#Heck even there's another upcoming series that yet been revealed! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yeonchi · 1 year

Text

Doctor Who 10 for 10 Part 8/10: Series 8

After Series 5 and 6 established a status quo for the Matt Smith era, Series 7 saw it being shaken up in numerous ways. With Peter Capaldi becoming the new Doctor following Smith’s departure, Series 8 would establish a new status quo in a darker, yet down-to-earth series compared to previous ones as the production team prepared to ride the waves from the 50th Anniversary. While there was no split series like there was in Series 6 and 7, the series wouldn’t start until August. Since fans had gotten used to this autumn start thanks to the split series, they didn’t seem to mind that the usual Doctor Who schedule for the year had been broken. In addition, the definition of “13 episodes” was changed to mean “12 episodes and a Christmas Special”, not that it was much of a problem for fans including myself.

Although 2014 was the year I intended to wind down and focus on my high school studies, various circumstances, such as the aftermath of the 50th Anniversary year, led to me deciding to keep the fires burning for another year, and so I decided to keep Doctor Who going in my personal project for two more series, the latter of which would “premiere” at the same time as the premiere of the BBC Series 8. So let’s jump into the retrospective for Series 8 and relive the experience of riding the wave from the 50th Anniversary just as the production team and fandom did.

1. The World Tour and live events

Peter Capaldi was revealed to the world as the Twelfth Doctor in a live event special hosted by Zoe Ball on 4 August 2013. Matt Smith did not participate in the live event, but he was interviewed for it along with a few other special guests. This would later be followed up with another live event special on 23 November following the broadcast of The Day of the Doctor, which infamously featured a crossover with the boy band One Direction (more like Louis and Niall), who were also doing their own live event, 1D Day, in Los Angeles to promote their new album, and were having technical difficulties that impacted their crossover with the Doctor Who event, not to mention the fact that despite Zoe Ball’s claims, they hadn’t watched The Day of the Doctor, let alone the series, so their clearly prepared questions were apparently inappropriate to the occasion.

Said event also featured actors who played Doctors and companions in the classic series and their treatment was regarded as disrespectful, particularly the infamous moment when Rick Edwards accidentally sat on Katy Manning and crudely tried to cover it up, which would probably be considered sexual assault in the post-#MeToo era.

After completing their filming on the series in August 2014, before the premiere of Series 8, Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman and Steven Moffat embarked on a world tour to promote the upcoming series in Cardiff, London, Seoul, Sydney, New York, Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro. I don’t recall the Chibnall era doing anything like this; heck, even Jodie Whittaker’s reveal in 2017 was just a minute-long minisode with a teaser that was just as long, and it was broadcast during Wimbledon. This shows that the Moffat era did better with marketing and promotion compared to the Chibnall era (the RTD era fitting in between them).

2. Humble returns

As is obvious, Jenna Coleman would reprise her role as Clara Oswald for Series 8, her character now a teacher at Coal Hill School to commemorate the 50th Anniversary. Peter Capaldi’s first episode, Deep Breath, also featured the return of the Paternoster Gang for what would be their final on-screen appearance. The Clockwork Droids make a return following their debut eight years prior in Series 2’s The Girl in the Fireplace, being assigned as the crew of a sister ship to the one that appeared in said episode, though the Doctor doesn’t seem to remember them.

The episode starts off with a female dinosaur in the middle of the Thames during the 1890s. The dinosaur coughs up the TARDIS, which had been swallowed by her when it crashed in prehistoric Earth. The Doctor and Clara came out of the TARDIS and the former was taken back to the Paternoster Gang’s home when he collapsed due to his post-regenerative trauma. Later that night, the Doctor hears the dinosaur in pain and heads outside to promise that he will take her home, only to see her spontaneously combust. Both the Doctor and the Paternoster Gang rush to the Thames, where the Doctor points out that the point, in regards to what the important question is they should be asking, isn’t actually who could have done this, let alone how; the point is actually if there have been any similar murders. The Doctor jumps into the Thames as he takes up the case, which leads the Paternoster Gang to do so as well.

The next morning, the Doctor stumbles into an alley, wondering and ranting to a nearby tramp why he has the face he has. He then notices a newspaper with an article about spontaneous combustion and takes the tramp’s coat in exchange for his favourite watch. Meanwhile, Clara sees a notice addressed to the “Impossible Girl” in a newspaper and deduces that the Doctor wants to meet her at Mancini’s Family Restaurant. Clara heads there and is met by the Doctor, who had also noticed the notice, but didn’t place it himself. As they argue over who could have placed the notice, the Doctor and Clara were brought down to the Clockwork Droids’ ship, where they saw the Half-Face Man recharging itself; the Clockwork Droids had been harvesting the flesh and organs from humans as they rotted and combusted the bodies to hide the evidence of mutilation.

As the Doctor and Clara are separated, Clara gets the idea to hold her breath so that the Droids won’t notice her breathing, but she eventually passes out and is brought in front of the Half-Face Man. By using her experiences from her first days as a teacher, Clara manages to elicit information about the Droids’ intentions to reach the Promised Land before the Doctor rejoins her, having changed his clothes. The Doctor questions the Half-Face Man as to why he put the message in the newspaper to bring him and Clara to the restaurant, only to realise that he didn’t do it.

The Paternoster Gang are summoned to fight the Droids in the ship. The Half-Face Man heads back up to the restaurant, which is actually an escape pod, with the Doctor following. As the Doctor confronts the Half-Face Man, convincing him that there is no Promised Land and that he has replaced every single part of himself to the point where there is no trace of his original self. Down in the ship, the Paternoster Gang and Clara struggle against the other Droids until Clara tells them all to hold their breaths. Despite their best efforts (and Vastra sharing her oxygen with Jenny by way of a kiss), they are unable to hold on further when Vastra stops Strax from killing himself. It is then that all the Droids suddenly deactivate, the Half-Face Man being impaled on top of a clock tower. Whether the Doctor pushed him or the Half-Face Man jumped is open to interpretation, though if I had to say, I would have to say that the Doctor drove the Half-Face Man to jump, giving us a glimpse of the darker Doctor and darker storylines the Capaldi era had to offer.

Clara heads back to the present day with the Doctor, now with the mystery of the woman in the shop brought to the forefront from the notice in the newspaper as the Doctor surmises that there is a woman who is very keen that they stay together. Clara gets a call from the Eleventh Doctor, calling her from Trenzalore just before his regeneration finished, to tell her that his new incarnation will need her more than she can imagine.

Meanwhile, the Half-Face Man finds himself in a garden, where he is met by Missy, who tells him that he has made it to the Promised Land. More on her later.

Deep Breath is an extended episode that manages to bridge the Capaldi era with the Smith era while still giving fans a glimpse of the darker storyline to come. Matt Smith’s cameo was filmed towards the end of the filming for The Time of the Doctor, solidifying the episode’s status as a bridging episode between the two eras. Like The Day of the Doctor before it, Deep Breath also received a cinematic release, coupled with a Paternoster Gang prequel that was really Strax describing the previous Doctors; the Doctor Who Extra instalment for the episode (to replace Doctor Who Confidential); and for UK screenings on 23 August 2014, there was also a live Q&A hosted by Zoe Ball.

3. The Capaldi title sequence

The title sequence for the Capaldi era episodes was designed by Billy Hanshaw, aka billydakiduk on YouTube. He was scouted by Steven Moffat after seeing his original concept title sequence from September 2013 and decided to refine the idea for the new title sequence. The final product was a complete subversion of the usual Time Vortex sequence as the camera goes through some clockwork, a spiral of Roman clock face numbers and through some circling planets. Whatever “Time Vortex” was shown towards the end was not shown at any point in the Capaldi era - even the Time Vortex used in Twice Upon A Time was completely different. The titles also showed the Doctor’s eyes in a throwback to his debut cameo instead of his face as was done during Series 7 Part 2.

Some episodes saw variations to the opening sequence, such as Before the Flood having a rock version of the theme, Heaven Sent only having Peter Capaldi being credited, or the 2014 and 2015 Christmas Specials having Chrismassy flairs to them; this was omitted for the 2016 and 2017 Christmas Specials.

For some reason, the production team managed to screw up the consistency of the title sequence; at least 10 of the Capaldi era’s 40 episodes had titles that were out of sync with the theme music, most notoriously seen in Face the Raven that had the titles run five seconds ahead of the music. At the same time, fans also noticed inconsistencies in the formatting of the episode title and writer credits, which is honestly baffling as I wonder if no template was used or if no quality control was taken.

For the Series 8 and 9 of Doctor Who in my personal project, I opted to use two of NeonVisual’s title sequences from 2013 which were clearly inspired from the Series 7 Part 2 title sequence. Do you think they would have worked better had the BBC hired NeonVisual instead? Feel free to let me know.

4. A Good Dalek

Into the Dalek has the Doctor discover a Dalek that had turned good. In going inside the Dalek’s casing in an attempt to repair it, during which it was discovered that the Dalek turning good was caused by damage to his power source, the Doctor accidentally reverted Rusty, the name he gave the Dalek, to its original programming.

The Doctor is seemingly proven right that there can be no such thing as a good Dalek, but Clara convinces him that this isn’t what they learnt, and so the Doctor has Clara and the rest of the crew find the memory that made the Dalek turn good which he goes face-to-eye with Rusty. In doing so, Rusty managed to tap into the Doctor’s hatred for the Daleks, causing him to turn on the Daleks and unwittingly save the crew of the Aristotle. This disappoints the Doctor as this outcome was not what he was trying to get Rusty to see.

This episode starts a story arc where the Doctor begins to question whether he is a good man after everything he has been through following the Time War. It may seem a bit hard to tell given the Doctor’s abrasiveness throughout the series, but the Doctor manages to work it out for himself in the end.

5. The mysteries that befall us

Listen is a surreal episode that asks whether people are truly alone when they are alone while also setting up some mysteries that are left answered. After coming home from a disastrous date with Danny Pink (we’ll talk about him next), Clara is picked up by the Doctor, who immediately begins to explore his hypotheses with her, that at one point, everyone has dreamt about someone grabbing their ankle from under the bed while they are alone in their bedrooms. The Doctor connects Clara to the TARDIS telepathic circuits and tries to get her to focus on the time she had the dream, only to end up at a children’s home in mid-90’s Gloucester.

At the children’s home, eerie things happen to the night manager, which is revealed to have been the Doctor stealing his coffee, and Clara meets a boy named Rupert Pink, which she deduces is actually a younger Danny. During this encounter, a figure emerges under the blanket of Rupert’s bed and the Doctor gets the idea to have Rupert and Clara turn their backs to it, allowing it to leave without revealing itself to them. The Doctor poses a theory that it could have been one of Rupert’s friends playing a prank on him, or it actually isn’t. Some fans pose a theory that it was a Floof, a monster with uncanny hiding abilities that cause mischief, from one of Steven Moffat’s short stories written in 2006, but Moffat claims that he doesn’t remember writing it. I choose to believe there actually was a creature under there because for it to actually just be one of Rupert’s friends would be anti-climatic. After Clara puts some toy soldiers under Rupert’s bed to guard him, with one of the soldiers not having a gun which Rupert calls Dan the soldier man, the Doctor then wipes Rupert’s brain of the encounter, leaving him with a dream about him becoming Dan the soldier man.

Clara has the Doctor return her to her date with Danny, but is then called away by a spaceman, which leads Danny to leave. Clara follows the spaceman into the TARDIS and the spaceman is revealed to be Colonel Orson Pink from a hundred years in the future; strangely, Orson doesn’t have any old family photographs of Clara. The Doctor had activated the TARDIS telepathic circuits and it brought him to where Orson was at the end of the universe when he was only supposed to go a week into the future; he was stranded there for six months. When the Doctor travels back to the end of the universe, he and Clara discover that Orson was apparently being threatened by unknown creatures, given how he had to remind himself not to open the door to the capsule. Clara discovers that Orson has a toy of Dan the soldier man, with him saying that it is a family heirloom passed down for good luck.

The Doctor decides to wait for whatever is lurking outside the capsule at night; when strange things begin happening, the Doctor has Clara go back into the TARDIS while he uses his sonic screwdriver to unlock the door. When the air shell is breached, causing all the air to be sucked out and potentially the Doctor with it, Orson rescues the Doctor and brings him back to the TARDIS before Clara uses the telepathic circuits to leave.

The TARDIS lands in a barn and Clara heads out. She sees a crying child under a blanket in a bed, but is forced to hide under it when two people come into the barn. Through their conversation, Clara realises that she has gone back to Gallifrey during the Doctor’s childhood. Once the two people leave, the Doctor regains consciousness inside the TARDIS. The boy, the child Doctor, hears the Doctor and gets up, only for Clara to grab his ankle, resulting in her creating the nightmare the Doctor was investigating in the first place. Clara tells the child Doctor about how fear is a superpower and how he will return to the barn on a day when he will be very afraid, referring to the day when the War Doctor arrived at the barn to detonate the Moment. After leaving Dan the soldier man to stand guard under the child Doctor’s bed, Clara returns to the TARDIS and has the Doctor promise her to never find out where they just were before returning Orson back to his time and taking Clara home.

We’ve theorised who the monster was in Rupert’s bed, so who was the monster apparently terrorising Orson at the end of the universe? My theory for what the planet is, based on other people’s theories and what we would see later on, is that it is a dying Gallifrey at the end of everything. As for the monsters? A Big Finish audio speculates that it was River Song and Jack Harkness playing a prank on Orson and that the planet he was on was actually Gallifrey, but personally, it could be another Floof for all I care.

Listen may be an unsatisfying episode in terms of mystery, but it is still kind of satisfying in that it gives the Doctor good character development while also giving Clara another chance to be the Impossible Girl. The Doctor and Clara heading into Danny’s past as Rupert might have brought up some bad vibes I got from the Impossible Girl arc, but they only went to one point and the Doctor scrambled Rupert’s mind at the end, so it’s kind of okay where that’s concerned. Admittedly, the Doctor’s character development in this episode lost its poignancy when the Timeless Child revelation came out, but it’s still an alright episode nonetheless.

6. PE

This section is funnily ironic to me because at high school, I actually had a teacher (or two) who taught PE and maths.

Series 8 introduces a new love interest for Clara in the name of Danny Pink, played by Samuel Anderson, to divert Clara’s focus from the Doctor and to make the Twelfth Doctor less of a romantic compared to previous incarnations during the revived series. Danny was a soldier in the army who served as a sergeant in the Middle East before leaving after having a “bad day”. He became a maths teacher at Coal Hill School and set up the Coal Hill Cadets to teach students the disciplines and morals of a soldier. Danny was introduced to Clara and after some awkwardness and “family stuff”, they go on their first date in Listen, which goes about as well as you would expect. In trying to hide her travels with the Doctor, Danny got defensive and asked Clara to tell the truth before having enough and deciding to leave. However, Clara reconciles with Danny at the end of the episode.

Two episodes later in The Caretaker, Clara is shown struggling to balance her real life with her Doctor life and things go from bad to worse for her when the Doctor decides to go deep cover at Coal Hill as a caretaker in order to track down a Skovox Blitzer. When the Doctor is introduced to Danny, the Doctor immediately assumes he is a PE teacher based on his history as a soldier. The Doctor then sees Clara with another teacher named Adrian and is happy for her, assuming that Adrian is the boyfriend Clara has been talking about due to the resemblance to his previous incarnation.

That night, as the Doctor lays a trap for the Skovox Blitzer and prepares to lure it in, Danny sees the chronodyne generators placed around the school and moves them, resulting in the Skovox Blitzer being transported two days forward instead of billions of years. Danny discovers Clara’s familiarity with the Doctor and Clara tells him about her adventures with the Doctor.

On parents’ evening, Clara uses an invisibility watch to sneak Danny onto the TARDIS, but the Doctor is able to detect him, which results in the two having an argument during which Danny calls the Doctor an officer in contrast to him being a former soldier. Later, during the interviews, the Skovox Blitzer returns and the Doctor has Clara distract it while he gets a contingency plan ready. Clara manages to lure it to where the Doctor is; the Doctor impersonates its superior and tries to get it to shut itself down, but he forgot to enter the final input code and the Skovox Blitzer begins to self-destruct. It is then that Danny comes in, using the invisibility watch to buy the Doctor a few more seconds. The Doctor successfully gets the Skovox Blitzer to shut down before setting it adrift in space.

Looking back, I have mixed feelings about Danny. His demands for Clara to tell him the truth about her travels with the Doctor kind of seem controlling, particularly since they hadn’t been dating for long, but I kind of like how he calls out the soldier-officer dynamic with the Doctor, in that the officers push their soldiers and make them stronger until they find themselves doing things they never thought they would have to do. In the end, there really isn’t much to Danny other than he was a soldier who left on a bad day and the Doctor doesn’t respect him because he doesn’t respect soldiers. I really think Moffat could have done more with Danny because it felt like the only reason he was there was so we could have a “love triangle” of sorts.

On a side note, The Caretaker would be Gareth Roberts’ final work on the series. The transphobia thing wouldn’t come until three years later (so your opinions regarding it, whether you agree or disagree with him on the whole thing, are irrelevant to this paragraph), but apparently Roberts came into conflict with the production team on set, then made public comments denigrating Moffat and Capaldi, thus he was not rehired for future series. This probably might be a rumour so you don’t have to take it that seriously.

7. Coal Hill School

Following its return in The Day of the Doctor for the 50th Anniversary, Coal Hill School plays a significant role in Series 8, further showing that Capaldi’s first series as the Doctor is a more down-to-earth one. Clara is now a teacher at the school, where it and its students are shown prominently at various points throughout the series.

Coal Hill School was first shown in An Unearthly Child as the school where the Doctor’s granddaughter, Susan Foreman, attended and her teachers, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, taught science and history respectively. The school would not return again until Remembrance of the Daleks in 1988 for the 25th Anniversary season. Sadly, Coal Hill School would only make a brief appearance at the start of Series 9 before it was never shown or mentioned again.

In October 2016, a spinoff named Class premiered on BBC Three (which had become a streaming-exclusive channel by then) which prominently featured Coal Hill School and was written by Patrick Ness. The school was shown to be renovated since its last appearance at the start of Series 9. The Doctor also made a short appearance in the spinoff’s first episode and there were rumours that the 2016 Christmas Special was to be a crossover, but it ultimately never eventuated and Class was never renewed for another series.

To restate my own words from my review of Village of the Angels, I felt that the series was okay, but if it wasn’t cancelled, I probably would have liked it more. Personally, the “renovation” of Coal Hill School was a waste of time given what transpired and there is no way a whole school can be rebuilt in under a year without significant interruptions. I’ve seen individual buildings being built during my time in school, but not every building. The finale also teased something epic involving the Weeping Angels, but we never get to see what happened due to the cancellation of the series. Frankly, it’d be better if we just pretended that the series never existed and Coal Hill School was never renovated.

I know Class premiered between Series 9 and 10, but I thought I’d talk about it now and get it over with so I don’t have to later.

8. Out of line?

Midway through the series, the Doctor and Clara have a falling out because of something the Doctor did. While I didn’t think much of it when I first watched it, I would have to argue that after rewatching it recently, the Doctor was being out of line.

Kill the Moon begins with Clara asking the Doctor to tell Courtney Woods that she is special after he told her that she wasn’t, which leads to the Doctor offering to make Courtney the first woman on the moon. The three of them head to the moon in 2049 where they find a hundred nuclear bombs in a recycled space shuttle. It is then that they realise that they are actually on their way to the moon and upon landing, they are met by a crew led by Captain Lundvik, who have come to destroy the moon as its increased mass is causing chaos on Earth with high tides everywhere at once and satellites being whacked out of orbit.

As the group investigates, the Doctor learns that the moon is actually an egg for some creature and that it is about to hatch, which is causing the moon to gain mass. Lundvik is intent on killing it, but Clara and Courtney are against killing it. It is at this point that the Doctor decides to leave and let the three remaining females make the decision that will decide the future of humanity, which angers Clara. When ground control makes contact with the three, Clara decides to make a broadcast to humanity, giving them 45 minutes to decide if they should kill the creature or let it live. Humanity votes to kill the creature, but just at the last moment, Clara defies public opinion and stops the detonation. It is then that the Doctor returns to pick them up and take them back to Earth, where they see the creature hatching and laying a new egg.

Once Lundvik and Courtney have left the TARDIS, Clara becomes angry at the Doctor because she had to make a pivotal decision for humanity’s future and the Doctor knew what would happen, yet still lied to her and left her to decide. And honestly, I kind of have to agree with Clara berating the Doctor at the end, because Earth might as well be his home if he spends so much time there and his actual home planet is destroyed. Also, as crass as he may be, it’s not in the Doctor’s nature to run away in a crisis involving an entire planet. Pompeii may be one city and its destruction a fixed point in time, but this is the future we are talking about and it’s not just one city, it’s an entire planet he spends a lot of time on, so the least the Doctor could do was be there for Clara and guide her to make the right decision.

Clara meets with Danny and she tells him what happened, but Danny tells her to finish things with the Doctor when she is no longer angry with him. The Doctor and Clara decide to have one last hurrah and we move onto Mummy on the Orient Express, a double-banked companion-lite episode produced alongside the Doctor-lite episode Flatline, which would premiere the following week.

Running off a throwaway line from the end of The Big Bang, the Doctor and Clara board a space train known as the Orient Express, or rather a replica of it. As some people are killed by a mummy that only they could see, giving them 66 seconds before they would die, the Doctor is separated from Clara, who is with a passenger named Maisie, and learns that the train is a front for an investigation into the mummy, known as the Foretold, led by an evil computer known as Gus. Several more people die as the Doctor tries to work out what the Foretold is, then when Maisie was the next person to be targeted, Clara reunites with the Doctor and he tells her that Gus had tried to lure him onto the TARDIS before, meaning that he lied to her again and that he made her lie to get Maisie to where the Doctor was.

The Foretold appears to Maisie and the Doctor uses some equipment to make himself the target instead. In the ensuing 66 seconds, the Doctor manages to deduce that the Foretold is actually an ancient soldier, wounded in battle and augmented with equipment that wouldn’t let him die until the war was over. At the end of the 66 seconds, the Doctor surrenders to the Foretold. Everyone is suddenly able to see it as it disintegrates into dust. With the mystery now solved, Gus removes the air from the train, but the Doctor uses the Foretold’s teleporter to teleport everyone away, however when he tried to hack Gus from the TARDIS to find out who was behind it, it triggered a failsafe that blew up the train.

In the end, Clara gains a better understanding of the Doctor and decides to lie to Danny about leaving him while also deciding to stay with the Doctor. This is the turning point where Clara is pushed to become more like the Doctor, with Flatline forcing Clara to essentially be him when the TARDIS gets shrunken with the Doctor still inside. It’s an okay resolution to their conflict, but I don’t think it should have happened in the first place.

9. What is death?

Teasers of Missy and the Nethersphere, also known as the Promised Land, are scattered throughout the series. When I started watching the series, I was expecting at least one character to die in every episode and be sent to the Neversphere, but I suppose doing that would give away the mystery.

In Dark Water, Clara calls Danny in an attempt to tell him the truth about her travels with the Doctor before he gets to her flat. While Clara complains about the way Danny says “I love you” to her, Danny is hit by a car or a milk float driven by Missy (according to extended media) and dies. Clara appears apathetic to Danny’s death, but in truth, she is absolutely distraught, which leads her to use a sleep patch on the Doctor. Landing the TARDIS next to a volcano, Clara tries to blackmail the Doctor into saving Danny by throwing a key away every time he says no to her. She then suddenly throws the rest of the keys away, leaving her with one of the seven keys left. After throwing the last key away, Clara is overcome by the impact of what she did when the Doctor reveals that they are still in the TARDIS, having worked out what Clara was doing and using the sleep patch back on her. The Doctor, having seen how far Clara would go to be with Danny, agrees to help find him and they are led to the 3W Institute.

Meanwhile, Danny is brought to the Nethersphere where he is greeted by Seb, an AI interface created by Missy. Upon arrival, there was a request to meet him from someone, namely a boy he accidentally killed during his time as a soldier in Afghanistan which led to him leaving the army. Danny meets the boy and tries to apologise, but he runs away. Soon, Danny gets a call from Clara, who was put into contact with him from the outside. Clara, on the Doctor’s advice, tries to make sure that the Danny she is speaking to is real by having him say something only he could say, but when he keeps telling her “I love you” in a manner unsatisfactory to Clara, she ends the call.

The Doctor discovers that the Nethersphere is actually a Gallifreyan matrix data slice, that 3W is actually a front for converting dead bodies into Cybermen, and that Missy is actually the Master in a new female incarnation. Danny is given the choice to delete his emotions, but the sight of the boy behind him leads him to refuse.

Continuing with Death in Heaven, 91 Cybermen are assembled outside St Paul’s Cathedral and people are taking pictures with them when Kate Stewart, Osgood and UNIT show up. Suddenly, the Cybermen fly into the sky and hover above a British city before self-destructing and spreading Cyber-pollen into the graveyards and morgues, converting the dead into Cybermen. The Doctor and Missy are brought onboard Boat One, where the Doctor is appointed President of Earth in accordance with incursion protocols. As the Doctor discusses what is happening with the UNIT forces, Missy kills Osgood and summons the Cybermen to Boat One. After revealing that she was the woman in the shop who brought the Doctor and Clara together, then kept them together by putting the notice in the newspaper, Missy sends Kate flying out of Boat One before teleporting away. The Doctor hangs on for dear life but he ends up falling out as well until he uses his TARDIS key to summon it to him.

Meanwhile, Clara poses as the Doctor in an attempt to evade the Cybermen, furthering her character development as a mirror of the Doctor. The episode also goes so far as to have the title sequence feature Jenna Coleman’s name before Peter Capaldi’s and also feature Clara’s eyes instead of the Doctor’s. However, the now-converted Danny manages to call out her lies and take her away. Clara is taken to a graveyard where Danny reveals his face to her and asks her to turn on the emotional inhibitor. After Clara fails to get the Doctor to come and help her, the Doctor arrives and tries to stop Clara. He then asks Danny if he can access the Cyber hive mind to find out what Missy’s plan is, but in an effort to prove his point about the Doctor being an officer, Danny explains that he can’t see much because he needs the emotional inhibitor on to do so. The Doctor gives the sonic screwdriver to Clara so she can do it and when she does, Danny tells the Doctor that Missy is planning to use the Cyber-pollen to convert all of humanity.

Missy arrives and tells the Doctor that the Cyberarmy she created is a gift for him. The Doctor tells Missy that he doesn’t need an army but she insists that he does. Recalling some of his past adventures, the Doctor begins to realise that he is not a good man, nor a bad man, a hero, a president or an officer, but an idiot with a box and a screwdriver. In addition, Danny’s love for Clara stopped him from hurting her after his emotional inhibitor was turned on. The Doctor lets Danny take control of the Cyberarmy and after a speech that to me, sounds a little off at the end due to the pitch of Danny’s voice, he and all the other Cybermen fly into the sky and self-destruct, destroying the Cyber-pollen.

A defeated Missy tells the Doctor the current location of Gallifrey, claiming that it has been restored to its original location. Clara prepares to shoot Missy, but the Doctor offers to do it himself to stop Clara from doing so. It is then that Missy is shot by a remaining Cyberman, who saved Kate from falling out of Boat One. The Doctor learns that that Cyberman was actually Kate’s father, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and he salutes the Cyberbrig before he flies into the sky.

Two weeks later, Clara hears Danny in the night and finds a portal to the Nethersphere in her hallway. With the Nethersphere collapsing and the portal only having enough power for one person to go through, Danny sends the boy from earlier through it, asking Clara to find his parents. Another two weeks later, the Doctor meets with Clara and deduces that Clara and Danny are back together when that was actually not the case. He then tells Clara that he found Gallifrey when he actually didn’t after going to the coordinates that Missy gave him. Clara decides to believe the lie about her and Danny as the Doctor decides to part ways with her.

The Series 8 finale was good, but I don’t think it and the whole series lived up to expectations. I thought the dead people who we saw in the Nethersphere scenes would return in the finale and that the finale would have something much deeper than dead people being converted into Cybermen. The return of the Master as Missy was another highlight of the story and it marked the first on-screen instance of a male Time Lord regenerating into a female incarnation, which meant that the next mystery was to find out how the Saxon Master regenerated into Missy. Paying tribute to the Brigadier by making him a Cyberman I found meh, but I can see why people didn’t like it. If you want an alternative, remember that Osgood wasn’t the only person in that room whose appearance got copied by a Zygon.

And speaking of Osgood, I’ve always contended that the Zygon Osgood was the one who Missy killed in this story. The Zygon two-parter in Series 9 would keep the answer ambiguous by purposefully obscuring it, with even Osgood’s actress, Ingrid Oliver, keeping her take on the question a secret. Then in 2019, a Big Finish audio confirmed that it was actually the Zygon Osgood who was killed by Missy, putting the question to bed in a manner that ended up being logical.

10. Every Christmas is Last Christmas

In the 2014 Christmas Special, Last Christmas, the Doctor reunites with Clara as they investigate a polar base in the North Pole. They encounter Shona trying to distract herself from the Sleepers before they are attacked by Dream Crabs. Following this, Santa and his elves came in to convince everyone that they are dying in a dream and that they need to wake up. The Doctor also deduces that the Dream Crabs can create dreams within dreams and so, he helps everyone get out of each layer until Santa comes back with his sleigh to take them out of the final layer when they are confronted by more Sleepers, which are actually the parts of their mind that have succumbed to the Dream Crabs.

When the Doctor wakes up, he hurries to save Clara from her Dream Crab, only to find that she is 62 years older than when they last parted. As they pull a Christmas cracker, just as they did before in The Time of the Doctor, Santa appears, meaning that this scene was another dream layer. The Doctor and Clara wake up for real and Clara is relieved to see that she is young. The Doctor invites Clara to travel with him again and she quickly accepts, ending the special. Apparently, Jenna Coleman intended to leave Doctor Who at the end of Series 8, but she enjoyed working with Capaldi so much that she decided to do the 2014 Christmas Special before leaving. During the World Tour, Capaldi (and Moffat) managed to convince Coleman to stay on for another year; she informed Steven Moffat of this following the readthrough of Last Christmas and plans on a replacement companion, possibly Shona, were abandoned and the ending was slightly changed thanks to Moffat preparing for such a scenario.

Last Christmas is an alright Christmas Special. It has the Doctor and Clara admit that they lied to each other on their final meeting before they get a second chance together on the TARDIS. Danny also returns as a construct of Clara’s dream to conclude his character arc and to admit that he only saved the world for Clara. The one thing I didn’t like was Nick Frost playing a sardonic Santa when the common stereotype is that he is supposed to be jolly (which is called out by the Doctor in the special). I think it would have worked better if Santa was played by Seth MacFarlane using his Carter Pewterschmidt voice.

Series 8, like the series before it, is another mixed bag. I came into each episode expecting this thing or that thing to happen, only for it to not happen or a completely different thing to happen altogether. The Doctor and Clara have deeper dynamics and character development than they did and the inclusion of Coal Hill School was an alright extension of the 50th Anniversary.

Up until the last instalment, I’ve used Clever Dick Films’ Doctor Who Review videos as one of my research references, but at the time of writing this instalment, he hasn’t done his retrospective on the Capaldi era and I don’t expect it to come out for some time, but I’m sure I have enough opinions or story summary fillers to make it through the last parts of this series. Stay tuned for Part 9 as we continue riding the wave from the 50th Anniversary with my 10 takes on Series 9.

#doctor who #doctor who 10 for 10 #doctor who series 8 #twelfth doctor #peter capaldi

4 notes · View notes

gunsatthaphan · 2 years

Text

~ Monthly BL Breakdown: March 2022 ~

Disclaimer: ALL shows can be streamed here or here, as well as on Dailymotion and Youtube. For more info on where to watch what, check out this post!

Updates coming every month - feel free to add stuff! -> previous breakdowns

What came out this month? (green tick = seen or currently watching)

🌟 My Ride (international release) - March 4th (Thailand)

🌟 The Tuxedo - March 5th (Thailand) ✅

🌟 La Cuisine - March 12th (Thailand)

🌟 He and I Are the Grooms - March 13th (Japan)

🌟 DNA Says I Love You - March 14th (Taiwan)

🌟 Blue of Winter - March 15th (South Korea)

🌟 The Man Who Defies the World of BL 2 - March 20th (Japan) ✅

🌟 Dear Doctor - March 23rd (Thailand)

🌟 Cupids Last Wish (international release) - March 27th (Thailand) ✅

🌟 The Miracle of Teddy Bear - March 27th (Thailand)

🌟 Blueming - March 31st (South Korea) ✅

🌟 A Love Song For My Beloved - March 31st (Vietnam)

Monthly likes/dislikes

❣️ Cupid’s Last Wish - I didn’t have the highest expectations for this one, partly due to the plot, partly due to bad reviews, but omg I loved it so much. It was so much fun to see EarthMix again and especially Mix killed it like oof my boy can act. He made me wanna slap Win hard in the face a couple times lmao I’m very impressed. I loved the whole roadtrip theme so much and all the sceneries were so nice! I wish the release had been handled better because what’s even the point of the rerun on youtube now? but anyway. A+ 🥺

❣️ Blueming - I didn’t really have this on my radar and I certainly didn’t expect to love it as much as I did. Beautiful cinematography, strong cast and wonderful characters. The plot didn’t seem like much at first but it quickly turned into something very enjoyable. I loved it from start to finish oh and have I mentioned the music? Incredible. I’m super happy to have found yet another kbl that I thoroughly loved. I highly recommend! All episodes are on Dramacool.

👎🏻 The Tuxedo - heck. I was so excited for this one. All the promotion they did looked very promising and also the cast like hello?? Chap finally getting the main role he deserves?? But yikes. It’s bad. Starting with the role of Nawee, which is sadly not suitable for Chap at all (pun intended). The plot is shallow and plain and what’s with all these tripped-and-kissed scenes?? this isn’t 2016. the overall cringe-factor is very high and I’m praying that Chap and Green will be in for bigger things after this because they deserve so much better.

New series announcements

🎥 Remember Me (starring JaFirst, Mean Phiravich and others) - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 21 Days Theory - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 Night Dream - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 Love in Spring - Coming April 2022 (South Korea)

🎥 The Circumstances of Pungdeok Villa Room 304 - Date TBA (South Korea)

🎥 Follow the Wind - Date TBA (South Korea)

🎥 Bon Appetit - Date TBA (South Korea)

🎥 Love Tractor - Date TBA (South Korea)

🎥 Eul’s Love - Date TBA (South Korea)

🎥 The New Employee - Date TBA (South Korea)

🎥 Secret Relationship - Date TBA (South Korea)

🎥 Wash My Heart (manga adaption) - Date TBA (Japan)

🎥 A Shoulder to Cry On - Date TBA (South Korea)

🎥 Hit Bite Lick The Series - Date TBA (Thailand)

Other news from the bl world

❗️JaFirst will star in the upcoming series “Remember Me”, along with Little Teshin, Man Supakrit, Title Tanatorn and Mean Phiravich. Details about the plot have yet to be revealed. It is currently unclear whether or not it’s gonna be bl.

❗️Frank Thanatsaran and Long Lee will star in the upcoming thai bl “Love Syndrome”. It will be Frank’s first (bl) project after returning from military service.

❗️MaxTul revealed in an interview that they will have another project together this year. Filming is scheduled to start during Tul’s semester break around summer 2022. Until that, Tul will appear in the 4th season of “Saneha Stories”.

❗️The final cast for the upcoming MeMindY-BL “Love in the Air” has been revealed: Boss Chaikamon, Noeul Nuttarat, Fort Thitipong & Peat Wasuthorn. The first teaser was released on March 16th.

❗️The script for the upcoming Gmmtv BL “The Eclipse” has been finished and filming is scheduled to start in the next month. Castings are currently being held.

❗️ The first teaser, as well as first stills for the upcoming Thai BL “War Of Y” have been released. Details about the plot have yet to be announced.

❗️The upcoming Thai BL “Art Adore En” released its pilot trailer. The air date has yet to be announced.

Upcoming series & movies for April

☝🏻 KinnPorsche - April 2nd (Thailand)

☝🏻 Saneha Stories 4 - April 7th (several bl sideplots, Thailand)

☝🏻 Cherry Magic: The Movie - April 8th (Japan)

☝🏻 Star & Sky: Star In My Mind - April 8th (Thailand)

☝🏻 What Zabb Man! - April 9th (Thailand)

☝🏻 Meow Ears Up - April 12th (Thailand)

☝🏻 Plus & Minus - April 15th (Taiwan)

☝🏻 Unlucky-kun Has No Choice but to Kiss! - April 22nd (Japan)

☝🏻 Ocean Likes Me - April 26th (South Korea)

☝🏻 Love in Spring - April TBA (South Korea)

#doreens monthly bl breakdown #thai bl #bl drama #upcoming bl #update #bl news #korea be coming for our asses with their bls jfc #theres so many #lets hope its not turning into quantity > quality #also the way im hyped for the eclipse is unreal #gonna soak that shit up so hard lol

73 notes · View notes

autumnslance · 3 years

Note

Theory for Endwalker: if the lady that warns WoL at end of Shadowbringers is Venat, I feel like she’s going to call WoL Azem and everyone is confused until there’s an explanation provided. She might even bring up Azem’s neutrality

I think that's the popular theory right now; since we had Elidibus as the heart of Zodiark, and as of 5.2 we know Venat had planned to do the same with Hydaelyn (however else that summoning differed), the fact she's holding a stylized mask and her bright color scheme...it's possibly likely.

Now, we know Minfilia joined with Hydaelyn as the Word of the Mother when Hydaelyn was too weakened by Ascian shenanigans and protecting various Blessed like the WoL and Krile (just on the Source; what was She doing for other heroes on other shards?). We had to contribute Light from the joined Crystals in 3.4 to speak to the Word and let her go free again as Minfilia.

But was there a residual effect of her joining with the Crystal that let Venat awaken and take back her own shape, too? Did our victory on the First contribute to strengthening Hydaelyn in some way by focusing the Light into a Blade against Hades? Or is it "desperate times call for desperate measures" and with her counterpart gone, Venat is now able/willing to manifest to guide us as directly as she can, since Hydaelyn is unable to do more than send Her automated message to awakened Echo-havers?

I don't think the Azem conversations will be confusing; based on Urianger's dialogue between 5.3 and 5.4 while hanging in Dawn's Respite, when he's speculating on the etymology of various myths and deities featuring names similar to Azem with sun imagery, not to mention how they know Ardbert joined with the WoL given reactions and convo in 5.2, the Scions likely know what we do about WoL being a reincarnation/successor of that former Convocate.

I DO hope we get a tad more information on Azem's actions in the Final Days, with plenty of wiggle room left for people to play with in their own stories. Azem was their own, different person and not our current PC, so it can go either way. But I think it would go a long way toward explaining how and why the WoL is Hydaelyn's Champion, apparently in multiple incarnations over time across the shards.

I'm interested in how they didn't even mention the mystery lady on the key art at FanFest. We had not met young Minfilia/Ryne yet as last FanFest either, but she was in the Shadowbringers trailers, so they gave us little hints without revealing the details of who she really was or how she was connected to the original Minfilia. But this new woman doesn't feature in the trailer, only the art, and only in 5.55's MSQ finale briefly--after FanFest happened.

People thinking she's a villain simply cause of her placement on the key art are forgetting the layouts of past expac art splashes and how they tend to roughly form the Crystals' shape and have important-to-the-expac-story characters in various aesthetic arrangements (there are some who also somehow think placement on key art means one is an ally/upcoming trust which again; not the case in past art splashes). Besides, she's not "sharing a space with the last expac's villain" she's sharing it with Ryne and other characters. Also just cuz a character called "Venat" was an antagonist in a previous FF game doesn't mean she will be here; "Cid" was a antagonist in that game, too (and a philandering husband in another, and the Thunder God in yet another as we painfully learned in Orbonne Monastery). The Ascian info in XIV also doesn't correspond 1-to-1 with the supplemental material from that previous game, either. What we call primals in XIV have been allies and enemies both in previous FFs--heck, we got a visit from FFXV's Garuda for that event, and she's very different from XIV's!

We don't know the plot just because of previous FF games sharing concepts (a thing the series is known for), so take such discussions and "lore" with a grain of salt--though speculation is fun. "Preparing" for 6.0 by playing other FF games where they go to space or the moon may help one see parallels and winks and nudges to past games (like several things in Eden calling back to FFVIII). But we'll see who mystery lady is--and if she's a friend or a foe--come Endwalker.

#Final Fantasy XIV #Endwalker #Venat #Hydaelyn #Azem #Minfilia Warde #Word of the Mother #Speculation #Lore

41 notes · View notes

yostresswritinggirl · 4 years

Text

Scholars’ Chit Chat Prologue Submission

XXX

Cyno x Reader (Platonic, possibly romantic in the future)

*Lore dump warning

*Spoilers for all the Archon Quests and speculations of Teyvat

*Really it’s all serious talk

XXX

This is basically how you and Cyno met

XXX

The libraries of Sumeru are quiet, like how they’re suppose to be.

It is a new semester after all, the freshmen are still getting a grasp of the large campus, though Cyno does guess that soon enough they will be awed of this place.

Walking among the tall shelves, he tries to locate the section he had been researching on, but a voice calls out to him, breaking his concentration.

“Hey, you ever thought of why were you given a Vision?”

He turns to the source of the voice, only to see you there, sitting on top of one of the book shelves as your legs dangled from it.

“I would say that it is a question worth discovering with my entire life.”

“Huh, to think that you would answer so naturally… Wouldn’t one first ask who I am or ask why would I want to know that?”

“Because, first, I know who you are and second, those who come to this place seek knowledge.”

“Oh, so I had become the talk of school despite me being here for the first day?”

“Indeed, you were known as one who had declared to not take part in any sort of Mysticism studies yet aim to unveil the mysteries of this world. They called you naive yet you had earned the highest scholarship obtainable. It’s kind of hard to not let such news spread out.”

“Well, there are certainly advantages and disadvantages with this commotion, but that’s not my main focus anyways.”

“And may I ask what that would be?”

“To search for answers to fulfil my contract with the God of Wisdom.”

“Contract?”he questions, not capable of following your conversation, you slyly smiled at this.

“Unfortunately, this upcoming topic requires a fee to unlock~ I don’t mind sharing my findings to others, but when it comes to something as rare as words from an archon….”

“You get the idea, a price is required for everything after all.”

“…”

Cyno stared at you as if you were pulling his leg, but his reaction made you smirk even more.

“Oh, I won’t be asking for much, something like… Your name, perhaps?”

Suddenly realising that he hadn’t introduced himself yet and was reminded in such a playful matter, Cyno couldn’t help but let out an embarrassed chuckle.

“My apologies, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Cyno, a pleasure to meet you.”

“Hmm… You know that one’s name is important, right? Names hold power, not necessary the one given by your parents but the one that defines your soul. There are quite a few stories mentioning that giving your name to someone is the same as giving a part of their soul to them.”

The male however lets out a laugh at your advice.

“Thanks for the warning, I’ll keep that on mind.”

“It was nothing, and to the end of my bargain, yes…’ you began as you jumped off the shelf, landing right in front of him. “Well, it’s more like a bet than a contract if I’m being honest.”

“Which is?”

“To find out the truth behind Khaen-riah’s fall, or more specifically, the reason behind the alchemist Gold’s fall, before I graduate.”

“?!”

The kingdom that had technology and Mysticism developed greatly even without an archon, then was destroyed five hundred years ago.

Not much is known about Khaen-riah, and yet...

Cyno, was shocked, no, shocked isn’t enough to describe how he’s feeling.

“That’s... nearly impossible, isn’t it? Just what sort of offer did he gave you to tip the scales-”

“If I succeeded, he would answer me anything I want to know about.”

“A-Anything?”

“That’s right~”

...

“What happens... If you fail?”

Everything comes with a price, as you had said.

“Then my life would be in his hands, for him to decide my fate.”

Despite only knowing you for not long, Cyno cannot believe what you had risked.

“Are you out of your mind?! What would you possibly want to know that you’re willing to-”

“To understand the laws of this world.” You answered one a simple matter.

“It has been so long that the human race had been existing and yet none of us came close in finding the truth of the world...”

“Or perhaps someone did, and they failed to tell anyone?”

“Even Khaen-riah itself is advance with Alchemy, history tells us that their greatest alchemist Gold fell and became quite a threat... But why...?”

“...”

“What I’m trying to say is that we’re too trusting towards the gods cause we’re told to do so since we were born, you know what I had learnt after being tricked once? Doubt everything when you first see it, question it’s existence and see if you can use another point of view to perceive it.”

“Why do you doubt the gods?”

“That’s because I believe in humanity’s wisdom. I believe that even without the gods, humanity can still take care of themselves as fine.”

“If you need to rely on someone else in order to live, then what’s the meaning of living in the first place?”

“This is... quite a lot...” Cyno mumbled.

“It is a lot to take in, I agree.” You nodded as you leaned against a shelf.

“Our senior Lisa left this place after mere two years and went to Mondstadt to be a librarian despite her being a genius the Academia hasn’t seen for 200 years... Is it because she saw something that nobody else realised?”

“So what you’re saying is... There’s more to the bigger picture?” Cyno guessed as you snapped your fingers. “Bingo.”

“But that being said, questioning the gods is the same thing as raging treason against this world... “ Cyno pointed out with worry. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Indeed, *I’m trying to understand the rules of this chess game, so that humanity, the supposed audience of this game gets the chance to participate in it.”

“And if we can win this chess game or not, is entirely up to our legacy...”

“You have too much belief in humanity... Or should I say you have no intention of losing in the first place?”Cyno predicted with a sigh.

“Hm, seeing that you’re being so interested in our bet, perhaps you would like to become my partner in crime?”

Hearing this, Cyno finally realised that he was tricked at the point when he answered your question about his Vision.

“So that was what you were going after for all along, huh?”

“Haha, yup~ I mean, our archon didn’t state anything about not able to team up with others, so why not?”

“Able to ask anything from the God of Wisdom himself, what else more can a scholar wish for?”

Cyno understand that your words are trying to lure him, but in truth, who can give up this opportunity?

“I mean, even if we fail, I’m the only one who would lose anything so it really sounds like a pretty good deal to me~”

“And would you mind me asking for a warrant from you for the time I would be spending on this?”Cyno requested, surprising you for a bit.

“Well, how about my name? You’ve heard about me but haven’t known that yet, correct? With a part of our souls in each other’s hands, no one can run off easily, don’t you think so?”

“Alright I accept the of your con-”

“It’s a promise, not a contract.”

Cyno pauses at your sudden seriousness, he then takes notice of the frown on your face.

“...”

“You want this partnership to be built on trust and not just a piece of paper?” He guessed.

You softly nodded, trying not to meet him in the eyes.

But there’s no way that he would accept that, you two only just met after all-

“Then I promise, that I will be your partner in crime upon this bet against the Dendro Archon.”

Wha-?!

Cyno offers you a small smile. “Everyone has their own reasons, I too wish that I can understand you better within these few years... That is if you wish, of course.”

I’m glad.

“Yeah, likewise, Cyno.”

“I also by offering my name, promise that we will find out the laws of this world and allow humanity to earn the chance to be a part of this chess game.”

“My name is-“

XXX

*The chess game is referencing The Feynman Lectures on Physics, it is also referenced from Honkai Impact 3rd (another game of MiHoYo) Honkai Quest event by the character Delta, it is possible that it works as well for the world of Teyvat.

(One way that's kind of a fun analogy to try to get some idea of what we're doing here to try to understand nature is to imagine that the gods are playing some great game like chess. Let's say a chess game. And you don't know the rules of the game, but you're allowed to look at the board from time to time, in a little corner, perhaps. And from these observations, you try to figure out what the rules are of the game, what [are] the rules of the pieces moving.

You might discover after a bit, for example, that when there's only one bishop around on the board, that the bishop maintains its color. Later on you might discover the law for the bishop is that it moves on a diagonal, which would explain the law that you understood before, that it maintains its color. And that would be analogous we discover one law and later find a deeper understanding of it.

Ah, then things can happen--everything's going good, you've got all the laws, it looks very good--and then all of a sudden some strange phenomenon occurs in some corner, so you begin to investigate that, to look for it. It's castling--something you didn't expect.)

And welp, Exiled, mind me adding this?

-To their future child(ren)

And this is how your parents met//slap

With the Gnosis shaped as chess pieces and with MiHoYo’s other games referencing this...

Well theories will be theories until they’re truly revealed.

Until then Snowdrop’s gonna freak out on what the heck I just wrote

There will be continuations... Just please don’t look forward to it... OwO

Oh I do NOT mind AT ALL, Snowdrop. CONTINUE. This series looks so freakin cool and refreshing even!

#exiled community #genshin impact x reader #Cyno x reader #Snowdrop anon #exile.flower #exile.pocketwatch #Good shit #gender neutral #submission

94 notes · View notes

migleefulmoments · 5 years

Text

CrissColfer Strategy #2

This piece was posted on 2/19/20 but it is originally from 2018 prior to LM/DC. It’s always amusing to read their theories about big upcoming changes in Darren’s love life in light of the fact that Mia has been a steady force in Darren’s life for 10 years.

Here they are debating whether Lea will be Darren’s new beard- a theory that required them to ignore both Mia and Zandy. In this post we see justcantgetenoughcc using the “trust me I know more than you do but I can’t share it” strategy. Honestly, this is the one that baffles me the most. While I can see the slow-motion gifs for what they are- pure manipulation, I know that TLOS isn’t the Klaine bible they want it to be and I can understand how other’s can be conned with that evidence. What I can’t understand is why anyone would trust someone who continues to say “I know more than you do but I can’t share it with you...just trust me”. Those very words are literally the exact words that should raise one’s caution flag. Mommas, the one thing you should teach your children is to never trust someone who claims to know the truth but can’t share any evidence. Especially if that story goes on for 5 or 10 years.

***********************************

ilikesomedistance There was a discussion many years ago, that they (PR and F/ox) wanted to bring Lea and Darren together. But it never worked out for many reasons.

Guess it’s happening now.

stopandimaginelove But whyyyyyyyyyyyyy 🤐

justcantgetenoughcc Interesting question.

The primary reason was always to break Chris and Darren up.

RM/Ricky all playing together. AB imo not that invested but to a degree (at least initially). Even beard (she realized what she can have by getting rid of Chris and why she too is very much part of the game now). Each had their own reason for being invested, as Chris and Darren in love and united as a team, made it difficult to manipulate Darren. In a way, that - Darren and Chris in love - was also their Achilles heel. Each put the other ones’ interest first - and got manipulated in giving up their autonomy. Chris had nothing to hide as he was already out. Why would he even need a beard? They were so young and so naïve to Hollywood’s manipulation tactics. I don’t think they had anyone with industry experience, with their interests at heart, to advise them or look out for them. It was too late and they were in too deep, by the time they realized what they had agreed to. They still tried to back out of some of their worst mistakes. Some day… they will tell those stories or it will turn up in Chris’s books.

Initially people assumed that all that proximity and playing boyfriends onscreen - and no doubt their amazing chemistry - must be why they were together. I am sure they thought it will never last or they will get over it or get tired of it and move on to others once the itch was scratched. Like most young guys (as young gay guys - not my opinion at all - but a lot of people believe that).

But it didn’t happen that way. They didn’t break up. Instead they went and got engaged over Dec 2012/NYE 2013 (that was from when we have the pic of Chris looking at his ring standing next to his suitcase at an airport). They were serious from the get-go. They were ‘IT’ for each other. They were even living together (even before Glee Live 2011 - in Chris’s first rented apartment in LA). I think it was Joey who once commented that he saw Darren only when he needed more clothes (Don’t quote me on it though. Ha). When Chris bought his first home in Laurel Canyon, guess who moved in there with him? It wasn’t W as most of the fandom was led to believe. There’s enough proof in their own words and since this is going to be a long post, I am going to leave some of those details out of this. And some I can’t reveal.

Why do you think LU Tour happened? It was another attempt to break them up and also to get Darren to declare his longtime gf of a hundred years. There was no way Darren would agree to it when Chris and Darren are together. And so his team came up with the clever “DIVIDE and CONQUER” tactic. Get Darren away from Chris and break him down.

Nothing ELSE came out of LU tour and so I am right in my assumption here.

A Darren who missed Chris on the road, who was mentally and physically exhausted from his days on the tour… gave in… WITH TEARS… a heartbroken Darren was FORCED to declare a gf - reading from a script, answering questions from a script, at the Toronto Radio Interview - WHILE he was already ENGAGED to CHRIS. There are many ways I can cement the claims I am making. But they are NOT mine to share.

If you doubt me, that the intent ALWAYS was to break them up (come on guys! connect the dots!), so much has been exposed in the last two years, especially in the last six months.

Why were they forced to have beards? It wasn’t FOX (in fact there's a story not known to many that FOX was going to let Chris and Darren come out (heck they even knew of their engagement - again stories that I cannot reveal) but others disagreed/disapproved of that move and stopped it). Some of the old fandom crowd know of this. Why were their beards ALONE always allowed access to the glee set? Why were M and W paraded so much on the sets? Why was the beard woman given a job at FSO (where she did nothing really but was given free credit for work others did). Chris was already OUT. He was a grown up guy who always took care of himself even when he was much younger.

During 5.14 filming in NYC, it was clear that the film crew took care of Chris and Darren. All their needs on the set was met along with the rest of the cast present (Amber, Chord, Kevin, Lea and Darren). Even holding up their winter coats for them to slip their arms through. W didn’t do anything other than obstruct the filming (and there were a lot of complaints about W and he had to be told many times to move out of the crews way). Do you think Chris paid for W to accompany him to NYC where he wasn’t needed at all? Who had the most to gain from that decision to have W there?

The beards were ALWAYS meant to WEAR THE GUYS DOWN. To create discord between them. To grate on their nerves. To be a thorn in their side. You get the drift. It still didn’t work. Those two guys still stayed strong.

Yes, there was an attempt to END KLAINE early in S6 and use Darren/Blaine as Lea/Rachel’s LI and have them be the prime couple who got married to each other (instead of a Finchel wedding that RM always talked about) at the SERIES Finale. That didn’t work either. That story is known to many in the fandom. But is not mine to tell.

Look at all the attempts made to prevent Darren and Chris coming out. Since 2015.

I have repeated this so many times since 2015 and am going to repeat it ONE LAST TIME for the people who have joined the fandom since 2015.

Glee was filming the last season. Beards were barely on the set even with all the heavy make-out scenes (heavier Kliss scenes, emotional scenes, the elevator scene, the wedding, future Klaine etc). Guess everyone felt bearding was ending too as Glee only had a few more months left. We got the NOW FAMOUS BTS interview from the ranch - the day the Klaine wedding was being filmed - where Chris and Darren were interviewed by Leanne Aguilera (and not M). Where they admitted so much and looked radiant and vibrant. Best of all they admitted to being good friends in real life.

Then we got the Ellen Show where Darren and Chris interacted and wrote each others names (not to mention the incident where Chord slipped up and mentioned meeting Chris and Darren. Nothing dramatic happened by way of reaction or retaliation from PR). Then came the Paleyfest and the Mario Lopez radio Interview - where Chris was present with Darren and Mario in the recording room. We counted Chris’s laughter interspersed - at least five times. It wasn’t edited out. We rioted over all of those events repeatedly. It was like the CC drought was finally over. They were allowed to breathe free. And acknowledge each other. Say they were good friends with each other.

[We have proof on several claims I make here and are known to a lot of people but we can’t share them yet].

We knew they went on a European vacation that ended in Paris where Darren had to attend the CON with a few other Glee cast. Darren alone didn’t stay at the hotel where the CON was held, where the rest of the cast stayed. Ask yourself why. Darren returns to NYC and starts rehearsing for Hedwig Broadway that starts mid-April. Everyone was happy and there were several SM follows of both Darren and Chris back to back by Hedwig Crew and BTS crowd. Lot of happy tweets and fun stuff.

It felt like Darren had a few more months left to freedom. Chris plans his TLOS4 book tour around Darren’s closing show at Belasco - so that he can sit in the audience and not watch from the shadows as he did during the first 119 days of the run. Alla Plotkin, Chris’s publicist, allowed it and supported it (if there were any known contracts or clauses that prohibited Chris’s presence at the closing show, Alla wouldn’t have /couldn’t have allowed it) and planned the whole tour accordingly with Chris.

So close to freedom and to coming out… and then out of the blue, Darren’s perfectly written Broadway BIO was edited to a mess of a BIO and ‘xos to mia’ was included. Overnight Darren’s personal life got hijacked by a scheming woman and Darren’s manager. Eleni who was a longtime good friend of Jeff Jernigan, was appointed as Darren’s assistant (watchdog) at Belasco. Darren who hadn’t even seen or heard from the beard for many months, and Darren who had never displayed any real closeness to the woman - posts a dressing room kiss (long story about that too. (Read mleigh69’s post on how the Belasco kiss was staged).

From there on, everything went to hell in a hand basket. All their hopes and plans were dashed.

From that time to the present, how closely Darren is monitored and watched and babysat…is ridiculous. Darren has more people on his secret service detail, sometimes more than even the President himself (it feels like). He sang 4 songs in Utah recently and he had Ricky, AB, Jeff Jernigan, Eleni, beard and Ken Sunshine (the boss of Sunshine Sachs) with him in Utah.

All their attempts to coming out was thwarted. Chris wasn’t allowed to attend the Hedwig closing show even though he had timed it to end the day before, giving him time enough to fly to NYC from LA. Chris who had never made a career misstep, chose to put his reputation as a children’s book author on the line by acting drunk - just so he could get on a plane to NYC. He had to watch the closing show from the shadows but am sure that was preferable to being beaten or giving in to two conniving people.

Even the ENCAGE was partially to stop CrissColfer from coming out. See what the encage did. All of Darren’s commitments and obligations were OVER AND DONE with by then… except for the NOOSE called the encage now. That was pretty timely, wasn’t it?

Why is Darren going on a tour with Lea Michele when Lea’s album was poorly received and didn’t do well at all? All her shows failed. She really has nothing much going on. Hmmmm…

If am guessing, let me be wrong for one last time… WHAT IF IT IS TO KEEP CHRIS AND DARREN APART? As all their attempts and excuses to prevent Chris and Darren FROM COMING OUT ARE EXHAUSTED?

So now there are tours and MORE TOURS… where Darren's TEAM THINKS he has to remain NO HOMO for the tours to sell. They quickly got him committed to a LONDON concert while ACS was still airing.

Now ACS is over.

And sure enough, just as the ENCAGE IS COMING APART AT THE SEAMS… we have THE LM/DC TOUR!!!!

tahtah678

#crisscolfer #debunking cc lies #Lea as the new beard

8 notes · View notes

legendarymasterwolf · 5 years

Text

E3 2019: My Thoughts on What We Saw

Alright, E3 is over this year, which means it's time to go over what we saw and my thoughts on it.

This is late, so some stuff here will be out already.

I'll be going by publisher alphabetically, so first up, we have...

Borderlands 3

I'm so freaking hyped to get lost in this hilarious world again. I've played Mordecai in Borderlands 1, Zero in 2, and Claptrap in Presequel. Still trying to decide who to play as in 3, but right now, it's looking like I'll pick FL4K, since he specializes in long range and has a few cute beasties by his side. Also, we're getting not one, but THREE action skills with each character. Not only that, but you can sacrifice your grenade skill for two equipped skills.

The Children of the Vault look like some worthy successors to Handsome Jack for title of "Best Borderlands Villains", though we'll see how they pan out on release date.

The gameplay that we saw of Moze looks smooth. Heck, everything about this game looks sleek and refined without doing away with the art style. Also, guns with legs.

Anyway, we not only got the gameplay reveal, but also Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary, a new DLC for Borderlands 2 that sets up 3, so I'm scrambling to finish the Handsome Collection on my PS4, which just got a lot more difficult now that I've bought RDR2 finally, along with several other games.

Control

I loved Alan Wake, and this is from the same people, so I’m hyped. The game looks great, has a suspenseful atmosphere, and it seems to play well. I’m looking forward to release date.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Reboot

I haven't bought a COD game since "Black Ops 2", though I have played the newer ones with a friend of mine. It looks good visually from the reveal trailer I saw, I'll say that much. No gameplay yet, but I know it'll be gritty, focusing on some of the more shocking moments of the original trilogy, like "No Russian" from MW2 or the nuclear explosion from MW1, so it seems we're bringing in more edge to the series. Still, I'm glad the campaign is back, and I'm interested to see how it will look.

12 Minutes

A twelve minute time loop where you're forced to relive the death of your wife and the only way to break it is to find out why she was killed? Sign me up.

Code Vein

I remember this one from last E3. Still the same opinion, too. Anime style souls game that I might buy for the story, which looks interesting.

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot

So this looks REALLY good. It's like a deep RPG, deeper than Xenoverse was, with mechanics besides fighting like fishing, and as for the fights themselves, they seem to be more strategical than before, with a healthy dose of classic DBZ fisticuffs in there for good measure.

Elden Ring

A Souls game written by George RR Martin? Don't know too much about it besides that, but it looks cool based on the trailer.

The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan

Basically, another Until Dawn, but on the open sea during a storm. And I'm totally okay with that.

Deathloop

Another game from Arkane? The guys who made Dishonored? I'll take it. Besides, another time loop premise sounds interesting.

Doom: Eternal

If Fallout 76 was any indication, Bethesda desperately needs a win now to restore faith in their studio. Besides a few of the other games announced at E3 2019 that could do so, there was one that stood out in particular: Doom Eternal. I’ve already played all the Wolfenstein games, with the exception of one upcoming entry on this list, and based on what I’ve seen of Eternal, I’m going to like it due to the similarity in gameplay.

GhostWire: Tokyo

The presentation on the new game from the makers of Evil Within, another series to try now that I have a PS4, was memorable for a few reasons. First off, Ikumi Nakamura, the game’s creative director, was the main presenter and she was adorable. Seriously, it’s probably one of the best E3 presentations I’ve seen this year. I can’t remember the last time I saw one so genuine like hers, plus it helps that the Internet has fallen in love. As for the game itself, it looks great, with people disappearing in Tokyo and it being up to some guy with a bow and supernatural powers to find out why. The reveal trailer was all we got, but still, I can’t wait to play it.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood

The first game I’ve ever preordered, and this comes from a guy who never preorders on principle. It’s a Wolfenstein spinoff with BJ’s twin daughters, so yeah, I’ll buy it. Plus, it’s co-op, so I’m playing this with my best friend. Still trying to decide which twin to play, though. Probably Jessie, since my friend is gonna want to play Soph.

Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory

Looks interesting, plus the gameplay reminds me of Shadowrun Returns.

The Sinking City

This one’s already out, but it looks good. Hopefully, it’ll be received better than Call of Cthulu before it. Plus, I’m all for a game where the protagonist is losing his mind, like Dead Space.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood

Set in the World of Darkness universe, like Bloodlines, except you're a werewolf instead of a vampire and it's from a different studio. Gameplay was revealed behind closed doors, but it looks good from what I've heard. We don't have too many werewolf games around.

Cyberpunk 2077

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY ALREADY!

Yeah, this might be the first game I preorder for myself, since now we finally have a release date: April 16th, 2020. The new trailer we got gave us a glimpse of a default male V as well as what may be Jackie’s death (please don’t kill off Jackie, CD Project RED, I like him too much already). After V’s employer tries to double cross him, V tries to kick ass with his twin arm blades, which look really unique, before said employer shoots him in the head. The trailer ended with a major surprise: as V comes to in a junkyard, a figure in jeans, a tank-top, and a silver left arm approaches, and kneels to reveal a face and voice that sounds suspiciously like Keanu Reeves.

Yes, that’s right, for those who haven’t heard by the time this is posted, Keanu Reeves is in Cyberpunk 2077 and he’s playing Johnny Silverhand, a legendary rocker in the world of 2077 who may not be what he seems.

After the trailer premiered onstage, Reeves came out onstage to promote the game. He could barely get through the start of his speech, people were that excited to see him in the flesh. There was even a great moment where he described the game as “breathtaking”, to which a fan shouted out, “You’re breathtaking!”, to which Keanu responded in kind. We don’t deserve this man.

Anyway, at the end of his speech, Reeves gave a new look at gameplay as well as the game’s release date. The glimpse was only about 20 seconds long, but still, the new look at the combat, hacking, and what is presumably a digital afterlife or something like that was enough to get me even more hyped for this game.

Seriously, I couldn’t be more hyped. This game is gonna be massive and I just might preorder it.

My Friend Pedro

Switch game, but still looks cool. It’s already out now.

Sea of Solitude

I need to play more games that make me feel like this. The art style looks gorgeous and the theme is depression, so yeah, I may buy this one if I like what I’m hearing.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Honestly, EA's part of the the expo was kind of depressing, especially when it got to Anthem. However, we did get more of Jedi: Fallen Order, and for that, I'm grateful, because this game looks great. Both the combat and lightsaber look slick as does the gameplay in general, and the voice acting is on point, from Cameron Monaghan to Forest Whitaker. We need a good Star Wars game for current gen consoles, and while The Old Republic is still my favorite, that's for PC. Also, while it has been announced that there are no microtransactions in the game, I'm sure EA will find some way to screw it up, but for now, it looks awesome.

Greedfall

I’m interested. Story and premise have me, a mix of 17th century colonialism with horror and the supernatural. Gameplay looks like my kind of jam, and we may be getting romance options too, based on some trailer observations.

John Wick Hex

Gameplay seems unique, plus it’s John Wick. I will always take more of Keanu Reeves.

Grandia HD Collection

I like JRPGs like this one, though it’s for Switch, so I can’t play it.

Way to the Woods

Looks like a cute adventure puzzle game. I might get it for PC.

Wasteland 3

This series looks like tactical Fallout, so yeah, I’m likely to give this one a shot since it looks good.

Blair Witch

A Blair Witch video game? That’s psychological horror?! With an adorable dog companion named Bullet?!?! Yes, please.

We didn’t get much besides a trailer and some gameplay, but I’m eager to see more.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Sequel

Ugh, why is it that last year I was complaining about not having a PS4, now this year I’m complaining about not having a Switch?!

Anyway, this looks great and I want to see more. Especially since I’ve heard it’s going to be scarier than Majora’s Mask.

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

Looks good on the graphics front, plus the gameplay additions looks promising.

And once again, I can’t play it.

Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order

Out of all the games on this list, this is the one I want to play most that I can’t play because, you guessed it, I don’t have a Switch.

I loved the original Ultimate Alliance games, so I’m sure the new one is gonna be a hit, what with the new combos, character designs, and references to the MCU, plus it’ll tie us over until Marvel’s Avengers.

Pokemon Sword and Shield

The Pokemon look cute, it is set in the world’s version of the UK, gameplay looks improved, and once again, I can’t play it.

Empire of Sin

It looks cool, plus I need more Mob style games to play. It’s also made by the people who are responsible for the next game on this list...

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2

It’s only in pre-alpha, but still, this one looks good. The original is on the Steam store, and there are fan made patches that improved upon what was originally a disaster. The sequel looks like a smoother version of its predecessor, with a few new abilities and mechanics put in. Again, it's in pre-alpha, so the final product will look much cleaner, but for now, I'm excited for its release date.

Shenmue III

First off, I’m royally pissed that Epic stole this one. That being said, the game looks great and I’m looking forward to continuing Ryo’s story on PS4. The gameplay looks great, the atmosphere is enthralling, and the English dub sounds good this time around. Still pissed about Epic, but at least I can play it on PS4.

The Outer Worlds

This still looks great. Since Fallout 76 took a nosedive and kept on going, we need a game like this to get that bitter taste out of our mouths. This still looks like a cross between Fallout and Borderlands, the true New Vegas spiritual successor that we need right now. The companions actually look helpful, have personalities of their own, and the Flaws System sounds really interesting, giving your hero a perk in enchange for a debuff for the whole game. Also the humor is great, too.

Marvel’s Avengers

Yes, the character designs don’t look so hot. However, those can be changed on the road to launch. That aside, I liked what I saw. The gameplay looks great, the voice cast has some top tier talent for the industry, and the promise of more heroes to be added after launch without the attached microtransactions has my attention.

Dying Light 2

I only played the demo for the first one, a game I still need to play, but I liked it enough to want a sequel. The usual free running mechanics look smooth, plus the addition of player choice shakes up the game, making your playthrough unique, so yeah, more of the good old stuff with a few new things sprinkled in.

Final Fantasy VII Remake and Remasters

The remake of FF7 looks AMAZING. The hybrid combat system looks like a dream, plus the character designs look top notch. In addition, the voice cast sounds on point for their respective characters. The hype around this thing was evident from the incessant cheering, we want it that much. We even have a release date: March 3rd, 2020. It’s been a long time coming, but it seems the wait to experience this classic for the second time on a different system will have finally been worth it.

Also, there was content announced for FF14 as well as two remasters: Crystal Chronicles and FF8.

Bet your ass I’m buying the remaster for FF8.

Biomutant

This has been described as Fluffy Devil May Cry. It’s accurate. I didn’t know you’d be able to customize your character, to! Combat looks fun, and it appears there is humor present if the narrator is anything to go by, so I’m interested.

Destroy All Humans! Remake

I never played the original, but I did read about it and hear about it from a friend. From what I’ve seen, the remake looks fun! Good parody of the 1950s and the updated graphics look great. Plus, Krypto seems like a fun, grumpy protagonist.

Gods and Monsters

This looks like a cross between Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Legend of Zelda. Considering it’s being made by the same creators of the former, I can’t wait to see more of this in the future.

Ghost Recon: Breakpoint

I’ll be honest, I still haven’t played any Ghost Recon games, so maybe here would be a good place to start. Gotta say, I like the way Jon Bernthal presented. He just seemed at ease onstage. Plus, Bernthal’s dog looks adorable. Bam Bam is the real hero of the Ubisoft press conference.

Anyway, it seems Bernthal is playing Cole D. Walker, one of the antagonists of the game. Didn’t see any gameplay, but still, the game looks good. I need to play more tactical shooters in general.

Watch Dogs: Legion

I played the first Watch Dogs game. Thought it was cool, but overall it was a bit disappointing. I still need to play the second one, but I heard it was a major improvement, even if it wasn’t a financial hit. Still, this one put a smile on my face. The ability to recruit and play as anyone? A sarcastic AI as your companion? A grandma assassin? I will take all of it, thank you.

Also, grandma assassin.

Did I mention there was a grandma assassin?

Can’t wait for March 6th.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

The LEGO Star Wars games were some of the first games I ever owned back when I played on the PS2, so I’m hyped for a collection of all 9 films in one game. We don’t know much beyond the announcement trailer, but hey, I’ll gladly take this one when it comes out next year.

Baldur’s Gate III

A video game that plays like a DND game? I can’t wait. Haven’t played the other games, but I’m sure I’ll be fine once I play that tabletop prequel they mentioned.

Battletoads

It’s an Xbox and PC exclusive, but still, glad this is getting a remake.

Bleeding Edge

This looks like an Overwatch reskin. The combat itself looks unique, though, so we’ll see how it goes.

Gears 5

We got a little more on Gears 5 this time around. We’ve got a look at Kait and how the Locust influence is threatening to tear her apart (that’s what I’m assuming, I’ve never played the Gears games). We also got a new mode, Escape. I might get it, since it’ll be available for PC.

Halo Infinite

If this is what Xbox Scarlett looks like, then Sony might have actual competition for once. This is the best the Halo series has looked in years, and considering how let down some felt after Halo 5, it’s about time. We’re getting the same badass Master Chief back, this time with no AI companion, as Cortana has suffered corruption due to being around for longer than normal and has gone psycho as a result. Regardless, the graphics look amazing and I can’t wait to see how it looks when it releases Holiday 2020.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

I never played the original, but I might have to now, because this looks cute. The art style looks great and I’ll always be interested in games where you fight things ten times your own size. Plus, it seems to run smooth, and just by the sound of the story, it already has my heart.

Psychonauts 2

To cap things off, let’s end with a game I’ve been excited for since I finished the original months ago. The game seems to be coming along great, if the first level is anything to go by. Returning voice cast, new enemies and powers, new environments to explore, Jack Black voicing a Brain in a Jar, need I say more?

Also, this game looks to explore the water curse put on Rasputin’s family, so it will be a more personal and chilling story as well.

________________

So, there you have it. That’s my thoughts on E3 2019, half a month late.

What are you guys excited for? Leave a comment letting me know, especially if there was something I left out!

Until then!

44 notes · View notes

marshmallowgoop · 5 years

Text

Kill la Kill at Sakura-Con 2019

It’s been a few days since Sakura-Con 2019 ended, but I’m back home now—and well rested enough to finally write in detail about my experience there!

The con featured a playable demo of Kill la Kill the Game: IF, and David Vincent (Senketsu) was present as well. I was able to spend quite a bit of time with the game over the weekend, and I also attended one of Vincent’s panels, “BlazBlue/Kill la Kill Voices with David Vincent,” which he hosted on Saturday, April 20th. While the panel revealed very little about the upcoming video game, there were quite a few fun tidbits shared about the Kill la Kill anime and voice acting industry.

Since I played the game first, let me start there!

Kill la Kill the Game: IF

The Kill la Kill the Game: IF demo was available to all attendees of Sakura-Con from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm on Friday and Saturday and from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm on Sunday, but unfortunately, there was very little publicity regarding its appearance at the convention. Sakura-Con itself never advertised the demo; shockingly, Arc System Works is even absent from the Exhibitors list in the official Sakura-Con paper guidebook.

Even someone like me—who has heavily followed any and all news on the game since its announcement and devoted dozens of hours to reporting on it—only discovered a few mere days before the con that I would be able to play!

So, maybe it’s no surprise that I heard, many times over the weekend, some variation of, “I didn’t know there was a Kill la Kill fighting game!” And maybe it’s even less of a surprise that there was practically no line to try the game out while it was available at the Sakura-Con Exhibitors Hall—heck, sometimes, there wasn’t a line at all.

While the small crowd allowed me to easily play numerous matches—the only characters I have yet to try are Houka Inumuta and Ragyo Kiryuin, and I played Ryuko Matoi and Satsuki Kiryuin several times each—I was also sad to see the game not receive the attention it deserves.

As for the game itself, do note that this account is coming from someone who is not a gamer and who’s legitimately struggling to think of any other fighting games besides the Super Smash Bros. and Tekken series that she’s played. (But, y’know, actually, Tekken was my jam back in the day. Anyone else remember playing Devil or Angel in Tekken 2 and just holding down like circle, triangle, and square to shoot lasers outta your eyes and take out practically all of the opponent’s HP bar? Just me?)

So, needless to say, anime fighters are totally new ground for me. I don’t have the background to discuss how Kill la Kill the Game: IF stacks up to similar titles, nor do I have the expertise to talk any technical details, and I won’t pretend that I do. But I will say this: as someone who was already planning on buying the game 2-3 times purely for the story and who had extremely minimal interest in the actual gameplay, I enjoyed playing way more than I thought I would. The combos were flashy and fun, I loved the supers and special attacks, and the whole experience honestly brought me back to the good times I had playing Tekken as a kid. Sitting at the Arc System Works booth, I thought, “Wow, this is fun!”

Regarding the particular demo available at the booth, a few elements stand out to me:

✄ First, the build was not titled in the same way that other builds have been. Whereas the Evolution Championship Series (EVO) 2018 build was titled “EVO2018 Demo Version,” the Anime NYC build was titled “AnimeNYC 2018 Demo Version,” and the EVO Japan 2019 build was titled “EVO Japan 2019,” for example, the Sakura-Con build was simply titled “Demo Version.”

✄ It was previously revealed in ArcLive episode 46 that there will be an online demo of Kill la Kill the Game: IF. It’s likely that the Sakura-Con demo, literally titled “Demo Version,” will be this online demo.

✄ The Sakura-Con demo did not include all of the stages that have been seen in other builds. For instance, the Fiber Castle that was first playable in the Game Developers Conference (GDC) build last month was not present in the Sakura-Con demo.

✄ The Sakura-Con demo did include all of the characters that have been seen in other builds. Ryuko Matoi, Satsuki Kiryuin, Uzu Sanageyama, Ira Gamagoori, Houka Inumuta, Nonon Jakuzure, Ragyo Kiryuin, Nui Harime, and the dual-wielding variations of Ryuko and Satsuki were all available to play (though, printed-out character guides only seemed to be available for Ryuko and Satsuki). This is perhaps interesting because the PQubeGames stream from last week did not have Ragyo, Nui, or the dual-wielding variations of Ryuko and Satsuki available to play.

✄ But speaking of the PQubeGames stream, the build there did offer alternate color options from the character select menu. The colors were “Basic Color,” “ARC Collab Color,” and “Alternate Color.” The Sakura-Con demo, in contrast, did not offer alternate color options from the character select menu.

✄ At Sakura-Con, the only way to see alternate colors was for both players to choose the same fighter. All alternate colors in the Sakura-Con demo were presumably based off of the evil clone colors from the Kill la Kill episode 25 OVA: characters are grayed out with green eyes and blonde hair. The PQubeGames stream includes a match that features the evil clone colors for Ira, and Alpharad’s GDC video includes a match that features the evil clone colors for Satsuki.

✄ And, though I do not have any screenshots, I purposely played double-character matches against the computer when there was no line at Sakura-Con just to see the alternate colors. I was able to try Ryuko against Ryuko and Nui against Nui, and they too had the evil clone coloration for their alternate colors. Ryuko is grayed out with blonde hair and green eyes (which Senketsu shares as well), though her red streaks remain intact. Nui is also grayed out with a green eye and a dark pink eyepatch.

✄ Interestingly, the evil clone colors were not the alternate colors that were originally shown for Ryuko and Satsuki. At EVO 2018 last year, the alternate color for Satsuki was not grayed out and did not have green eyes. The alternate color for Ryuko featured orange hair and a white Senketsu. It was stated in ArcLive episode 46 that there will be more than two color options per character, so perhaps these colors for Ryuko and Satsuki will make a return in the final version of the game.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that Seven Net Shopping is offering Junketsu-colored costumes for the cast as a pre-order bonus, and these costumes could possibly be purchasable later.

✄ There were minor changes to the translation in the Sakura-Con demo. For one example, Senketsu’s “Don’t make me dizzy,” which was the localization as of the GDC build last month, became “You’re making me dizzy.” I also might have been too overwhelmed to pay the most attention to this detail, but I can’t say I recall any mention of “Snippity-Snips.”

✄ It might be another case of being too overwhelmed to pay the most attention to this detail, but I also can’t recall any of the big red “Counter Hit”s and “Guard Break”s that have been in every build thus far in the Sakura-Con demo.

✄ After completing a match, the game simply said, “Thank you!” In the past, such as at Anime NYC last year, there would be a request to complete a survey and share your thoughts. The game may be too far in production now to really incorporate feedback.

For some other general notes on the game and my experience playing it:

✄ Every character has an Instant Kill attack that’s accompanied by an elaborate cutscene (and you can see all Instant Kills that have been featured in gameplay videos in this extensive document). I never managed to score an Instant Kill myself (because I failed at the rock-paper-scissors-styled Bloody Valor like literally every time and definitely got Insta-Killed for it!), but while watching others play, I caught glimpses of the Instant Kills for Uzu and Nui, neither of which I’ve seen in any released gameplay footage thus far.

Uzu’s Instant Kill involves a lot of “Men! Dou! Kote!”-ing, and Nui’s Instant Kill is rather haunting. The pupil of her one eye shrinks, and she slashes her opponent in a way that’s reminiscent of how she murders Isshin Matoi. When she’s finished, she sticks out her tongue.

✄ I enjoyed playing Ryuko and Satsuki (both versions) the most, and this is probably only partly because they’re my favorite characters on the roster. Both Ryuko and Satsuki are speedy fighters with some really fun, flashy combos and specials. I tend to value speed over power when it comes to gaming, so these two fit my preferences nicely.

✄ Ira was by far my least favorite character to play (sorry, Gama! I still love you!) He’s simply far too slow for my liking. But surprisingly, I enjoyed playing as Nonon more than I thought I would. I like my battles up close and personal, but zoning as Nonon wasn’t really that unappealing at all.

✄ I played against the computer for the double matches, and it was set very easy. I won without breaking a sweat, and I lost to plenty of folks at the con.

✄ And, of course, I love the dialogue. The banter really makes this game 100 times more enjoyable.

Well, for me, at least.

I can’t tell anyone else how to play the game, but it definitely hurt a little when folks I played with skipped the cutscenes.

✄ I saw so many lines I hadn’t seen translated before, and I wish I had the memory to recall all of them. But perhaps some of the most amusing lines came from the double-character matches.

Nui notes that it’s annoying that her copy looks like her, but she haaaates even more that her copy sounds like her. Ryuko, meanwhile, gets very caught up in calling out her copy as a fake, but Senketsu tries to be all analytical about it. He wonders if it’s the Life Fibers that created the clone and tells Ryuko, “Stay calm... there may be more of them.” Ryuko answers, “Fight now, think later!” When you win, Senketsu will say, “We won, but I have so many questions” or wonder about where “she” came from. It was way too loud in the Exhibitors Hall to make out the Japanese here, but I wonder if Senketsu does in fact specify that he’s referring just to the copied Ryuko and is less concerned about the copy of himself, pfff.

Other dialogue things:

✄ Uzu calls Nui “a beast.”

✄ Ryuko essentially pulls a, “You killed my father, prepare to die!” right before fighting Nui, and it is amazing.

✄ Ryuko tells Ragyo, “You’re just like your kid.”

✄ Ryuko’s “ass wipe” comment is included in the PQubeGames stream, but, okay. It’s great. It definitely got some reactions at the con!

Especially because she was directing it at herself in that case....

tl;dr?

✄ Me, a non-gamer just about 100% interested in this thing for the story, really enjoyed playing the game!

✄ Which sadly did not receive much attention from Sakura-Con.

✄ But it’s a fun game with fun dialogue, and while the Sakura-Con demo didn’t have everything I’ve seen in other builds (such as some stages and the option to use alternate colors), all currently released characters were playable. It seems likely that Sakura-Con’s demo’ll end up being the online demo of the game, and I’d be thrilled to play this build again!

BlazBlue/Kill la Kill Voices with David Vincent

Saturday’s panel was largely an open Q&A session with David Vincent with some voice acting from the crowd in the latter half. Some Kill la Kill-related questions and answers are as follows:

✄ Someone (not me, I swear!) noted that Ryuko and Senketsu have a very close bond in the series and asked if David Vincent (Senketsu) ever recorded with Erica Mendez (Ryuko) in the booth. The answer was no. It’s too difficult to match lip flaps with more than one person in the booth, so in anime dubbing, everyone records alone.

✄ One question asked about the auditioning process for Senketsu. Vincent noted that he wasn’t sure how to voice a jacket, but he understood more as he watched the series. He described the typical auditioning process for voice acting roles, saying that an actor is called in to read for the character and, if they do well, they’ll receive a callback to read for the character again. With every callback, the pool of actors becomes smaller and smaller until one actor finally wins the role. Interestingly, Vincent said that he had to record the first episode of Kill la Kill again because he was told to change the voice he was using. Later in the panel, he further revealed that he had to say the “Sen-i-Soshitsu!” line at the end of the first episode about 25 times because producer Hiroe Tsukamoto was very strict about the pronunciation; for example, she told him the correct way to pronounce “Osaka.”

✄ When asked if Vincent tries to base his performance on the Japanese VAs, he said no. Vincent likes to bring his own take on a character.

✄ In regards to ad-libbing, Vincent said that he often isn’t allowed to. For instance, at the end of Senketsu’s speedy recap for episode 16, he ad-libbed Senketsu taking a deep breath... but this was cut.

✄ Someone spoiled the ending for Kill la Kill and asked how Vincent felt about Senketsu getting “dusted.” Vincent answered that Kill la Kill is a wild, ludicrous show, but Senketsu’s death is quite poignant. The final episode was shown at Sakura-Con 2014, at another panel that Vincent was present for, and he said many people came up to him afterwards and expressed how saddened they were by Senketsu’s passing.

✄ Regarding Senketsu’s death, there was a question asking if Senketsu is “really” dead in the episode 25 OVA. Vincent said that Senketsu is “comic book dead” and coming back.

Can I foolishly hope this means that there’s a “Senketsu Lives” ending in the upcoming video game?

✄ Concerning the game, Vincent said that he had signed contracts and couldn’t say a thing about it... except that he just finished recording, and it’s good.

Given that Kill la Kill the Game: IF releases in North America and Europe on July 26th, it’s likely that we’ll hear a bit more of the English dub—and Vincent reprising his role as Senketsu again—before too long.

#kill la kill #kill la kill the game #kill la kill the game: if #sakuracon #arc system works #david vincent #about 24 hours later than i wanted but this turned out to be way more massive than i intended (as per usual amirite?)#i know this is really long so important points are bolded and there's a tl;dr section too #this is why i never finish my write-ups lol

63 notes · View notes

docexe-mx · 5 years

Text

While several of my prior wish list picks didn’t happen, I’m very satisfied with both the base roster of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, as well as with the DLC characters that have been announced/released so far.

That being said, l can’t deny that the announcement of more DLC coming has prompted me to prepare another wish list. As with the prior ones, I won’t be particularly sad or angered if any of my picks don’t happen, but I definitely will be elated. (Heck, as things stand, I will probably accept anyone/anything they add to the game provided it at least has an interesting move-set).

Some base assumptions made before going into the list:

Until stated otherwise by the development team, I’m assuming that, besides the fifth character of the Fighter Pass still pending reveal, we will get at the very least a Second Season/Fighter Pass that will contain the same exact amount of content as the first Fighter Pass: Five new characters, each with their own stage, music tracks and Spirit battles.

I’m assuming that, as with prior DLC on the Fighter Pass, all the new characters will be Third Party rather than Nintendo owned. I don’t expect more Microsoft or Sony owned characters, however (yes, Banjo and Kazooie are finally in the game, but they honestly feel more like an especial exception, rather than any indication of things going forward).

I’m also assuming that characters already in the game as Spirits, Assist Trophies or Mii Costumes won’t be part of the upcoming DLC (so, sadly, no Geno, no Rayman, no Shantae and no X ;_;).

Without further ado and in no particular order:

KOS-MOS from Xenosaga. A somewhat unlikely pick, but then again, Bandai Namco is one of the few Third Party publishers already present in Smash Bros. that don’t have multiple playable characters in the game (conspicuously even, given they are helping to develop it). Given that KOS-MOS seems to be one of their characters that most often shows in crossover games, her inclusion seems plausible. Now, if I have to be honest, I particularly want her because I think the Xeno series (and by extension, Monolith Soft, the studio responsible for all its iterations and which has been a great asset for Nintendo in recent years) deserves more representation in Smash Bros. However, with Elma, Rex and Pyra/Mithra out of the competition by virtue of being Spirits, KOS-MOS is the best bet to get another Xeno character in the game (mind you, I do like her design and think her move-set could potentially be interesting).

Nightmare from Soul Calibur (with Sigfried as an alternate costume). A very unlikely pick. While Terry Bogard being announced as the next DLC character makes me think we will see at least another fighting game character as DLC, it’s way more likely that we will see a Tekken character than one from Soul Calibur, by virtue of the former being more popular than the later. However, as I have mentioned before, I don’t really play Tekken, and Soul Calibur is my favorite 3D Fighter franchise, so pardon me again for the blatant favoritism.

Ryu Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden. This one seems like a no-brainer by this point. Ninja Gaiden is one of the few iconic franchises originating from the NES era that hasn’t appeared in Smash Bros. yet, and Koei Tecmo has maintained a close relationship with Nintendo in recent years (even helping with the development of Fire Emblem: Three Houses). Furthermore, Hayabusa is probably their most iconic character, not only being the protagonist of Ninja Gaiden (both the original NES series, as well as the modern reboot series), but also a mainstay in the Dead or Alive franchise, and even having cameos and guest appearances in the Warriors franchise.

Crash Bandicoot. Somewhat unlikely but not impossible. His major disadvantage is that he comes from a Western franchise, and Masahiro Sakurai and Nintendo tend to prioritize Japanese franchises when it comes to deciding on newcomers for Smash. That being said, the fact that the games on the original PlayStation were very popular in Japan and that the franchise is currently having a renaissance of sorts help his chances. If I have to be honest, while I have developed a soft spot for Crash after playing the N. Sane Trilogy recently, I mostly want him in Smash Bros. for a) The inherent appeal of having him battling Mario and Sonic as the big videogame mascot characters from the 90’s, b) the sheer irony of Nintendo getting three (3!) Third Party PSX icons (Crash, Snake and Cloud) in their exclusive fighting crossover when Sony didn’t even manage to do that for theirs.

Ezio Auditore da Firenze from Assassin’s Creed. Another unlikely but not necessarily impossible pick. The major issue against him is that he comes from another Western franchise, his major advantage is that it’s Ubisoft’s most popular and best-selling franchise worldwide, and Ubisoft remains as one of Nintendo’s major Third Party supporters. Now, if this franchise do comes to Smash Bros., I think they could pick any protagonist to represent it (possibly even go the Hero route and have several protagonists as alternate costumes with the same move-set), but Ezio seems to be the most iconic of them, hence why I have chosen him as my pick (and before somebody asks or protests: Yes, he has actually made an appearance on a game for a Nintendo console: Assassin’s Creed Discovery for the Nintendo DS).

A character from Capcom. This one is admittedly cheating on my part. Capcom has so many iconic characters and franchises (several of which have historical ties with Nintendo consoles or finally arrived to them thanks to the Switch) that you could fill an entire Fighter Pass solely with them. However, it seems that Nintendo is trying to spread their collaborations among several companies, rather than privileging a single one in particular, so at most I would only expect one or two characters from Capcom as part of Ultimate’s DLC. But rather than engage in the monumental task of boiling down the selection to only one or two characters, I will simply list here all the Capcom characters that I think would be neat to see in Ultimate: Phoenix Wright from Ace Attorney, Rad Spencer from Bionic Commando, Morrigan Aensland from Darkstalkers, Frank West from Dead Rising, Dante from Devil May Cry, Mike Haggar from Final Fight, Firebrand from Gargoyle’s Quest/Demon’s Crest, Sir Arthur from Ghost n’ Goblins, Amaterasu from Okami, Leon S. Kennedy and/or Claire Redfield and/or Chris Redfield and/or Jill Valentine and/or Albert Wesker from Resident Evil (yeah, I couldn’t boil down this franchise to one specific pick, it just has too many iconic characters without a single one being more representative than the rest), Strider Hiryu from Strider, Joe from Viewtiful Joe.

Finally, a bonus pick: A character that I honestly believe is so incredibly unlikely to ever get into Smash Bros. that I’m not really considering him seriously, but I would laugh out loud if it actually happens:

The Doom Guy/Doom Marine/Doom Slayer from (duh!) Doom: It seems like this character has gotten a lot of clamor among certain circles of the Smash Bros. community in recent times. I can only assume that he started as what you could call “an ironic meme pick”: Most of the people who originally talked about him and proposed him for Smash Bros. didn’t actually want him in the game, but it was fun to bring him up given the incongruity of such an ultra-violent character appearing in an E10+ rated game …Then characters like Bayonetta and Joker were actually added to Smash Bros., and people started to consider him as a serious candidate. In his favor: The Doom series actually has historical appearances on Nintendo consoles (the SNES got a version of the original Doom running with the Super FX chip that powered Star Fox; Doom 64 was an acclaimed game that was exclusive to the N64 until very recently), the entire series is going to be playable on the Switch after Doom Eternal releases, and if you can tone down Bayonetta enough for her to appear in an E10+ rated game, you can certainly do the same with the Doom Slayer. Against him: He comes from another Western franchise, but unlike Ubisoft or Activision Blizzard (which have been long time Third Party publishers on Nintendo consoles), Bethesda only started to support Nintendo on the Switch era; most importantly however: the First Person Shooter genre is exceptionally unpopular in Japan (and Doom as well by extension), it’s pretty much a niche genre there in the same way that RPG’s used to be in the West. So, for those reasons, I’m not really expecting to see the Doom Slayer in Ultimate’s DLC, even if, strictly speaking, is not out of the realm of possibility for that to happen.

#super smash bros ultimate #super smash bros #smash bros #nintendo #monolith soft #bandai namco #koei tecmo #activision #ubisoft #capcom #bethesda #character wish list

6 notes · View notes

trapangeles · 5 years

Text

Details Revealed About Avatar 2

James Cameron has been promising a series of Avatar sequels for roughly a decade, and audiences are still waiting. We've already heard quite a few tidbits about what the upcoming films will entail — and we've rounded up all the rumors and spoilers right here. James Cameron clearly wasn't interested in churning out another Avatar sequel just for the sake of it. Since 2010, he's been dropping hints about what the future of the franchise involves — and it's an increasingly ungainly vision that includes several movie sequels, novels, and much more. Details are often frustratingly vague — heck, even the release dates keep changing. In fact, trying to pin down exactly when we'll get to see Avatar 2 and its many sequels is something of a fool's errand. Back in 2010, Cameron said the next two films would be coming out in December 2014 and December 2015, respectively. But when January 2015 rolled around with no sign of Avatar 2, he said the sequels had been delayed… but they'd be coming out in 2017 — probably. Later in 2015, Cameron also hinted that there'd be an Avatar 5. He also claimed that Christmastime would officially be Avatar-time… because Avatar 2 would be coming out on Christmas 2018. Of course, that didn't happen. Then, in April 2017, the timeline shifted again — and Cameron announced we could expect Avatar 2 on December 18th, 2020. Is your head spinning yet? Keep watching the video for more details revealed about Avatar 2!

More From trapLA

#Avatar 2 #James Cameron

1 note · View note

angelic-mp4 · 6 years

Text

TOY STORY 4 PREDICTIONS:

So if I were to showcase all my predictions for Toy Story 4, I would show them here, because, “why not?” I say.

Now, here I am with the predictions before the first full trailer drops. But not only I’m here to see all the exciting stuff about this movie, but I have been planning out all predictions from now and then. Therefore, with all the pieces of evidence Pixar gave us so far and the evidence through merchandise may help me with the predictions.

This may have took a while to make, I’ll admit. But I’ll make sure to look out for eventual surprises Pixar may give us while watching the movie, once it releases.

So these are all my predictions for Toy Story 4, and what is to come. You may stick with me through the post, especially since there may be some “interesting stuff I came up with.

[Thank you to @jessiejanelightyear (Heidi) for inspirations behind some of these predictions!]

PREDICTIONS:

We will discover more of Forky’s personality through character development.

This is just my first prediction, and I’m already getting to the “real deal” here. Throughout the movie, multiple characters will gain lots of development, but I think Forky is the most likely to gain a bunch of character development in the story. I’d like to see him bloom into a confident fellow as he eventually realizes what his purpose as a toy is.

Regarding Tim Allen’s interview on “The Talk”, Bonnie may suddenly either neglect, or go “picky” on the toys during the movie.

“But it looked like maybe this little girl would take care of us. Well… maybe she didn’t take care of us so well.“

Those were the exact words Tim Allen said during his interview on “The Talk.” I’m dead serious. I’ve been recently having this feeling that Bonnie is going to do something shocking to the toys that Andy gave to her at the end of Toy Story 3. And no, I’m NOT talking “Sid-like traits” or anything similar to that. I’m talking about possible neglect or favoritism on the toys. Since Bonnie is moving on to kindergarten, that might mean her interests may change.

Not only that, but Bonnie MADE Forky, with just disposable and craft items. This hints that she’s going to show her “favorite” towards him and this trait will be repelling from the other toys, including Woody and Buzz. We still don’t know what really happens but we’ll see.

There will be three sub-plots. However, some of these sub-plots could possibly blend with each other to make the story more interesting.

These sub-plots will consist of action, drama and ultimately, adventure. I just know it.

The first sub-plot managed in the movie would be Bo Peep’s sub-plot. It would involve not only her, but also Giggles McDimple, who could be her sidekick, and possibly Duke Caboom. In this sub-plot, she is trying to save her sheep, and with the help of Duke, this conflict would be solved. But it’s not over yet, as this particular sub-plot would be blended with the other sub-plots mentioned.

The second sub-plot managed would be Forky’s sub-plot, regarding his crisis of believing that he’s not a toy. This would show multiple instances of character development, and possibly some action. Other toys would be involved, but I would rather not name them for now. It will also be blended at some multiple instances of the movie.

The third and final sub-plot would be involving all the other new toys, including Ducky and Bunny, Duke Caboom, Gabby Gabby, the army of discontinued toys that Duke brings out, and the villain(s) of the movie. They would be part of a “carnival outcast” group, as explained later on in the post. We still don’t know if anymore new toys would be revealed, but it’s self-explanatory. Lots of action, drama and arguing will happen. This sub-plot would also cause a lot of the blended plots we’ll get with both Bo’s and Forky’s sub-plots. This is why I consider this sub-plot the biggest of them all.

A fight scene, will happen. It will spark between one of the protagonists and the villain, who is YET to be revealed.

I feel that this is nothing to say about this, but I could, I will. Even though the villain is yet to be revealed, I would like a fighting scene. Also, several pieces of creativity will need to happen in some points of the entire thing, so that way, it would be considered “unique” from other movie fight scenes.

I still won’t name a character that would really start a fight against the villain(s), but I say the most likely would be either Woody or Buzz.

Not only that, but a race scene will also occur. There will be some action in that particular scene, too.

There are some hints that this scene will appear in the movie. Look at the merchandise they’re showing us. Some of the merchandise are Hot Wheels toys, and if you look at the names of these vehicles, it will possibly reveal that a race scene will potentially be happening.

Some of these names include the following:

Pony-Up

Power Panel

Nerve Hammer

Blvd. Bruiser

Bully Goat

Velocita

We’ve also gotten merchandise for remote-controlled toys, including Duke on his motorcycle, Buzz on a spaceship, the mention of RC returning, and a skunk? That’s a huge hint right there.

Let’s just pray for a race scene, and let’s hope RC returns in Toy Story 4. We know it!

The toys will rescue Forky throughout the movie, as they are potentially worried about him. He may possibly run away from the RV at the beginning of the movie.

[Thank you to Heidi for the inspiration behind this prediction!]

I’ve been thinking about this scenario since then, but could it happen? During the road trip with the Andersons, at the RV park and the carnival? Just remember what Tim Allen said on one of his interviews.

And I definitely think that’s happening. There’s no reason.

Someone, possibly one of the newest toys, will have a crush on another toy.

Do I really need anything in depth about this prediction? No, but still we have to find out. No toys will be named as a fellow who’s having a crush on somebody, but I assume that the toy they’ll have a crush on is most likely Gabby Gabby.

Think about it. Gabby Gabby will be considered “super-lovable” by everyone, but she may reject the people who are having a crush on her. Coincidence? I think not.

Giggles McDimple will probably be recruited by Bo Peep first thing in order to begin her sub-plot.

About Giggles, I probably want a backstory with her, and a scene of her being recruited after she has been found. She may be used as an assistant to help Bo find her sheep. We still don’t exactly know all the details, but we’re sure she’ll be recruited.

All the new toys (excluding Forky, since he’s made by Bonnie herself and possibly Giggles) will be part of a secret carnival outcast group.

Remember what I said earlier about the carnival sub-plot? The carnival outcast group that I made up is probably going to be shown. Its members are unlimited in population for the most part, since they are a lot more carnival prize toys in the carnival too, but the most prominent members would be Ducky and Bunny, Gabby Gabby, Duke Caboom and the army of discontinued toys he creates, and the soon-to-be-revealed villain(s). Heck, we may even get Barbie as one of the members, even though that is very unlikely.

Like I said, Forky is made by Bonnie, and Giggles may be a stray toy who is being chased by the outcast group, before getting recruited. This is why both of them would be most likely be with Woody, Buzz, Bo Peep and the gang. For now, I’ll like to call the secret carnival outcast group as "The Carnival Outkast Toys.”

Both Woody and Bo would be shown as “parental” figures as part of the story, once they recruit Giggles and rescue Forky during the movie.

This is no joke. This is actually going to happen, but first, there are some hints that this “sub-plot” will take off.

The first hint comes from Dulcop, an Italian toy website. Look at the soap-bubble displays we’ve gotten so far. On some of these bubble bottle designs, we’ll see both Woody and Bo in “parental” poses with both Forky and Giggles. It’ll seem like if both of them were taken under the other two’s wings. But once you compare it to one side of the London Toy Fair display booth for the movie, you’ll see Woody and Forky walking, with Woody holding the other’s hand. This hints it along with the soap-bubble displays, too. The ‘kid’ mentioned in the synopsis is literally, Forky!

The second hint was the original concept that was in mind. About John Lasseter, the story would have been centered around a fictional fantasy about him meeting his wife Nancy. The concept may have been saved from the rewriting process, and therefore may have been hinted about, especially with the four of the toys mentioned.

The third and final hint is from multiple pieces of merchandise. That includes the Official Guide’s final cover art, a few posters, and even an upcoming series of learning books with the characters. Maybe even one of the stories of the graphic novel anthology could hint about this happening. Several of these pieces of evidence often show Forky being with Woody, or Woody being shown with Bo and Giggles, a lot. This is going to show for the rest of the time we’ll be getting hints of merchandise.

This is all I have to say.

Combat Carl is returning. No doubt.

It was a listing for some mini figures by Mattel that revealed his “potential” return. HE’S BACK! Nothing to be said.

Somebody will “defeat” the villain at the end of the movie. It will NOT be Woody, Buzz, Bo Peep, or Jessie saving the day at all. It will instead involve a character that is rather, unexpected of the viewers.

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, but for now, I’ll like to share it here. About the villain(s) of the movie, they’re often forced to surrender by a protagonist or two. But there has to be a “what if” scenario in this list of predictions.

So, if someone were to defeat the villain at the end, right before the ending scene begins, I think a character so unexpected, so out-of-place, could cause the villain to surrender, and not Woody, Buzz, Bo Peep, Jessie, or anyone else.

Remember, I’m NOT naming names for who is the most likely, but it will be for sure, someone that looks “wacky” but secretly has a side that they’re ashamed of. That special somebody will eventually grow into a stronger person by the time the movie reaches its climax.

These are all the predictions I have for now. Currently they are some speculations and are usually NOT USED for covering “spoilers” when it comes to Toy Story 4.

Thank you for sticking with me throughout the post. To infinity and beyond!

#toy story #toy story 4 #toy story 4 predictions #predictions #this is indeed before the first full trailer drops!

14 notes · View notes

sole-cuore-amore-e-droga · 5 years

Text

Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta France to Eurovision with king of controversy

youtube

T’was a good decision for the French televisions to make Destination Eurovision a thing for yet another year. Sure, I only end up having heard of only 1 name per year beforehand (Nassi from 2018 and Florina from 2019, additionally hearing music from one other act from each year but forgetting their names soon after!), but that doesn’t stop everyone else for me from showcasing their best. Heck, I have listened to quite a lot out of some of my Destination 2018 favourites and I have never had any idea who they were! (They were Masoe and Max Cinnamon, je suis absolutely NOT désolée.)

And honestly I found this year extremely much more better to care about. For the previous edition I ended up not caring for like 5 or more songs, because I spent more of my investment in the finalists. This year I pretty much cared about way many more songs, even those that I didn’t wound up liking THAT much. Seemone for example, AKA “the only best possible choice for France from those that don’t need to have big followship numbers to have fans for the song, unlike Bilal tsk tsk”. I can’t say I was 100% mesmerized with her song, but I do remember her more than June the Girl, which was quite a fan fave but also a disaster from 2018. Oh sorry, I mean, June the Who?

And of course Destination 2019 paved the way for some more exciting plot twists and turns, for example, two of the bigger fan favourites fizzling out in the semis (and I already lowkey discussed them on my other segment, Fanwank Assimilation), and another two lowkey favourites crashing and burning live (one of them sounding like she was drunk and scared, another one being less energetic than her song requires). What did that give out at the end? Why, nothing but a homosexual French-Morrocan social media starlet Bilal Hassani of course. Let’s go ahead and review his entry.

My first impression of this song turned me off a little because of how... poppy bland it sounded. Nothing against Madame Monsieur’s co-crafting (they did make a song I liked for last year’s Eurovision), it’s just that I think that I’m a person that’s looking more into pop songs with expectations full of excitement, but then getting something average at the end. The English lines in this are ‘reasonatable’(?) with though - it’s a self-empowerement against haters, telling to oneself that they’re the “king” (yes Bilal may be wearing wigs a lot but for the last time - HE DOES NOT IDENTIFY AS A SHE) and that they “can see [their] kingdom”.

Though it grew on me overtime, to the very point I couldn’t see anyone taking his way, not even Seemone, not even any other darkhorse of the comp. No. My organism was fully adapted to the fact Bilal will win, so I ended up there lowkey supporting his win, even if I wanted someone else deep inside. (Same for A Dal 2019 but my inner systems refused to bring myself to Joci possibly winning an A Dal again, though they saw it being a likely endgame... just in a different light of events, but more on the Hungarian writeup, buckle up for that one because there’ll be buckets of everything for that one! >:) ) That and Bilal was kind of a runaway choice considering France is huge and the jury in there can’t do shit if the televoting is valuated in stronger numbers than in Melodifestivalen (I mean, look at how many points did he get??? His telescore beat the televote’s runner-up’s one by 87 points!), so if he has that many fans in a big enough country then of course they were gonna flock to him massively, and ain’t no Eurofan can’t object against the French televote numbers like these. Though they might seem too big because last year Madame Monsieur won with 118 as opposed to the artist’s of a song’s they have co-written with him for this DESC 150. And the televote gap between the 1st and the 2nd was much more humble - 29.

Maybe it has had to do it with the fact that it has a pretty damn alright pop melody that doesn’t sound specifically written for an ESC NF (unlike most of stuff that’s been done by Ylva & Linda and the like)? Maybe it has got to do with the golden hands of both Madame Monsieur members (pretty sure it might have just been Jean-Karl) touching upon this track (and some randomer whose name I don’t remember rn and I don’t want to? idk)? Maybe it’s the state of Bilal’s studio voice capabilities that carry this across for me nicely enough? Maybe it’s the persona? Somehow I don’t think I know but I’ll probably choose the first option. This is listenable, yes. Flows through like a normal pop song would. Maybe would have needed some polishing in some places (for that exists an up-and-coming revamp that will only be revealed on rehearsals (youhou Moldova 2014), but actually I only think that it will impact the song in a way that it will now be in F minor rather than F sharp minor?? So that Bilal could avoid being one of those kind of people that did sth like this:

RETWEET IF YOU CAN HEAR THIS PICTURE

Anyways. For all that it is, I savour it, it’s pretty decent, it stands out with its message if you know what it is (a kiss-off of the haters that once doubted this “roi”), I kind of like the way it’s being sung (and that vocal variation at 1:21) and some of the lyrics are not that bad actually, and for the matter of fact, I’d DIE for a possibility to create a song like this at best; I don’t quite know if it can do as well as his fanbase imagines, but I really hope it at least doesn’t do France dirty for choosing its up-and-coming-ish social media icon over the NF acts that I’ll be going off about a little later and brings a savourable result! I cannot remove my like for this song now that the deed is done, period. And I really hope that someday all this outrageousness over Bilal in a bad way will be stopped because poor 19 year old, let him be whatever sexuality he wants to be as of now, let him have his fans, let him wear those wigs, and keep those upcoming TV series about a terrorist man with an intent to blow up Eurovision in Israel (or something like that) at bay. Not to mention, these nasty caricatures. I definitely did not like seeing them. I legit feel like we’re almost talking about Lithuanian situation and what do my country’s citizens think about gay rights and all that (spoiler alert: they’re not friendly towards them). Stop it, get some help.

Oh and I know this is essentially 2,5-ish months late now but can I adress something real quick before finishing off this review and moving down to my chance-o-meters and all? Pretty please?

To all the Nightcore lyric videos of “Roi” that did this and would still do this:

Please consider looking back at the official lyric video for “Roi”, where it says:

and thank me in advance.

Not can’t, can. No wonder he’s a “roi”, ffs. What would be a king who cannot see his kingdom now? I’m sorry but this is just lowkey absurd, ngl.

Anyway:

Approval factor: As of the time I’m finishing this, I sort of approve it for now. The big dilemma though is to where do I rank this big boy - do I think it deserves to go higher than UK or lower? Do I drown it in the bottom 3 just because I had a rather negative first impression for it? God knows. For now though I’ll aprove it and carry on, dreading for the revamp obliterating some of the song’s charm that I had for it, just like maybe for Spain.

Follow-up factor: I think it is quite of a stepdown, considering last year a lot of guys publicly ADORED “Mercy”, and Madame Monsieur didn’t even need to have a huge social media following just to get that far as to win Destination! Bilal, however, did, and most people didn’t even fancy his self-empowerement ‘anthem’. And so did I at first, and eventhough I kind of like it as of now, I still prefer “Mercy” big time. France for the kings of controversial song topics and controversial entrants!

Big 5 factor: at the end of the day, you cannot change the fact that most of the Bilal fans are definitely centered in France (and maybe in some outskirts in Belgium as well) and not around Europe, especially the first time viewers, boo. So Bilal’s memorability levels in there from a Big 5 country will be questionable, unless his massive-ass French fandom decides to mass-emigrate for a week, get some foreign Simcards and start spamming votes for their idol - that’s a guaranteed televote for a guaranteed low jury vote, and if high any-votes are any indicators for where things are heading (like for Poland 2016 for instance), then Bilal will finish decently, but without any high-votes, he’ll be stuck in a low-low, maybe somewhere in the bottom 10. Sorry if you’re reading this, any remaining Bilal fans on Tumblr... you better get ready for your mass emigration for a week then?

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

Destination’s memes are still glorious to look at, even if it feels like it’s been years since them, considering my social media timeline does not have all that many of them remaining, BUT we still got some highlights from them saved and I can’t wait to freshen up the minds of the mutuals that seemed to have forgotten them. As well as some note-worthy NF songs that the others won’t get the chance to see because only one can represent France and Bilal can’t stand in for any other ones but himself, cuz he is he, and you know he’ll always be. Let’s go:

• Silvàn Areg, probably the biggest underdog-turned-overdog-overnight act of them all out there. Back when his song was still “Le petit Nicolas” (it was changed to “Allez leur dire” thanks to copyright turmoil with some book’s publisher - no it wasn’t about Le petit prince, there ARE Le petit Nicolas stories in there), I don’t think anyone really saw THAT much potential in this song to stand out, maybe except a few select others? I mean who’d even DARE to support this upbeat guitar French-like tune that... has cartooney visuals on stage and that way wows the viewing audience??? NO WAY!!! Yeah these visuals made me truly forget this was one of the songs that didn’t come out in full release yet (as of DESC 2019, only 3 songs weren’t released in full yet, along with The Divaz and Doutson (the latter dragged his kid on stage for his performance BTW, maybe that kid liked Silvàn’s stage illustrations despite maybe not seeing them the way they were supposed to be viewed?) and enjoy the king of popup-book visuals taking it away. So much so I ended up rooting for both visuals AND the song during the final as well (and the final had the colouring book painted!). Don’t you love it when your fave has an impeccable staging AND can nail their performance as well? I sure do... Click to find out his performance serve. I stan men who can sometimes rap out of nowhere when necessary and unexpected.

• Looking for typical French chansons/ballads that make you think of how longsome and melancholic (with a hint of happiness) can things be? Look no further than aforementioned Seemone and her alive-father-ballad, “Tous les deux”. If you’re not here for all this French zany, you can sit back and relax with hearing this piano delight with Adele-ish vocals on top and the paternal gratitude intertwined in the lyrics... well duh, if the constant repetition of “PAPAAAAAA” in the bridge doesn’t give it away for you, an unassumer, then idk what does. Noir, compelling, heart-wrenching, stunning, solid and all that it is. For all the ballad lovers out there. Hope her father’s proud of her achievements (for what did she do is to take the Eurofans by storm against this inevitable Bilal-ness with her feelings-over-fireworks and her strenght to carry out this beauty without crying... in the NF final at least, making International juries side with her more than Bilal, for whom we firstly thought it was over until 150 televotes, even getting the Bjorkdaddy on her side in the semis... only to never win the televoting as hoped to (Bilal was in a different semi so another man won over the girl, while in the final Seemone was 3rd and voted just under another experienced artists and Bilal obviously) and just remain the jury darling) and will hold this song up to himself dearly. We love supportive and thankful children <3

youtube

• This 25 year old chanteuse/violinist Gabriella Laberge, hailing all the way from Canada but with a passionate love to France probably ever since performing in La voix (je t'aime nuit et jour), I mean, The Voice France 2016, dived head-first into the social interraction game, with being all-round positive with her supporters, retweeting their stuff, liking their posts, being in groupchats... she did all she could. And the international jury still let her flop big time. Probably they were too underwhelmed at how engaging her entry, “On cherche encore (Never Get Enough)”, was on the big stage, with Gabriella out there, rocking her yellow pantsuit and dancing on top of a rectangle with other cello-or-contra-bass player madames inside of it and stairs to get on top of that rectangle besides the rectangle. Oh and playing the piano at the beginning. Were they afraid she was gonna fall off the rectangle with her musical ‘gun’ the next time? Was it the show opening that startled her chances (as people are afraid that the same will happen to Srbuk in Eurovision 2019)? I don’t know, but for one that I know is the fact that the poor woman was robbed to the core for all the friendliness she radiated. And the violin lady realness she delivered. Here’s now hoping her strong friendship ties with Olivier Dion will persuade him to fly to France from Canada next for a Destination Eurovision adventure, then? (tbh he’s pretty decent!)

• UH-OH! GIVE A LITTLE RESPECT for The Divaz! Seen by me as a little bit of those girlies that will definitely be drowned in the results because of their... aura and decision of paying a tribute to the late Aretha Franklin, I was shooketh to the core when I saw them NAIL “La voix d’Aretha”... the passion, the drive, the energy, the sass, the style, the dresses, THEM VOCALS! Needless to say I got incredibly sold and even more so happy I was interested in hearing that song all along beforehand, so much I think I tried skipping our own NF over just to see these gurls S-L-A-Y! Hopefully this ain’t the last of them together, they’re a true cool bunch. Happy to see that the international juries saw something in them!

• Emmanuel Moire... now, his song “La promesse” is even more so boring sounding imo and would do less of an impression if people didn’t know the message of it, but the message (and his status in the French music skies), boy does it shine. He sings about making a promise to stay true to himself and not be afraid to admit that his heart beats... FOR A MAN! And where is the Eurofan community that denounces a ballad unless it’s gay?? Some happen to still denounce gay ballads too, but only if it comes to NFs apparently :F I applaud for this song existing tbh as I find it nice myself. Such a shame the man couldn’t really sell his song THAT strong enough though, as I couldn’t help but crack a smile at hearing his falsettos go terribly off, but still feeling sorry for the guy. His staging (that has two men playing around, further going for his song’s memo) and the fact that he beat Seemone in televoting due to his bigger status than the rest of the most other DESC participants this year (save for Chimène Badi which has a status as big as his?). And this one moment that made me feel like I’m looking at Malena Ernman’s true form:

• So how about these few other bedazzling NF flops in a little bit of blitz summary, seemingly as the paragraphs here are already going out of hand? Sure! Allow me to introduce y’all to the shy French Mélovin named Ugo who was tryna get to the spotlight all by himself with a song about... crushing I think (he’s fantasizing of meeting a gal in some interesting interesting ways), but tanked majorly live due to being nervous and letting the pre-recorded backings overwhelm him majorly. Then comes the other up-and-coming chanteuse Florina which I also talked about in the fanwank flops section (though I published it right after Spain’s NF because I had enough of THAT rattling around my drafts... and same goes for the rest of my 2019 reviews!) but I’ll put up a mention for her because I undercooked my thoughts for her. “In the Shadow” - studio god-tier that sadly reeked of “Chandelier” heavily and another NF underperformance that grew condescencing during the rehearsal-snippets period that maybe made people keep their hopes up during it just like for Rykka’s, Jana Burčeska’s and Sennek’s odd pre-party performances. Who knows if Michela would have followed them suit if she was allowed to attend all the pre-parties despite “rehearsals”! In the end we still got a lackluster performance and a total 0 point score from the international juries. Wow. I hope that didn’t scar her for life. Also worth a mention are Battista Acquaviva, the Basque-singing goddess that had some sort of a potential but heavily crushed it by sounding weak and a bit drunk even (or even similar to this) on her own performance + adding some Roman-esque shirtless hunks for no reason (sweetie if they didn’t work for Anggun then what’s the point saving your live with them? Unless you can mask it up like Demy, just leave), and the other studio fave that tanked that was Tracy de Sá who served a French-Spanish (!! that’s where the title came from, you really thought the song was gonna b called “Par ici” noooo) summer bop with her rapping skills on fleek and her desire for “whiskey cocktails rum rum rum” as a cherry on this delightful cocktail has also got really grinded down by her live performance where she was barely even enthusiastic to live up to her own song and maybe have needed some of those liquors she offered on the song to make it sound better. But hey, at least from Tracy we got 1) studio version leak drama that obviously affected the poor sis so hard she raged about it on Instagram a bit; 2) slapping track about parties n stuff for our own summer 2019; 3) her own little version of that notorious song which wouldn’t probably be remembered so fondly in the memedom if not for some mother’s pasta dish; 4) the light tunnel she emerged from at the beginning of the song during her performance, which in reality is just the NF arena exit tunnel; 5) this meme:

Yeah well, good luck at your hairbuns and your hoop-de-hoop ‘rings trying to save you this time

• I was also gonna add this interesting phenomena of “hot violinist guy” because of course I remember this hype being set up for some dudes (especially for THAT violinist. I remember almost everyone suddenly crushing on him but I couldn’t care enough to buy it because lol!) even without their song coming out to public - yes I’m talking of Lautner who obviously also tanked during their live performance of this song but the international juries loved the shit out of it (same for aforementioned Ugo... and mind you I wrote them down as sure NQs after seeing their carcrash performances live! To think they would have almost MADE it thanks to them and SHATTER my predictions???) and their bromance probably lived on... for another 15 minutes

And the ‘drunken auntie’ of someone’s that sang a rather underrated catchy spring-esque sunflowery song but completely ruined it by her awkward jumping around in red suit on stage, PhilipElise, but that’d require me to brief my thoughts upon like nearly all of the damn roster of the irrelevants, so it’s best if I forget all the rest and move on!

• Not to mention, Bilal himself is a highlight. On an occasion he’s such a mood, as demonstrated on this first biggest ESC 2019 NF season meme down here:

And keep in mind, that wasn’t the final. But for the final this happened, which is still as amusing as the first:

Epic hairspin! Laura Rizzotto wishes she remembered this technique just in time to engage some more audience so that they could at least pull her out of the NQ zone.

• Who cannot forget the occasional thought of Garou, the NF’s host, singing. This year he was one of the final’s interval acts, and his choice to sing was because of honouring a Frenchman who passed away not so long before the DESC broadcast. Truly the dedication <3

youtube

• One of those NF cases that had people rallying up against Eurovision being in Tel Aviv and withdrawing the broadcasters from it by their own force because “well fuck you, our feelings and sentiments towards Palestine are more important than this schlager-ridden shitshow musicfest!!” lolno. Some protesters came on stage sometime after Netta’s guest performance during Semifinal 2, and both Garou and the security guards did their best and hardest to chase them away, but some still got on shot because reasons. This is ridiculous (as much as it was when it was found out that some people in Spain were waiting outside RTVE’s headquarters before the OT 2019 ESC Gala just to make THEIR move) and thankfully it didn’t follow on many more NFs to come.

youtube

• oh and also the neon cube argh

Feels like a way larger post than I intended to, and this review is waaaaay long overdue, so at least I tried reminding you of the memes, didn’t I? Anyway, I wish Bilal for all the best in Tel Aviv! xx

#eurovision 2019 #tel aviv 2019 reviews #france 2019 #bilal hassani #roi #france

3 notes · View notes

rhapsody-crossing · 6 years

Text

S2: IYHO Tournament - A Reflection [Part 2]

(Continuation from THIS post) (See all series posts HERE)

5) Some Tournament Facts

There are a total of 11 teams and 50 squids who signed up for the tournament:

The tournament runs in a Double Elimination format, allowing everyone at least one chance to continue battle after a loss. Using Challonge, the brackets below were created:

6) Dawn of the Battle

What makes one join a competition?

I joined competitions with a faint hope of winning, but winning was never the main goal. Honing my skills and just giving it an attempt was usually were my priority.

However, my reason to join Ink Your Heart Out is different. I was prepared to win, and I really want to win because, despite all the paranoia, I have great faith in my team and skills that we can do it, and that it is still “within reason” to win. That, perhaps, was why I pushed my teammates to practise.

On that fateful day of the battle when the brackets are released, louhai drew a poster of our upcoming battle versus Team 7:

It garnered some laughs and merriment, and also inspired Team 7′s artist to draw a picture in return:

Furi also made her own, to symbolise how hard we train as well as a jab’s to louhai’s tofu drawing:

The fanarts and louhai’s merrymaking made the community lively for the day.

The exchange of words with BK (a fellow OC and also Team 7 member) reminded me that, sometimes, team competitions doesn’t have to be all about winning and rivalry, but it’s also about bonds one forged and gaining something out of an experience.

Team 7 was filled with members who were strangers in the beginning but the tournament made them into a tight-knitted group of friends. The exchange of goodwills resulted in two teams deciding that, win or lose, we would take a group photo to symbolise our sportsmanship and friendship post-battle.

Facing this, I really hope that all contestants would gain something positive out of it...

6) To Battle!

Pre-battle moments are always scary. It is said that one of the teams had two members got sick from the pent-up tension (one vomited, one had stomachache).

Nevertheless, Team Tofu was ready. Furi rushed dinner, slap went to McDonald for better internet coverage, louhai tried turning on Do Not Disturb function (but failed), Low moved his monitor closer to the modem, I lit a josstick in a prayer room.

Hell yeah, we’re ready.

vs Team 7 (BK, Mazur, BlackKri, Ray, [ ])

BK and I are from the OC. We have played on the same side as companions, and have also fought on opposites as friendly enemies. As such, I knew that he is not easy to be trifled with.

His other teammates, though? I wasn’t too familiar.

Though I have faced Mazur in training, I knew his name for a while as he’s been a rant topic of a friend, so I knew he’s at least not new. He’s a cheeky player, alright, smacking people with his trusty roller.

I have played with BlackKri in a Malaysia Splatoon Gathering few months ago, but wasn’t sure of his current ability. Ray, on the other hand, was a mystery until our match (a solid Brella user!). [ ] is a substitute player who was still exploring the game.

The match begun with a face-off between me, Low, Furi and slap vs BK, Mazur, BlackKri and Ray.

There wasn’t much concern. I left the killing to the others as I turfed the ground. Port Mackerel was a familiar ground, being one of maps in the initial release. We took control of the majority of the map quickly, though they managed to wipe us all out once. The paths are so narrow that my Tenta Missiles hit their mark often, even getting 2 kills in the end. I did really well in this one!

(Note: To explain the stats below, the percentage is how much control each team have on the ground. The three figures beside the player’s name are kill counts, death count, and ability usage count.)

Second match in Manta Maria was close. Low disconnected halfway through the match, but the three of us managed to secure a close win.

We took a group photo post-battle.

Slap complained about the necessity of taking screenshots. It was later revealed that he had forgotten to bring his Switch and phone charger to McDonald. This caused a mild freak out among our group, heck, I was tapping so furiously on my phone that I accidentally tapped yes to a phone system update. My Splatoon 2 runs on phone hotspot. I was out of commission.

When Furi joined the tournament, I expected louhai, Low or even slap to be subbed due to connection issues. It was an irony when -I- had to be subbed instead. To this day, the thought amuses me so.

vs EPDS (Eddy, BE0314, PG, YukiSaki)

While I didn’t get to participate the battle, I wasn’t too worried about this round; EPDS is a team from Johor that comprises mostly of newbies.

As such, the following statistics are pretty self-explanatory:

Low mentioned it was a massacre, but it gave slap some time to shine.

Nevertheless, the members (particularly Eddy) did show some promise, except their goals and motivation weren’t aligned. I can only hope they would learn from this tournament and fight on.

vs GuGu Clan (APLeu, Pochi, Eddeh, Ki-ra, flurk, Rix)

APLeu is yet another member of the OC, and any apples from the OC are pretty strong. Pochi is an ACNL friend whom I’d witnessed her growth in Splatoon 2. Eddeh I’m unfamiliar with, but it is said that Ki-Ra is apparently new and also the main reason why GuGu participated the tournament.

(This was also the group that had two members sick from tourney stress).

My phone had not finished its update, so the others have their fun on the first match.

Come second match, I was up again. APLeu mentioned that their team morale was pretty down, so I decided to chill turf instead of doing my best. Had a bit of fun shooting at APLeu and falling off the ledge. :x

vs littleSOTONGS (sotongSTAR, jp_BoomSS, siang, Onnzai, LIMXINZHE)

Initially, we predicted that we would be facing Avengers in the semi-finals.

So, when littleSOTONGS beat Avengers, puzzlement filled us. Was it due to the lack of turf coverage in Avengers’ part? Or was littleSOTONGS just that tough? We could only find out in battle.

A quick match was enough to find out that the real threats are sotongSTAR and jp_BoomSS. Remove these pillars, and the team crumbles.

The perks of main-ing a weapon is that you knew the limits of said weapon and the potential strategy that comes with it; facing them felt like facing myself, for one uses my main weapon Tri-slosher and the other my old main Splat Roller.

I had a lot of fun on the first match as I crippled jp_BoomSS’ curling bombs sneak attack and danced around his rolls.

Match 2 was a bigger challenge as Kelp Dome is a wider map. There were some power struggle in the beginning, but it all ended in our favour. Incidentally, I was able to harass them with Tenta Missiles a LOT. The match was ours.

After this match, we had some time to rest as loser brackets had yet to sort out its winner. We waited.

(TBC)

#splatoon 2 #iyho series

1 note · View note

aion-rsa · 4 years

Text

Meet the New Characters in Marvel’s Hawkeye Disney+ Series

https://ift.tt/2JF5KjF

With WandaVision on the way, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier nearly ready to drop, Marvel’s next Disney+ series, Hawkeye, has flown a bit under the radar since its announcement. That changed yesterday, with new set pictures and a massive casting drop. But who the heck are all these characters? And what might the cast tell us about the story? We have some guesses, and only a couple of them involve the Circus of Crime.

Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld)

Probably the biggest news is the finally official confirmation that Kate Bishop would be a co-star of the show. Hailee Steinfield plays this possibly future Young Avenger as she joins her namesake hero (Jeremy Renner) on a quest through New York City.

Bishop was created in the comics by Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung as part of the 2005 Young Avengers team. She’s the daughter of obscenely wealthy and inattentive Manhattanites, who discovered her father was a bad sort, was the victim of an assault, and became a martial arts/weapons prodigy because of it. She joined the Young Avengers when the team attempted to save her and hundreds of other guests at her sister’s wedding. The fledgling heroes screwed it up, and Kate ended up saving everyone with her martial prowess.

At the time, Clint Barton was dead, so she took on the name Hawkeye to honor his place in the Avengers. She eventually moved to the west coast and opened up her own detective agency/branch of the Avengers, and is now the far more popular Hawkeye.

For purposes of what looks like this story, she became a good friend/little sister to Clint, and he called her in to help him fight off various criminals trying to steal his apartment building from him.

Eleanor Bishop (Vera Farmiga)

Eleanor Bishop is Kate’s mother. She spent most of Kate’s childhood estranged from Kate’s father, Jack, until she supposedly died on a trip to Colorado. It turned out her husband, Derek, was deeply involved with Marvel’s supervillain underworld, and she was trying to get away from him when she was killed.

Her death was suspicious, though, and when Kate was older, she started investigating her father’s ties to Madame Masque as a means to discover if he had a hand in Eleanor’s death. She discovers some evidence that her mother may be alive, but not before her and Clint get into a scuffle with Masque and her team that ends with everyone getting away, and Masque’s mysterious partner being revealed: Eleanor herself.

We’ll stop there because it gets weird after that (Eleanor is a half-vampire on the board of the Masters of Evil don’t sweat it), but for the purposes of the show, Eleanor is alive and working with the same very bad people Kate’s father was, only for revenge.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Kazimierz Kazimierczak: Clown (Fra Fee)

Kazimerz was created as part of the beloved Matt Fraction/David Aja run that much of this show seems to be drawing from. He was born into a Polish circus family that met tragedy and led to him emigrating to the United States. He lost another friend in an explosion, and that caused a break in Kazimierz, leading to him killing people indiscriminately and eventually farming out his services as a mercenary.

Kazimerz worked with a number of New York crime groups to clear out Clint Barton’s Brooklyn apartment building, and was part of the climactic battle between the Hawkeyes, the apartment residents, Lucky the Pizza Dog, and the Tracksuit Draculas. Please note that as awesome as that sentence is, the execution of the comic is even better.

Jack Duquesne: Swordsman (Tony Dalton)

The Swordsman is enjoying something of a renaissance lately. Jack Duquense was one of the Avengers’ earliest villains, a drunk gambler who taught Clint Barton how to fight with bladed weapons as a member of the Carson Carnival of Travelling Wonders. He bounced back and forth between good and bad, joining the Avengers under false pretenses as a double agent for The Mandarin, then turning on the bad guys, then returning to a life of crime, then eventually completely reforming and joining the Avengers full time.

He sacrificed his life in battle with Kang the Conqueror to save his teammate Mantis, after which he was resurrected in a Coatati (alient sentient plants) body and it turns into a thing in Empyre, but that’s probably irrelevant to the Hawkeye show.

Marvel’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Release Date, Cast, Trailer and News

By Kirsten Howard

Japanese Spider-Man Documentary Spotlights Fun, Weirdness, and Spectacular Stunts

By Mike Cecchini

Unless there’s an intergalactic war between the reunited Kree/Skrull empire and the plant people, but that seems like more of an MCU Phase 6 thing.

Yelena Belova: Black Widow (Florence Pugh)

This is the other big news from the cast announcement. Yelena Belova is a fellow Red Room trained Russian assassin (along with Scarlett Johannson’s Natasha Romanoff), and it looks like she’s taking over as the MCU’s Black Widow after the upcoming movie.

Clint and Nat have a long history in the MCU, and an even longer one in the comics – Nat is, along with Mockingbird, one of Clint’s most important exes, and the crux of the very good Tales of Suspense story from a few years back that saw Hawkeye and Winter Soldier teaming up. However, that was Natasha, not Yelena, so it remains to be seen exactly how this new Black Widow will fit into Clint’s life.

Maya Lopez: Echo (Alaqua Cox)

ECHO IS AWESOME. She is a deaf, native, good Taskmaster – she has “photographic reflexes”and can replicate anything she sees. However, she was primarily a Daredevil character until New Avengers, when she was revealed to be the first character in the Marvel Universe to wear the Ronin outfit – the same Ronin costume that Clint was wearing in Avengers: Endgame. She’s also the daughter of…

Willie Lincoln: Crazy Horse (Zahn McClarnon)

Crazy Horse worked for The Kingpin and died at Wilson Fisk’s hands, but as he passed, he made Fisk swear to raise his daughter. Fisk did, giving Maya the best of everything, and sending her to the best schools before bringing her in as an assassin he pointed at Daredevil.

When she discovered that he was Matt Murdock (who Maya was involved with in her civilian identity), she realized the lies Fisk had been telling her, and left his service. She later reappeared, disgraced, as Ronin, and joined the Avengers. She met Barton through her Avengers work, and they eventually slept together during Secret Invasion.

Lucky the Pizza Dog (unknown)

Lucky is a VERY GOOD DOG. If you don’t believe me, just look.

📷 | Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop and Lucky The Pizza Dog on the set of “Hawkeye” on December 2, 2020 in New York. 🏹 (Credit: @CreamOrScream) pic.twitter.com/qxNNzwmT9Y

— Hailee Steinfeld News (@HSteinfeldNews) December 2, 2020

Lucky is a good pup who Clint liberated from the Tracksuit Mafia during their squabble in Brooklyn. Lucky was also the POV character for one of the best issues of a superhero comic of all time, Hawkeye #11.

Hawkeye doesn’t yet have a premiere date, but we expect it in late 2021 or early 2022.

The post Meet the New Characters in Marvel’s Hawkeye Disney+ Series appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3mE0aw6

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

0 notes

entergamingxp · 4 years

Text

Skater XL Interview — Easy Day Studios on Bringing Skateboarding Culture to Gaming

July 14, 2020 2:30 PM EST

Easy Day Studios co-founder Dain Hedgpeth and director of marketing Jeff Goforth discuss Skater XL’s unique gameplay and properly repping skateboarding.

Throughout my years with DualShockers, my “E3 dream” was for a formal announcement for Skate 4. Now that EA actually made that announcement, I’m not as enthused as I thought I would be. “Why is that,” you ask? Well, there are a whole lot of skateboarding games launching in the near future. From Crea-ture Studios’ Session to Vicarious Visions’ Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2, there are so many different variations of the beloved yet niche genre. Heck, there is even one where you can skate as a bird.

However, the game that will usher in this new wave of skateboarding games is by the California-based developer, Easy Day Studios. Skater XL is the first mainstream skateboarding video game to hit the big console platforms since Skate 3 launched over 10 years ago. Evoking a similar style to Skate, it will certainly fill that gap that has been present in the market for a whole decade.

“This is our interpretation of the skating game people really wanted the whole time. This is where things were moving to.”

I was able to chat with Easy Day Studios co-founder and director Dain Hedgpeth and director of marketing Jeff Goforth about what makes Skater XL stand out amongst the plethora of recently announced skateboarding games. We also discussed how it improves on what EA started with Skate and how Easy Day Studios is bringing skateboarding culture and community to its upcoming game.

As I mentioned, there is somewhat of a resurgence of the skateboarding video game genre. It’s as if everyone grew tired of waiting for a new Skate game and decided to make it themselves. There is clearly an audience for a simulation-esque skateboarding game, and Skater XL will attempt to appease everyone who has been hungry for this type of game for years. I asked Dain about this resurgence of the skateboarding game and his feelings on ushering it in with Skater XL:

“It’s pretty surreal as fans of the genre to have been able to work in the space. Jeff [Goforth] is coming from 20 years in the actual skateboarding industry. Myself and some of the other guys on the team have worked on action sports games and are just off the back of a mobile skateboarding game for iOS and Android that launched in 2014. So yeah, it’s been interesting, the things that all had to happen for this to all fall into place at the time that it did. And, you know, we were looking at this gap in the market a few years back when we were sort of putting the pieces together that became Skater XL.

Everyone is familiar with the meme of, “we want Skate 4, etcetera, etcetera.” There has just been this clamoring and this passionate group. You know, I think everyone is aware that maybe as a niche, it’s big, but not as big as some of the team sport games that EA Sports works on or some of the first person shooters. It just sort of fits in this interesting middle point. So yeah, it has been pretty amazing for us just to kind of come in and start to fill this gap.

From early on, we were very [decided on] bringing something new to the genre. Tony Hawk had come in with a certain approach; EA Skate had come in and moved things forward. We felt there was another big step that this genre could take and we were very well positioned to have a go at it. This is our interpretation of the skating game people really wanted the whole time. This is where things were moving to.”

Collectively, I’ve spent about 27 hours playing the early access versions of Skater XL and Session; the majority of my time has been within the past month or so, as I just built a PC. That number has been steadily climbing as we approach Skater XL‘s full release later this month. Each is great in their own right. However, something I noticed about Easy Day Studios’ trick system versus Crea-ture Studios’ Session is how trick inputs function. Although there are several variations that each of these titles makes to deviate from the beloved Skate series, Session‘s trick animations function similarly to EA’s animations. Essentially, you can change flip speeds and make slight variations to each trick, but it is pretty easy to get the flip you want consistently. Skater XL takes a very different approach that may look similar if you’re watching a video, but works rather differently than its competition.

Skater XL actually uses a mostly physics-based system for trick inputs. There is some motion capture used to properly animate your skater, but all of your trick inputs are essentially being interpreted in real-time, and then executed on-screen using an amalgamation of animation and physics-based trick system. I was very intrigued by this trick system, as it produced some of the coolest looking flip tricks I have seen in a game. It really feels like you are expressing yourself with a skateboard. When asked whether this system was difficult to work with and implement, this is what Dain had to say:

“It was, but it’s interesting because there’s certain things that become much easier when you’re working with a natural and organic system, and there are certain things that are much more complicated because you’re not working with a real world interaction. You don’t have the same level of articulation through two joysticks and four axes of control. It’s not the same as having balance and all these different things you have control over in the real world.

[Creating the trick system] was the better part of the first year of development. We locked down the core team and really just drew a line in the sand and said, “we’re not moving forward until we are happy that we have something that we can build a game around.” The core mechanics, like the controls and the gameplay, was the only focus for some time until we had something that was like 80 percent of the way. It still needed some extra things added, it still needed some polish, but once we could feel it, we were like, “yes.”

I think we boiled it down to the right principles in the way it is designed. It feels right. It feels like skateboarding. You have control. You really feel a personal sense of reward when you do things because you are not only learning a skill, but every moment of the trick [including its] style [and] the way it came out. Like in real skateboarding, each time you do a kickflip, it looks and feels different.

The animation system, as well, was quite tricky because everything is kind of upside down. You’re not having the game read input, decide to do a kickflip, and then start a sequence of events that equals a kickflip. There is not even a line of code in the game that says “kickflip.” We basically have movement of the board, the player controls that movement, that movement happens to create a kickflip, then the game is actually watching the board [and] the user’s intent and in the moment, interpreting that in real time and trying to figure out what the animation should be doing.

We do have mo-cap. We have all these hundreds of different fragments of cut up mo-cap that is being augmented and it blends and fades in the right way. So, we have a system in there that is kind of novel in itself that is trying to listen to the board and see what the board is doing. Like, ‘Oh, this looks like a kickflip, let’s make the character express [themself] and flick their foot in the right way,’ and all that kind of stuff. So, that was a whole bundle of challenges in itself.”

“I think we boiled it down to the right principles in the way it is designed. It feels right. it feels like skateboarding.”

Skater XL‘s unique trick system, inspired environments, and general gameplay loop is the reason to play this game. Like real skateboarding, your “progress” is determined by your coolest line or your gnarliest trick. However, this isn’t real, even if it is as close to the real thing as a video game can get. Just about every game has a progression system, and Easy Day Studios has implemented one into Skater XL, albeit not in the traditional sense.

When asked if there would be challenges or a progression system in Skater XL, Dain brought up how most players, including myself, played Skate. While there were challenges and a story mode, the fun in Skate was engaging in its gameplay, finding spots, and testing your skills by filming an awesome line or trick. Specifically, Dain mentions that rather than using challenges to “supplement” or “replace” the gameplay loop, it will “enhance” it, with the intent to help players learn new skills and thoroughly use each environment to its maximum potential:

“Yes, we do have a challenge system in there. At launch, we have several hundreds of different challenges throughout the different levels. The objective of having challenges in there was really to help people see all the different things within the levels; you know, the different lines you can do in them. It’s really kind of giving people a helping hand; giving them some challenges, something to feel like they are progressing. [It’s] something that will push their skills in different directions and help them understand the different ways you can use the controls, but also help unlock the environment a little bit, as well.”

Back in April, Easy Day Studios announced four pros would be playable in Skater XL: Brandon Westgate, Tiago Lemos, Evan Smith, and Tom Asta. Each of them is outfitted with the deck and attire they would use in real life. A month later, it was revealed several name brands, like Emerica and Element, would also be featured in the game.

Now, I used to skate and was really engulfed in that culture…over 10 years ago. So, while I’ve seen names like Brandon Westgate and Tom Asta, I have kind of stepped away from skateboarding, and am pretty unfamiliar with that world as I’ve been absent from it for years. Because of that, I wanted to know why these four skaters in particular were added into the game. This is what Jeff had to say:

“[They were chosen] partially based on my past relationships and working with brands. I had connected with these guys, or several of them, over the years and just maintained friendship [with them]. So, it came kind of naturally. Like, cool; we want to get not only icons from this generation–which really, these guys are those pros that have really cemented themselves for this generation of skateboarding–but also guys that we meld with and were really on board with the idea and wanted to be involved.

Yeah, we really just wanted some unique styles. We got Evan [Smith], who is kind of more “out there.” He’s got the long hair and kind of the psychedelic vibe. Then you got someone like Brandon Westgate who is just one of the most powerful, all-around street skaters there is today. Then Tiago [Lemos] is like the next huge legend globally. We really just wanted to pick a diverse group of people that brought different elements of skating, but also guys that really fit with the game.”

From Jeff’s response, it really seems as if these four, and I’m sure many others, really represent skating culture today. These are some of the best in the world, and people look up to them as influences, kind of in the same way as skaters like Don Nguyen, Mike V., Jamie Thomas, Christian Hosoi, and Shogo Kubo inspired my style of skating. I know a few of those names are a bit before my time, but guys like Hosoi and Kubo had such an awesome style that I wish I could emulate.

But skating culture is more than just adding in a few pros from the scene. I asked in what way is Skater XL representing that culture. Part of Jeff’s answer does entail the brands that Easy Day Studios has managed to include in the game. After all, part of expressing yourself may be in the way you dress, or the way you outfit your board. Jeff also mentions how it’s also the gameplay and the California-based spots they’ve created (or recreated) in the game:

“The whole game is sort of based around the California skating lifestyle. It’s a little more laid back, but you got those iconic spots and it’s really authentic to skateboarding. You know, myself, Dain [Hedgpeth], and Jon [West, co-founder and lead developer of Easy Day Studios] — who are three of the core members — are lifelong skaters. Everyone else on the team has a really strong connection to skateboarding. So, just all those details [both in the environment and in its gameplay] might get missed from somebody that’s not a skater. A huge focus was to make sure that we do right by skateboarding and represent it in the correct way.”

A huge part of skateboarding, whether it is digitally in a game or in real life, is filming some trick or line that is rad and sharing it with the world. Now more than ever, it is easy to just capture a moment and post it. Posting video is almost immediate unless you want to make it look all nice and fancy. Heck, I’ve been capturing a ton of content on Skater XL with its replay feature and posting it on my Twitter. It is incredibly fun and simple to use and looks pretty natural. As it is pretty integral to the experience, I asked about Easy Day Studios’ approach with the replay editor, and if it were somewhat of a priority for the developer to really get that facet right. Here is what Dain had to say:

“It’s a big thing that we wanted to give some attention to. For 1.0, there is a bit of a refresh on the replay editor, the UI, and the guides that are in there. But moving forward, I think we can have a process of making replays that helps people make the best replays possible, particularly with people who haven’t done it before. There is a bit of a learning curve there.

But also, you’ve made a replay; the cool thing to do with it is to actually show other people. You know, share that moment and get some kudos. Those kind of things differ per platform as well; the ability to hook into social platforms, the ability to capture video easily, save it then share it. So, there are a few things to work out there, but it’s definitely a big part for anyone that goes beyond enjoying the gameplay.

As you get deep into [Skater XL], it is certainly one of the things that becomes very rewarding. We are definitely looking to improve that and definitely looking for more integration and easier sharing in the future. We’ll see what’s possible on each platform.”

For anyone to even want to share footage, you need a community to watch. Unsurprisingly, Skater XL has a community that is not only eager for the launch but have also taken matters into their own hands and started creating their own levels and mods. However, I didn’t realize how dedicated this community was, which Dain enlightened me on:

“So, what we were seeing in the PC [version] is this incredible explosion of community activity of modding. It’s really interesting to see that in the ten years since Skate 3 has come out, how much social platforms and the nature of what a game is has evolved. [There is] such a broader spectrum of what gaming can mean these days.

I think that is part of what was in the front of our minds when we started the project. [We asked ourselves about] Skater XL, “what does a modern skating game look like?” This isn’t 2010 where you can put things on a disc and that’s it. There is a lot more connectivity. You have all these social platforms you can leverage; people are on Discord, people are on Twitch; [for] skating, in particular, Instagram is quite with big clip sharing; and YouTube, of course. Being receptive to that out of the gate was something we were hoping to do.

I think we weren’t expecting it to be quite as active as it was. We were really hoping [for it]. This is skateboarding, there is a creative side to it. There is this existing community that is still playing Skate 3. And a large part of what is fun about skateboarding is the social side of it, the culture, the content, and the artistic expression of it with video parts, and all the different facets of it; the music, the clothing, everything.

So, it has been interesting seeing Skater XL become a digital version of both the activity of skateboarding and the cultural things around it.”

Dain continued explaining some examples of just how dedicated the Skater XL community is. He talked about this bi-monthly magazine that is 200 pages long, including features on community members and ads for products by fake skate brands you can download via mod support. There are even skate teams. It’s a community filled with people who skate or have skated (I’m the latter) and want to just create cool content using a trick system that feels like skateboarding.

youtube

“It seems Easy Day Studios is doing its best to represent that wild world the best it can with Skater XL.”

This led to a conversation about the recently announced community-made levels Easy Day Studios is launching alongside the 1.0 release of Skater XL. Grant Park, Streets, and Hüdland are all levels created by the game’s modding community and will be completely free for the PC and console versions. It is pretty rare to see developers showcase their community in this way, and it’s encouraging to see Easy Day Studios featuring these levels as if they were their own.

Modding and downloading mods, especially in the way the Skater XL community seems to be going about it, is typically only available for the PC version, and that seems to be the case with Easy Day Studios’ upcoming release. However, as Dain explained, it seems the developer is looking into ways they can potentially bring user-generated content to console platforms:

“One of the most popular things with mods was the environments. People are making their own skateparks or a really famous skate spot and putting that out to the community. They are also collaborating with each other with building these spots. One guy might be really great at 3D modeling, [while] another is great at texturing and lighting. Then you’ve got guys who are good at filming and skating and they do promos and get it out to the community. You have all this kind of community activity around the creative process.

I know there are a lot of barriers, a lot of things to figure out with the console manufacturers, and for good reason. It’s not as easy to launch just any old content onto these more locked down platforms. They have strict quality control and there’s guides around ratings and language and all those sort of things. But I think things are changing as well. And gaming is changing. There are more avenues games can take to start to bridge that gap [between PC and console] and start to bring community content and [user-generated content] into console games.

So yeah, it’s something we’re looking at doing. We might bring in more maps. We are thinking about every different way you can think of to bridge the gap between the console audience and the community at large.”

After talking with Dain and Josh, it’s clear that Easy Day Studios knows skateboarding and really understand its culture and community. What I always found awesome about skateboarding and the people who partake in what some would consider “delinquent behavior” is that there really are no norms. The only barrier you face when jumping on a board is yourself. You’re constantly fighting your limitations, taking everything you’ve learned either by yourself or someone else and applying it in a way that is uniquely you. It’s really just about being yourself and expressing your creativity with a skateboard. It seems Easy Day Studios is doing its best to represent that wild world the best it can with Skater XL.

Skater XL is currently available in Early Access and will officially launch for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on July 28, 2020.

July 14, 2020 2:30 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/skater-xl-interview-easy-day-studios-on-bringing-skateboarding-culture-to-gaming/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=skater-xl-interview-easy-day-studios-on-bringing-skateboarding-culture-to-gaming

0 notes

turkiyeecom · 5 years

Text

E3 2019 in photos: Gooigi, crazy arcade machines, and a DOOM museum

"Great work!" — Plus, the National Videogame Museum returns with some of its craziest rarities yet. Sam Machkovech and Kyle Orland - Jun 16, 2019 1:00 pm UTC LOS ANGELES—If you couldn't or didn't make it to E3 2019, you're not the only one. Anecdotal evidence suggests this was the most poorly attended E3 in some time (though its organizers at the ESA insist that this E3 had only 3,000 fewer attendees than 2018's jam-packed affair), owing perhaps to Sony's no-show or the abundance of live-streamed options for enjoying the event at your own home. Luigi and Gooigi attracted hordes of attendees excited to pose for photos. Sam Machkovech Inside the Luigi's Mansion 3 booth, fans could pose with a guy in a Luigi costume. Nintendo went all-out building a haunted house for these kiosks, but my photos of it turned out terribly. It was easier to get photos of the toy dioramas built around the Link's Awakening gameplay kiosks. Nintendo built four of them in all. A closer zoom on the plastic minis Nintendo built just for this occasion. Link delves into a dungeon. "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" "Wrong series, dude." I'll admit, I kinda lost my mind seeing this adorable Link and Marin meet-cute diorama. Marin in Smash Bros. Ultimate? A guy can dream, right? The EA Play event at the Hollywood Palladium included this impressive cast of paid Apex Legends cosplayers. Yes, the person cosplaying as Octane is a bilateral amputee. You couldn't buy these impressive 10" Apex Legends statues at EA Play. But you could buy a ton of shirts and hoodies. As an Apex Legends fan, Ars's Sam Machkovech nearly bought the "bamboozled" one. For some reason, EA Play hosted an Anthem gameplay session... and for some reason, attendees actually waited for it. FIFA '20 hosted an arena-soccer match. The McLaren Senna features in the new LEGO Speed expansion pack for Forza Horizon 4, so naturally, Microsoft had someone make a life-sized McLaren Serra model out of LEGO bricks. They went to pretty insane trouble to include significant elements from the real deal. Real wheels, real LEGO blocks. This refreshed version of the Xbox Elite Controller (dubbed "version 2") will launch in November for $180 and features such perks as a rechargeable battery, a controller-charging case, increased hair-trigger responsiveness, and more. We couldn't test the new XEC with any games, but its newly texturized grip and significant heft felt good to hold on its own. C'mon, Xbox, you think we're gonna steal this thing? How dare you. Say hello to one of Gears 5's newest, most disgusting monsters. It's not a Gears of War character if it doesn't have chest-high cover nearby. The best thing about Gears 5's new "Escape" mode is that it supports three-player split-screen co-op. More of this kinda thing, please, Xbox Game Studios. The newest LEGO Star Wars release this coming holiday season revolves around the "Skywalker Saga," so naturally, it's time to trot out the old LEGO Han in LEGO carbonite statue again. Coach's Pac-Man line of bags and accessories. For the discerning, fancypants gamer. More Pac-Man and classic-Namco swag. Pretty solid 10" Tekken statues. The entire Bandai Namco fancy-collectible wall was pretty great, honestly. I couldn't take photos of the Final Fantasy VII Remake gameplay kiosks, but I could take photos of the series' Shinra Corporation stuff all around it. For example, this recreation of an iconic FFVII backdrop. Square Enix put up a few Shinra advertisements around the kiosks. See? They have Midgar's best interests at heart! I really hope there's a full cartoon series hidden inside of FFVII Remake starring this cartoon dog. Someone please translate this for us. A small detail of the amazing theater room for Psychonauts 2. TEETH! Arcade1UP had a significant E3 presence with its home-friendly versions of classic arcade machines. The manufacturer used E3 to reveal its newest product: a Star Wars Atari arcade trilogy collection, coming "late 2019." Another look at its handsome side cabinet art. I had to stand on a stool to get a better look at the screen and controller. Because this cabinet was set up on a precarious platform, it was not playable at E3. An Arcade1UP representative said it collaborated with Disney and Lucasfilm in the making of this cabinet, then studied original classic arcade hardware to recreate the controller. Rather than answer my technical questions about how the controller was constructed in this modern version, the Arcade1UP rep insisted that it sought input from arcade cabinet collectors to confirm that its version nailed the original cabinets' feel and mechanical action. Another new Arcade1UP cabinet: the TMNT collection, which includes both of Konami's four-player brawlers in one cabinet. (Most of their cabs include at least two games, if not a few more.) It seems to comfortably support four players, but I liked this group's tweak: letting the middle player simultaneously control two turtles. Then there was this absolutely ridiculous thing that Arcade1UP built for the heckuvit. That's intrepid Ars Technica editor Sam Machkovech up there pretending to play the game. I hope the hand on the joystick makes clear how stupidly massive this whole rig was. But it worked... and Sam won his match. Really, Sam? Be professional. Sega's booth had its own oversized-controller gimmick to celebrate the impending launch of the Sega Genesis Mini this September. It's not really E3 until Ubisoft has a stage full of professional dancers and average fans getting down to Just Dance as one awkward collective. A peek at the poster-covered walls inside of Cyberpunk 2077's behind-closed-doors booth. Capcom had a relatively meager showing at E3, with this new Monster Hunter World expansion taking up most of the company's booth. But, hey, at least they had some nice 10" dragons under glass. Hold me closer, tiny draaaagonnnnns. Sorry, Street Fighter fans. Capcom didn't come to E3 2019 with any news about either SFV or any new fighting games. Just 10" figurines. Chun-Li and Cammy, kicking ass beneath glass. Larger than life. Just like Borderlands should be. Kyle Orland This was by far the best part of the Destroy All Humans revival attempt. Kyle Orland Pixl Cube was one of the more inventive games at the Indiecade booth, a tilt-sensitive box with LED dots that moved through a maze as if pulled by gravity. Kyle Orland In the entryway for Youtube Gaming's creator space, blocks from the show floor, a Google Stadia controller sits behind glass with a mock-up of a retro game store. Kyle Orland The YouTube Gaming space also featured some streamers on old-school CRT TVs, which was a weird look. Kyle Orland Cute. Kyle Orland The YouTube Gaming logo sits on a fake cartridge alongside... Hyper Chroma Ultra? Kyle Orland Nothing says "E3" like a guy in a Yoshi/Mario costume livestreaming himself as he balks loudly at the show floor's $6 pretzels. Kyle Orland New Wave Toys is expanding its Replicade line of authentic miniature cabinets with the likes of these two Capcom classics. Kyle Orland MyArcade is expanding from miniature cabinets to massive portable systems capable of playing actual NES and SNES cartridges. Kyle Orland MyArcade's upcoming Contra cabinet even includes link cable support for two player action. Don't you DARE touch this actual Contra cabinet in the MyArcade booth, though. Kyle Orland That being said, we attended, and Ars Technica came back from Los Angeles with plenty to show for it. In addition to a few more hands-on previews coming (which will build upon the best-of E3 2019 list we already filed), we took our cameras out at both the official E3 halls and nearby events (Xbox Fan Fest, EA Play). I gotta say, in this modern political climate, I have been calling every year "the year of doom." A very nice pencil sketch taken from the original PC game's box art. I'd never seen these minis before, but now I want to play DOOM-opoly. A better zoom on these metal beasts. Collect me plenty. Now for some impressive 3D molds of famed DOOM demons. See? It's like a museum. Funnily enough, this is my "I don't know what to do with my hands" pose when I stand for photos. The secret for awkward photo poses: turn your arms into massive rocket launchers. Way less awkward! As one of DOOM 64's longtime fans, I stood at this specific panel for a while. This might be the least-blurry these N64 sprites have ever looked. (The N64 famously smothered its sprites in a disgusting, smeary blur.) More figurines on display. More figurines on display. More swag on display. More swag on display. The result is a whopping three image galleries here. The first is a catch-all for most of the basic, expected fare, while the second and third focus on retro elements: a DOOM-specific mini-museum, and a curated collection of very rare gaming hardware and collectibles courtesy of the National Videogame Museum in Frisco, Tex. (If you've never been to that physical location before, we strongly encourage you to book a trip.) You know the retro portion of E3 is serious when they put this thing behind a rope. Truly one of a kind. Click the image to get a better look at the information placard. Yep, those are traditional Saturn controller ports. We'd never seen these Vectrex prototypes and variants before. The innards of a prototype color Vectrex system that never saw production. Kyle Orland Anybody think they can repair this thing? Yes, the only scoring cart that remains from this Super Nintendo championship event. Also, a killer Vectrex jacket. How the heck does the NVM keep finding and showing off such incredible game-history rarities? Some cool mementos from the original Mortal Kombat. The placard explains how rare this system is... ... based on this specific message signed by none other than Bill Gates. I don't care how puffy this jacket is. I'd wear it. Every year, the National Video Game Museum trots out at least one previously confidential binder taken from a major gaming company. This year's was Nintendo. I'm always fascinated by internal '80s and '90s documentation about piracy and cartridge backup systems. This section went on for a few more pages and even included grainy photos of various cartridge-copying devices. Video games: the board game! Video games: the, uh, VHS game! Well before the Game Boy revolutionized portable gaming, kids of the '70s and '80s were stuck with these clunkers. One wall was dedicated to particularly rare game consoles that launched solely in Japan. Eat your heart out, Donkey Konga. This is one of Gunpei Yokoi's classic electronic games that he designed for Nintendo in the '70s. This makes me wish Ulala was in an actual '80s cartoon. Kyle Orland In addition to popular and common fare in the coin-op section, the NVM trotted out a few machines we rarely see at classic gaming expos, like this fetching Jungle King cab. True story: we asked Double Fine studio founder and creative director Tim Schafer if he could step back for a second so we could take a photo of this handsome Omega Race cabinet. "I used to play this game all the time as a kid," he remarked before stepping away slowly. (If you're wondering, he signs his name "TIM" in high-score tables.) And we couldn't leave E3 without a walk through the almost carnival-like selection of vendors and inventions in the expo's very back hall. Look below at the show's weird "et cetera" section. Here's a gallery of E3 2019's oddest booths and products. "Wow, how nice and COOL!" we're sure you are saying to yourself. Kyle Orland Thermoreal uses superconductors (?!) to simulate a cold or hot feeling in metal. The company integrated this tech into VR-compatible gloves and a VR headset. As the VR environment changes, so does the sensation of real-life temperature. Trippy! Kyle Orland This 1,000 MaH battery pack for the Switch was heavy, but the harness made it pretty easy to slide on and off to use only when it's needed. Kyle Orland Some extremely generic-looking custom chip boards for use in mini-arcade devices and portable emulation devices. If anybody reading this has the rights to the Atari Jaguar Mini, look them up. Kyle Orland Why stream games to a smartphone with Google Stadia when the Smach Z packs an entire 1080p gaming PC with a 6" screen into a rather bulky portable package? Doom (2016) ran with noticeable judders, and the unit got noticeably hot in our test. But the fact that it works at all was impressive. Kyle Orland The Tactsuit haptic system jolts your body when playing compatible VR games and software. Kyle Orland The Vuvana system has something to do with using a new blockchain cryptocurrency to buy and "own" items in virtual reality, which you can view on a cell phone with this included viewer, apparently. Kyle Orland Oversized controllers were all the rage at E3 2019, but this one went to the trouble of building in a monitor for its game, Street Fighter 2. Kyle Orland Remember the iCade Mini? Someone sure does... Kyle Orland GameBoks is just like it sounds—a wooden box that houses a monitor, power supply, and a space to hold and connect your game console. Between this and the new Atari VCS, wood paneling is apparently the hot new retro-hardware trend. Kyle Orland Proximat is being sold as a "mousepad for your virtual reality feet." It gives VR players a physical indication of their play space's center point, complete with high-grade gel for foot comfort. Kyle Orland If this is a thing you're looking for (for some reason), E3 has you covered. Kyle Orland Amazingly, a product with "360 ONE X" in its name has nothing to do with Xbox (it's a 360 degree camera designed for VR) Kyle Orland Neither vinyl nor fidget spinners are dead at E3 2019. Kyle Orland I need some quick energy after seeing all of these amazing products. It's my lucky day! Kyle Orland How do you make money selling $100 worth of stuff for $40? It's an economic miracle! Kyle Orland This balance board is mainly meant for some easy exercise while at a standing desk, but its producers were marketing it to gamers with a Mortal Kombat 11 display. Kyle Orland And the award for "most dystopian sounding slogan at E3" goes to... Kyle Orland "In the 1989 Future" is a legitimately great tagline, we have to admit. Kyle Orland Listing image by Sam Machkovech Read More Read the full article

#breakingnews #Gooigi #news #photos

1 note · View note