: Um...my favorite...well, tough to say.  Obviously, I'm particularly stuck on game 2, though on retrospect game 4 is pretty fascinating (both for what it is and what it could have been)

BF: Generally speaking, most people agree that game 3 is the best of the original trilogy, though (game 2 isn't hated, but it has this ONE CASE that is near universally hated)

BF: Of the spinoffs, I'm personally partial to the second Ace Investigations, though that one you can only play in English via  a fanpatch

I'm still playing game 6, so I don't know how I'd rank that one just yet

and there are two spin off titles that I have no way of playing in English at all right now, which is frustrating. No idea where I'd rank either of them. but the animation for those is PRETTY.

BF: Oh, but if you get a chance, one game I strongly recommend that was created by the original creator of Ace Attorney that isn't an Ace Attorney game (though it is allegedly set in the same universe) is a game called Ghost Trick.

Q: Interesting! I'll be sure to check out ghost trick. I wonder if I'll be able to tell what the hated case in 2 is when I get to it...

BF: hahah I'm willing to bet you'll figure it out. I personally liked the case, but it has some issues for sure

Q: alright. I was gonna start playing again if you still want me to send you the endless messages that give you no context to where i am or what im reacting to

BF: AMONG said issues is that it does what no other case had ever done before it, and it has a couple of cross examinations where you can get frigging penalized for a bad PRESS

Q: oh no D:

BF: It warns you when you get to it, but it's still really annoying

taking away my ability to badger the witness without repercussion!

but yeah no, feel free to ramble, I'm just here working and rewatching episodes of the Maxx

Q: >:(

I saw a post and thought of the judge from this game. "The judge could sentence you guilty for murder wearing hello kitty pajamas under their robe and you would never know” yaaaay

Q: About to go to the court thing. FINALLY lana is back it's been a while >:(

Q: oh yay lana gets to be a witness

nvm im a moron the cartoon guy i forgot his name gets to be

MEEKENS YOU'RE NOT THE KILLER

THAT IS NOT AN OCCUPATION RIGHT

Q: there seems to be a lot of talking down to kids in this game :(

Q: why do people let him bring his megaphone

same answer with the kid and his sword

Q: i mean i like the blue badger

Q: bet the tape won't help much

HEY ITS ANIMATED

well hey it was a little helpful

Q: 

Edge: :slams hand on desk: What the hell was that wriggling piece of plywood!?

my new second favorite line

Q: the problems was he was wearing gloves

probably not that's what first comes to mind though

Q: or the light was already on

Q: gloves were rubber? how did i not notice that

Q: why would he need the gloves in there if he was goodman

Q: he could've stolen the card

who is the 777... card at the top

Q: WHY IS THE KID STILL IN THE AUDIENCE

WHY TO PARENTS TAKE THEIR KIDS TO MURDER TRIALS I'D LIKE TO SPEAK WITH THIS CHILD AND EXPLAIN TO THEM THAT MAYBE YOU SHOULD'VE ACTUALLY WENT TO THE TRIAL WHERE I DEFENDED EDGEWORTH IF YOU STILL THINK HE'S SO BAD

Q: :D I think edge just complimented me, it's probably going to turn into an insult though so ill just enjoy it while i can

Q: fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck youuuuuuuuu

Q: the fake killed goodman not lana

no that wouldn't work dammit screw you

Q: HEY GUMMY HOW ARE YOU

NO GUMMY STAY

HEYHEYHEYHEY HEY WHAT

awww lana's finally being useful

Q: Ema don't run it's just a serial killer

Gummy why >:(

saaave pooiiinnt

oh my god Marshell i forgot his personality

Q: please provide me with a reasonable explanation why there were bloody handprints of yours in the evidence room (and no ID saying you signed in but i think i just missed something on that)

Q: somebody actually messes up in grammer in court and one of them yells objection but its about the grammer and they keep fighting about i

Q: edgy don't worry just let me get to my menu my lack of experience means nothing

wait is he giving me advice? is he being nice???

Q: noooo just let him beeee

or not his reasoning was okay though

Q: At first i was sad to find out it was his brother now im just thinking COWBOY PROSECUTOR THAT WOULD BE FUN

Q: what do you think happened to your brother jake

Q: MY DEFENDANT DID NOT KILL HIM AND YOU KNOW IT

YOU JUST DON'T ACKNOWLEDGE IT FOR MONEY

you know i could put that anywhere in almost any case and it could still work (with a pronoun swap but aside from that)

Q: ARRRRRGGHHHHHH

Q: OH MY GOD I FORGOT ABOUT YOU

YOU DO GET THIS IS PROBABLY ILLEGAL RIGHT

Q: edgy is being very nice to her yay

I MEAN EMA YOUR NOT USELESS YOU STOPPED HIM FROM GIVING THE VERDICT TWICE

THAT WAS SOMETHING NOT EVEN MIA COULD DO HE GAVE THE VERDICT AND I BEAT HIM ANYWAYS THOUGH SO :/

Edgy is used to me making claims with the idea "I'll think about it later" in mind of course hes going to scoff at everything i say

I PROBABLY WOULD

YA THREE WHILE PAGES OF EVIDENCE THAT'S A LOT

Q: hey hey jake's back i was wondering where he went

Q: "Just one moment! I will not let such far-fetched balderdash in my court room"

HAHA VERY FUNNY JUDGE. AS IF THIS IS THE MOST FAR FETCHED THING YOU'VE SEEN HERE.

YAAAY PHOENIX GOOD JOB

Q: why is everybody immediately blaming edgy again I already defended him from two murders WHEN A VERDICT WAS ALREADY GIVEN

Q: stop being so mean to edgy

Q: hi lana please help me

ocassionally what what i didn't understand what they said i need to know

awww how dare you now your going to get all three of us in trouble

Q: that kid in the audience actually as an adult took the weirdest trials hes been to and put his own characters in it and made it into a game

oh my god the noise of the crowed is so terrifying because it's on repeat i need to turn the sound off

Q: saaave

Q: good think ema isn't dead

Q: Ema it’s not yours its your sisters putting blame on yourself just leads to depression okay

Q: to lana. MAYBE SHE'LL FINALLY BE USEFUL

YAAAAY

Q: Deal with the devil as a minor so that when your older he doesn't have a legal claim to your soul.

that's unrelated and unhelpful but

Q: now to show you every single piece of f***ing evidence

Q: or not

HI MARSHELL

Q: do do do

do do ddoo dodo doo dodo do doooo ddo do dooo dooo doDOdodoooo

(Edit: do do doooo

do doooo

do doooo

(now go reread it from the top with those last two as the start) )

Q: no marshel come baaaaaack 

noooooo

Q: I just wanna get to 2-4

quonit

:D

Things are going well!

HE STARTED LUAGHING IM SCARED

LHIS LAUGHING IS TERRIFYING

Q: :D Thank you Jake!

Q: Well gant does make a good point

Also about you paying my rent Edgy

Q: I wonder if there are anymore choices or it it's just dialogue.

did I win??

Lana smiled at me :D

"stop it mah you're embaressing meeee" is how this dialogue feels like

Q: yaaaaay I win

Q: awww ema I she'll say she's proud of you too

Gummy you keep doing this

bring him back

Lana :D

Q: Maya will be very proud of me when she comes back

awww hugs!!!

wait edgy was hiding why is he angry

aww ty

Is Lana making you scared I'm pretty sure she was your boss at some point or something I forgot at this point

Q: oh nooo Gant make Edgy scared of who he might be in 10 years. Somebody teach him not to do that.

Q: Aww thanks Lana

the difference between you gant and vampire is that you have friends doesn't that makes you feel better

Q: bye edgyyyy

Edgeworth you keep saying that and it's wrong every time >:( please stop breaking promises

what a storybook ending

OH HI GUMMY

couldn't you make edgy do it instead i don't have money

BF: Did you notice you could do fingerprint powder on the bottom screen during the credits?

Q: ya! Can i blow it too?

BF: Make bonus images appear haha

Yep!

Q: :D

After this i need to sleep this is fun though!

time for game two :D

Q: will blue badger get to stay though is my question

Q: Hey so Angel will be on my side, it will just be in the next game!

Q: I really do think the judge it wearing hello kitty pajamas under that robe

Q: credits done! That was very satisfying :D

[flairina]

Flair’s Dreams, January 2018

Certainly been a while. Some of these are written in shorthand, so if you bother browsing through these, forgive me for that. It gets better later on.

1/3/18: (2:00-6:45)

I end up inside Shin Megami Tensei world (again- it's apparently happened at least twice before) due to someone taking an unwanted photo of me, and thinking that I'd like it to do such. The SMT world in this case is a giant, ever shifting tower of some sort, which rumbles as if hit by an earthquake while changing. I end up in a section controlled by Alice (the demon) called "Tick Tock Goes the Clock", with decor describable as the inside of a building from Alice in Wonderland where the main colors are pink, white, and gold. I have some sort of feud with the White Rabbit (the guy/demon who brought me in here?) before I'm finally left alone. I try to remember the way a few demon conversations proceed (the short mushroom demon likes men and alcohol, the four winged cerulean bird thing thinks pants are kind of cool, etc) when the tower shakes, and an 8-demon procession turns down the hall. Some are the bird thing but there are two kinds I've not seen before, one of them a sort of floating blue horse thing. They enter the room on the left (structured like a classroom) and emerge from the other door, behind me, singing and generally unaggressive. Two girls who are permanent residents here are also part of the line, and notice me. Brooke (a black girl with long, thin pleats/braids) says hi, while the other girl (a white girl with her hair curling up at the front off of her head like a squirrel's tail) asks her how I keep getting here. I tell her it's sheer random chance, as is how I keep getting out of here. The demon's singing appears to be summoning a wedding chapel, which I stop through my own music somehow, causing it to make a weird whiffling noise as it blinks back out of existence.

1/5/18: (Powers Dream?)

I'm either "playing" as, or actually am Samus (Metroid), and am currently in the middle of Metroid Prime 3, which requires me to ascend a space pirate "tower" ("urchin"-like room was notable). This is a late game area, and the entire 3D outline of it can be seen on the map. I make it to a normal office room (somewhat out of place) filled with space pirates, and use the photon beam to eliminate them. The charged shots are purple, and track/hone in on the enemies. There is a "tooth" language that only the pirates can access/understand, but by pulling them out of the stomach of a dead one in the corner (it ATE the teeth for some reason), I should be able to understand it soon. I'm no longer Samus, and decide to raid the nearby wardrobe for something to wear, but mom is suddenly in the room, trying to move stuff out. In the closet behind me, there are lotions on the top shelf, including a "snuggling" lotion.

A strange species of creature catches four DnD-type characters (all human men) and intends to transform them, allowing a single last request from each. They then twist the requests to make the transformations ironic, turning the group into a girl, a mutant raccoon, Princess Daisy (request involved a sneer), and a ____ (ICR what, but it wasn't human). The non-humans alleviate this by make themselves look like copies of the girl and Daisy member, and progress on, thinking that someone can reverse this in the area below a nearby canyon. Just as they're about to head down, they all transform back- but as each other instead of themselves, which shocks and frustrates them.

1/8/18: (2:??-7:20)

There is a person who is repeatedly turning into combinations of three different animals in order to fight something in a dark, pseudo-futuristic room. I can see them on screen to shoot at one point, and the twins from Flip Flappers are involved.

A giant snake "person" (just looked like a two-story tall snake) attacks me and others in a city alley. It can't tell people apart easily, but recognizes me from smelling my runny nose somehow, and comes after me.

The tent I was sleeping in outside an apartment is torn apart by the weather, which picked it up and proceeded to rain, HARD, solely above my stuff.

I need to give an example of something I have "triumphed in" for a required stage show. I'm slightly late, and the first example I give has something to do with electric powers? I then switch to saying I triumph in comedy itself.

1/10/18:

2D version of a 3D game, sand "castle" area, stars to collect Mario-style, giant mantis creature (boss?) in 3D Pikmin-esque leaf area, fought using morph ball (Metroid)?

1/11/18: (9:00-9:45 and 10:00-10:22, naps) (1:17-6:45)

Endbringer attack (Worm), it’s The Simurgh, “sometimes they stay dead for days, but they always get back up” (the Endbringers can be killed, but they don’t stay down), I’m at work, Blasto’s stuff turns everything inside purple and monstrous, and dogs become zerg-dogs, I’m Taylor, I run outside, “unlike inside, here, the bodies were real” I think to myself, envisioning them, except there actually aren’t any, I can’t even see the destruction, find some old guy and walk with him, there’s a giant model of earth to the right, see places on the continents being struck with poofs of red smoke, it represents something that’s actually happening, one barrels right into us, something to do with the endbringer attacks, some other guy with us now, old guy climbs into treehouse, which is thankfully unoccupied, speaks a little about how fire extinguishers are less effective in the arctic, then falls asleep in a bed in the back, me and the other guy sleep ourselves, and wake to the kid and his friend recording something nearby, they don’t notice us until I stand (I’m me again), they protest my presence, tell the kid to help me wake the guy in the bed up, they’re related?, go to scientist guy’s large yellow house, guys named Rick and Ray live here, they have a “human tainting” chamber/tube, think I’m watching videos at class/work and just getting really immersed, stop and wake as a result

I’m in a movie theater watching an animated movie, and become convinced that because the movie has characters named Rick and Ray and I JUST dreamed about that that I got the info about the future, movie ends, person in snake cosplay, accidentally head off in a sideways moving elevator for 50 minutes, come back, see giant gel monster things, fancy plaza with tennis courts and such, night sky looking ceiling, family has been waiting

I receive information that implies I am the girl who “won the game” and left for Heaven 6 months ago. I took “The Lilac Path”, was compared to a flower, and either literally was or was represented by a white, harsh featured woman’s mask with thorned briars behind it.

1/12/18: (1:??-9:30) (Powers Dream)

Fast vampire guy with long hair and Klaus (BBB), huge and intricate mansion, they’re after me/her (multiple tenses- I was “playing” as the female MC from a forum quest?), there’s a person cannon in the next room which is somehow Homestuck related, vote on song to play as we send off to another house, decide on Here from The Ancient Magus’ Bride, I still have pills left, but didn’t realize until I literally bit into them.

Five story playground equipment in backyard of house me and two girls broke into, we go inside, Yoda uses Spaceballs to distract a bunch of stormtroopers so he can turn them into water, I ask how that makes any sense, The Force can’t do that

Filthy purple room with green stringy things everywhere, on a team playing “hide and seek” (keep three items away from other team), room is too small and empty for this, novel new strategy, I distract the seeker when he comes in by fighting him with a rubber sling ball, and time runs out

A black guy with dreads/braids is sitting in a mostly black room at the top of a tower, a silver staircase leading inside. I’m not him, but can feel him comb his hair, somehow. He threatens Hannah Montana, until I, as Ayumura Tamako (but seen from a third person perspective), along with some tall guy, break through the outside wall (which has only air beneath it) and interrupt. I throw some sort of purple laser boomerang at the black guy, the results of which ICR, before I start to feel as if I’m just imagining this part, like I’m just daydreaming. Not liking this, I decide to leave this dimension, and fly(?) outside to do so.

1/13/18: (1:??-9:30) (Taste Dream)

There is a "Dream Dungeon" game, played in the style of SMT: Strange Journey, with a black and white map. There are small, reddish-pink bipedal creatures with oversized arms called "Neebles", that are extra powerful compared to the normal enemies, but I beat the first one fairly easily all the same.

In order to change fate, I need to alter a teddy bear/my alarm/my phone, which allows me to wake up early.

Card game where pictures must be matched, in a kitchen, blue and white buttercream doughnut I can taste, need Dad to help me snap a lobster's neck, which I think I'll be able to taste as well, something about planetary alignment and 413, I suck root beer from a fish grenade thing

1/14/18:

List of chapters, two centered around betrayals by cultists with red robes, Mom and I in a light white-greenish hallway, star projections on our feet, they signal that this is the spot to leave from, we spin to teleport out, we were on chapter 6, but then chapter 9 happens

Good, bad, and normal dream all forced to revolve around the same thing: a yellow and red thing with scales.

Make it to "banned" area by getting banned, made completely of sand colored blocks (seamless), indoor confinement with a single reception desk, place a portal there so it's a good thing (would have taken forever to get there otherwise).

Competition, sports style events, grannies and ___ on one side, robots and ___ on the other, I end up winning (most were gun events), take granny as prize, it'll all be connected soon anyways so it doesn't really matter...

1/15/17: (2:00-6:30)

I'm in my house, upstairs, while everyone is sleeping. I head downstairs, and Mom (who was asleep upstairs) sits up from the couch and screams at me, seriously startling me.

I'm playing/editing a game, from the inside, via the dev mode. The beginning mostly consists of large colorful platforms (with things on them) and floating bars (balance beams), some of which have yellow "slowdown" pads on them, all floating in the sky. There are two large, worm-like dragons with dark blue shell armor flying in the sky above. I passed by the Sun and Moon God area before, and end up going back to interact with them. They stand on small platforms above a larger central one. The sun god has eight arms. They speak to me, but their dialogue implies that you shouldn't be able to see both at once- I can, because I'm still in dev mode, which I'd forgotten. Cursing, I restart in normal mode, with a lot of progress lost.

The setting is a school, where many of the teachers are special (supernatural or otherwise) in some way. A wiry black "electric gremlin" locks 33 other monsters in with it in a room to play hide and seek, or rather "hide and shock" with them. In the hallways, there are several vocaloid-like beings who have "load" put upon them whenever a video starring them is uploaded. This existence is hard on the original/first of them, a girl with shoulder-length brown hair and a yellow and pink outfit, as because of the other's popularity they won't ever leave or fade away (while she will?). Phoenix Wright is nearby, and becomes angry with her, rushing at her to attack. I'm also there, and try to hold him back, but he begins transforming into a giant blade armed monster thing, making this difficult. I try disabling him with elbow strikes to the head, and ICR what happens after. Elsewhere, in a giant gray stone cavern with a thin spread of water covering the floor (possibly in the school), there are a ton of people milling about. A mouse cursor (moved by someone unknown) that can jet water out of its tip climbs up a rock near a big deal villainess woman in a black dress. Her name is revealed to be something familiar (something with "night" in it), just before she grabs and restrains a tall black man with pink dreads, who slashes at her with his hands and wounds her arm. She's intrigued, as that hurt her more than she's been hurt in the last ___ (some number of hundreds of) years. She tears away his disguise, revealing him to be Death the Kid (Soul Eater). Because he's in danger, a portal forms and teleports him out. I'm left somewhat confused however, as the "disguise" person is still around. The scene then plays out again, fully animated this time (it wasn't originally), no different except that DTK briefly turns into an orc. Above/upstairs, a group with bulky red and yellow cloaks (like bulky, darker versions of the Journey characters) and names based on angels have been waiting to leave this place, and are disappointed when the portal (the upper half of which was sticking through the ceiling) quickly closes. Later, an older male teacher fed up with doing nothing, along with me, decide to go looking for whatever is going on around here after hearing about the animal colonies that were here being gone (only the moving pictures/drawings remain). A horse and maid were previously kidnapped from here; if we could find the horse we'd have a lead. We proceed down a long hallway with rooms in the middle, but I keep getting ultra tired, and have to keep resisting sleep. We get to the front area, which has a setup like a shop with fully stocked shelves (mostly wigs?). The teacher decides we need wigs, and steals one. I grudgingly take another (a tokyo ghoul one), but don't think I'll be able to fit my hair under it. The teacher tells me to just do the best I can until we get downstairs. I think to myself that I'm glad he's having fun at least.

1/19/18:

Game with woman in blue who dies, I wonder how it affects Mom and Ian's dreams, Ian wants me to watch Castlevania "M___ of Blood" because it ties up plot threads from Dawn of Sorrow, but I don't want to, part of it plays out IRL in front of us, guy in white suit fights the boss on an altar at the back of an elementary school library like place, using millions of spears from the walls and floor, the boss counters with vines and just as many swords.

A familiar (as in a witch's familiar) sort of thing is floating over the sink, but I don't want to accept it as one (as mine?) because I know it won't listen to me.

There are giant piles of snow stacked in mountains outside the house, in the middle of spring, the huns from Night at the Museum are going around the neighborhood hitting everyone in the face with snowballs, I get excited (this is apparently an annual event), I go outside to change my panties for some reason, dude with a sharp object in hand comes after me, I flee through tall grass back to the house, recent argument between me and Elizabeth?

1/20/18: (2:00-9:??) (Powers Dream)

I'm in a small (less than 20) group of people with "God" powers, allowing us to fly, and giving us various other abilities as well (some of us, at least?). I'm relatively new to the group (and the area?), and worry that they dislike me, especially after I did something that I didn't think was rude, but they did. I try to find a moment to apologize, but can't seem to- there are too many kids in the house that all (or at least most) of us are living at, leaving precious few moments that everyone is available at the same time. Later, I'm at a sort of futuristic store, full of white plastic tubes and such, where I pick up two small items I didn't mean to. The one in my right hand is small, white and pink, and semi-triangular, and somehow shakes me when I hold it. Nearby, a girl from my group who sort of looks like Miu (DRv3) points out a tiny hammer either in or near something on the floor, which was relevant to the adventure/plot that happened previously where we attained said flight/godhood from. Later, I'm walking with Josuke (JJBA) under a winding overpass. It starts raining the second we step under open sky, and stops when we step under the pass, repeatedly. This indicates to both of us that we're under attack, thus we summon our stands. Josuke's looks kind of like Frieza (DBZ), while mine is long and kind of insectoid, with at least six limbs and enough flexibility to curl through the air. I then warn myself, still also back at the store somehow, and am that version of myself again. I tell the girl from my group about it and she goes to get the others, before I realize that it hasn't actually happened yet (there are two different time versions of me running around, and I'm currently the earlier version). I run out of the store and down the stairs, trying to talk to someone telepathically as I do(?). I come across a girl I know/have talked to on the stairs, and tell her I need to break her arm (which we discussed previously) in order to draw "their" attention, as I can't think of any other way. She's not happy about this for obvious reasons, and so tries to jump from the stairs and break MY arm to prove that will also get their attention. This fails utterly (my arm fails to break with her weight), and I tell her that's why it won't work with me before lifting up the girl (the crowd gasps) with the same arm and tossing her into the bookcase on the nearby wall, feet first. This makes her body turn cartoonish, and other people around pull her out as I hope that's enough and rush out of the building. Even later, there are many floating pillars high in the sky, with a central larger pillar meant to be reached by jumping from the smaller ones. A guy from my group is up here, doing just that (landing on the sides), and upon noticing the three golden glints in the central pillar, starts making his way there (they indicate either treasure or entrances). He doesn't manage it via jumping, and so ends up just flying there. I follow him in, and it turns out this is just the temple of the "Jungle boss" we beat already, so there's no new treasure here. The boss is basically just moving circular sawblades on a slope that descend slowly on a conveyor belt, which need to be broken by being "bowled" over. There are cardboard cutouts of rocks that turn real when bowled off to the side for this explicit purpose. The guy didn't do great on this before, but he just didn't get it I don't think, because I do very well with no practice at all. Also, by clogging the entryway, you can basically win automatically. Once we do, the guy who monitors this place asks if we want to go up to the top again, to which I say nah, we've got it, and just fly up on my own. While doing so, I think to myself that I'm getting too used to flying, and won't know how to go without it soon, to the point that I've memorized how it feels (like being "lifted" by the inside of the back of the shoulders/heart area). It then "slips" out of me in midair, which I panic about ("Hey!")- it feels as if God (who I envision as a long haired black guy made of stars and space) is lifting me up by my shirt.

In Grandma's room, whole slabs of my leg meat suddenly fall out, causing me to fall to my knees. My leg looks like raw chicken on the inside, and a large shard of rough, bloody bone comes out from just above my ankle, along with a chunk of the side of my foot. It doesn't hurt, but I still panic, and ask Mom what to do... and she just tells me to put it back.

Girl with seven different voices in her head, she's a parahuman, she sings to Lung (Worm), which is hilarious, on the Christmas before, a nerdy boy (who was the girl?) is driving, his different personalities are taking over intermittently, he gets in trouble due to something that happens in the car.

Sentient, pyramid shaped guy made of rock called Mr. Volcano, he's actually really tiny, church area where the ground is covered in high dark water that can partially(?) be walked over, all the buildings are black, giant orb building I get on top of, see family below and wave, will have to backtrack all the way if I want to get to them though.

1/21/18:

I get out of (my) bed, wander out to the theater area, starscape ceiling everyone is staring at, find family in the crowd, was backstage earlier (metal area with green room in back) that I was seen in.

There's a weird researcher looking guy in my bed, he all but tries to molest me, I know he's not real but still feel him poking me under the armpit, to get rid of him I sit up fully, say when I look up he'll be gone, and he vanishes.

1/22/18: (Powers Dream?)

Check-in room for an unfinished movie (early access?), I look like a woman with dark hair in a suit and have a fake ID/page to get in (the result of disguise magic?), guy with "Taurus" in his name tries to get in, I can tell he's also disguised/fake by what he says, somehow he's revealed to the rest of the room, he escapes into the dark-bluish dungeon/labyrinth outside, Ben 10 (or someone similar) pursues in a tiny, fast, white spider form (Kumoko?)

1/23/18: (1:3?- 6:40)

Four people meet up at the center of a town after a period of time, and show off proof of what they beat in order to let them proceed. Two did the normal version, one did a lesser version, and the last did something strange. They enter an aqua green palace, and somehow complete several “incorrect” fights.

1/26/18: (2:50-10:00)

Giant waterfall with bumpy, multicolored ground all around, the waterfall itself and the ground goes all around the area, it has a complicated "fall", Ian and I are there?

Robin, Jason, and Anne (The Wotch) are in a pink, cluttered bedroom, Robin is wearing a weird ninja outfit thing, they transform, Robin turns female and his clothes constrict into a really tight dress, later, on a lawn, Anne straight up admits to a guy (cheerfully) that she's altered his memory, with a display on a laptop that has a bunch of gold rectangles together and flashing, missing red ones to display the missing memories.

Someone is coming after an enemy “boss”, but it's actually a decoy, being issued commands by a scientist girl (the real final boss, so to speak). She goes through the underneath of her base to change the wires and such, where the light is dark purplish.

Guy who makes those around him extremely clumsy and can make himself Happosai-sized, making him very hard to hit or catch, I was on a team to guard against/catch him previously, one of the girls on the team gets frustrated enough to suggest arming everyone with guns, I corner him in a mall, in an area that's sort of like a giant tube, I still can't manage to hit him though, he goes on to be an ice skater, in the same mall someone is trying to use their henchman to kill people, but they're too incompetent, I'm on to them.

1/27/18: (2:00-9:30) (Powers Dream)

In a flat, "outer space" void, there is a spiral of gymnastic mats that leads to the Five God Dragon (Yugioh) at the glowing center, you can step outside the spiral of mats too, but that's no fun, there are enormous, whale-sized fish under the blackness that you can catch.

I'm a beautiful female ninja with shiny black hair and an elegant pink and green (seemingly peach inspired) outfit that looks like a mix between a dress and robes, walking through a town. It is possible to obtain small chests there (both normal brown and aqua green ones) from events, the latter only being openable with keys obtained from fights. There is a free hot spring that I want to go to, but I get interrupted before I can, and end up stuck going to a snowy mountain area for a mission. The entire time I just want to get back to the hot spring, to the point that I keep letting my clothes partially slip off. The guards, of which there are two lines on either side in front of me, find this very weird. I drop into the below-ground snow tunnel they are standing over to begin my mission.

I'm in a mansion/dungeon that anyone who enters supposedly only has a single night to escape. However, you actually have an endless amount of time, because time will stop progressing outside it the moment you enter. I'm dressed in a black leotard with gold accents along the sides. Coming up from a dark below ground area, I progress through an area of enemies that are no longer tough for me to beat (though they're destroyed before I can encounter them, via horizontal lightning), picking up the lightning items they drop. I think to myself that I need something blunter to kill them, since I want the kind of items they'll drop if I use a blunt weapon. I've explored most of the place, but have no idea where to go now. There is a rule that I need to stay out of the sight of the mansion's guards/servants, which poses a problem as there is one crouched right in front of the door to get back to the entryway (their stare is seen as a red cone of light). I hit the lights from my end (which only lasts a few seconds) and scamper out, climbing up a ladder across the way on to a catwalk. There are buttons on the wall to the left to press, and a gathering of people up ahead of me, one of whom is a kid who will alert the adults in 7 seconds that I'm here. It's possible to bribe him, and I have before, but I don't this time, instead swinging to a slightly lower catwalk, followed by another. I then fall/slide down a pit that leads to a furnace, turning into Bendy (Bendy and the Ink Machine) and moving off into a smaller side-tunnel.

1/29/18:

Video game/board game/obstacle course, Mario-like bit with aqua blue flooring and small electrified bits to jump around, upper area with movable present like boxes.

1/30/18:

The Protagonist (DDLC) was meant to be a girl from the start, but was changed. He enters a mall where there is a large flashy display overhead with the DDLC girls on it. Later, it turns out Monika has been with us (in the real world) the entire time, possibly due to a game glitch caused by a poster. Furthermore, because of someone's severed hand, she is  omnipresent/everywhere at once at all times. She can control things by using her left hand for the mouse and her right for the keyboard (or the cursor, which is separate from the mouse?), which she reveals while in a car with me and _____ while suffering from awareness overload.

In a store, I "hatch" shriveled, radioactive bats. There are bats that "counter" them that look more like bluish, quadrapedal lizards the size of large dogs, most of which are sealed off in a toxic/radioactive factory mostly composed of tunnels, which ends up becoming the "endgame" area we have to traverse. Inside, the Homestuck trolls are sprawled out in a tunnel to the left, looking dead (they aren't), and for some reason we start a cookout just inside the entrance.

[muzaffar1969]

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What is all this VR, AR, MR stuff? My last day at SXSW 2017.

I spent my final day of South By Southwest on the VR/AR track. It was the official open for those sessions, but it would be the only one of the three days I could experience. As much as I would have loved to learn more, I’d arrived on March 10th for the start of the design sessions, so having even a single day of the AR/VR was great.

As I said, though, it was the only day I’d have with this emerging technology space, so I wanted to get the most out of it. That boiled down to a series of lines (how shocking!). Starting at 11 AM, I bounced from session to session. I was thankful that most of my rooms were in the JW Marriot, as it helped ease my schedule. The day went something like this:

Speed walk to venue.

Hop in long line. Ask at least three people and a volunteer if I was in the right line (when they bend around corners, it’s hard to tell).

Stand for 10–15 minutes.

Bounce into the next line over when I hear I’m in the wrong line.

Stand for 30–45 minutes.

Talk to people in the surrounding area to keep boredom from creeping in (after all, talking to new people is some of the fun).

Go into session.

Get my “sardine” on (they really cram us into those rooms).

Furiously take notes.

Run to bathroom.

Sprint to corner store for an over-priced, pre-packaged sandwich and be grateful to have anything to eat in line.

Hop into next line which already has 50–100 people in it.

All of this became so normal over the last week that it the oddest part of the day was when my group went for dinner and we didn’t have to wait in line… at all.

Of the five sessions I tackled, only one was on a topic other than VR/AR. Titled “Lo-Fi Museum Moments in a Digital World,” this was the only specifically-museum session I attended. I didn’t have any lightbulb moments, though, so I’ll skip over that one to get into VR.

Participants sit in one of around twenty different VR booths.

Before I get into today’s sessions, a little about the differences between VR, AR and MR for context.

The Oculus Rift. Photo courtesy of Oculus.com

VR — Virtual Reality: immerses a single user (almost exclusively) in a virtual world. This means completely shutting out the real world by way of vision. VR may also incorporate sound, movement, and sometimes feelings (i.e. wind blowing on your face). This is primarily used for gaming right now, but film makers are stepping into the space at a rapid rate.

The Birdly uses movement, wind, action, sound, and visuals to create their VR world.

The Microsoft HoloLens. Photo courtesy of Microsoft.

AR — Augmented Reality: combines the real world and the virtual world in seamless and interactive ways. While this technology is still in it’s theoretical infancy, progress is rapid. Ultimately, this will be a lifestyle product which you use even more than your smartphone. Most daily interactions with people, products, brands, etc. will filter through your personal AR device.

MR — Mixed Reality: this is a term which can, for all intents and purposes, be interchanged with AR. With this space emerging as rapidly as it has, businesses and consumers have yet to settle on a consistent name. As it stands, AR seems to be the favored term, but perhaps Apple will settle the debate by naming theirs the iAR.

I’ll apologize for the stock imagery used. Surprisingly, this batch of sessions opted for visual-less presentations. I found it odd considering the industry, but it did help me focus on the content. For the sake of giving credit where credit is due, the photo at the beginning of this blog is courtesy of Microsoft.

OK, onto the good stuff!

A common theme among the panels was about how much this industry will alter the way in which we interact with absolutely everything. While that may seem obvious, let’s dive into it a bit deeper.

We currently live in digital 2D spaces. Facebook is 2D (even the 360 videos are viewed on 2D). Texting is 2D. FaceTime is 2D. Now, imagine all of that, and more, in a 3D space. How would web design change if instead of up/down and left/right scrolling, the actual webpage took up a 3D space? What if you learned physically? Instead of studying pictures of human anatomy, you got to look at all parts of a human body — inside and out — while the interface assisted you.

This will actually be a more natural interaction for us, as we physically operate in 3D, so the transitions should be pretty easy (and freaking cool!).

This brings me to a poignant moment from one of the sessions. While we are all currently​ excited for the possibilities and the fun of swimming underwater as part of a new video game, practical and long term application has yet to be created. I believe it was Mark Cuban who said it, but forgive me I’m wrong, as I heard it third hand, but AR/VR will not have “arrived” until we do mundane and boring things with it.

So, who and how are we determining what these mundane and boring things? I’m sure there’s think tanks pulling all-nighters contemplating how we’ll be able to use our toaster by blinking, and research is already being done in drastically different industries.

The medical community has discovered VR is more effective than morphine for pain management in the burn units.

Following a year of VR therapy, paraplegics participating in a study began to regain control of certain functions, such as bladder control.

While I am unable to cite these studies since they were discussed briefly in a session, just imagine the power these technologies may bring to changing our physical being.

Image courtesy of The Medical Futurist.

What will we learn about each other?

An interesting concept came up in my very last SXSW session. A fellow on the panel, by the name of Ola Bjorling, was in the midst of discussing how film makers will go about changing the movie industry and how a new time of videographic research is underway:

what might we learn about individuals while they are in private experiences.

when no one else is looking, what do you choose to view within your virtual space?

More to the point regarding filming and controlling a person’s viewpoint during a 360 experience, he advised videographers and directors to be less concerned with whether they can successfully​ control the public’s 15° of focus. As he put it, “if you have an interesting scene over here, and the viewers opts to stare at a blank wall, he has other issues.”

They are predicting that within just four years, you may be able to watch your favorite sports team play a game on your kitchen table. Image courtesy of Microsoft.

A few things I will remember going into the future (feel free to use these for yourself, too):

I don’t think we will be able to “opt out” of this one. Whereas some have chosen to keep their old flip phones instead of upgrading to a smartphone, I doubt that will be an option, going forward. Not only will more and more items begin to incorporate technology, this new tech will undoubtedly be a requirement for operating in the real world (i.e. unmanned checkout counters).

Maybe hold off on any new facial piercings for a while. Until we get a more stable form to the wearables, we can’t predict how they’ll sit on our faces/bodies. Certain existing headsets get caught on my nose stud, and I don’t think the visual result is pleasing for anyone involved.

These spaces are new. We need to be both patient and impatient. Patience allows us to get the quality products we want while giving the infrastructure space to catch up. Impatience is what’s driving the industry forward.

Keep some Pepto nearby when using the current VR headsets. Poorly shot video will lead to “hurl moments” every time.

Expose kids to these things. They will live in this future world longer than us, so let’s give them a leg up.

Here ends my daily SXSW 2017 blogs. I don’t think I made too much of a dink of myself in Austin, and I only have about eight new bruises to prove my speed walking is not yet up to par. All-in-all, a successful and rewarding journey (I say as I smack my head on an overhead cabinet).

What is all this VR, AR, MR stuff? My last day at SXSW 2017. was originally published in Austin Startups on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

March 16, 2017 at 09:00AM http://ift.tt/2ncyCm5 from Scottie Gardonio http://ift.tt/2ncyCm5