#sony bend

[thefreecheese]

The Free Cheese Episode 557: Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow

This week on The Free Cheese, six more weeks of Syphon Filter. The final entry in the Syphon Filter series becomes the first to join The List. We recap our understanding of the series’ plot, highlight some of the differences introduced in this game, and discuss how it fares against the PSP library at its time of release. Reviews Joe Having never played another game in the franchise, I was…

[they-have-the-same-va]

Sarah Whitaker from Days Gone shares a voice actress with Elizabeth from BioShock Infinite.

Voiced by Courtnee Draper

[fm-r-iznow]

DAYS GONE 2

WHERE IS IT SONY?

Okay so I have been Holding off on buying a PS5, due the price and my lack of funding I was the same about ps4 but after a sudden windfall i bought it and i went crazy. I actually felt like I was people. Now I could bore you with a list of games. But the game i really enjoyed the most was DAYS GONE

I think i got half way through until I stopped. Due to personal issues and crysis but the main issue is the delay of DG2. I even stopped playing all together my life had turned upside-down. Well but now im picking up the pieces and I'm playing switch and im enjoying these horror games as well as open world games. Now at this time I could get 10 PS5's if I wanted. But if I'm going spend 500 bucks on a game system. Then I'm going to buy synth plugins for my laptop because im making music again after a year of nothing thanks to a crappy daw update on FL STUDIO which did nothing to help so now I have a new daw.

But back to my point unless Playstation changes their tune i will not buy anymore of their products. over the years i baught cassette tapes vhs cdrs and a camcorder which for the $$$ it's pretty good. So unless SONY changes its tune i won't be buying anymore of their products if i want to play Katamari its on Switch. And if I want to play tenchu that came out on Xbox. Then I'll get an Xbox my final point is this. Jeff Ross should think of putting the game out on Xbox Switch or pc. I mean Sony is playing unfair expecting exclusive content and then be inconsistent on this game and why????

I remember countless games that were crap and they nade a series of crap churned out like digital dingle berry dyarrrheia. SONY is not a nurturing corporation.

their creators and customers alike are suffering. If i buy a console, their are quite a few i can get

now I can buy that Moog I've been pining over for years. Long before Ps5. I thought who needs that? PS4 is satisfactory. I don't need bells and whistles or better frame rate. I don't care about that

im still a casual gamer i have things I do that give more satisfaction spiritually. Gaming is only an escape and decompress

to me long before i even picked up a joy stick i drew and imitated my comic book heros. Now if I want a camera I'll buy a fuji or a Canon. Now I know 1 guy can't hurt a major corporation buy doing a personal boycott. But at least i have other options that i can invest my money into. So Jeff Ross i can only hope he knows has the same options. Which he may not contractionally. And I hope thats not the case. I ALSO dont appreciate click bate youtube videos eluding the game is coming out with DAYS GONE II coming and a month later nothing zero!! Well I think I said everything I'm spent. I should be sleeping. its it 4.30 AM in the morning so good night sweet dreams....

[everygame]

Days Gone (PS4)

Developed/Published by: Bend Studio / Sony Interactive Entertainment Released: 26/4/2019 Completed: 05/05/2023 Completion: Beat it. Trophies / Achievements: 48%

Two in a row here for me getting burned by “it’s not as bad as people say.” I mean, honestly, what is it about that that attracts me? It’s not even successfully contrarian, because you’re really hedging your bets by waiting to be told something isn’t bad before you try and stick your flag in “it’s good actually” territory. Plus, what is it I’m really holding out for? Something that I can class as “not bad” or “quite good”? (And that’s quite good in the British sense.) I mean, is it really worth my time watching a movie like Renfield to think “it’s not as bad as people say” rather than filling in, say, a Kurosawa I haven’t seen?

But of course, you can’t eat Michelin star restaurants every night; sometimes you’re going to want a (impossible) whopper.

The problem with things like Days Gone is that it’s like eating a whopper that’s six miles long. And I know that the Whopper comes in a round bun, so if I wanted a bun that made sense giving it extra length I probably should have gone for the (vegan) chicken royale, but I could probably eat a six mile long vegan chicken royale because they���re brilliant. And they already put about six miles worth of mayo on them.

To dig my way out of that riff… why are games like Days Gone like this? So grotesquely, illogically distended? I know exactly how they pitched this over at Sony HQ. A man walked in and said “What if State of Decay, rather than a game where players generated their own stories, was as relentlessly scripted as The Last of Us. And it played exactly like Red Dead Redemption 2.”

And before the man at Sony could respond the man pitching said “and the horse is a motorbike.”

It’s not a horrible idea, even if the influences are worn so apparently on the game’s sleeves that you almost wonder why you’re bothering. I mean the combat is literally Red Dead Redemption’s right down to the “focus” mechanic, and they’ve even got Red Dead Redemption’s random events and even animal hunting in it (which is crap, and thankfully you never need to bother with it.)

(A big aside here however to note that this is yet another piece of media with anti-wolf propaganda featuring the animals as creatures who attack on sight even though wolves sensibly stay the fuck away from humans. Also being forced to murder some bears in this can fuck off too.)

Anyway. Moment-to-moment, Days Gone plays perfectly well in a textbook case of “it’s not as bad as people say” once you actually get your weapons and bike and character upgraded a bit… which is another thing I’m going to complain about. What’s the point in having upgrade systems in your game if it just means the first five or ten or however bloody long of your game you’re stumbling about with a character that just feels crap to play? But once you get there–which takes far too fucking long–the shooting is fun enough, driving around is smooth, and you find yourself quite easily locked into the classic open-world “there’s always another box to tick off” loop.

Where it falls down, really, is that there isn’t… always another box to tick off??? The game has a really baffling way of doling out missions meaning that I often had only one mission on the whole map I could do. I actually thought I was completely screwed about a third of the way through this because the only mission I had to do was a motorbike chase and my bike was woefully unequipped because I didn’t have enough “trust” with the camp that would upgrade my bike to actually even really keep up with the enemy I was chasing. Thanks to my incredible skills, of course, I did beat it and then suddenly about six missions all appeared, but for many players that might have been it.

(If you want to hear something ridiculous about the way the game doles out missions, you basically can only get them when you’re riding on your bike outside of the camps, meaning that you’ll be in a camp with nothing to do, drive outside, suddenly get a radio call from the people inside that camp, and have to go right back. I know why they do it–what if you got the radio call while standing in front of the NPC in the camp–but why can’t you just get the whole task on the radio? You drive back and they just tell you what to do! They could have done it over the bloody radio!!!)

The pacing here is just so incredibly off. Trust with camps takes an age to grow because doing a mission might get you (literally) 400 points of the way to 25,000, and handing in bounties or hunting animals gets you like… 3 points each.

Later, of course, you realise it’s this way because the game unlocks its signature experience, “horde hunting” in the endgame, and you’ll be killing so many zombies that you’re swimming in points. However that means you’ve played almost the entire game unlocking almost nothing.

Horde hunting, actually, is the perfect example of how Days Gone just doesn’t quite get it. Hordes are all across the map through the whole game. The game doesn’t introduce the idea that you can defeat them until the end of the game. The hordes that are in the initial areas are smaller–sometimes as few as 25 zombies–and would be perfect to learn from.

The first horde the game expects you defeat, because it’s tied to a mission? Three. Hundred. Zombies.

It is absolutely idiotic. It’s not even a well designed encounter! The second horde you face in the story mode has a very clear path that they can chase you along lined with explosive trucks that kills basically all of them? The “end boss” horde has a train tunnel you can easily funnel them into! 

The thing that should be the most fun and rewarding thing in the game you don’t actually do throughout the game unless you know to do it without the game telling you, so by the time you get to do them, you’re probably too fucking bored of the game to want to. I know I was.

(And even then only the story mission hordes get marked with a life bar, so if you’re facing one randomly early in the game you have no idea if you’re actually completing part of the game until the “horde defeated” dialogue comes up. Which it might not, because there’s no leeway, and if you miss a random straggler or they clip out of the world or something (I did face some geometry issues) you’re fucked. And never mind if you’d like to practice on an earlier easier horde before doing that mission once you discover it, because you’re locked out of the earlier part of the map.)

To finish giving this a kicking, I have to say the Last of Us this ain’t. This has the most ridiculously po-faced and predictable story I’ve seen in a game in a while, mistaking a hero who comes across as a petulant arse as a rebel (well, when he doesn’t come across as unhinged, his breathless bloodlust when entering enemy camps is laughable). There’s too much simplistic edgy shit that the writers mistook for profound (damn… man sure can be inhuman to… man) and the game’s main plot, “Our protagonist is sad because his wife is dead… or is she?” is genuinely embarrassing.

I mean, I don’t know where to start with it. I know the writers would swear blind we’re supposed to be laughing along with the game during a flashback where our hero gets married in a backwards ball cap and his new wife says “Promise to ride me as much as your bike” but every other flashback sequence is so saccharine to cry irony there is beyond disingenuous (and I know it’s a callback.) And the game’s classic open-world rug-pull (there’s more map!) leads to a sequence where no character’s motivations make any sense at all. Why aren’t these characters talking to each other, you wonder? Why did our characters make these decisions in the first place???

I did laugh at the game’s “oh no my best friend is dead” fake out right at the end though. It was like Danny Aiello at the end of Hudson Hawk. “Yeah! That’s probably what happened!”

Speaking of that best friend though, (spoilers) a huge chunk of the game is about how he’s sad about how he’s lost an arm and can never ride a bike again. There’s a mission where the protagonist wants to fix it and I thought “oh, he’s going to find the material to get him a device that will help him control a bike one handed” but instead he… makes him a knife arm.

One armed people can ride motorcycles. This game is so stupid.

Will I ever play it again? There are four post-credit missions that absurdly the game makes you wait 8 in-game days to see all of because I guess they assume you’re having at ton of fun playing it more. I wasn’t, I slept in a bed for eight days and then laughed at the cut-scene promising a sequel that will never come via the silliest cliffhanger I can imagine in context.

Final Thought: The weird thing about Days Gone is that you could easily say to me “well, the reason you didn’t like this that much is that you finished it. You should have just played it till you were bored and then stopped.” Except for the fact that the game doesn’t hit the sweet spot of “not as bad as people say” until you’ve played it for ages to get upgraded and shit. This is another game with a new game+ that seems absolutely insane because why would you want to do everything over again. There’s no reason this campaign wasn’t ten hours long, forcing me to specialise in my first playthrough while keeping the upgrades and improvements flowing at a speedy clip and then letting me play the game again doing different things if I want to. No one wants six miles of whopper. Give me six miles of individual whoppers and I’ll think it’s a bit wasteful but I’ll happily eat a couple and move on with my life.

Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi! You can pick up a digital copy of exp. 2600, a zine featuring all-exclusive writing at my shop, or join as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.

[wolfleblack]

Bend Studios is making a "AAA live-service" game

Bend Studios, the PlayStation-owned company responsible for developing the likes of Days Gone and Syphon Filter, are currently seeking a Lead Project Manager for their next game, and the listing has given us an idea of what they are up to. Bend has been quiet for a while now. Their last release was Days Gone, a game I view as underrated, which managed to sell 7.3m copies across several years…

[delta-chan]

Aibo: Ordered. Brothers: Prepped for departure.

Crime: ACTIVATED

[oysterie]

my wired earbuds nooo

[videogamesincolor]

The Days Gone dev(s) blaming everyone except either themselves or Sony for how their game sold is something else, I’ll tell you what.

(And exposing yourself as racist to boot? May all your endeavors shrivel and dry up, sir.)

[deatherella]

Deatherella does DOTY 2024 - Round 4

Here's the items I did up for Round 4. I made recolors, conversions, and a few new meshes. Most of the furnishings are IKEA based items since Steve-O's parents went shopping at their local IKEA store to furnish his study.

Let's start with recolors, shall we. Recolors on several Maxis poster meshes (Surf's Up and Yummers for my Tummers), the BV travel poster, and Veranka's Otter Be a Star painting.

Various rugs. Only one is in my entry. I had other ones to put in there and forgot to place them. There are square, runner, Maxis PS, Maxis Bull's Eye, 3x4, and 3x5 rugs

Sailfindragon's Santiago blinds recolored with IKEA's banana print fabric. I think I got the meshes at Affinity Sims so my link for her goes to her MTS profile.

I did a few 4to2 conversions. LightningBolt's Sega Genesis and game cartridges. It doesn't have a controller - the one in my previews and entry pics is from @2fingerswhiskey.  Peeled Orange from Surely-Sims. Floppy disks from Carabiner's Computer Lab set.

New stuff !!!! IKEA HALLSTA. Straight off the cover of their 1985 catalog. HALLSTA is actually a sofa cover, not a sofa. But I made it a sofa since I am not talented at bending faces around enough to make it a slipcover. It comes with recolors in 13pumpkin's IKEA pallette. In my downloads folder, there is an .rar with the seamless fabrics if you'd like to use them on your own creations.

IKEA Tarnaby chair. I made this from the Karlstad chair since they were a lot alike. Only one texture from the IKEA ad for it.

Chia Pets !!!! Can't get more '80s than that. One for putting on your surfaces and one for sprucing up your yard - flamingo move over, chia pet is here!

Now your teens can be the cool kids in the hood with their very own (deco) Sony Dynamite 8-track player. I made this mesh from scratch and it turned out fairly well. Little more poly than it should have for a 1-tile object but I didn't want it to look all boxy. Recolors in all Sony's colors for it - yellow, blue, red, white, black. Let's not forget those 8-track cassettes. I made these with a model from turbosquid. I deleted all the parts that wouldn't show in our games and it comes in rather low poly. There are three 8-track cassette meshes - one laying straight, a slanted one, and two together. "Deatherella_8TrackCassette" is the master for all of them. Lots of 80's bands' albums recolors.

Download ALL Round 4 items ! If you'd like to pick and choose from the items, you can find all in the Round 4 folder. Hope you have as much fun using these as I did making them.

[therealvinelle]

ok now I'm curious. if all the cullens turned into smartphones, which phones would they be? And bonus question, which phone would Eleazar turn into

...

You know I've received three asks on this? Only you included Eleazar, though.

Alice is the nebulous concept of an iPhone that hasn't come out yet. It doesn't matter how hip and with it everybody else tries to be, Alice's phone is newer.

Bella is an iPhone series 5 or later, which is to say she looks fragile and she is fragile. Drop her on a cushion and the entire screen shatters. Edward is constantly buying her screen protectors.

Carlisle is a Marconi wireless telegraph, a life-saving technology that no one would have thought possible if Marconi hadn't been mad and brilliant enough to do it. Carlisle, having saved human lives in unconvential ways since long before there were smartphones, can only be a Marconi wireless.

Edward is a Huawei. This makes him more indie and interesting than the Sony and Samsung android phones of the world, and the fact that the US has forbidden all Huawei from being purchased or used within country borders means that Edward can cry about being rejected by society. Because he's a monster.

Emmett is a phone booth, to account for his sheer size. The man is a hunk. Rosalie is into it, everybody else wonders how she's planning to lug this guy around.

Esme is a landline, because she stays in the home and is at the heart of the family.

Jasper is an android phone, because none of Alice's nebulous concept phones have a good camera, on account of them being iPhones. Jasper, therefore, is on the hook for photoshoots with Barbie Bella, events, and all such things. Additionally, he's pragmatic enough to want an android.

Renesmee is her voice, as her entire world consists of people who are always close by anyway. She has never needed a phone to get in touch.

Rosalie is a Nokia, because she strikes me as too pragmatic and stubborn to ever bend to the smartphone craze. They'll be out of fashion soon enough and when they are she will be able to say she never accepted any of the CandyCrush invites. As far as Rosalie is concerned, phones are for ringing.

Bonuss Eleazar:

He is the communal Denali phone where they have the phone numbers to the Cullens and a host of dating apps. That's it, that's all any of them will ever need.

[saspitite]

Kauhukorppi

In 2011, a copyright dispute broke out between the Hevisaurus members and Sony Finland, who both claimed to have rights over the brand and characters. This led to the members temporarily creating a separate band represented by the same characters, SauruXet. Unfortunately, however, court ruled in Sony's favor, and Hevisaurus had to bend to their wishes, disbanding SauruXet in 2012 and reforming Hevisaurus.

Komppi Momppi, the apatosaurus drummer of Hevisaurus, was the main member to voice concern and disappointment in Sony Finland's actions. Upon seeing the results of the court case, he expressed that he was enraged, but knew he could do nothing about it, saying in an interview that he "felt all creative control and merit of the band was now in the hands of a corporation", of which he was not optimistic about in the slightest, he clarified.

The members reported increasing concerns regarding Komppi Momppi, as they felt he would sometimes "act completely unlike anyone on earth ever has" and would also note about an increase of night terrors since the incident. This series of events went unexplained for several months until a disturbing 2014 photo was released, with the author claiming it to be unedited. The photo will be shown below.

Taken May 24th, 2014.

The photo, supposedly of Riffi Raffi and Komppi Momppi mid performance, reportedly became heavily corrupted and damaged as soon as the author had gone home to print it. Most notably, Komppi Momppi is seen heavily distorted with a shadowy face and an elongated smile or grimace. The author also then reported having difficulty sleeping that night.

Shortly after this photo was uploaded online, it gained mass popularity not just within the Hevisaurus fan community, but the rest of the world as well. "Memes" and shocking statements were also made in reference to the photo, one of which spreading the popular hoax that staring at the photo for more than ten seconds would cause the viewer to go into fatal cardiac arrest.

The news eventually spread to the Hevisaurus band members themselves, who had elected to not comment further on the topic.

Fans have since theorized and discussed the phenomenon- where it came from, why it only shows up in photos, why it doesn't show up in every photo, why it distorts photos and how to minimize said distortion, and whether or not it is a sentient being that holds malicious intent. The entity eventually gained the nicknames "Mirror Momppi", "Shadowsaur", and "Kauhukorppi"- the last of which coming from the supposed pattern of photographers describing their nightmares as being heavily assaulted and disfigured by a murder of crows. The cryptic entity had attracted a community of its own, which would then gather to make their own online forum known as "KauKoBoard".

A few fans eventually figured out that a key factor to the level of distortion in a photo was the amount of focus and motion. If a camera were to be unfocused, or if the subject were constantly moving around, the final photo would appear heavily distorted, with the opposite seemingly resulting in clearer, more coherent photos.

Another factor that was eventually discovered was proximity to the entity, which can nullify the aforementioned focus trick. Depending on how close the photographer is to the entity, distortion will still occur, gaining stronger the closer the two are. The discovery was a disappointment to some in the community, especially those who had plans to capture close-up photos of the entity.

Other fans eventually noticed that higher-quality, lower-distortion photos depict more accurate versions of the entity's appearances, which are thought to be its "true form". As of writing this article, there is only one photo considered "over 90% clear" that mostly shows the entity's true form, shown below.

Taken April 30th, 2018.

Features of note include the general body proportions becoming elongated, the spiked hand and leg cuffs changing to metal chains, the spiked collar instead being covered in barbed wire, and the jacket becoming significantly frayed. The original photographer uploaded the photo anonymously and has not been identified to this day. The location has not been found, either. Despite the mysterious circumstances of the photo and its origins, however, fans generally cite it as a highly reliable reference of the entity's physical appearance.

Although significant advancements were made in the techniques for capturing the entity in photos, the explanation behind the reason for its existence and its intentions was still missing. One popular theory is commonly cited, written by forum user HedoniSt0rm: "The Kauhukorppi is a manifestation of the hatred Komppi Momppi has for Sony's decision; it's a being that holds all of the spite and need for revenge that he gave up and threw away. [...] Above all else, it radiates hatred, but only for a specific group of people- those who see the band as a product."

This statement is backed up with several witness statements speaking up on their experiences with photographing or interacting with the entity. A significant correlation made was that the entity never made any hostile or violent moves towards individuals under the age of 18, and was especially gentle towards those under the age of 13, with both demographics never reporting any instances of night terrors or induced paranoia.

A groundbreaking discovery would then be made soon after fans found out about the entity's passiveness towards children. Several forum users shared an allegedly unedited photo of the entity interacting with a young child, shown below.

Taken September 26th, 2019.

Most notably, the child's face is censored out and their body is covered in blood. Many fans initially were horrified and outraged, seeing this as a direct message from the entity about its intentions, until others noticed the lack of blood present on the entity's body. The eventual conclusion drawn was that the photograph was meant to represent the entity kneeling beside a child that had died of unrelated causes (note that the actual child in the photograph is alive- the discussion was pertaining to the symbolism of the photo distortions that the entity made).

Now aware of the fact that the entity was capable of actively manipulating photos, fans wondered about other abilities it potentially had. Forum user HedoniSt0rm, creator of the previously mentioned popular theory on the entity, talked about potentially using it as a way to communicate with the entity by taking photos after asking it questions. When asked if they would attempt this idea, they said they "had the ability to, but probably not the guts". It is worth noting that the user has not been active since the creation of that thread in 2019.

Below is a compilation of photos taken and uploaded by fans, which showcase varying quality and distortion.

Considered "low quality/high distortion".

Considered "low quality/high distortion".

Considered "low quality/high distortion".

Considered "fair quality/medium distortion".

Considered "fair quality/medium distortion". Note the entity's usual direct eye contact with the camera is broken to instead look at the adult in front of it.

Considered "high quality/medium distortion". Note the entity's usual direct eye contact with the camera is broken to look elsewhere off-camera.

Considered "high quality/low distortion".

-

CONTEXT

this is a fictional story formatted as an article for the sake of immersion. all text under the cut and above the context is fictional and for entertainment purposes. the first paragraph, however, is a true event that inspired me to make this entire story! (i should also note that the member who performed as komppi momppi at the time was indeed the main person to fight against sony in the case, that was also a true fact. everything written afterwards is fictional. i have some more planned for this little silly idea and i wanna know what everyone thinks :) it feels strange to bring back creepypasta (or at least creepypasta-heavily-inspired media) in 2024 but i am hoping itll be taken well. enjoy !!

[persephoneflouwers]

First off i just want to say im not trying to play blame game, I just want to talk about a few things that is not really mainstream in larry fandom, I remember your thoughts about babygate and how it might be related to Harry’s level of visibility, what im thinking about situation surrounding Louis, his solo career, babygate and Harry is not that unsimilar to that line of thinking.

I think that Harry’s solo career is an extension of 1D project, he was the one that was chosen by big executives to appeal to the group of fans, which was huge in numbers so it would be waste for sony not to tap into that potential, the band managed to garner throughout the years. Sony created a new brand for those fans in a way that they wouldn’t be embarrassed to carry that brand into their new adult life which should be free from their teenage obsession so they heavily leaned into harry being inspired by rock legends at first (with a sprinkle of sex god harry) but it felt flat because the connection between harry and those legends didn’t go beyond critics calling harry fake (lol), and then they realized they needed to put in more work to this rock persona so they brought in the rockstar gf and amped up rumors about his sexuality bc the mystery around his ‘not so secret’ love life was a hook for many of those fans, i also wanna mention that imho harry is not contradicting himself and what his life is supposed to sell just to pat larries on the back in interviews, him saying i want privacy around my love life but we knowing every detail about all his relationships is playing right into that persona of rockstar that is caught in his love or him saying that these things wouldn’t happen for people like him is selling this fantasy of underdog coming from nothing and being everything to thousands of fans, people relate to that but the money they are spending on Harry is unparalleled and beyond that the power they have with media is nothing similar to any underdog quality having small artist could have. By the way im not saying that harry is undeserving of his highly publicized (and sometimes made of) achievements, im saying the work and money that go into it already guarantees this kind of ‘success’

Anyway i think this all kind of ties in how Louis has been struggling with industry-wide blackout all his solo career. Im just guessing but my life experience tells me that Sony wouldn’t let anything or anyone get in the way of millions of dollars they are getting through harry the brand and them, we all know that Louis is the biggest thread to that brand they have been supporting and creating, first they burdened him (and ancient/old/new larries or larrie narrative with babygate) and then they literally made it so that Louis could never the shadows (by the way the mystique around larry proved to big executives that people are intrigued by big stars having secrets or compassionate side that is willing to fight for their love and partners, so they were aware of the void harry’s solo career would have once louis was removed from the situation and they tried to create new larry in their own terms with xander and brad which is so laughable at best because you cant fake the genuine fight or love or yearning, not even proximity would warrant that as we can see with brad and breads lol)

So what is frustrating (to me) about this whole tattoo convo that some people are so hell-bent on minimizing what it really is -a dumb decision- because babygate is still going on as it involves a kid, it is morally fucked up situation on another level (while i agree with that i also question where was that energy when harry was letting olivia bring her kids to his show and his family was getting actively involved with those kids, he was publicly and very visibly inserted into their family situation as well.) Im just dumbfounded that some people bending backwards to give Harry a free pass for every questionable thing he does are somehow missing the fact that Louis’ involvement with babygate only doubled when Harry as a brand finally got the level of fame he or they wanted, im not saying some sony bighead are putting a weapon to louis’ head to say that you should be more hands-on father but they are playing a game of putting all the responsibilities -be it legally or verbally- on his shoulder.

Im sorry for talking your ear off in your asks but i wanted to get that out there even if only one person reads it and i realized i wrote in absolutes in terms of my writing but it is not because im trying to present my thoughts as the facts it is because i didn’t wanna put i think, i guess, i suppose at the beginning of every sentence i wrote to signal that these are my thoughts based on being involved with this fandom more than ten years and real life experiences.

I’ve been looking for someone to share this sort of opinions with all my life. I could have written this honestly, because it stands more or less where I stand with my takes on everything (especially the frontman push, the threatening larry rumours, the mega comeback of babygate coincidentally when Harry’s career has taken a turn for the sky). And I find very silly, very naive, very biased - three words that can easily describe this fandom - the opinion of those who say ‘babygate has nothing to do with larry’ or ‘babygate has nothing to do with Harry’.

I say the tattoo fiasco has been a wake up call for me, because it is a statement, a very dumb, very greedy, very mean - three words that can easily describe the people in the big picture- from Harry himself. It means he went full in for this stunt and from this there’s no coming back. And people will say it’s convenient and ambitious and they will also say they do what they can with their career, but you know… I don’t like these takes because there is a very fine line (pun intended) between ambition and ambiguity, because everybody and their mothers know that if you decided to get involved with the worst people in Hollywood you are not going to end up be a saint. OW being so close to H. W had always creeped me out, because look at how much organic success and organic achievements has brought to our beloved.

Anyway thank you for this very well articulated opinion. I’m sorry I’m only replying to this now. If you want to talk more, we can in private too :)

[mldrgrl]

Storytime

Going to share one of my most visceral memories, because it's sadly relevant. The time my 18 year old self met Matthew Perry in 1998.

When I was in college, one of the organizations I was in did a lot of fundraising for community and school projects. One of the ways in which we could raise money was by attending TV show tapings - a majority of the time it was for brand new shows that needed audiences. So, one day our group went up to attend the taping for a show called Ask Harriet at SONY studios.

For anyone who is unfamiliar with a TV show taping, there's a crowd riler, essentially a comedian whose job it is to keep the audience entertained between taping, to keep their spirits up, and/or to explain what's going on down on the stage.

One thing that's relevant to this story is that one of the friends I was with from our group had a friend that worked as a page at SONY and she happened to be one of the pages at our taping. The pages would do things like take people out to go use the restroom or escort them off the lot if they needed to leave.

So we're not that far into the taping, I would say maybe an hour (I've been at tapings that lasted 2-3 hours and tapings that were over 8 hours, it just depends - in this instance, I'd say we were there for about 6 hours total) and the audience riler suddenly says "Hey, wrong show, everyone say hi to Chandler!" And lo and behold, Matthew Perry is just casually walking across the stage and comes over to stand with the crew behind the camera. He waved to everyone, said he was just there to watch, and that's what he did.

Now, my friend I mentioned earlier, knew I was a HUGE Friends fan, but specifically, a HUGE Matthew Perry fan. She was like oh my god are you FREAKING OUT and I was like [insert shocked emoji face]. She goes over to her friend the page and asks if there's any way we can meet him. Her friend said no, but if he left, I should come over and say I need to use the bathroom and she could get me outside, but then what I did would be up to me.

So, like an hour goes by. Then two. Then three. He's still there and by that time, I really REALLY do have to go to the bathroom. And my friend was like are you sure you want to chance it??? What if you miss him??? And I was pretty sure that even if he did leave, I'd end up peeing myself if I didn't get to the bathroom. So, we went together, and her friend took us to the bathroom, but then was like hey, let me give you a little tour of what I can here, so we went to the sets of Party of Five and of Men in Black II - no one was filming. I was thinking the whole time, it would just be my luck we would get back and he would be gone and then I'd have no excuse to get back outside.

But then, we come around the corner from between two soundstages and there he is, outside talking to some woman and an older man that's hovering nearby. My friend went oh no, you don't have anything for him to sign! But, I did. I had my Ask Harriet program and a pen in my pocket. Our page-guide-saint says "good luck" and just leaves us standing there.

My friend nudged me forward and I was like I'm not interrupting him, he's talking. The guy hovering next to him looked very amused and was like nodding his head over like I should go up to him and I profusely shook my head like, nope, not happening. I'm pretty sure I was also shaking like a leaf at this point.

And then he just turned around and sort of clapped his hands together and leaned towards us and said "Hi, how can I help you?" And I said "uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh can you........sign....this?" And I held out my program and the pen to him. He said "Sure!" So, he takes the program, and he puts it down on his leg and bends over to sign it, and I was like oh my god, his head is right next to me. I could reach out and pet his head. He is so close to me. (Don't worry, I did not reach out and pet his head, I just thought about the fact that it was possible to do in that moment.)

And my friend, who had no shyness, who was not shaking like a leaf, who was all about me getting this moment with my celebrity crush, says "Her name is -----. It's spelled - - - - -......she's so in love with you!"

And then he chuckled, and he looked up at me, and his eyes were the bluest of blue eyes I have ever seen. I honestly didn't even know they were blue until that moment - HD didn't exist back then and TV screens were small. But, no screen or magazine had ever captured just how blue those eyes were. And he smiled and he said, "oh?" And my response was to nervously chuckle back and say "yeaahhh....."

He just smiled so brightly and he stood back up and he gave me the program and then pen and then he squeezed my shoulder and he said "it was nice meeting you." And I said "Thank you, you too." And then he waved and walked away with the guy that had been hovering.

I quite literally fell into my friends arms as we tried to walk away because I felt like I hadn't breathed in that two minute interaction. I remember that she was jumping up and down and going oh my god you did it you did it! And when we went back inside the taping, her friend was by the door waiting for us, had seen our success, and gave me a high five as we walked in.

The rest of our group that knew what was up, that knew we'd formed this game plan earlier in the night, that had also asked, are you SURE you want to risk leaving, were all staring at me as we came back in and I just held up my signed program and they all cheered.

I still have the program and then pen. I know exactly what I was wearing; a blue navy 3/4 sleeve ribbed shirt with a knitted vest over it and my favorite brown courdoroy pants (remember it was 1998) - in fact for a long time I'd even kept the whole outfit, never wearing the shirt I had on again because I didn't want to wash it since he'd touched my shoulder.

That whole experience is locked in my brain with crystal clarity. His face, those eyes, looking up at me, and that smile. I felt SO lucky that he had been so nice to me. I still feel SO lucky that he had been so nice to me because he didn't have to be.

People have been posting the quote of his where he says he knows that when he dies, Friends will be the first thing that's talked about, but he wishes it could be more of a footnote and he'll be remembered for those who he helped. It would be impossible for me not to think about him and Chandler Bing (or Miss Chanandaler Bong) in the same breath, and he didn't help me through anything in my life, but I can say that he did make me very happy and gave me one of my most cherished memories.

Rest in Peace Matthew Perry.

[sweetdreamsjeff]

Hero of the midnight hour; Jeff Buckley

Byline: Caitlin Moran

May 5, 1995

Caitlin Moran tries to find out why Jeff Buckley has dreams about having his skin flayed by a mad sculptor.

The last time I attempted to telescope the emotions that Jeff Buckley's music inspires into mere paragraphs and words, the phrase Soon to be awe-inspiringly famous'' crept up with as much regularity as the wordgenius''. That was last August, when Buckley's biggest UK gig to date was before an exceedingly cramped hundred people Upstairs at the Garage in London. Nine months later, and Buckley has sold out the 2,000-capacity Empire and had his debut album, Grace, lauded as the best of 1994 in several magazines.

``I told you so'' is such a pinched-mouth phrase I won't even begin to utter it; but …

And so my powers of cognition have brought me to New York, Buckley's adopted home town, and a conference room in the massive Sony Records building. Buckley's been doing phone interviews all day. He's grease-haired and his eyes are bruised with lack of sleep, but he's as polite as ever, leaping around trying to make everyone comfortable before dropping back into his chair and spilling his Bad Dream beans when requested.

I tend to forget my dreams,'' he says.They seep out of the room as I wake, and the more I try and clutch at them, the more ferociously they wriggle … but I had a dream a couple of nights ago where, to cut a long story short, this mad artist wanted to cut my skin into strips and weave me into rococo shapes. So I'd be like a living sculpture, beautiful in his eyes, but horribly disfigured and unable to do anything but die.''

Erm, that's a bit heavy. I was kind of expecting the old, ``Well, I'm walking naked through a supermarket when I see my old maths teacher …''

I have those kinds of dreams as well, I guess,'' he says.It's just I don't remember them.''

Does he think the bad dream had anything to do with the reams of cod-psychology written about him in the past year by people looking for his dark side; for the fissures in his personality that mean he will turn into another rock ghost whose untimely death will haunt us all?

No one has really come anywhere near to describing me as the person my friends know, let alone me,'' he says.Perhaps my personality is all in the inflections and can't be transcribed.''

So let's see if Jeff can do the impossible describe his own music. Go on, give it a go. Music affects people in different ways,'' he says.We've all got different chemicals swishing around in our bodies; we've all got different emotional imperatives. With some people, the chemistry will cause an explosion, or a breakdown, or lust, or extreme joy. I can talk about what I feel when the music takes hold of me my posture changes. I hold my head high, stick my chest out; my bones seem to bend easier; the shape of my face seems to change. I feel I can do anything. It's almost sexual.''

That is the end of the interview. Buckley starts striding around the building, muttering ``And what's wrong with being horny?'' under his breath. Nothing at all.

Jeff Buckley's new single, Last Goodbye, is released by Columbia on Monday

"Hero of the midnight hour; Jeff Buckley." Times [London, England], 5 May 1995, p. 40. Gale OneFile: News,

[thesleepypuffin]

Modern high-school/uni ATLA AU!!

Placed during comics

Basically a modern day version of their world but with no bending

Zuko is sophomore at Ba Sing Se University studying political science cuz he HAS too in order to run his country, but his real passion is... THEATER

Sokka is his roommate; he’s studying mechanical engineering and is in the fencing club AND the DnD club but still managed to be a jock; he’s dating Suki of course 🛳 

Katara is a high school senior and for some crazy reason is dating AANG who is a genius and graduated high school when he was 13 so now he’s a freshman in college at 14

Appa is a big, fluffy, ADORABLE sheepdog and Aang has an old van painted to look like him (arrows and all, yip yip) BUT he's only allowed to drive it on back roads because he doesn't have his license yet HAHA so Katara has to drive him everywhere

Aang is allowed to take Appa to school because Aang has anxiety and Appa is his ESA

Momo is literally Toph's seeing-eye lemur

Toph is also a high school sophomore, still blind of course, loves her SONY headphones, birkenstocks, recycle or die ♻️, is a black belt in judo

Suki and her Kyoshi warriors are sorority girls EXCEPT the sorority is just a cover because they're actually Zuko's elite guards and have to be at the university with him hehehe, but it's also still just a sorority 

Suki is on the University’s volleyball team and she slays obvi; also goes the fencing club with Sokka sometimes and is also a brown belt in Karate

Azula is still kinda psycho, likes crashing parties and making life harder for Zuko, likes stealing, college sophomore, she has therapy but ditches sessions, went to college two years early because she was two grades ahead because she was super smart but now her grades are dropping and so are Zuko's because he has to deal with all her misbehavior

Mai is still dating Zuko of course, is extra fashionable and scary, college freshman, has a huge vertical garden in her dorm

Ty Lee does dance studies, yoga, and is definitely a pilates princess who is permanently in Lululemon, college freshman

[visionproductions2008]

Step into the Spider-Verse and beyond! 🕸️ From mind-bending multiverses to action-packed adventures, these posters capture every epic moment of Sony’s Spider-Verse films. Which universe is your favorite? 🌐