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meetthemidwest · 4 years

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About Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio playing video game, I have to know what they said during the subspace emissary gameplay. May we hear about what happened? Please and thank you, you fabulous person

This took so long and I’m so sorry but finals week happened and I had to study for apush! There are spoilers, but the game came out in 2008 so I’m not too concerned. I still put it under the cut just in case someone didn’t want it spoiled. I really hope tumblr doesn’t cut this, there’s a lot here.

Subspace Emissary is a two player story mode in Smash Bros Brawl, and since there are three of them, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio take turns. Indiana and Ohio play the first level.

Indiana: You know what? I kind of relate to Kirby.Kentucky: Please explain what the hell that means.Indiana: He inhales food and killed god.Ohio: Oh please, you haven’t killed god yet.Kentucky: Yet? YET??

After the whole fight with Mario and Kirby, there’s a part where the Halberd flies over the stadium and drops a bunch of shadow bugs.

Ohio: Those things look like the mold that was growing in my basement last year.Indiana: Glowing and purple?Kentucky: Delicious.Ohio: What the actual fuck Kentucky?Kentucky: No, you don’t understand, nature is delicious.Indiana: Oh really? I’ll be right back.She comes back in five minutes later with an armful of plants from Ohio’s backyard.Kentucky: *picks up a leaf* There’s a spider on this one.Indiana: Eat it.Ohio: DON’T EAT IT!Kentucky: Aw, it fell.Ohio: *jumps from his chair to the table* Fucking kill it already!Indiana promptly throws it at him and he screams like a girl. The video cuts there. It comes back to Indiana and Ohio arguing over who to save in the first boss battle.

Indiana: Zelda’s twenty times better than Peach you dumbass!Ohio: Peach is the original Nintendo princess! You respect the originals or I’ll put you in the goddamn dirt!Kentucky: You just got a game over.Indiana: No one asked for your input Bill Monroe!Kentucky: How the hell do you know who that is?The video devolves into screaming. It cuts to Kentucky and Ohio playing while Indiana eats a pot of Kraft macaroni and cheese. They’ve saved Peach and moved on.

Kentucky: Hey, it’s Pit from Kid Icarus on the NES!Indiana: Fucking nerd!Ohio: Nice redesign.Kentucky: Yeah, well, if we aren’t going to get Geno, it’s nice that an obscure Nintendo game is getting some love.Ohio: *looks directly into the camera* Localize Mother 3 you cowards.Kentucky: PLAYER TWO CAN TELEPORT HELL YES YOU’RE CARRYING THE TEAM OHIO!

Indiana: DOnkEy KoNG!Kentucky: Did Diddy Kong always have guns or is that a new thing?Ohio, drinking tea in the background: Neither of you have ever played Donkey Kong Country and it shows.Kentucky: Oh god, Danky Kang just sacrificed himself for his son!Indiana: Wish that was the relationship I had with Quebec but he just calls me his bastard daughter and I call him my asshole father.Kentucky: Oof.

Ohio: Oh shit, Indi, get your xylophone, we’ve got a pokemon!Indiana: *starts playing the original pokemon battle theme on the xylophone while Kentucky fights Rayquaza but dies because he’s laughing too hard.*

Indiana: That feeling when you’re kidnapped by a small primate in a baseball cap.Ohio: No, that can happen. Have you ever been to the zoo?Kentucky: Are you okay?Ohio: *voice crack* no.

*Lucas and Porky appear*Ohio, ripping the controller out of Kentucky’s hands: YOU LEAVE MY BABY ALONE YOU CAPITALIST FUCK!Indiana: Oh shit, he’s crying!Kentucky: And I’m the nerd?Indiana: Shut up nerd, Mother 3 was hard on him.

*Ness appears*Indiana: SNES is just a word scramble of Ness.Kentucky: Mother 3 confirmed?Ohio: NOOO NESS JUST GOT FUCKING KILLED BY WARIO!Indiana: Weak.

*Pokemon Trainer appears*Kentucky: ASH KETCHUM???Indiana: You’re so stupid. It’s Red, obviously.Ohio: Red and Ash Ketchum’s secret love child.Indiana: *Gets up* I quit.

*Battlefield Fortress*Ohio: You know what this looks like?Kentucky: Oh god please no.Indiana: *pulls out Kentucky’s xylophone* Ready when you are.Kentucky: Indiana, if you value our friendship, please don’t do this.Indiana: We’re not friends though.*Marth is introduced. Indiana starts playing Together We Ride on the xylophone. Ohio joins in on a green plastic kazoo. Kentucky slams his face into the table and gets a nosebleed.*

Indiana: Hey it’s Spanish Batman from Kirby Right Back At Ya!Ohio: Never say those words in front of me again.

*Ike appears*Kentucky: Please don’t-Indiana and Ohio: *Playing the recruitment theme With Us on their instruments.*Kentucky: *looks into the camera like Jim on The Office*

Kentucky: Luigi is my spirit animal because he’s a coward with a heart of gold, like me.Indiana: You’re a coward, but I know you had your heart surgically removed in 1847 so don’t even try that bullshit with me.Ohio: He had a heart before 1847? Damn. See, I relate more to King Dedede because he’s a king and his relationship with Kirby reminds me of Michigan and I.Indiana: Yeah, that sounds about right.Ohio: I don’t like the implications there.

*Link appears*Indiana, shoving Ohio and Kentucky out of the way and wearing a Legend of Zelda hoodie: Move bitches, it’s my time to shine.Ohio: Oh thank god Yoshi’s here because I’m not playing as Link. Kentucky, doing a scarily accurate impression of Yoshi: YOSHI!Indiana: What the FUCK Kentucky???Kentucky, coughing: If I do that for too long I lose my voice.Indiana: Then don’t do it!

*There are some enemies that I distinctly remember in this part that scared the hell out of me, and they’re called Puppits.*Ohio: Oh god, oh fuck, what are these things?Indiana: Kill it!Ohio: *dies* SHIT!Kentucky, eating gummy bears out of a paper bag: Why are y’all so bad at this? It’s just an enemy.Indiana: *throws her controller at Kentucky and hits him in the forehead.*

*The cutscene with the box*Indiana: Snake? SNAKE?? SNAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!!Kentucky: SPOILERS!

*Zero-Suit Samus*Indiana: I wish that were me.Ohio: Why? She’s not that much prettier than you.Indiana: Space guns.Kentucky: Of course.Indiana: Also I think a lot of girls would be into me if I had that ass.Ohio: There it is.

*Pikachu*Ohio: Did you guys know that this is how we powered the first rocket to the moon?Kentucky: Electricity rat.Indiana: Thomas Edison used Pikachu to power America, your history books have been lying to you.Ohio: We’re going to get killed by the government, aren’t we?Kentucky: Yeah, but not for this.

*The battle against Subspace Peach*Indiana: Mario’s going to be so pissed.Kentucky: Yeah, but Yoshi’s Mario’s lifelong friend, so surely everything will be a-okay!*Mario battle ensues*Ohio: Love blinds all.Indiana: Stop trying to sound wise, I literally watched you burn your tongue on your coffee and throw it into a wall.Ohio: You know what Indiana? Fuck you.

Indiana: Kirby Kirby Kirby that’s the name you should know!Kentucky: Kirby Kirby Kirby he’s the star of the show!*Both look at Ohio*Ohio, obviously disappointed in life: He’s more than you think, he’s got maximum pink.Indiana and Kentucky: Kirby Kirby Kirby’s the one!

Indiana: Ew it’s Ganondorf.Kentucky: Wait, I thought he was a pig?Ohio: Well Kentucky, people can be pigs without looking like them, like New York.Kentucky: No, wasn’t he literally a pig?Indiana: That was Ganon.Kentucky: They’re… they’re the same thing?

*Wario battle*Ohio: IS LUCAS DOING THE ARTHUR MEME?Indiana: HOLY SHIT HE IS!Kentucky: MOTHER 3 CONFIRMED!*they all start screaming incoherently. The video cuts to them actually fighting Wario. Ohio is Lucas, Kentucky is the Pokemon Trainer.*Ohio: My boy Lucas has seen some shit.Kentucky: Your boy Kentucky has also seen some shit, how about a little love over here?Ohio: No.Kentucky: Thanks.

*Bowser’s army attacks the castle Dedede is in.*Indiana: Oh my goodness he’s Dedede-dead!Ohio: I’m going to sew your lips together while you sleep.

*Bowser gets away with Peach’s trophy*Kentucky: This is so sad, Indiana play Ave Maria.Indiana: *plays Ave Maria on the kazoo*

Kentucky: I love how Ike, the youngest and most impulsive, jumps right off a cliff while both Marth and Meta Knight reach out to stop him.Ohio: Me with my bastard siblings.Indiana: Let me guess, Wisconsin’s Ike, Michigan’s Meta Knight, and you’re Marth?Ohio: No, because I don’t join them in their bullshit.Indiana: Oh? Then what do you call the time the three of you tied Illinois to a tree and left him there for a week?Ohio: It’s called knocking the wealthy down a few pegs.Kentucky: Guys, this was an appreciation of Fire Emblem characters and nothing more.

*Diddy Kong trophy*Indiana: PeRSonALLy I PrEFer ThE AiR!Kentucky: OH! GRAB THE FAN! *they proceed to get the giant Subspace Diddy Kong to 500% and launch him off the screen.*Ohio: The monkey’s kidnapping a bird.Indiana: I saw that happen in Florida once.

*Ridley battle*Kentucky: HE’S TOO BIG FOR SMASH BROS!*Kentucky then plays the Ridley theme on the xylophone while Ohio attempts to crawl out a window and Indiana screams*

*Olimar and Captain Falcon*Kentucky in the background playing Pikmin music on the xylophone: Isn’t this nice? Pikmin was one of the best games I ever played.*West Virginia kicks down the door and plays the F-Zero theme on an electric guitar*Kentucky: Get the hell out!West Virginia: While y’all were sitting in here playing video games I got arrested for tax fraud and broke out on my own.Indiana: Amateur. What’s your point kid?West Virginia: Get on my level. Get hobbies for god’s sake. You’re going to be killed one day, you gotta live in the moment.Ohio: I die when I decide, you little rat faced bastard. There’s a cupcake in the fridge, take it and get out.West Virginia: Alright, I’m going to elope with Mothman, see y’all later.

Indiana: DOnkEy KoNG!!!!Kentucky: Aw heck, I died.

*Ice Climbers*Ohio: That jumping noise definitely isn’t going to get annoying in the next few minutes.Kentucky: *slowly mutes the tv*Indiana: You guys are really dumb sometimes. You know that, right?

*the two groups meet up*Indiana: The gang’s all here!Ohio: If you play as Link again I’m going to suffocate you on camera.Indiana: With what?Kentucky: His Ohio State mascot body pillow.Indiana: What the fuck.Ohio: You’re next, Kentucky.

*Snake*Kentucky: Sometimes I just want to hide in a box while my problems run around without me.Indiana: Shame problems are like Lucario and can see right through your hiding place.Ohio: Guys, I dropped a hot pocket into the hole in the wall and I can’t get it out.

*Sheik and Peach*Indiana: I’m getting some strong Peach loves her strong girlfriend vibes from this.Kentucky: I’d love my strong girlfriend too if I had one.Ohio: No living organism would put up with you for more than a week.Indiana: YO PEACH IS SUCH A BADASS!Ohio: SEE???Indiana: Zelda’s still better though.Kentucky: Fox McCloud’s going down.Indiana: Do a barrel roll!Ohio: Shit, I want tea.Kentucky: Then make some!Ohio: Okay! Jeez, don’t yell at me.

Indiana: Where did Mr. Game and Watch even come from?Ohio: Hell.Kentucky: Actually, there’s a series of handheld games-Indiana: Shut up nerd!

*Subspace bomb factory*Indiana: American weapons storage.*the entire factory blows up*Kentucky:… American weapons storage.Ohio: It’s us when we try to get together for holidays.

Ohio: Kirby rides in on a fucking dragon to save the day!Indiana: Sakurai showing clear favoritism for his children.Kentucky: Virginia made West a pepperoni roll once and when I asked for one she told me that I could starve.Ohio: GUYS IT WASN’T MASTER HAND IT’S THIS ASSHOLE OLD MAN LOOKING GUY AND BOWSER’S DEAD STOP HAVING FEELINGS AND GET YOUR HEADS IN THE GAME!

*Everyone dies*Indiana: I want butterfly wings that kill people.Kentucky: Evolve and grow them.Indiana: Good idea.Ohio: LUCAS NOOOOOOO!

*Dedede, Ness, and Luigi**Ohio walks in dressed as King Dedede, Indiana’s dressed as Ness, and Kentucky is dressed as Luigi*Kentucky: I still think I should have done sexy Luigi, but whatever.Indiana: Ohio, say it.Ohio: I’m not going to say it, fuck off.Indiana: Say it.Ohio: No!Indiana: SAY IT.Ohio: I’m gonna clobber that there Kirby.Kentucky: That’s mama Luigi to you!Indiana: Fuck, Ness doesn’t have any funny lines. Ohio: Can we please play the game now?Indiana, clearly excited: OKEY

*Great Maze*Indiana: You’re going the wrong way!Ohio: You’re hogging the remote! Let Kentucky play!Kentucky: That’s the wrong door!*they start screeching at each other. Minnesota walks into the room about to say something, shakes his head, and leaves.*

*Tabuu fight*Kentucky: I’m vibing with this music.Ohio: Don’t try and sound young, we all know you’re old as fuck.Indiana: Ohio if you don’t stop dying I’m going to throw you out a window.Kentucky: SONIC SPEED! *proceeds to die* GOSH DARN IT!Indiana: WHY ARE YOU USING SONIC?Kentucky: HE WAS RIGHT THERE I HAD TO!*they die about twelve more times, but only one makes the final cut. At some point they beat the game*

Indiana: This was cute. I really liked the relationships in it.Ohio: Yeah, shame we’ll never get a wholesome and fulfilling story mode again, right guys?Kentucky: *plays the Smash Ultimate theme on the xylophone.*Indiana: I’ll go get my Switch.Ohio: You better.Indiana: I’ll hit you.Ohio: You’re in my house, that’s assault.*Indiana kicks Ohio out of his chair. The video cuts for the last time*

#i've still got another ask and i'll get to that one soon don't worry #statetalia #aph states #aph indiana #aph ohio #aph kentucky #hws states #hws indiana #hws kentucky #hws ohio #aph west virginia #hws west virginia #aph minnesota #hws minnesota #the states play video games

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backtozeon · 5 years

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Dear Fans of Watchmen, Hello there. My name is Damon Lindelof and I am a writer. I am also the unscrupulous bastard currently defiling something that you love. But that’s not all that I am. I am a twelve-year old boy being handed the first two issues by my father. “You’re not ready for this,” he growls with a glint of mischief in his eye. My parents have recently divorced and he has gone rogue, so there I am in my bed, flashlight beam illuminating pages, watching the Comedian fall again and again and again. The old man was wrong. I am ready for this. Because this was written just for me. I am thirty-eight. A man offers me the opportunity to adapt Watchmen for television. The filmed adaptation came out less than a year ago, but that doesn’t matter. I tell him I am not interested and that perhaps he should let sleeping dogs lie with hopes they will eventually be run over by a car tire, bursting their stomachs. He does not get the reference. I am watching my father haggle with a man in a wheelchair. I am fifteen years old and we are at a comic book convention in New York City, long before attending a comic book convention was something anyone wanting to ever have sex with another person would admit to. I definitely want to have sex with another person. My father finally harangues the merchant down to thirty dollars for a guaranteed authentic screenplay of Watchmen, soon to be a major motion picture! Now, he reads aloud from the script as “The Watchmen” battle terrorists at The Statue of Liberty. Something is wrong. The old man’s brow furrows, scanning the text in a mixture of disappointment and rage, a child who has just been told that Santa didn’t bring him presents this year, then robbed the house and beat up his parents. “What the fuck is this?” my father mutters. It is the first time he swears in front of me. Another man offers me the opportunity to adapt Watchmen for television. I am forty now. I tell him someone else asked me to do this a year ago and I declined. He inquires as to why I said no. I tell him that Alan Moore has been consistently explicit in stating that Watchmen was written for a very specific medium and that medium is comics, comics that would be ruined should they be translated into moving images. The Another Man pauses for a moment, then responds – “Who’s Alan Moore?” I am twenty-three and living in Los Angeles. My father flies out from New Jersey for my birthday and gives me a present, a new edition of the “graphic novel” that is Watchmen. He explains to me that this is the publisher’s way of retaining the rights to the characters. He tells me that Dan and Adrian and Jon and Walter and Laurie are all serfs, working the land for a Feudal Lord that will never grant them freedom. My father is more than a little drunk.. More so, he is a hypocrite for buying me the new edition. “I know, I know…” he says, that same mischievous glint from years ago obscured by now thicker lenses, “But it’s so goddamned good.” Yet Another Man offers me the opportunity to adapt Watchmen for television. “Just a pilot,” he says, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” I am forty-three now and I am thinking about something I read about Orthodox Judaism. While most religions are cultivated by evangelizing and conversion, Orthodox Judaism doesn’t solicit. If someone from another faith wishes to become an Orthodox Jew, they are rejected. If they are stubborn enough to ask again, they are denied even more harshly. But should they have the audacity to ask a third time? The door cracks open. And if they’re willing to invest an immense amount of time and effort and sacrifice and faith, they are embraced into the fold. Why am I thinking about this? I have said no to Watchmen twice now. This makes me Orthodox Judaism. I crack the door. And now I’m a hypocrite too. I am standing over my father’s hospital bed. I am twenty-nine, the last age at which I will consider myself “young.” The breathing tube was removed two hours ago and they said he wouldn’t last longer than fifteen minutes. It’s a cliché. I’m living a trope. He is unconscious and unable to impart final wisdom nor tell me he was proud all along, even though he never said it out loud. There is no beeping machine showing his weakening heartrate. My father is beyond machines. I hold his cool hand and try not to pray to God because he detested the very idea of God so instead I pray to his gods. I pray to Cthulhu. I pray to 42, the Eternal Cosmic Number. I pray to Dr. Manhattan, far away in a galaxy less complicated than this one. The television is on and the Lakers win the championship. My father never cared about basketball. He didn’t even know the rules. When he dies, I finally understand that I don’t know the rules either. No one does. I am forty-five and I am writing a letter to the fans. The fans of Watchmen. It’s unnecessarily wordy and an exercise in oversharing, but nothing gets people on your side more than telling them about the moment your father died. Sharing such intimate details with strangers feels needy and pathetic and exploitative and yucky and necessary and freeing. I am also looking for an elegant way to escape from this device of quantum observance, a device appropriated from Mr. Moore so that I can speak to those fans from the bottom of my cold, thieving heart. Perhaps I could switch from referring to them in the third person and shift into the second, thus bringing them closer to the first? Would that be amenable to you? First and foremost, if you are angry that I’m working on Watchmen, I am sorry. You may be thinking I can’t be that sorry or I wouldn’t be doing it. I concede the point, but I hope it doesn’t invalidate the apology, which I offer with sincerity and respect. Respect. That’s second and twicemost. I have an immense amount of respect for Alan Moore. He is an extraordinary talent of mythic proportion. I wrote him a letter, parts of which are not dissimilar to this one, because I owed him an explanation as to why I’m defying his wishes and to humbly ask him not to place a curse on me because he knows magic and apparently, he can do that. His response, or whether he responded at all, is between he and I. Suffice to say, even before I sent it, Mr. Moore had made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t want anyone to “adapt” his work. To do so is hubris. Worse yet, it’s unethical. There are a million ways to rationalize unethical behavior – I could argue that Mr. Moore’s partner, the brilliant artist, Dave Gibbons, is equally entitled to authorize access to his masterwork and that he has been kind enough to offer us his blessing to do so. Or I could offer that Mr. Moore cut his veined teeth on the creations of others; Batman, Superman, Captain Britain, Marvelman (he’ll never be “Miracleman” to me), Swamp Thing and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, not to mention The Charlton characters upon whom his Watchmen characters are based… So am I not allowed to do the same? No. I am not. I am not allowed. And yet… I am compelled. I am compelled despite the inevitable pushback and hatred I will understandably receive for taking on this particular project. This ire will be maximally painful because of its source. That source being you. The true fans. I once said that if one were a true fan of something, they weren’t allowed to hate it. A prominent writer took me to task for such heresy, arguing that just because one was the creator of a show, this did not permit them to pick and choose who was and wasn’t a fan of it. The writer went on to win a Pulitzer for television criticism. I went on to get snubbed by the Razzies for Prometheus. As such, I concede this point, too. After all, even the most fervent lifelong fan of, oh, let’s say the New York Jets, is allowed to shout at the top of his lungs, “YOU SUCK OH MY GOD YOU SUUUUUUUUUCKIII II” and do so while wearing a replica Namath Jersey he purchased for an ungodly sum of money that may or may not have constituted his entire first paycheck on Nash Bridges. But the point. The point is, you love Watchmen. That gives you the right to hate it, too. Because no matter what… You’re still true fans. But to quote the immortal P.W. Herman… “I know you are… But what am IT’ What am I? I’m a true fan, too. And I’m not the only one. What I love most about television is that the finished product is a result not of singular vision, but the collective experience of many brilliant minds. I have the pleasure of sitting in a Writers Room each and every day that is as diverse and combative as any I’ve ever been a part of. In that room, Hetero White Men like myself are in the minority and as Watchmen is (incorrectly) assumed to be solely our domain, understanding its potential through the perspectives of women, people of color and the LGBTQ community has been as eye-opening as it has been exhilarating. We’ve committed to doing the same in front of and behind the camera. And every single person involved with this show absolutely adores Watchmen. But in the spirit of complete honesty, we also sorta want to… uh… Disrupt it? Except I hate that word because now it’s not disruptive anymore. And how can I present as punk rock when I’m now cozy in bed, spooning with Warner Brothers, HBO and DC? Truth be told, everyone there, particularly Geoff Johns (who is as true fan as it gets) has been extraordinarily supportive. Sure, it’s fun to kick around the comic corporate overlords for exploiting writers and artists, but we all know what happened to Jack Kirby and we’re still first in line for every Marvel film. So… how do we answer the challenge of when it is appropriate to appropriate? Which brings us to the most important part. Maybe the only part that really matters. Our creative intentions. We have no desire to “adapt” the twelve issues Mr. Moore and Mr. Gibbons created thirty years ago. Those issues are sacred ground and they will not be retread nor recreated nor reproduced nor rebooted. They will, however be remixed. Because the bass lines in those familiar tracks are just too good and we’d be fools not to sample them. Those original twelve issues are our Old Testament. When the New Testament came along, it did not erase what came before it. Creation. The Garden of Eden. Abraham and Isaac. The Flood. It all happened. And so it will be with Watchmen. The Comedian died. Dan and Laurie fell in love. Ozymandias saved the world and Dr. Manhattan left it just after blowing Rorschach to pieces in the bitter cold of Antarctica. To be clear. Watchmen is canon. Just the way Mr. Moore wrote it, the way Mr. Gibbons drew it and the way the brilliant John Higgins colored it. But we are not making a “sequel” either. This story will be set in the world its creators painstakingly built… but in the tradition of the work that inspired it, this new story must be original. It has to vibrate with the seismic unpredictability of its own tectonic plates. It must ask new questions and explore the world through a fresh lens. Most importantly, it must be contemporary. The Old Testament was specific to the Eighties of Reagan and Thatcher and Gorbachev… ours needs to resonate with the frequency of Trump and May and Putin and the horse that he rides around on, shirtless. And speaking of Horsemen, The End of The World is off the table (THE LEFTOVERS! NOW STREAMING ON HBO GO!) which means the heroes and villains — as if the two are distinguishable — are playing for different stakes entirely. The tone will be fresh and nasty and electric and absurd. Many describe Watchmen as “dark,” but I’ve always loved its humor -worshipping at the altar of the genre whilst simultaneously trolling it. As such… Some of the characters will be unknown. New faces. New masks to cover them. We also intend to revisit the past century of Costumed Adventuring through a surprising, yet familiar set of eyes… and it is here where we’ll be taking our greatest risks. Risk is imperative. I need the feeling in my stomach before I leap from a great height without knowing the depth of the water below. If my body should shatter upon impact, at least it was in pursuit of glory. And let’s be honest… Isn’t there a small part of you that wants to see me explode like a fleshy watermelon? But hopefully, there’s also a part that wants to experience something sort of amazing. As for what I want? I want your validation. I also want not to want it. I’ve given up the opioid highs of Twitter, but continue to score my methadone in the threads of Reddit and the hot takes of morning-after recappers. I’ll be reading and watching and listening to what you have to say because even though I wish I didn’t… I deeply care about what you think. Which brings us, Thank God, to the end of the missive. Endings. I’m GREAT at them. A wise, blue man once said that nothing ever ends. But maybe he wasn’t wise. Maybe he was just scared and alone and sad that he would outlive everything and everyone he ever loved. So I hope this isn’t the last time we correspond, fellow fans… after all, it’s just a pilot and we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. But maybe… if everything works out the way I hope it does… and if you’re willing to give me a chance, it’s not the end at all… It’s the beginning? With Respectful Hubris, -Damon

#watchmen

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msgameandcake · 5 years

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I LOVE the Kirby series, but the Kirby Clash mini-franchise has never interested me much. I played the original minigame in Robobot, and just wasn’t that impressed with it. None of the additions in Team Kirby Clash Deluxe or Super Kirby Clash really seem like they improve the original core minigame to the point that I’d be particularly interested in playing them.

I think one of the core issues is the lack of copy abilities. You can have four party members at most to take on an extra tough mini-boss or boss foe. However, only four copy abilities are ever available to you: Sword, Hammer, Beam, and Doctor. All of these abilities are modified in various ways from their typical gameplay styles, and leveling up further differentiates how effective each one is. However, I have two problems here.

On one hand, I just fundamentally don’t like any of the abilities presented very much. Out of all four, I MIGHT pick Hammer on occasion, but the other three I have next to no game time with these days. Some abilities I’d really appreciate include Bomb, Jet, Beetle, Plasma/Spark, Wing, ESP, Mirror, and Yo-yo. Sure, the four powers presented to the player essentially represent the classic RPG party: DPS, Tank, Black Mage, White Mage, and a lot of the abilities I listed out as ones I’d rather use don’t necessarily fall into similar party roles as easily. However, I think that actually could work to the game’s benefit, primarily because of the other issue I have.

With only four party slots, and only four abilities to choose from, there isn’t a whole lot of incentive or capability to experiment with unique team setups. One of the greatest elements of the Kirby series is replay value, going back through old levels with different copy abilities to see how they change the way you deal with the game’s challenges. With only four abilities though, that just isn’t going to be as critical an element, especially when you can have all four possible abilities in play at once. However, if you had more options this wouldn’t be an issue. Finding team synergies between the way different abilities help and support one another, figuring out the optimal setups to counter boss strategies, even just working with different friends who prefer different playstyles, all of this would be massively enhanced with the addition of a few more choices in what copy abilities you could use. I know that if the game had even ONE ability I really enjoyed playing with in the more typical Kirby adventures, I’d be all over taking on the game’s boss battles.

I guess one could say that the game is intentionally designed this way. With the free to play nature of the game, replaying old fights over again to gain extra experience and level up is something a player might have to do. Making that process more interesting by allowing players to experiment a great deal more with other abilities and team setups would negate a need to pay for the game’s premium currency. In this sense, one of the most critical elements of any Kirby game for me, the immense replay value and experimentation, is something a free to play game needs to actively avoid to try and get money from players. I find that to be quite disappointing overall, especially since there are a lot of elements I think are pretty cool about these games. It just narrowly misses the mark for me.

#kirby #super kirby clash

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bruciewayne · 5 years

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...oh my god, they were roommates!!

Q: Why won't The Winter Soldier come live in the Avenger's Tower? A: Because he has a roommate

aka the shrinkyclinks roommate au with a side of frustrated dad tony stark

(winter soldier bucky, skinny artist steve)

read on ao3

shrinkyclinks roommate au masterpost

“Roommate? What do you mean roommate?”

The Winter Soldier gave Tony an odd look, “Does roommate mean something new now?” he said, scowling. Not that Tony had seen him with any other expression, although sometimes it came with an extra helping of anger and/or annoyance.

He was scowling when they first found him in the Hydra facility, he scowled when he signed the papers to officially join the Avengers Initiative, he scowled all they way through battles and clean up. Although, Shuri had texted Tony saying that he had smiled when they’d finally undone his Hydra programming - and T’Challa had confirmed it, so it was good to know that he, in theory, could make any other expression that wasn't a scowl, but Tony had never seen it.

Tony squinted at The Soldier, “No,” he said carefully, the roommate vine playing on a loop in his head - Peter had been so disappointed when he’d found out that Shuri had introduced him to vines, and the subsequent horror that was Gen Z humour, before he could. Tony offhandedly wondered if The Soldier knew what vines were, technically, he could be classed as a millennial. Probably not. He looked over at The Soldier’s whole, demeanor, the Murder Stance™ (a sequel to the Murder Strut™) in full force, topped off with the ever-present scowl (this time, with a flavour of impatience) and decided, that no, The Winter Soldier definitely didn't know what vines were.

And now the Murder Stance™ was the Murder Strut™. Away from Tony - The Soldier had a surprisingly good ass - “Hey, hey! Manchurian Candidate, you never gave me an answer, you gonna move into the tower with the rest of us?”

The Soldier, without turning around, yelled back, “I told you, I have a roommate.”

Tony turned around and frowned at the rest of the team, “When did he get a roommate?” he muttered, not really expecting an answer.

“His roommate,” growled Fury, from behind him, talking over Tony’s squawk and his promises to ‘cat-bell’ him, “is none of your business. Why are you all still in my conference room?”

He huffed, “You gotta be paying him more if he has to have a roommate,” he knew New York was expensive, but the guy was a superhero, and he probably had like, seven decades worth of backpay.

“He’s getting paid as much as you are. Get out of my conference room.”

“I don't know how much I’m getting paid,”

“Check your books, and get out of my damn room,”

“But-”

“Out.”

Tony and the rest of the Avengers hightailed it out of there, not wanting to relive that particular day.

“Honey, I’m home,” Bucky called, as he entered their apartment, emptying his pockets of all his weapons into the basket near the door, feeling himself physically go from The Winter Soldier, ex-Hydra, ex-brainwashed, SHIELD agent and Avenger, to Bucky Barnes, sometimes drummer, sometimes mechanic, and boyfriend.

It was always so liberating, when he got home, free from surveillance, although, he wasn't naive, he was pretty sure SHIELD knew he lived here. But that better be the extent of it. He’d made sure that the surveillance and oversight clause in his Avengers papers was very clear. Matt had helped. He’d had enough of the oversight bullshit with Hydra.

“Hey,” Steve said, walking out of the kitchen, smelling of ginger and garlic and what seemed like twenty-million other spices, to greet him, kissing him on the cheek, “meeting that bad?” Bucky wrapped his arms around his middle, kissing him on the forehead when he leaned into him, “Am I that obvious?” he murmured, voice stupidly soft. The things Steve did to him, damn.

Steve laughed into his chest and tipped his head up to look at him, “You have residual annoyed-scowl on your face.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows, “Really, where?” he teased, running his hands up and down Steve's back. Steve leaned up and kissed his nose, “Here,” he kissed his cheek, “some here,” his temple, “little left here,” his jaw, “here.”

“All done?”

“Nah,” Steve leaned up and kissed his solidly on the lips, with a hint of tongue, he tasted of mango cola. “Done,” he said, in a whisper, when they pulled away, running his fingers through Bucky’s hair, pushing back his kinda quiff thing, one of the first things he’d done after he’d escaped off the helicarrier (with help from Shuri, of course) that was meant to take him from Wakanda to America, was get a haircut. He’d fucking hated the long hair.

“Mmm, you cooked?” he asked Steve when he felt he was done messing up his quiff.

“Yup,” he nodded, tugging Bucky into the kitchen, “stir-fry.”

“I knew there’s a reason I fell in love with you,” Bucky said, grinning as he let himself be dragged by Steve. They both knew very well that Bucky could easily just, not, and break out of his hold, he had at least half a foot, maybe eighty pounds and some bastardized version of Erskine’s super-soldier serum on him. But he let himself be dragged into the kitchen, because it was Steve.

He plated up the noodles and put them on the table, next to glasses of wine, Bucky drew him in for another kiss and pulled out a chair for him, “Smells amazing, honey,” he drawled, emphasizing his old Brooklyn accent.

Steve saw right through him, “You forget, darlin’ I’m from Brooklyn too,” he teased in a horrific impersonation of his accent.

Bucky laughed at him, “You’re horrible,”

“Aw,” Steve pouted, “I thought you were in love with me?”

“Nah, I’m just in it for the stir-fry,” he said, grinning.

“Dick.”

“Love you too, baby.”

Steve’s phone buzzed and lit up with a message, he flicked it open with his thumb, fork dangling in his mouth. Which was promptly thrown out of his mouth, landing just in front of Bucky’s plate. “Hey, hey, you ok?” Bucky asked, concerned, leaning over to rub his shoulder, comfortingly. Steve looked up at him, holding back… laughter?

“Some guy’s trying to commission me for a piece of all the Avengers,” he said once his shoulders have stopped shaking.

“Why’s that so funny?” Bucky asked, smiling, even his not-laugh was infectious.

“‘Cause he’s saying’ that he’ll pay a million dollars for it. For every piece.” He burst out laughing again. And at Bucky’s confused face, he told him that it was definitely a scam, “Bucky, I’m not, like Jack Kirby or Frank Miller y’know, I have a Tumblr and a comic run. As in one.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows, holding off telling him that he’s wrong, he had a very rudimentary idea who those people were, and Steve knew that, “Who was the person? Maybe they’re like a billionaire or something.”

Steve shrugged, “Probably not, their users’ just ‘youknowwhoiam’” he said, showing Bucky the message.

His phone buzzed again, another commission, but this time from someone he knew, “Shuri wants a commission of T’Challa falling over,” he said to Bucky, showing him the video of the King of Wakanda and the Black Panther, falling over.

“Do it,” Bucky said, laughing.

Steve put his phone down and grinned at Bucky, “Yeah, yeah I will.”

“Oh, by the way,” Bucky said, suddenly, swallowing his mouthful of noodles quickly, “Stark asked me to move into his frat house, again.”

“Y’ thinkin’ of leavin’ me, soldier?” Steve teased, hooking his foot around Bucky’s ankle.

Bucky smiled at him, “Nah, but I said that I have a roommate,” he didn't want Steve to think that he was ashamed of him or something, he was so, so happy to live in a time and a country where a man with another man wasn't cause for a trial and a jail cell, or fear of being beat up in a nondescript alleyway. He told Steve all of this, months ago, when Steve asked if he was ok telling his colleagues about them.

“Why?” Steve asked, curious, not judging him.

“Well, y’know back in the dark, dark ages,” Bucky began, leaning forwards to take Steve’s hand across the table, “we used to say ‘roommate’ instead’a boyfriend, ‘cause, y’know.”

“Dark ages, yeah,” Steve murmured, playing with Bucky’s fingers, “so it was, what, a reflex?”

“Yeah, something like that, I don't know how much I want them knowing so much about me,” Bucky said, quietly, he knew that he should trust them, but, he was still the new guy. Steve smiled at him and kissed his cheek, “That’s ok, it’s fine if you don’t wanna tell them, take as long as you need.”

He did not deserve him. At all. He’s been so, so patient with him, with his goddamn laundry list of issues and problems. Fucking hell he loved him.

“So, James, Jamesy, who is this ‘roommate’ of yours?” Tony asked, shooting at a doombot. “Not the time, Stark,” The Soldier growled, tearing the head off a bot.

“You hurt?” Steve asked, as soon as he came home. Bucky smiled tiredly at him, pulling him into a hug, the battle was too close to the offices where Steve had a meeting today. Steve got that and let Bucky hold him for as long as he needed.

“Nah,” he said, finally, into Steve’s hair, “but, Stark asked me about you,” he pulled away to kiss him lightly on the cheek. “What’d you say?” he asked, smiling up at him, leaning into his touch as he pushed his fringe off his face. Bucky gave him a look, “He asked in the middle of destroying a doombot.”

“Who’s your roommate, Soldier?” Natasha asked, carefully tilting her head to the side in a crafted curiosity and tipping her chin up in a challenge, hoping that the soft lighting of the bar and the intimate setting, with only the team and a couple close friends, would help him open up. The Soldier smirked, almost smiled condescendingly, “Nice try Romanoff.”

“Romanoff asked about you today,” Bucky said, over dinner, “she did the whole, ‘you can trust me, this is a safe-space’ bullshit, soft lighting and all.” Steve hummed, taking a sip of cola, “Very homely, what’d you tell her?” “A fairly PG version of ‘fuck off’” Bucky said, stealing Steve’s drink.

“Hey Frosty, who’s the roommate?” Clint asked, wiping a towel across the back of his neck and draining half a water bottle. He looked over his shoulder at Clint, rubbing a hand through his hair, “Beat it, Legolas.” Legolas? Who’d taught him that?

“Barton asked about my mysterious roommate today,” Bucky said, apropos of absolutely nothing, after his… uh, second work out of the day, after a couple minutes of silence. Steve rolled on top of Bucky, and pressed kissed to his neck, “Yeah, what’d you say?” Bucky hummed and ran a hand down his back, “Called ‘im ‘Legolas’,” he said, smiling proudly. Steve laughed, “You're cute when you think you're being funny.”

“So, James,” Bruce started, pushing a cup of green tea towards him, “you’ve made some friends outside of the team right?” “What the fuck is this, it tastes of grass.”

“Banner today,” Bucky said, when Steve asked how his day went. “You should call your teammates by their first names,” Steve suggested, knowing what Bucky was on about. He just grunted in response, “Nah, they all call me ‘James’ or ‘Barnes’ or ‘Soldier’ or something cold ‘n ice-y, they think they’re funny.”

“Who’s this roommate of yours, Cable?” Sam asked, spinning around in his chair and drumming his fingers on the table. “Keep writing your notes, Freedom Pigeon.”

“Freedom Pigeon,” Bucky grunted, flopping down on Steve’s lap, narrowly missing poking his eye out Joker-style, humming happily when he ran his hands through his hair. “You need a haircut,” he commented, pushing his hair back and letting it flop over his face. He looked younger, like that, more innocent, with longer hair, flopping all over his forehead.

Bucky just hummed sliding his eyes shut, “Would you be ok, if I said something about us?” he asked, nervous, even though they had talked about it before, and Steve was a hundred percent on-board with it, but he wanted to make sure.

Steve bent down and kissed his forehead, “You know I would, Buck.”

“Uh, hey, Mr. Barnes, everyone’s talking about this roommat-” a weedy SHIELD lackey asked, just as he was about to leave the building for the day “Do I know you?” He interrupted, he couldn't wait to get home, to get back to Steve. The lackey locked down at his shoes, “Mr. Stark gave me a hundred dollars to ask.” He rolled his eyes, “Tell him to try harder.”

“Some SHIELD lackey today,” Bucky said, tracing lines on Steve’s hip. “Stark’s really determined, huh,” Steve said, pressing closer to Bucky and wrapping an arm around his neck, “you should troll him or something,” he continued in a mumble, fighting off a yawn. Bucky pulled away a little, considering Steve and giving him a once-over. Steve mumbled out a ‘y’ like what y’ see?’ drifting into unconsciousness.

“You ok with bein’ called a twink?” Bucky murmured, wrapping his arms around his waist and kissing his shoulder. “Yup, ‘m your twink,” he giggled, face falling into Bucky’s shoulder A warm feeling spread throughout his chest, at Steve being his, and at him being all giggly and relaxed and falling asleep, so, so vulnerable in a way no-one would have been, when he was still under Hydra’s brainwashing. He was so in love with him, so, so much.

“So, uh, Mr. Winter, sir, or, uh, do you prefer Mr. Soldier? Uh, Mr. Stark asked me to uh, ask, who’s your roommate?” Stark’s spider-son asked fiddling with a pen, that had ‘Stark Industries’ emblazoned on the side He was fairly sure Stark didn’t make pens. Recorder, maybe transmitter. Huh.

He reached over, plucked the pen out of his hands and spoke into the near-invisible mic, “My roommate is an artist twink with whom I am in a homosexual relationship and I fuck daily.” He pressed the pen back into the kid’s hands and patted his shoulder, “Good talk, spider-kid.”

He turned around and walked straight out of the door, leaving Peter bright red and sputtering, whispering into the mic, “I think he wants you to stop asking.”

#stucky #stevebucky #steve rogers #bucky barnes #tony stark #peter parker #my writing #my fic #stucky fanfic #stucky fic #irondad #clint barton #sam wilson #natasha romanoff #shrinkyclinks #shrinkyclinks roommate au

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smashingatsonicspeed · 6 years

Text

AUGUST SMASH DIRECT THOUGHTS

Boy! That last Smash Direct certainly added more hype then there already was for Ultimate. Just like with the E3 Direct I’m going to go through the major things covered in the order they were announced

SIMON & RICHTER BELMONT

Simon was technically leaked twice. He was among a seemingly credible leak that mentioned Ridley, Snake, Ice Climbers, and no cuts. And then Simon apparently was accidentally leaked through some goof up by Nintendo. (Though I dodged it since I know it was only one night before the reveal so I still didn’t know for sure if Simon was in until the reveal). But either way this ia amazing, Castlevania is certainly a worthy inclusion in Smash on the likes of all the other NES franchises represented. But what wasn’t leaked was Richter as an echo. Richter was the protagonist of Rondo of Blood. Which wasn’t exactly on a Nintendo console unless you count Dracula X in the 90s. Richter was also in Symphony of the Night which has never been on a Nintendo console. But he’s famous even in the meme-wise cause he’s the one who’s there for when Dracula yells “WHAT IS A MAN?!” in the hammy voice acting that was normal for this era of gaming. He was also an unlockable character on a DS game but otherwise Richter isn’t too Nintendo famous. But he is the most popular Belmont in Japan. They just needed to still feature the most iconic Belmont as the main inclusion still. I’m fine with Richter though. Though when I play as either of them, I’m playing Simon more for sure.

P.S. The trailer was great, not just for the super cool footage of Simon. But it was hilarious seeing Luigi running scared. Luigi getting killed by Death has quickly even become the latest Smash Bros. meme

DRACULA’S CASTLE STAGE & BOSS

The stage itself looks fittingly creepy and will have some pretty amazing music I imagine too. And Dracula being a boss is great as well. I kinda wish they’d have him yell “WHAT IS A MAN?!” when he came in. But I imagine that would be a bit much and ruin the moment. But it’d be hilarious to me.

NEW ECHO FIGHTERS: CHROM AND DARK SAMUS

When Chrom showed up I actually smiled. Now I’m no Fire Emblem fan. And yes it’s another sword user, and a fourth Marth-like character. But given how humiliated Chrom was in Smash 4. Not just in the Robin/Lucina trailer but the memes it caused in the Smash fandom that made a once proud and potential newcomer into a butt monkey on nearly the same level as Ridley with the TOO BIG memes. Even for characters I don’t necessarily want to see I would not want that fate to happen to their fans. It’s just brutal. Though at the very least Chrom seems to borrow a few moves from Ike as well. I even thought at first he was an echo of Ike before I checked later that it was actually for Roy. So I’m pretty happy Chrom actually got to have his chance. I am also certainly using Chrom more then I ever will for Roy.

It’s no doubt though that Dark Samus stole the show for echoes. She’s already my favorite echo so far and she has some slick-looking animations that may make her more worth playing then regular power-suit Samus. Metroid fans can be happy that they’ve doubled up the reps. And both of them are well-deserved additions.

ECHOES CAN EITHER BE STACKED OR SEPARATED ON THE CSS

This also may lessen the disgust that people had with Dark Pit’s inclusion back in Smash 4. Just put the echoes in the corner of the character they’re echoing. I’m certainly going to keep them stacked myself. I think the CSS will also look cleaner that way

ALL CHARACTERS WILL BE REVEALED BEFORE LAUNCH

In other words, Sakurai has had it with those final roster leaks only weeks/days before release. Base Game speculation’s days are numbered until the final Smash Direct before release (Which would be likely in October or November). DLC speculation will immediately start after it. But we’re going to have our explosion of reactions to the final base roster done soon enough. Going to be some tense times until then

RETURNING STAGES

There’s so many returning stages! I’ll just say that Brinstar Depths, Magicant, and Fountain of Dreams are particularly ones I’m excited are back. Yoshi 64, Venom, Fourside, New Pork City, and Windy Hill are also nice to see.

CAPTAIN TOAD ON NEW DONK CITY

Welp, Captain Toad is looking very unlikely now. He could be DLC potentially since he isn’t a major stage hazard nor an Assist Trophy. But with a focus on longtime fan favorites and bringing every veteran back. Captain Toad just fell to the way side. It’s a shame, if the newcomers have been chosen in the same fashion Smash 4’s was. I think Captain Toad would of been a near certainty. This also unfortunately means that the last chance for a playable Toad has left us. Smash can’t include everyone, even with some characters like Ridley finally getting their chance, there are still some characters that would certainly count for Nintendo All-Stars that just couldn’t quite make it. This is probably one of the few disappointments I had with the direct. But I’ve dealt without a playable Toad for 4 games already, I can deal with another.

103 STAGES

Man that’s a lot of stages. Not to mention we won’t have to unlock any, they’ll be there from the start. Though Sakurai mentioning this does have me suspicious that this means there’s no more base game stages to add unless they are really trying to hide any newcomers that may come with stages. But it seems odd to point this out exactly if there were even just a few more stages in reality

STAGE HAZARD SWITCH

If you’re a competitive player or even just dislike stages where you’re fighting the stage more then your opponent then you absolutely should love this option. More viable stages and everything

STAGE MORPH

Now this is cool. And could definitely add to the Chaos of a match especially if you randomize both stages. Imagine you get a nice stage that would be competitively legal but then BAM you get something like Great Cave Offensive or Big Blue as the stage morph stage. Plenty of opportunity for hilarity there. Should be fun.

800+ TRACKS + 20 SONIC SONGS + STILL ONLY 2 FINAL FANTASY SONGS

Man this game’s soundtrack is going to be crazy! I am interested in what they have new for Sonic. There’s apparently only 20. If every Sonic song returned that was in either of the last two games. There’d be room for only 2. But if none of the Brawl ones return that leaves room for 6. And that’s not counting the possibility they cut some songs. Though perhaps another bummer from this is apparently Final Fantasy is still only getting 2 songs. So now we know it wasn’t just DLC budget getting in the way. Square is still being stingy.

STAMINA NOW A STANDARD MODE THAT CAN HAVE STOCKS

I’ve always kind of liked Stamina mode as something to be a change of pace of the regular gameplay. So it having it able to have stocks is quite cool

FINAL SMASH METER

Now this is really cool and may even open the possibility of some tournaments allowing Final Smashes in tourneys. I doubt it will be in really serious tournaments anyway, but could certainly allow for some hype in tourneys that do allow it.

SQUAD STRIKE

It’s a little vague at the moment. But Squad Strike might be the closest to something like the match in Smash Tour with a different character per stock? Though it could also just be a 1v1 match for each character. Also opens up for battles between teams.

OFFLINE TOURNEY RETURNS

You can have offline tournaments again like in Brawl and Melee! I sometimes just did CPU only tournaments with those which was kinda fun to watch. Just overall neat to have that back

SMASHDOWN

A cool option to have people not just use the same main they’re great with and also encourages people to diversify the characters they use.

TRAINING MODE UPGRADES

Training now has essentially a ruler to know your character’s launching power! Very cool and Competitive players will love it since it’s much easier to measure things.

CLASSIC MODE BACK TO MORE STANDARD

This is definitely a return to form for Classic mode. It’s kinda like SSB64’s but it’s a different set for each character that’s predetermined. No matter how many times you go through with one particular character it will be the same. While that may arguably sound like a step backward from the complete randomness of Melee’s classic mode. I actually love this a lot, the team can choose a particular set of opponents that make sense for that character to fight. Or even if it makes absolutely no sense, then it’s up to the fanbase to think of a reason for why they fight. Also what seems to be a thing is each character has a name for their run. Kirby had Gourmet Clash and Roy had A Journey of Swords. Bringing the same kind of intrigue that the Punch-Out Stage titles bring. I am excited to go through with every character like I always do.

NEW POKEMON

Alolan Exeggutor is hilarious, Abra will certainly provide some salt on some people, Mimikyu was a character often seen as possible to be the Gen 7 rep so might of been the first major reconfirmation not counting the Captain Toad one found later. Vulpix is a cute addition to the pokeball lineup. And Ditto is amazing. I almost kinda want the enemy team of this game to now be Ditto fighters.

NEW ASSISTS

Only 2 possibly major reconfirmations in the form of Zero and Shovel Knight. Zero was often seen as a possible 2nd Mega Man rep and Shovel Knight was considered the most likely if an Indie were to ever make it. It’s a miracle Shovel Knight even got this far though. Yacht Club games should be proud. Other then those though, Klaptrap looks annoying to deal with, Kapp’n seems funny just for the characters in the bus’ faces, Chef Kawasaki is the return of Kirby’s old Brawl final smash repurposed, Nikki’s a cute character to include, and the Majora’s Mask Moon is amazing as an assist trophy idea. It doesn’t even discriminate, even KOing the one it summoned. There was also the Rathalos assist trophy that turns out to also be a boss

ASHLEY DECONFIRMED

At the tail end of the Assist Trophy section was the sudden appearance of Ashley and not even with the name tag. Though they made her eyes red again. Ashley was considered one of the possible likely newcomers revealed this direct mainly because last week WarioWare Gold released. So it would be great timing.But it wasn’t to be. Sorry Ashley fans

MAIN MENU AND A MYSTERIOUS SPIRITS MODE

The menu looks more refined then Smash 4’s though I didn’t mind the Smash 4 menu as much as most people did. However most of the buzz is of course around the mode Sakurai had blurred out. Through some deblurring people found the mode will be called “Spirits” but that’s still too vague to know what it’ll be exactly. Based on any hints though from the bosses, it seems it will be some kind of Adventure mode. My guess is something in between Melee’s Adventure Mode and Subspace. Not as extensive as Subspace but more content then Melee’s adventure mode for sure. Perhaps you find the spirits of the characters to unlock them. But anything else is definitely all speculation at this point. It’ll be interesting to find out what this mode will be all about when we get to it.

KING K. ROOL

You know they just had to leave us with one more thing. And it certainly was a big one. K. Rool was only 2nd to Ridley in being one of the most wanted characters in Smash. And was often seen on the top of the list on the ballot. Also gotta say the trailer is amazing to show all those heroes and the villain and then it cutting to Donkey Kong, cause that’s when exactly you know who’s coming. The Dedede fakeout was also hilarious, though I doubt it really fooled anyone. K. Rool was in Smash and Donkey Kong finally gets a much needed increase of representation. Perhaps we’ll see Dixie soon come up as a Diddy echo. But until then K. Rool is what Donkey Kong fans as well as a good majority of Smash fans wanted. And he’s here cementing this Smash as certainly even more fan service focused then previous games.

Overall, an amazing direct. and can’t wait to see what else is in store for this game. We still have more characters and of course the Spirits mode to see. The road to Smash Ultimate is getting smaller each day and we’re surely in for a few more spots of interest along the way. Cannot wait to see what’s revealed next!

#Super Smash Bros. Utimate #Super Smash Bros.#Simon Belmont #Richter Belmont #Castlevania #Chrom #Fire Emblem #Dark Samus #Metroid #King K. Rool #donkey kong series #Donkey Kong Country #K. Rool

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knightofbalance-13 · 6 years

Note

what are your thoughts www(.)fanfiction(.)net/s/12667631/2/30-Ways-to-kill-Ragna-The-Bloodedge ,www(.)fanfiction(.)net/s/12667631/3/30-Ways-to-kill-Ragna-The-Bloodedge , www(.)fanfiction(.)net/s/12667631/4/30-Ways-to-kill-Ragna-The-Bloodedge

Oh jesus this is uh- something...

You guys just see me as a cleaner for the haters I fanbases don’t you?Well, this is a really fucking ridiculous thing so guess I’ll do it.

Let’s separate this into parts so the arguments are cohesive:

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REBEL 1:

“Do you seriously want an exaggerated anti-hero with little justification, people around him going against his theme and faced with the most evil villains while tearing away the madness he faces?”Yes. Because the world of Blazblue along with all those people around Ragna help support him and make him stand out. Also how is Ragna exaggerated? If he’s exaggerated then what is Guts from Berserk?!

“Then I pretty much made a good argument about why Ragna as a protagonist shouldn’t have his existence acknowledged and be renamed ‘Retard the Dumbedge’“

...Yeah, you’re an obnoxious little shit aren’t you? I don’t see any argument good enough to justify THAT childish behavior. Even Kirito isn't that bad.

“Ragna is said to act like your average Shounen protagonist but he doesn’t even after his character development.”Um...No, Ragna acts like the dull edgy anti-heroes we got in the 90′s. He only LOOKS like a Shounen Protag. And after his character development he kind of does act like a Shounen Protag but in a good way, doing his best to help people and do what is best for them. He pretty killed himself for that goal. What is this guy smoking?

“The characters don't work with Ragna OR with the story that blazblue is trying to tell.”Uh...How? Because all I see is what RWBY originally was: a Rule Of Cool story with an emphasis on good eventually triumphing over evil.

“Ragna is an insult to the “Traditional Hero” for being called a “Chosen One”“

Hey Dumbass, the chosen one trope is used in ALL KINDS of stories, not just traditional hero ones. And Ragna ISN’T suppose to be a traditional hero, he’s suppose to GROW UP into one.

Now onto the next argument-and it’s a copy paste from a previous ask. Okay, the Blazblue ask I had before this one? go read that one for this argument.

“Blazblue’s exaggerated characterization, unnecessary protagonist, characters that focus on one major role, characters that could have been toned down and UNNECESSARY SEXUALIZATION (comparing it to RWBY) don’t work with Blazblue’s flawed story.”You have not proven any of this, many people like it SPECIFICALLY for this reason, it was the goal of the creators and they succeeded so in every regard you fail.(P.S. Monty Oum was a fan of blazblue dumbass. If RWBY has oversexualization [An idiotic statement by itself] it was probably FROM Blazblue.)

“After the backlash on my rant on Blazblue’s writing and how I will never...NEVER acknowledge Ragna’s existence to this day, even after four failed games.”A. Your rant is barely coherent, nevermind actually GOOD.B. You just acknowledged Ragna’s existence.

And C. Blazblue is almost as famous as fucking Guilty Gear. It’s not failure.

”I do believe Arcsys has left itself in the slammer for letting itself down with this crap.”Take your medication, you’re having delusions again.

“They could’ve seen previous media and make the story light hearted and not rip off guilty gear and make it worse.”*throws a copy of End Of Evangelion at his face* Like that story?

“And fire Mori from the reboot of Blazblue THAT I WANT! NOT THIS!”

Yeah- good luck with that.

“if you’re ‘pissed off’ while reading this, then accept it as fact. I will be on your good side, nothing will grind your gears. Now, that something we all want in this fandom with me around. Nuff said.”

*glares* Oh fuck off you facist.

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REBEL 2:

“*shotguns Ragna in the head and burst out in blood and bones*”Hey RWDE, you forgot one of your Jaune haters!

“AN: Oh, so is this the case then? How disappointing. I was expecting much of a reasoning from all of you, but all get is cynical backlash over how much of a dumbass I am.“Hey if the glove fits man.

“Now, I'm really not into Anime & Manga where a lot of tropes I see are very exaggerating, but come on already. You know how much hate darker, edgier, and brutal characters that believe they are badass, yet their misunderstood that term a lot. And I mean, A LOT.“Yeah and guess what? Ragna gets mocked for that and has to change against that to get respect.“Think about Kirby from Hoshi No Kaabi. He is a badass that can copy/paste other dudes into his will by swallowing them. After viewing the whole series as a kid, it's got wondering about what other sources of fiction I would see. I watched DragonBall Z, I watched Naruto, and I watched Ace Attorney. But then came BlazBlue, and my god. I bet I know what you're thinking. "If BlazBlue ain't for you, buddy. Then take a step back from the red line or you're toast."“

Well yeah, that’s how fandoms work dumbass. also I don’t care about your experiences.

“The mind is a very interesting concept I'm learning here. Not only do many people in this series is very individualistic, but cynical and self-biased as well. And you wanna know the reason? Is it Ragna? Is the exaggerated tropes in the series? Is it the convoluted nature of the series? Is it my overwhelming backlash towards the series? Or is it my fanfiction story that received so much backlash all because I wanted to replace a character that had the same "backstory"? Because I'm talking about the one asshole who was in charge of the whole series, the one who clearly wasted his own potential for nothing. It is going to be Japanese writer Toshimichi Mori.“

Oh gee, individualism. How terrible for a fascist like you.Also I highly doubt people are THAT cynical given the popularity of the Gag Reels and Bang Shishigami.

Also the backlash has everything to do with you jack ass. But sure, try blaming the creator for your own baggage. THAT hasn’t backfired before right?

“Now let's take a step back for a moment, shall we? Doesn't Mori ever love to take things down the roof? Does he love to put things into perspective like a Vase, then overwhelmingly shove Vases down our throats to show how amazingly complex they really are?”

The first thing Mori talked about with Bullet was her boobs. ... I’m pretty sure he just likes blowing shit up and making stuff that looks entertaining, especially considering the Astral Finishes, the basic character tropes written in their purest forms and characters like Bang.

It ain’t that deep, douchebag.

“You see, Daisuke was a very successful man in Arc Sys. He's written quite literally the best story out of all time, Guilty Gear. But then, one day, he decided to put his story on hiatus. Then asshole Mori shows up to take the advantage on him, and literally took his concept to the next level.”Isn’t Sol Badguy literally a self insert for the creator? Yeah I think Guilty Gear is just the same as Blazblue but with a different way going about things.So basically you’re a pissy Guilty Gear fanboy? Good to know.

“But goddamn, did that fail. A lot of people were brainwashed into thinking his work is awesome and full of depth, and sadly. It doesn't. Mori character concepts are great, but that doesn't exclude his idea of a "protagonist".“

Yeah because people like you think that it has to be brainwashing and not that your egos are disproportionately big and fragile.

“

Now, a protagonist is the lead character, not a hero. That's true. However, they are many flaws to this concept. One is, the protagonist has to fit the tone of the story being presented here. However, what doesn't make logical sense, is that BlazBlue is supposed to represent a cynical crapsack world that's revived by someone who throws his life like a badass and the day is saved. But unfortunately, the other characters who manage to take the spotlight act differently. That's right. They don't CARE about what the tone is from BlazBlue, they just act all non-nonchalant from the so-called "gag reels" and they are barely mentioned ever in the series fandom. Then we randomly shift from one setting to the next, when all of this couldn't have been solved by just staying the one final spot where they were.“

... Okay so he completely missed the point of a protagonist.Also: no fucking duh. The characters are different because they are different PEOPLE dumbass. PEOPLE aren’t a fucking hivemind.Also I find it hard to say Blazblue is THAT cynical given how the final game is one big triumph for idealism.Also not only are the gag reels SUPPOSE to have a different tone but the fanbase LOVES them.

Also that setting one is just-wrong.

“But uhen we have the main villain, who is said by legends to be the most barbaric and most vile creature ever to be exaggerated off the face of fiction. His archenemy is not the knight, but sour ass protagonist we see in this series. Isn't it ashamed that this battle couldn't have been awesome if a protagonist with a kind-hearted soul were to step up and stop this beast? Nope. We never get. Probably, not in a long shot we ain't.”

A. Yeah and Terumi OWNS that concept. Hence why people love him.B. Ragna stopped being an asshole a game and a half ago. There’s a reason why Tao’s nickname for him is “Nice Guy.”

C. The guy literally erased himself from reality so things could be better. Ragna the Bloodedge is everything characters like Ruby Rose aspire to be.

“And do the games improve dramatically from game play perspective? Nope, each and every game is the same. There are no group battles, it's always 2D, and new characters don't make it different. It's a lazy way of getting the game to be new, but it doesn't feel different from me by any means necessary.“Group battles? That;s a spectacle fighter dumbass!And yeah, new characters DO matter. As in, that’s what Fighting Games are based off you idiot.

“o hate how most of the fighting game concepts were ripped solely off from Guilty Gear. It's like if Mori looked at Daisuke's work by demand and copied off everything that didn't add up from before. That's just not right. It certainly makes more angrier and upset to see Mori put his series like that. What a joke.

Somebody whose played Guilty Gear deal with this.

“Then we have BlazBlue Radio, featuring the ugly protagonist sitting next to two beautiful girls. Now may I remind you, I'm not against every single character in the series, except the protagonist and the evil monster. The protagonist gets the biggest spotlight cause I have quite literally, have the biggest boner to pick with him.“

So basically you’re jealous that Ragna gets the girls? Makes sense.

“ I never recognize his existence. Never have. The series has been a colossal heap of mish-mash concepts mixed in with anime drama tropes. Yet, a lot of people in the series don't recognize that. All of which ruined by poor planning and an occupied existence. This has been no exception because I talk to about being against the series as a fact, was a backlash of them showing me how great and awesome it truly is. And that's like talking to a brick here. I'm not braindead guy who suffers from mental retardation who has to live in an asylum for petes sake.”

A. You just did idiot.B. That;s not a bad thingC. people LOVE IT for being a mix mash.D. That argument makes no sense.E. So the complainer is wrong? Good to know I can just ignore you then.And F. That’s an oddly specific example...

“If you want to keep this up with me, then fine. Go right ahead. Build up as much anger as you can until my head ESPLODE. You stick your asses on this franchise, believe it to be some kind god for the whole Arc Sys works, and never again mention a protagonist replacement or a reboot. Cause I'm being clear, this series will never EVER improve. It's all the same shit, different story. And that different story is barely any better from all the crap I've seen from the characters. Nuff said. Peace out.”

Yeah yeah, the usual egotistical hater shtick. You ain’t special.

“P.S. If you're going to say that my stupid ass that brought me here ruined everything or is making you more frustrated. Then believe me, it's pointless to post a review or PM to say that I suck or my logic is ass. And I won't jolt. Ever.”

You say that but I know from experience you people break easily...

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REBEL 3:

“*Places Ragna in a blender and he gets shredded bit by bit, piece by piece until his ass was nothing*“Because this screams “SANITY!”

“AN: Time to get this crap out of the roll... Okay, so there's a lot of media I'm craving to look for. Of course, sometimes, media doesn't just cut for many audiences, via demographics. And I've seen video games and anime do this a lot, especially seinen. Then I played anime video games/visual novels... Ace Attorney, Dragon Ball Xenoverse, Guilty Gear, Trails/Kieseki, and last but most hated of all time. BlazBlue.“So you know why you’re full of shit but you ignore it and keep going? Okay.

“I know what you're thinking, people. Like I really would love to admit, but people have been pulverizing me over my head saying how shit I was to an argument over a franchise that just screams out "FICTION". But no... People point out my hatred for Ragna The Bloodedge. A character that's unique to me in one way of the direction. In BlazBlue, a post-apocalyptic world that's nothing but trouble and people being dicks for crap reasons. Has anyone ever noticed that there is no "real" hero to the story? It's easy. BECAUSE PEOPLE WORSHIP RAGNA THE BLOODEDGE LIKE HE'S SOME SORT OF "ANTI-SUE". A flawed character that gets way too much attention! And Ragna gets all that crap like he's some kind of gold-digger.“

Ragna killed Blazblue’s Satan. ... He’s uh, kind of a hero no matter what you say.Also Noel, Makoto, Jin, Jubei, Hakuman, Tsubaki, Kagura, Celica-We have plenty heroes.

“As much as I really loved the characterization and all that, Ragna ruins the experience for me. I'm not kidding, he really freaking does! He's not even a character, in my book. Let alone a dumbass that can't do anything right because he was trained by someone strong, has a vampire ally/rival and beats out on other things like an impatient chimpanzee. Because hey! That's his character, folks! Ragna isn't Ragna without his edgy, dark past despite it having no emotional value what-so-ever. GODDAMMIT.“A. Rachel isn’t a rival dumbass.And B. He LITERALLY got called out on that shit with Kagura in Chronophantasma and had to become more heroic in order to become a stronger fighter and a better person.

Oh, C. He STILL sacrificed himself for all his friends and family. I do not joke when I saw he’d be Ruby Rose’s idol.

“AND DON'T YOU BRING BANG SHISHIGAMI TO THIS RANT. Bang doesn't count as a hero in my book, he's better off as a supporting character. ALL I WANT FOR THE SERIES TO HAVE IS A REAL HERO. Not this Redcoat wearing jackass that always gets his way done no matter how much he pulls. The story is supposed to be "Black and White". NOT "BLACK AND GRAY"! Sure, there can be some vital exceptions. BUT I DON'T SEE A SINGLE, UTMOST THING, THAT HAS EVER CAME OUT OF BLAZBLUE THAT NEVER CHANGED MY MIND. EVER.”

A. Bang still counts motherfucker, you said ‘hero’ not ;major character’.

B. Hakuman’s right there trying to stab Ragna. C. No it’s suppose to be grey and gray. Mori built it that way. This is his story, not yours.

And D. So you know you’re wrong.

“Keep coming back to me! I don't effing care where it is. You rant, you whine, you even tell me to leave, but no... That all that isn't going to happen. I will be back and in one story... You'll that it is me that's returning. I won't bother arguing about this again. Sure, I've could've talked this through by PM'ing, but "Black and White" morality is always going to my thing. But hey, Fanfiction is all about tryharding! You use canonically made characters to achieve a thing that's worth a damn! Anyways, I got back from my awesome trip to California. Nuff said.”

And guess what motherfucker? I’ll be right here, challenging and fighting you every step of the way! Each time you scream about Canon, I’ll be there to tear it down. Each time you rant about canon, I’ll be there to cut it pieces. This is gonna be a battle of wills between you and I. And guess what? My will is damn near indomitable. Good luck jackass.

But let me send you off, Blazblue style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSDFR4DoOQQ

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ihsom-has-a-writing-dream · 6 years

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Clarity ~1~

Well hello there Tumblr, I’ve finally found the courage to post this thing! Be warned though, this story contains spoilers and focuses on three certain Generals!

I have some plans for these girls, and love the prospect of fleshing them out more in a story! I hope you all like it! Note: this was posted before we knew if the Generals were all sisters or not. I implied some things in this first chapter, but now know they are all strictly sisters, no love here but the sisterly kind.

It was an almost impossible task, yet Francisca had accomplished it.

The icy general heaved, letting her axe disappear from use. There was a nasty scar along her shoulder, and her hat had a hole in it from the trespassers sword penetrating the carefully knit fabric. Zan was going to be disappointed in her for being so careless, yet the outcome of this battle outweighed the damage she received.

Francisca slowly floated down to the pink creature, carefully observing him in case he had decided to play dead. He hadn't, she could see the rise and fall of his chest, his labored breaths coming out less than evenly.

“You should have listened to me,” she chuckled. “I told you I would put you on ice for interfering.”

Of course she was talking to an unconscious...ball. And said ball she had no idea what to do with. Would she kill him here and now? Keep him prisoner?

She passively wanted more trophies for her collection, and another frozen one would be the icing on the cake.

However, she would have to show the other generals of the feat she had pulled off first. They would have to know there was opposition on this planet and to be prepared, it could mean a major setback in their plans. Hyness would not like that, she was positive.

Francisca slowly picked up the pink ball, humming in surprise at how light he was. It was great considering her shoulder was in no position to carry anything too heavy. She tucked him under her arm and went along her way into the deeper parts of the Jambastion.

It was actually one of those once in a blue moon days where Hyness wasn't completely bent on them finding the pieces of the dark Jamba Heart, a day where she, Flamberge and Zan could ‘relax’ to the best of their abilities. Of course half of the time said relaxing activities were training overseen by Zan herself, but hopefully they could fully unwind today. She had a shoulder to heal after all.

She had to spare a glance down at her prisoner, and her first reaction was thoughts about how cute he was. It sounded strange sure, but she liked her trophies cute and innocent looking. It was all the better to see such horror on their faces when she made them into statues. The moment when innocence was shattered, that was the image she loved to capture most in her artwork.

This boy would be perfect for that, if she got to do what she pleased with him. It felt only fair, after all she was the one to stop him in his tracks. But if Flamberge wanted to have her own fun..she would comply.

It didn't take her long to reach the open area of the Jambastion, she slipped past some Jammerjab’s patrolling the area and headed inside, expecting to hear some sort of ruckus. Instead she found the other two generals lounging about, doing their own thing.

Flamberge caught her gaze first, the fiery girl had a book open in her lap, scanning it’s contents. It had been a while since she had seen her read...well anything! It was a good thing too, maybe now she could show her some of her favorite books...

Zan on the other hand was knitting, and she seemed to be halfway through with her work. There were some hats for her and Flamberge resting aside her which were more suited for colder areas. Zan hated to admit that sometimes the universe was a tad too cold without the constant warmth of a sun around them. And that they would need to become warmer since their outfits were a little less prepared. Francisca obviously didn’t mind the cold much herself, but she knew her dear Berge and Zan would.

Before she could even announce her presence however, Flamberge noticed her right away, shutting her book and jumping up in delight.

“Francisca! You're back, finally!” Flamberge shouted.

She caught the attention of Zan, who set aside her knitting needles. “Ah, it's about time Franny. I was worried you somehow got lost on your patrol.” she let a hand rest on her hip. Then her eyes were directed to the unconscious puff by her side. Zan’s eyes raised in surprise, “Franny, do you mind showing us what you caught?”

Flamberge glanced down at Kirby, a gasp escaping her. “Wow Francisca! What is that? It looks cute!” she floated closer, lifting up Kirby’s arm to examine his face. “It is cute!”

Francisca chuckled, patting Flamberge’s head. “It's cute but also deadly. He barged into our lovely Jambastion uninvited and put a nasty scar on my shoulder.” she stretched out her arm for emphasis to show the damage done.

This time it was Flamberge's turn to be surprised, she promptly glared at the tiny puffball. Her flaming sword came to her from the air, as she thrust it in front of Kirby’s face, nearly puncturing his skin.

Francisca hopped back in surprise, although her sudden movements to protect their prisoner startled her more.

“Jamblast you! You puffy, pink pest!” she turned back to Zan, who had not moved an inch in her sudden outburst. “He deserves to be roasted! He hurt our precious Franny, Zan!” There was an unmistakable anger in her voice, a tone of which made heat rush to Francisca’s cheeks. This always happened with Flamberge; switching moods at the drop of a hat. Or in every case, if somebody hurt her dear Francisca. Although the icy general couldn't say she was complaining…

“Flamberge, put away your sword.” Zan floated calmly over, giving a look to her that stated she wasn't playing. Flamberge grunted, but complied.

“And Francisca, what kind of trouble was he up to in the sections?” Right to business, of course Zan wouldn't miss a beat.

“Destroying valuable troops, but otherwise just making his way through. He beat Pon and Con, the two of them seem to be freed from our influences.” she stated.

Zan hummed, drumming her fingers across her arm. “There doesn't seem to be much collateral damage, and our infantry could always be replaced.” She sighed, “There will be some repairing to do, but our biggest concern now are others like him.” she put her hands behind her back and started pacing.

Flamberge very carefully slided over to Francisca. She entwined her hand with hers, squeezing it for comfort. When Zan started pacing it meant things could get drastically worse. They were all considerably calm and collected, so their head general worrying over an opposition was nothing to shake a stick at.

“To think a planet like this could hold such a powerful creature..” she mumbled. “It would be foolish to assume there aren't others like him. We will have to keep a close eye on activities from the outside. Our lord will not have us to become cloaked with failure.” Her voice hardened near the end, and Francisca could feel her hand being squeezed even tighter.

“Flamberge, you will need to be prepared to fight any who choose to invade the Jambastion. And get to work on bringing back Pon and Con, we cannot have them escape and seek help.” she pointed a steady finger at Flamberge, who curtly nodded.

“What about me Zan? And more importantly him?” Francisca gestured down to Kirby, his form still rigid and unmoving in her arms.

“The original troublemaker, right.” She glanced at him, but then turned her attention elsewhere. “He will be held prisoner, we cannot send him back to the planet, but we also can't ignore the knowledge he may possess. A native from the land may better help us find the Jamba hearts.”

“Willingly?” Flamberge cut in, staring at Kirby with disgust.

“Willingly or not, if it comes to the point where he will not cooperate you will turn him like with the guards.” Zan looked out one of the many windows in the room towards Popstar. Her gaze hardened, “Failure is not an option here girls, you understand that correct?”

“Yes,” Francisca nodded, but then winced as a spasm cut through her arm up to her shoulder. “Ah...jamblasted…..” she cursed. She tried her hardest not to let her pain show, but Flamberge, ever observant, noticed anyway.

“You really need to rest Franny. You cannot fight in a position like that.” Flamberge gingerly put up a hand to touch the wound, but pulled back quickly when the contact made Francisca hiss in pain. “..sorry.”

“It's fine Flamberge, although I think I am perfectly capable of holding my own." She huffed, holding Kirby closer to her. It was instinctive; his soft body almost felt like a stress reliever..

“No, Flamberge is right. You will rest in recovery Francisca.” she held up a hand before the general could try and argue with her. “I will have no complaints on the matter,”

Francisca sighed, loudly. She hated being immobile for so long. The feeling of being useless…

“But, once again, what about pinky here?” she held up Kirby. “He is more powerful than you two might think, it would be unwise to leave him alone for extended periods of time. With his power he would surely break out with ease.”

The room fell into silence, of course before all could go smoothly dealing with Kirby was the main factor of concern.

Then just before Zan could open her mouth Flamberge had an audible ‘aha!’ moment.

“Ooo I know! Since we're trying to get him on our side, why not act nice to him? If we can persuade him to join the cause Hyness is so determined to make happen, there will be no need for turning! We can all look after him by the days.” she pointed to Francisca.

“You can keep him in check for a few days, since you're resting. Then you can hand him off to me, then Zan, and we start the process over again!”

Zan narrowed her eyes, “Flamberge that doesn't sound like a solid idea.” she put her hands on her hips again, giving the fiery girl a look.

“Why not?” she countered, mimicking her superior's stance. “It will be a potential new ally on our side, and a powerful one at that! Besides, turning takes a lot of energy and it would be easier this way for me.”

Francisca didn't know how she felt about looking after the person who nearly chopped her arm off. She wanted him as a trophy of course, but this made it seem like he was some pet. “What all does ‘looking after’ entail?”

“You know. Making sure he doesn't escape, keeping him fed and interested-"

“So like a dog.” Zan deadpanned.

“Exactly! But a smart and powerful dog.” Flamberge smirked.

“I thought you wanted to impale him a few minutes ago?”

“I still do, but the idea of making him into a pet is more exciting than killing him!” she giggled, her eyes dancing with mischief.

Leave it up to Flamberge to torture others in the weirdest ways possible. Although Francisca had to admit, the thought intrigued her too. She smiled, they were all a little sadistic on the inside.

Zan didn't seem as impressed as she could have been. Francisca could probably guess why, but the answer wouldn't seem fitting in the current situation.

“I...suppose using the easy way out isn't the worst option there is.” She crossed her arms, still sending Flamberge that glare. “But if he gets out of control and causes damage you two are responsible for his actions.”

Francisca nearly laughed, “Why am I also in on the shared blame?”

Zan smiled, an unsettling smirk painting her features. It sent chills down Francisca’s spine. “Because you are the one who brought him back here alive, instead of killing him on sight.”

She could hear Flamberge snickering beside her.

“Jambuhbye girls, I'll see you and our new pet later.” she chuckled and waved at the both of them, picking up her knitting supplies and heading out the door.

After a few seconds of silence Francisca sent Flamberge another glare, only this one being more lighthearted. “One of these days I'll get revenge for everything you've done to me, my dear Berge.”

Flamberge smiled, “You're kidding yourself Franny, you already know I'm too hot to resist.” she mockingly whipped her short hair back.

And oh, Francisca knew all too well.

#Kirby #kirby star allies #aaaaa I'm nervous #I really love these girls so much #I just want to give them the best #Francisca #Flamberge #Zan Partizanne

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schalaasha · 4 years

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Soundtrack of the Year 2015 Post Archived

Originally posted January 18, 2016 on the old forum.

I don’t have much to say other than ... I’m tired of 2015. Haha. It was a rough year so I didn’t get to listen to everything I’d wanted to! I did get to listen to the Yasunori Mitsuda remix album, and a bunch of albums that Solune and I talked about over the course of a few months. My shortlist was apparently longer than some expected, and I do think 2015 had a lot of great albums. Although the Canadian dollar sank like a tank (and this isn’t going to change heading into 2016), I did try to listen to as many soundtracks as I could. However, I will readily admit that I did not get a chance to listen to everything like I usually do in previous years. Personal life combined with work combined with the crappy dollar combined with falling in love (this is a good thing), kind of made it a little hard try to check out new stuff. I was fairly on top of everything for the first half of the year and then everything kind of fell apart towards the end. The decision between my number one and number two soundtracks was fairly tough. I went through a lot of mental wrangling in terms of the question “do I vote with my heart, or do I vote with my head?” I don’t usually like going with my heart when I vote for game of the year or soundtrack of the year. It feels completely biased on my part, and I feel like I’m not evaluating something with clarity or based on its own merits. Then I sort of realized, “Well, isn’t that the point?” In my head, Undertale takes the win. In my heart, though, something else does, and it’s entirely based on context. So this year, I decided to go with my heart. Listening to my heart feels weird. I feel very strongly about two soundtracks this year, and therefore, I have decided to go with only two. This is also the first time that I think I’ve written a list where I’ve played all the games. I could be wrong on that front, but this comes as a genuine surprise. I am disappointed with the lack of Falcom on my list, but I am not entirely comfortable throwing a vote Tokyo Xanadu’s way because I’m almost finished the game. While I do have a lot to say about Tokyo Xanadu’s soundtrack at the moment, I would much rather experience the music further in context before throwing a vote its way (but the soundtrack is really good, and the game itself is quite fun!). Previous Posts: 2011 Soundtrack of the Year: 1, 2 2012 Soundtrack of the Year: 1, 2, LTTP Post 2013 Soundtrack of the Year: 1, 2, 3, 4 2014 Soundtrack of the Year: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 Soundtrack of the 6th Generation: 1 / 2 / 3 I decided to forego the awards this year, particularly because I decided to forego my Worst Soundtrack of the Year award. My pick for that would be more than a bit controversial, and I think a few folks know what that one is so I’ll let it slide under the rug. Honourable Mentions x. Ori and the Blind Forest : I’d been waiting for this soundtrack for months before the game came out, and it did not disappoint. I was going to make it #3 on my soundtrack list, but halfway through my writeup for it, I felt as though I lost my motivation to write about it. Therefore, I am only including a top 2 this year. A lot of the tracks are incredibly emotional (Light of Nibel, and whenever there’s a rush to quickly platform (Restoring the Light, Facing the Dark), the pacing of the tracks do the level design justice. x. Tokyo Xanadu : Mixing electronica and violins makes this soundtrack fairly classy, from the upbeat yet elegant Strayed into Passage to the characteristic Believe It!!. Falcom hasn’t lost it; the sound is just evolved to fit Tokyo Xanadu’s tone. x. Nights of Azure : Holy shit, Nights of Azure is some hot shit, and I wish more people listened to this soundtrack cuz Solune and I love it so much. Moving from some hard rock (Malicious Roses and Edge of Apocalypse to the jazzy Hotel Ende. I wish I had way more time to spend with this soundtrack and imported the game because the soundtrack is definitely Top 5 material. x. Splatoon : Shooters aren’t my thing. If everyone I tweet didn’t bring this soundtrack up when I was asking for help with the archive, then I probably wouldn’t have known about the soundtrack’s variations. Sucker Punch, Ink Me Up x. Legend of Legacy : I like Legend of Legacy. Or, at least, when I played the Japanese version of it. It had stuff I liked to nitpick and the game is certainly not for everyone. The music itself feels like an extension of Hamauzu’s recent work. Ex: Twin Dimensional Battle, Initium (one of the better town themes he’s composed, imo) x. Kirby and the Rainbow Curse : I didn’t finish this game. I, uh, didn’t feel like it jived well with me, and anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely adore Kirby. But this game has some fantastic tuneage, from Great Cave Escape to Dethskullk Jam to The Final Battle. A lot of the soundtrack drives back to previous Kirby games, which is to be expected. However, the tone of the music moving directly back to Kirby Super Star sounds felt right. x. Transformers Devastation : I had to laugh when NTom64 brought this one up to me, just because I... wasn’t expecting it? I didn’t play the game, so I don’t know if any of the music fits the context at all (never mind that I saw the Transformers movie and I know The Touch fits super-well), but holy crap, the music is incredible and I think it deserves the Badassery Award. Sample: Face the Devastation 2. Undertale

Toby Fox

It’s not even a damn contest. I can reiterate what everyone has said in this thread up to this point about Undertale, but it’s undeniable that this is one of the best soundtracks of 2015. Heck, it might be the best soundtrack of 2015 if the whole “voting with your heart” thing didn’t get in the way for me. Basically, it took a lot of convincing to get me through this game. For one, another GAF member (Shadow Hog) gifted me the game on Steam because I essentially refused to play it at the time. And I’m still thankful that he did. I played through the whole game with Noi doing his own playthrough and we pushed each other through the game. It took some prodding from EmCee to finish off the game and get the True Pacifist Ending to add more meaning to the soundtrack overall (and I took Noi with me in tow for that, too). Now that doesn’t mean I don’t like the game. I just got spoiled on the endings and a lot of things before playing the game because, well, a lot of people wouldn’t shush about it. When I played the game, I felt like it was about the journey not the end. The game’s musical journey is fulfilling. Writing about Undertale’s soundtrack feels like a daunting task simply because there is just so much to say. From references to other games, to leitmotifs being used in single areas, to different types of instrumentation, to different soundfonts being used... there’s a lot of things to say about the soundtrack, and even just glancing through this entire thread, there are a lot of different things that people are saying about it. Undertale’s soundtrack is fairly difficult to review. There are a lot of tracks (well, actually, that part isn’t too difficult; I’ve reviewed 100+ track albums before), they all have extremely varying track lengths, and they all use different soundfonts that somehow create a cohesively-sounding album in the end. Overall, the album encourages the listener to be attentive: to soundfonts, to leitmotifs, to different references to other games, and more. There are twenty-three leitmotifs in the entire soundtrack. Undertale’s soundtrack release also composes of music that hasn’t been used in the game. I think the best way for me to approach the soundtrack, and Noi and I were talking about this last night when he was trying to get me to stop panicking about writing this post in general, is through discussing the leitmotifs. It’s like he said to me, “When you listen to <track>, what do you think of?” Well, there are a lot of things to think of. Nearly every single theme in Undertale references something else internally and externally. There are so many albums and soundtracks that use underlying motifs for everything, but Undertale kind of goes for the nth degree with respect to subtext and motif usage. The soundtrack opens up with Once Upon a Time, serving as the Undertale theme and the primary leitmotif in the game. The thing about the Undertale theme is that I guess it’s supposed to evoke a comparison between either Pollyanna or Eight Melodies. Going into the Start Menu continues a Mother comparison in terms of the Fun Naming themes without the “OK desu” part. More of the Undertale motif picks up in the comforting midi string theme Home, and it’s here that you start piecing together that all of the thematic similarities between each theme and their usage essentially crafts a story. Or at least, it lets the player have expectations of characters or areas. I particularly like the B-portion, where it sounds like it’s channeling some of the acoustic-driven themes Chrono Cross. It is also here that the player recognizes that Undertale’s soundtrack isn’t just a mesh of soundwaves; it uses midi to its advantage and thus steps up soundfont usage even further. The Undertale motif doesn’t surface until much further into the album under the Hotel and Can You Really Call This a Hotel, I Didn’t Receive a Mint On My Pillow themes, which are more flamenco-based, upbeat and resort-like. I particularly like the latter theme simply because it merges the Undertale theme with the uptempo nature of another character’s leitmotif (rather, the leitmotif isn’t used, but the tempo is). The live acoustic with the final Undertale theme in the neutral ending is so, so good. It mixes another leitmotif from His Theme and the Undertale theme to create a piece that’s used in a particular area that weaves in and out of battle and serves as an excellent conclusion for the six-hour journey. The Undertale motif is used in further pieces on the soundtrack, but I will elaborate on those further down the line. Your Best Friend is the next motif and it’s kind of one of my favourites simply because it comes from this stupid two-channel harmony but extends into something else entirely as the motif is used beyond this track. The next track is a major spoiler, but This theme is hilarious out of context because it’s just amazing how much mileage a 23-second loop got in six entire variations with different samples and soundfonts entirely. It makes complete sense in-game, but listening to it out of context like I initially did, I had to wonder why a 23-second initial loop got so much mileage and different soundfonts applied to it in one single theme. Finale has a ton of synth bass applied to it and I adore its pacing with a piano lead turning into a backing. Trying to apply the theme to a synth bass-orchestra is a nice touch too. Ruins is one of the more curious tracks in the game because it’s referenced several times in places that I didn’t particularly expect. I love the B-portion after the introduction because the percussion is so good. It’s the first place where you start realizing that everything is all connected. Ruins is further referenced in Waterfall, for instance, and it’s an entirely different area altogether. In fact, the Ruins leitmotif fits into another character’s motif altogether and gets a bit combined. Undyne has her own leitmotif, which sounds rightfully knightly and gothic (yet the loop is incredibly short), but in battle themes and general themes concerning Undyne, a lot of the leitmotifs intervowen into these themes are that of Ruins. The few themes that are raw arrangements of Undyne’s own theme in another soundfont (and I may add that the sampling is fairly decent for some of these soundfonts) entirely is Dating Tense!, and Run! (which I feel is a better arrangement of the two). Undyne’s battle theme, Spear of Justice is a hot number, with several portions throughout the track dedicated to sampling other themes: from Undyne, to Ruins (specifically, the version of it in Waterfall), Don’t Give Up, to An Ending. The backing makes the theme for me, and the introduction hits the right notes, especially when they’re held. The C-portion with the different arrangements and instrumentations of Undyne’s theme before the loop is so melodic and catchy. Battle Against a True Hero also samples a bit of Ruins itself, bringing a little more percussion and synth strings into the fray. Additionally, the Waterfall/Ruins motif also lends itself to Another Medium and CORE (with those two themes adopting thematic elements based on the characters that integrate themselves into the plot of those areas). Another Medium is probably the biggest theme that popped out at me. I played through Undertale together with Noi and we just sat there talking while this theme was playing in the background while just going “baby, this theme is so good, isn’t it?” to each other. Aeana brought it up with me, and I did indeed feel like it references X-Naut Fortress. And a lot of themes in Undertale, thematically-speaking, references a lot of other themes from other games, whether it’s in terms of a soundfont used, or just... being like Dating Fight! and Oh! One True Love. Temmie Village is fucking stupid and it isn’t even cohesive, and I love it. I enjoy the stupid soundfonts used, and I enjoy that it’s supposed to refer to the music played whenever a character’s behaving like an idiot, due in part to the lack of percussion in the track overall. Death by Glamour is one of the more fabulous tracks on the entire soundtrack. The piano harmonies aren’t as cohesive as possible, and the beat is kind of frenetic, but I think that’s what makes the piece its own. It’s an arrangement of CORE, Metal Crusher, and It’s Showtime! It’s a gigantic showcase of, well, being kind of like… um, Roundabout by Yes. The reference was so good that I had to laugh. Even the bass and percussion was replicated so well. A few folks who’ve played the game, and know where Roundabout is from may also get an additional reference, and then everything will make complete and utter sense. Definitely up there with some of my favourite tracks in the game. From here on, I guess I should probably not discuss names of tracks. The penultimate boss‘s theme is one of my favourites. For all of the emotions it evokes, and for the callback to this theme at the beginning of the game (which I truly enjoy has a few channels compared to the actual theme which uses more channels), I can’t help but to feel like it’s my favourite? It sounds like the most honest theme in the entire game. Even though it’s entirely honest, it’s an arrangement of this small theme from another of Fox’s works. It’s nice to see it expanded into something with greater detail. I love the C-portion of this track, due to the percussion and synth voice degenerating into synth piano and chiptune prior to a piano in a lower range taking over prior to the loop. It assists with making the pacing so smooth and frenetic, and emotional to boot. Even if I didn’t hear the theme in context, I’d still feel the same way. Noi and I did another ending last night together. When we heard Here We Are, I mentioned to him that it sounded fairly... Meguro-like? Perhaps that was an error in terms of analysis on my part, because upon further consideration, it reminded me a lot of OFF and Yume Nikki. It also uses the soundfont for this, though it’s not readily apparent. One of the more interesting tracks, Amalgam is a strange sampling of Earthbound tracks integrated into one thing that’s kind of cohesive taken as one whole product. Finally, what a lot of people feel the theme that caps the entire soundtrack off is the final True Pacifist boss theme. Or rather, both of its themes. Noi and I sang the whole things to each other while we were playing through the ending together. In fact, EmCee refused to let me vote for Undertale until I’d finished off the True Pacifist ending, and I could tell why. The first half of the track I linked is one separate theme for an entire phase, using three different motifs dedicated to stronger Undertale themes, opting for a synth violin opening, then transitioning forward into a synth guitar and chiptune. Undertale likes to lie about its upfront appearance. You suspect the entire soundtrack to drown in chiptune, but it doesn’t. The second theme, completely obliterates that notion, opting for a stronger sense of synth/electronica with a combination of guitar, drums, and a nice little xylophone. It’s a very pleasant and semi-rock-opera-esque way to cap off the soundtrack as a whole. I suppose, that the strongest suit that this soundtrack has, is that it tells every character’s story. The synergy between every piece in an area dedicated to that particular character, and also callbacks to other area themes is so flawless that sometimes it’s not even noticeable until you start to think about it. The soundtrack isn’t entirely flawless. A lot of the unused tracks simply sound like that: unused and unpolished. It’s nice to have them there, but they stick out in not the best way. I feel like tracks on the album should have additional loops. Speaking about the soundtrack in a game context, it’s difficult to narrow down a shortcoming because the way each theme is used is dedicated and carefully placed. Undertale was a pleasure to experience, both the game, and its soundscape. It’s an inspired album, internally and externally. It’s probably a stupid and silly reason, but I can’t help but to compare the soundtrack to what Nier the game was: a collection of different references to everything else and nods to other games woven into one thing. Of course, the collection of different soundfonts and different samples in every theme and from theme to theme is really… strange, but I kind of dig it? It’s a testament to the fact to a lack of cohesion doesn’t necessarily break a product because I feel as though Fox got what he wanted out of the game and out of its soundtrack’s lack of cohesion. It’s all over the place, but it fits. It’s different, and out of context, it sounds like the strangest thing, and even in context it sounds like the strangest thing. But because it’s so strange, it sounds so natural and fitting. Undertale is a strange journey. Its soundtrack being strange, yet so cohesive is absolutely fitting, and it has earned its spot as one of the best and strongest soundtracks of 2015.

1. Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (patches 3.0 to 3.15)

Masayoshi Soken (some original tracks by Nobuo Uematsu)

This is where I decided to listen to my heart. I really wanted to give Undertale the first spot, because speaking as an evaluator, I felt that Undertale was the most consistent soundtrack of the year and the most impressive soundtrack from one single person. However, as I keep playing Heavensward and experiencing what I feel and what my friends feel, I can’t help but to think with my heart instead of my brain. I picked up Final Fantasy XIV after years of Noi asking me to play the game with him and I didn’t really want to start playing it because I wasn’t interested in any of the jobs until Ninja was implemented. Perhaps it might be slightly unprofessional on my part (lol “professionalism” when it comes to organizing a thread) to choose a soundtrack based on my personal biases and experiences that is game-specific as opposed to the musicality of a soundtrack. A lot of my decision-making with respect to this soundtrack has a lot to do with personal experiences, so please bear with me. A lot of Final Fantasy XIV’s soundtrack, particularly pieces from A Realm Reborn and the 2.x patch content, can be a bit mixed. While some of it is amazing, like Thunder Rolls or Torn from the Heavens, some of it doesn’t feel entirely cohesive. This is due in part by some of the music being remnants from the game that Final Fantasy XIV was, and the game Final Fantasy XIV is today. It is also due in part to Masayoshi Soken having not come into his own entirely yet. Soken has composed for other games, such as Mario Hoops 3-on-3, but these games typically side-games or games that don’t have a lot of traction outside of niche circles. I believe, even since last year, I was waxing poetic about Soken’s work simply based on out of context experiences with his music. Now that I can say I’ve experienced his work in context, it’s even better, and I understand the following he has. Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward is, for the most part, Soken’s time to shine in the sun. Although the main theme, Dragonsong, was composed by series’ veteran Nobuo Uematsu, many of its leitmotifs are carried on throughout the entire soundtrack. I do feel as though Dragonsong is more cohesive than Answers; however, that is a personal bias considering I liked Final Fantasy XI’s theme, Distant Worlds, far more than Answers. Truth be told, I did not start warming up to Answers until my Free Company started raiding the Binding Coil of Bahamut more often. That being said, there’s a lot of what Dragonsong does, which works for me more than Answers did (and I’m typically not a huge fan of Uematsu’s vocal pieces at all). Susan Calloway’s diction is, as usual, incredibly excellent. Hearing her voice feels like a gift. As some may recall, I’ve studied vocal music, trained as a mezzo-soprano, so hearing another soprano with a lot of control feels amazing to me. Physically-speaking, it’s hard to control your voice when you get into a higher range and your voice is more of a power voice than a paper-thin voice. My vocal coach and I spent sessions together trying to get my voice under control for Phantom of the Opera pieces where I did both parts when I was younger, even. I’ve come to admire sopranos who can get it done flawlessly, and Calloway is one of them. It’d be an honour to hear this live one day. While the lyrics describe nothing but the legend of Saint Shiva, Hraesvelgr, and the history of Ishgard itself, the way the music is composed, with many of the note holds, some of the simplicity and elegance melodically-speaking, and the feeling and diction emanating from Calloway’s vocals makes the music more meaningful. I feel that way every time I let the game’s opening trailer roll. Many of the game’s themes revolve around Dragonsong’s motifs. Well, “many” is probably falling short of how many truly use its motif. Despite this, as Thoraxes and I had discussed months ago, this soundtrack demonstrates a lot of Soken’s growth as a composer. Dragonsong appears numerous times in different motifs, from the slowest, most delicate pieces, so the more energizing pieces. I enjoy the redone prelude, since much of the instrumentation used in terms of strings is more evocative of cold and loneliness, which enhances Heavensward’s thematic elements a little more. I’ll personally be sad to see the theme go when 4.0 rolls around, but I love leaving the game on the start screen just to listen to it even more. The boss theme, Ominous Prognosticks, is more melodic than the A Realm Reborn boss theme, and it’s even better. It’s easy to hum, and I love the percussion and brass. The percussion drives the entire thing and the strings and brass carry it all the way through, especially frantic bit in the C-section. When the theme launches into the main melody in D, extending into the main Heavensward melody, with the chorus, it’s paced so well with the percussion hitting hard then extending into the main traditional Final Fantasy battle opener prior to the loop. It’s one of the better boss themes in the series, and it’s incredibly catchy. The Primal themes in this game are different from those of 2.1-2.5. Ravana’s themes demonstrate that Soken’s not all about rock operas or metal. The first half is a hilarious waltz. The strings make this far more than the chorus. But then you’re blasted into the second half with some hot bass (throatsinging) vocals and setting itself far apart from the other upbeat primal themes. The instrumentation doesn’t run far from the vocals, and the brass doesn’t overtake any of the vocals, letting the lyrics play out gracefully. I can just sing “the war still wageth on” when it comes up because I know when it’s coming up in the movement. I like it. It’s one of the better Primal themes in the game because there’s a lot of depth to the instrumentation and care taken in lyrical writing. For the second primal theme, Bismarck, Soken decides to go with more electronica as opposed to rock or what he did for Ravana. More drum and bass, and it sounds really good. It’s the first primal theme out of the two main ones that I gravitated towards because of the bass. The second phase adds some piano and slight vocals. The bass and percussion stand out more in front of the rest of the music and it’s something I always appreciate in any sort of music because bass anything is my sort of jam. The second portion of the track where the piano is added is nicely rhythmically-paced, integrating vocals. It’s hard to say out of the two primal themes which one I enjoy more, but it entirely depends on my mood. Heroes is the final boss theme of Heavensward, and it integrates parts of Dragonsong into the theme. Even listening to it while writing this up, I find myself humming the harmony because it’s my favourite part as opposed to the lead melody or the vocal portions. The portions where the main melody of Dragonsong flows in, it’s difficult not to be enraptured by the string sweeps, the percussion, the orchestration, and the brass. The Azys Lla theme is one of my absolute favourites. I don’t know what to gush about first. The introduction with electronica? The organ melodies (oh hell yeah, the organ melodies)? The theme is a deliberate nod to Final Fantasy VI’s New Continent, albeit with different instrumentation. I love the backing, too. It’s not something you typically hear unless you have a good audio system, but in some good headphones, during the downbeat/piano portion in D, there’s some really nice stuff being done with hi-hats and synth vocals. It’s fairly different from other area themes in the game overall, and it stands out by being a completely different genre from everything else. I have a very deep affection for Coerthas Western Day, and Coerthas Western Night, simply because they were really the first two themes I went out to experience for myself when I got to the Heavensward patch. The instrumentation in both is so melancholy, hinging on strings and piano in a cold wilderness. At the same timeChurning Mists Day and Churning Mists Night don’t get a lot of love in-context because... well, not a lot of people like that place. It sucks. Musically speaking, both themes are really nice inverses of each other and easily told apart due to a complete difference in terms of instrumentation. One is a beautiful piano rendition, and the other is draped in strings and plucking. The introductions of each piece are fantastic and tender and slow. Contention, linked previously, is one of my favourite themes in the entirety of Heavensward, and half of the reason is because it’s a very important theme for me. It is supposed to illustrate a deeper connection between two characters in the Heavensward narrative, and hence it’s a graver arrangement, led by a piano, of Dragonsong. However, in a personal sense, I generally associate the theme with Noi and me fighting then making up, or just being together listening to the theme and telling each other that we love each other very much. Thus, Conviction is very important to me, both as a game-player, and as an individual. Musically-speaking, it’s a wonderful grave piano arrangement of Dragonsong, and it doesn’t necessarily build or change outside of synth strings being added in a layer. Nothing necessarily overtakes the piano until a small grave climax in the theme. It’s very tender and I love it very dearly. I kind of dislike the Idyllshire Day and Night themes, and I find the Hinterlands Day and Night themes fairly unremarkable. I feel like they don’t necessarily add anything musically or add anything with respect to musicality other than “here’s this town theme, it sure sounds like a town theme”. The Hinterlands themes simply use instrumentation that don’t necessarily tug on my ears. By contrast, the Ishgard themes (Pillars : Night / Day; Foundation Night / Day), are much better and more grounded in emotion along with motifs for Dragonsong better portrayed through instrumentation. The piano, the brass, and the organs play out the prestige of a town theme mixed with a main title theme, and it’s a pleasure to listen to every time. However, the main dungeon theme for the dungeon in the Idyllshire area, Ink Long Dry, is one of my favourite themes in all of Heavensward. That jazz piano is some of the hottest stuff on this side of D4. The bass stands out, and while the time signature for this piece is weird, and everything about the piece is so weird, it’s the most relaxing piece in the entire game for me outside of another soon to be mentioned. Jazz fused with some weird instrumental hip hop in the main portion of the track, and it sounds so good. Out of the two postgame dungeons in 3.0, I like The Fractal Continuum more (not just because my damage-per-second shoots through the roof based on my job, but it doesn’t hurt!). While Neverreap sounds like a standard arrangement of The Sea of Clouds, Fractal brings its own fun melody to the table with organs, synth, a nice backing guitar, fun backing percussion and hi-hats, a nice little piano. But man, listen to that percussion. It’s almost to die for and I’d love to drum that myself if I ever got better at playing the drums. The Alexander themes are a true treasure. It’s something you kind of expect from the area, and from Soken himself due to his previous work and which genres he chooses to set his themes. The ambient theme doesn’t get a lot of play, and honestly due to the area, it doesn’t get a lot of love either. I kinda dig it because it reminds me of 90s rave music. The electric guitar melody is pretty hot, the organ is hard to hear but it adds a lot of melody, and the backing synth is jammin’. The one theme that everyone loves (well, not Jucksalbe :V :V) is the boss theme! This shit right here is super-hot. The lyrics are hot (dc, dying, dying, electricity!), the percussion is so fucking good in almost every section of the theme (particularly A-portion prior to a verse, with the electronica). The introduction is so good, and I’d love to hear an entire piano quartet rendition of the entire theme because of that. Sometimes I go in, hum one part of the melody and Noi hums the other for the harmony and it feels so good to know someone else gets it. Metal is probably the one theme that some folks who don’t play the game might know? There was a live version done at a panel and some non-FF14 players thought it was hilarious on my timeline, anyway. The lyrics are lore-specific, with FF14’s Goblinspeak pervading throughout the entire theme. This is where “No Busydeals For the Wicked” comes from, and you can’t help but to sing along to it to have something to laugh at because folks aren’t doing their jobs in the raid and not picking adds up when they should also the tank isn’t stunning the legs ... and... what? Metal is a theme that’s more or less a typical Soken theme. The lyrics don’t kick in until the battle actually starts and someone’s hitting something. The instrumentation is so caustic, particularly due to the reliance on hard percussion coming from all angles. The synth and the electric guitar pick up at a fantastic point during the theme’s chorus, and I especially love the bit during the second verse with some of the off-beat string points. It’s so frantic and sounds added in because they were late to the party, but it fits so well. The 3.1 themes are a bit hit-and-miss. The Diadem and its battle theme sound great for the first few times, particularly because they invoke the traditional prelude, and it hinges on more of an orchestrated sound as opposed to the rock or gothic themes that we usually get for raids. The B-portion of the former theme is probably the best part of it as opposed to the introduction which includes the prelude, because it sounds more militaristic due to the percussion, and yet, it evokes a sense of wonder due to the brass and flute. That being said, like any MMO theme like this, it gets very repetitive very quickly, particularly before its loop. The battle version of the Diadem theme is really cool due to the pacing of the track, and because it integrates the classical Final Fantasy battle theme introduction. I like it far more than the exploratory theme, and I kind of wish it had a longer loop because I’d rather hear that for 90 minutes straight as opposed to the exploratory theme. The two dungeon themes in 3.15 are really good, though one is old. Pharos Sirius only got a new (very excellent) piano introduction, and I wish the rest of the piece were more arranged to set it apart from its easy mode predecessor. Saint Mocianne’s Arboretum is gorgeous. I’ve used it as study music. The woodwind introduction, with the piano D-portion is my favourite. Never mind that the dungeon itself is gorgeous; the pacing of the track itself, particularly in its C-portion with its pacing piano prior to the loop and the B-portion relying more on strings and guitar, allow the player to perceive a sense of beauty and magnificence with respect to a slight reference to Final Fantasy IX. It’s a very nice arrangement of the Dravanian Hinterlands theme, and it makes the theme even more respectable. The new Vanu themes are so well-done to me. They’re so evocative of some Genso Suikoden III pieces that tried to inspire the same tribal tone but those themes weren’t always so successful at it. I especially enjoy the piano in this theme, combined with the underlying backing and percussion. It sounds so frenetic and disjointed, but it works so well, and I’m glad that these themes were integrated into the patch. The Gundu theme may not start off as strong, but its final portion before the loop has an excellent orchestrated background with a flute lead. I couldn’t help but to think, upon hearing the themes in the patch for the first time, that Soken grew a little bit. He’s not confined to rock anthems or electronica anymore. He can still land into traditionalist territory and set himself apart. I don’t have much experience with the Lords of Verminion theme because I don’t usually do the event. But man, it reminds me of Mortal Kombat. It’s so easy to dismiss it because of the electronica backing and the percussion, but the best part of it is the violin passage. Even then, it’s unfortunate that the loop is so short, when matches are apparently five to ten minutes long. The Void Ark themes are probably the best new pieces of music in the 3.1 patch. While traditionally gothic, it’s not every day that we get organ and piano-filled themes like that in Final Fantasy XIV. Void Ark’s Calm Theme relies on its organ, its piano, plucking, and softer percussion. I feel like I know the melody in and out because I have someone humming it in my ear every time I run through the dungeon with him. There are times when I literally have to tell him to shush because I’m concentrating on healing or hitting a thing, but it honestly makes me love the melody more because it tells me that the melody is quite catchy. Even during the battle theme, I can’t help but to sing the main melody along with Noi because it keeps me at ease when I’m in a tough situation. I do enjoy that the brass became more prominent in this version as opposed to the organ and piano in the former. The Echidna boss theme is still a variation of the Void Ark theme, but it includes choral work, more brass, and more percussion. The bells return and there is a sweet interlude in the C-portion with the original organ and flute before picking up to the main instrumentation. The final theme added in patch 3.15 is the (final boss spoiler) Primal Extreme boss. Some people kinda hate because it’s not enriching enough, but I love it. I love the B-portion, post percussion introduction, with the piano prelude joining an arrangement of the main final boss theme/Dragonsong arrangement. It’s a good arrangement in a completely different key. After the big bombastic portion finishes, a piano transition occurs which I absolutely adore. It’s backed by synth and very little percussion, and the portion slightly arranges the Azys Lla theme. It then transitions to a paced choral portion of Dragonsong with a final brass fanfare before looping. I haven’t done the fight yet because the running joke is that my FC is busy doing silly distracting things instead of new content (hey man, 3-4-manning content is plenty fun!), but man I’m sure I’ll love it in context when I do finally do it. I had asked Noi to run the Aetherochemical Research Facility with me on Friday because I was still struggling to vote between my heart and my head. And after our run was over, I realized that I should go with my heart. Listening to Dragonsong arranged with more percussion and emotion (brass/piano) made me realize a lot of things. Heavensward as a whole brought me closer to a lot of other people whom I consider good friends of mine. It brought me much closer to Noi in ways I wouldn’t have dreamed of three years ago. Talking about our experiences with the soundtrack, a few of us singing the soundtrack to each other, going “whoa” at some new pieces of music, and gabbing a whole lot about different parts of it made me realized that maybe it’s not so bad to go with your heart once in a while. From a technical perspective, Heavensward’s soundtrack is not perfect. It definitely has a few duds. Speaking from standpoint reflective of soundtrack cohesion, while Heavensward elects to use Dragonsong everywhere throughout its entire soundtrack, it isn’t successful in some areas, and it ends up being dragged down because of it (ex: Sohm Al; this is an arrangement for the sake of an arrangement to me). Heavensward’s highs more than make up for its inadequacies, however. This soundtrack, despite essentially being a motif arrangement soundtrack, demonstrates that Soken has grown very much as a composer since A Realm Reborn. And patch content demonstrates that he still is growing. I look forward to seeing what Soken does next, and I genuinely hope that he gets attached to a mainline single-player Final Fantasy game for everyone to experience his work.

#soty2015 #undertale #finalfantasyxiv #heavensward

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underpuffau · 6 years

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Underpuff 200 Follower Retrospective

Well, we’ve done it Underpuff now has 200 followers. How many of them actively follow the AU is impossible to know, but one thing is for sure. That 200 people saw my AU, and enjoyed it enough to hit follow. This means so much you can’t even imagine. No matter how you look at it, 200 people is a fuckton of people, and I couldn’t be more happy you all decided to follow this little ol’ Kirby AU. Sadly though, unlike last time, I really don’t have a way to celebrate this via a sneak peak of the next part. There also isn’t anything I particularly wanna show off either as far as roles or plot goes. So clearly the most logical thing to do is talk about my old work and laugh at it. That’s right, to celebrate this step forward, let’s take some steps backwards, and look at the hilarious atrocity that was the Underpuff Preboot.

Let’s start from the beginning. Starting from the middle was considered but I thought it was too post modern. Back in ye olden days of Sprite AUs, crossovers were just becoming a thing, the leaders of this format being Undertoad, and the now dead Smashtale.I oved the idea of crossing over Undertale with other series, and the number one AU I wanted to see happen, was of course, a Kirby AU. Every day I prayed for some kind of music track or comic part to be made for one, rather than all the vague concepts I saw thrown around from time to time. I waited an waited, but a Kirby AU never came. One day, on a Meta Knight as Mettaton shitpost on r/Undertale, I talked about this want for a Kirby AU in the comments, and some vague ideas I had for one.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Undertale/comments/4h335y/metta_knight/d2nb7p7/

As you can see things, really didn’t pan out like this, but one step at a time. After posting this comment, and reading responses to it, I came up with more and more ideas, and I even drew concept art of all the roles!

Adecryforhelp

Keel me

Kirb stomp me into the ground

LololOH GOD

JOLY SHIT

eta knig.

eta knig period.

Whispy (why) Wood(you do this to me)s

Here take this for your eyes, I bet you need it right now

But yeah, my art and design skills weren’t up to snuff at the time. I’ve obviously gotten much better, but at the time I was a full blown amateur and was blissfully unaware. Gotta love that Dunning Kruger effect huh?

But all these “ideas” and art were for nothing, as I had a shit laptop at home that couldn’t do jack shit without coming close to fucking combustion. Like, it was so bad, I used my Wii U for everything Internet related. The Internet Browser on the Wii U was a better alternative than my actual computer. Let that sink in. However, spending so much time on the Wii U would lead you to discover new games and apps when they popped up, and for me, one of those was the software called Pixel Maker. And this is where Underpuff would get it’s start.

Pixel Maker was a pretty good software. I did exactly as was advertised, allow you to make pixel art on your Wii U. I saw this as my opportunity to finally make my ideas a reality, and when I had enough money, I bought it without delay. I got started making the first stages of Underpuff. I had no way to pull straight from Undertale. I had to eyball the maps and recreate them to the best of my ability, with the Great Cave reskin aesthetic of course. When I went to make text, I tried to recreate the UT font myself, but was unable to do it. With all the pre made fonts in PM not being to my liking, and the software lacking text sizes at the time, I decided to make my own font.

This was a mistake.

It was poorly made and ugly to look at, but I used it throughout all 7 preboot parts. And since this was my own font made in PM, I couldn’t use the text tool to apply it. I had to meticulously copy paste EVERY SINGLE LETTER. It was annoying, and resulted in me despising text. But hey, it’s just the font, so long as the spritework looks good, who cares?

Anymore of that bleach leftover? It’s for me.

But yes, Underpuff, in all awfully sprited and JPGed goodness, was murder on your eyes. (And probably soul too)

Why is the file type blurry ass JPG o all things you ask? Well my fan, allow me to tell you about my process for getting Underpuff to imgur.

Step 1: Create Panel

Step 2: Go to miiverse

Step 3: Save screenshot of the panel into screenshot album

Repeat till part is complete

Step 4: Access album from browser

Step 5: Copy image url

Step 6: Paste this url into imgurs uploader

Repeat until part is uploaded

But what does this have to do with JPG? Well, the answer is that Miiverse’s screenshots save in, you guessed it, JPG! So my images were blurry not of my own volition!

But, even if the visuals are completely, 100% awful, the dialogue must at least make uop for it. Surely I didn’t stoop so low as to just slightly modify Undertale dialogue right? RIGHT?

...

God dammit.

Underpuff was a reskin to the highest degree. Character relationships, dialogue, areas, all just Undertale with a Kirby paint. That’s all it was. And I was sitting here, wondering why the hell I couldn’t break 10 upvotes on reddit. This was why, cause I was a terrible writer, artist, and typographist. But it added up to something in the end, because one day I realized this, and rebooted Underpuff into it’s current state right now. A fully fleshed out, new story, with logical relationships, and a huge focus on lore and characterization. You know why I put those on such high pedestals, because of this. Because of preboot. I don’t want anything like Preboot to ever exist again, and it’s why I want to make Underpuff as sound in the Kirby universe as I can, while still having plenty of characters to work with..

And now, I have an actual computer, that I can actually make panels with. I still go back to PM from time to time, usually for battlesprites, since I like doing those by hand, but most of my work is done on here now. The parts may come out slower these days, but that’s because actual effort is being put forth now. Everyday I think of how to improve Underpuff’s story, fix plot holes or mistakes, all so I can make what I’ve been told is the only good Kirby AU the best it can possibly be.I take my time and not try to rush parts out per month like I did, all so I can achieve the quality I want. (The Reboot battle system wouldn’t exist if I didn’t take so long on Part 2.)

While I may not get the amount of asks, fanart, or music as I would like, one thing remains true. 200 of you appreciate the new Underpuff, and the work I put in. You appreciate the fact it’s not a shitty JPG reskin. You appreciate the fact I try to be lore and characterization friendly. And I appreciate all of you, my friends and fans who support me and what I do. If it weren’t for all of you, I may have given up, but all eyes are on me, and I’m not gonna disappoint. I may be a little sappy right now, but hey, I’m a Kirby AU, gotta be somewhat wholesome right? But to all of you, whether you have been here since the preboot, or jumped on for the reboot, I just gotta say...

-Thank you, Pika

#undertale #kirby #undertale au #undertaleau #undertale_au #nintendo #hal

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glapplebloom · 6 years

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Part 3 of 7 for this final week of the year! And its also a two parter.

Season 2 is when we moved from being the Unofficial Death Battle Fan Blog into the OFFICIAL Death Battle Fan Blog. Ben was impressed that we gathered as much information we could in the time it took to release the Death Battles, he brought us in to aid in the research. We gather as much as we could, give our argument as to who we think should win, and they take all that and their own internal research and discussion to find out the winner. And I can tell you its been fun.

But I bet you’re wondering why am I splitting up the Seasons? Excluding the ones Mr. Lange made last time, there are 28 episodes. You have enough episodes to make two seasons. So I am going to treat the episodes like its two seasons. This part will consist of the episodes starting with Bucky Vs Fox and ending with Samus Vs Boba Remastered. After all, that remastered episode is a perfect end to a Season in my book.

And as a reminder, those that do not make the list are not my most hated, I enjoy these just more.

#10 - Tigerzord VS Gundam Epyon

This fight may look like a typical David Vs Goliath fight, but despite the size difference the Goliath was actually the smaller guy. I did dabble in Gundam when it was on the original Toonami (favorite being G Gundam) but finding out what the Epyon could do was scary man. Funny thing too, the Leonardo Vs Zits fight could have been the White Ranger if the polls didn’t pick him. I always forget the third option though. As for the fight itself, it was frikkin funny.

#9 - Luigi VS Tails

The battle of the second fiddles was fun to research. These two have a lot on the table that you wouldn’t have seen in Mario Vs Sonic. But in the end it was the same as the first: Tails was just too fast for the Plumber. As for the fight itself, it was done really well. Great idea to use the Mario and Luigi Sprites as well as Sonic Battle’s. They do have more to work with than the Super Smash Flash sprites Ben used in the original Mario/Sonic.

#8 - Terminator VS RoboCop

The first 3D Animation from Torrian. It is amazing to see how far he came from this animation to today. And this fight was fun, from hearing the one liners of the two to the counters for each other. Researching on my end I sadly don’t remember much outside a wiki mentioning their real life weapons use, but I do have all the Robcops on DVD, saw most of the Terminators, got the first issue of Robocop Vs Terminator physically, played the Superior Genesis game Robocop Vs Terminator, and was the one who brought up the cartoon where he killed a giant creature with his spike.

#7 - Gaara VS Toph

While I am a Researcher on the show, I also did some sprites for them. The first major direct involvement was ripping Bucky’s sprites from the Arcade game (PAIN IN THE FRIKKIN BUTT). And my second one was leading a collaborative effort with these Custom Made Toph sprites (original was an edit but Ruin came in with these custom sprites). So while I predicted Gaara would win, I couldn’t lose. Either my prediction was right or my work wins. And ultimately, they picked Toph. I was banking of Gaara using his speed when he sees his sand is not working, but we don’t really get to see him really use that speed as an offensive tool that often, even when it would benefit him. And considering it was Toph herself who got me into Avatar, I was glad she won.

#6 - Ryu VS Scorpion

While my screen name says Akuma, my usual first pick is Ryu. So I was so disappointed my pick to win lost. But considering there are numerous profiles that straight up said Scorpion gets stronger in the Netherrealm, I should have seen it coming. There wasn’t a case of Plot Induced Stupidity to help Ryu like it did Liu Kang in Shaolin Monks. No Netherrealm souls to drag Scorpion away from the fight. And even with that in mind, the fight was awesome. The fake out on who won with the reveal Scorpion can still move was great to see.

#5 - Ragna VS Sol Badguy

Yes, Ragna’s story is that confusing. Its why on my end I focused on their weapons and move list. The others took care of the detail about feats and story. And too boot, they were bigger fans of the two series than I was. The fight was great and seeing them go all out in the end was amazing. And the Pre-Analysis they showed was funny. Loved the “That Man” joke.

#4 - Boba Fett VS Samus Aran (Remastered)

A perfect way to give tribute to Monty Oum, who inspired Death Battle and possibly other shows and creators. The Animation was upgraded, the Research was more improved and informative, and it included a dance number at the end. Sadly, the copyrights made it so the ending dance number was muted, but you can see it here with its intended song.

#3 - Deadpool VS Deathstroke

Ah Deadpool, you have so much more to offer but you’re just too fun to write humorously. I did little research in this compared to the others, but the little I did was still fun to see. Seeing Deadpool actually interact with the Hosts and even his opponent’s section was funny and the fight was great. In the end, we all pretty much agreed Deadpool has this and the DB Crew agreed. And as you can tell, my favorite part was when Deadpool started to dance.

#2 - Godzilla VS Gamera

If you were a fan of Giant Monster Battles, this was your Goku Vs Superman. The two biggest names in Kaiju finally take on each other. And it was brilliant. They asked us what we would like to see in the DB and my request was for one thing: the Godzilla Drop Kick. And they delivered! In the end, Godzilla lived up to his King of Monsters title and is ready for whatever the future holds if he does return.

#1 - Kirby VS Majin Buu

As you heard from the DB Crew, the original plan was for Kirby to take on Ditto. But because the research on that match was SO in favor of Kirby, they decided to give Kirby a more suitable challenger: fellow pink blob of destruction Majin Buu. I was on Buu’s side, thinking his stamina trumped Kirby, but the research showed that Kirby was definitely the one with the edges. The research was run to do, the pre-match was fun to see, and the fight was especially fun to watch.

Tomorrow, the rest of Season 2.

#other

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daughterofsmoak · 6 years

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My quick and dirty Justice League review (SPOILERS)

“Children. I’m working with children.” - Diana sums up Justice League in one sentence.

Okay, cards on the table - I’m a lifelong DC reader. I love their worlds, I love their characters, and I love their stories. Which is why it hurts so much to see them continue to make bad movies. There was so much momentum coming out of Wonder Woman, and to see it spiked here was physically painful.

Let’s talk about the good: Aquaman. Despite that fact that some of the movie’s funnier lines were clearly from the poison pen of Joss Whedon, they were still funny because Momoa made them funny. He has great comic timing, and while the idea of playing Aquaman as some strange hybrid of Atlantean royalty and surfer dude is a bit off-kilter, it works surprisingly well. It’s only a shame that Mera is introduced at all, since Amber Heard gets less than ten lines and I’m pretty sure (unless memory fails) that she’s not even named on screen. If you know your DC you know who she is, but newcomers would get nothing from the scene at all.

The also good: Wonder Woman. Which was basically a certainty. Her action scenes, despite being way too heavily CG-based, are fun to watch, and it’s nice to have a character who’ll flat out tell Batman he’s a fucking idiot. It’s just a shame that no one listens. What I’m really, really unhappy about is seeing Hippolyta and the other Amazons curb stomped just to make the new villain look powerful. It almost reads like a revenge scene or a “take that” against WW’s success, and it’s an uncomfortable feeling.

The bad...the rest. While Ezra Miller has excellent comic timing and some funny lines, I have a hard time accepting him as the Flash. To have a speedster that can’t tell which direction is which or who doesn’t know that maybe evacuating people from a room full of parademons is a good idea is just too silly. And as with Cyborg (see below) his backstory is so rushed to fit into the movie that it’s all but pointless. There’s a reason that Marvel did their individual movies before the Avengers, and this is why.

Cyborg...what can I say about Cyborg? When it became clear that the DC Cinematic Universe was going to use Johns’ new 52 version, I was concerned. Cyborg in the New 52 never did anything helpful for the league except act as their taxi service via boom tubes, and I worried about how he’d be used. To its credit, the film does try to make him important via his connection to the mother boxes, and it’s nice to see. But his backstory is horribly rushed, giving the viewer no reason to connect with him, and in the span of days(? - honestly, the timeline of this movie is impossible) he goes from thinking he’s a monster to being able and willing to interface with the boxes.

Affleck has long worn out his welcome. His Batman is, as usual, dour and negative, and his brilliant plan for resurrecting Superman basically amounts to a handful of gobbeldygook about mother boxes and the genesis chamber on Kal’s ship, and he proceeds with it even when everyone tells him it’s stupid. And of course it works, for absolutely no reason whatsoever except to prove that Batfleck is always right. The only good thing about him in this movie is when Diana decks him. It’s clear that Affleck wants out of this role in the worst way, and I wish someone at DC would make that happen.

Cavill’s brief appearance is another convoluted bit of timing (and that’s not even getting into his weirdly cgi’d-out moustache). He’s resurrected, beats up everyone, flies to Kansas, spends long enough there with Lois to recover from being resurrected, then flies off and arrives just in time to be a deus ex machina in the final battle. It’s never clear how long, exactly, that was.

And if I haven’t mentioned the villain, it’s because I don’t know what to say. He’s generic superhero baddie number #120,000, and seeing one of Jack Kirby’s interesting creations get boiled down to a caricature is really disappointing. And so, one Lois Lane voiceover later, we move on to...well, who knows. Aquaman is next, iirc, and there’s theoretically a Batman movie someday, and a Batgirl one (which, please god, can we give to Patty Jenkins?) But this universe continues to meander, and I don’t know how much longer they’re going to let it stumble along.

Was Justice League entertaining? In places. Was it a good movie? Not so much. And was it what the DCU needed it to be, which was their answer to the Avengers? Also...not so much.

Also, just FYI, there are two post credit scenes, one mid-credits and one at the end. The one at the end is worth staying for, although given recent changes to the Batman solo film I don’t know whether it’s still going to amount to anything.

#spoilers #justice league spoilers #justice league

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christhehoff · 7 years

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Direct Hit?

Nintendo Direct 9/13/17 Thoughts & Notes

The latest Nintendo Direct has come and gone, and it delivered pretty much what I expected, if not slightly more. Given the timing of the presentation, this was Nintendo's best opportunity to push its fall and holiday lineup, and it did just that with new information on Super Mario Odyssey, Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and a smattering of others. Anyone expecting big reveals set themselves up for disappointment; this was about selling the games hitting in the remainder of 2017 first and foremost. That's not to say there weren't surprises; not only were new first-party games announced, but so were third-party titles, new hardware variations, and even an unexpected blast from Nintendo's past. Here are the top 15 notable moments as far as I was concerned.

1. Super Mario Odyssey The more I see of this game, the better it looks. Nintendo has obviously been holding back information on this game since E3, showing only a handful of environments, enemies, and abilities, but the curtains opened a whole lot more during this Nintendo Direct. Sure, we expected Mario standbys like an ice world, a water world, and a jungle world, but it's nice to see them with our own eyes. As with previous looks at this game, the new footage displayed a world bursting with imagination and unparalleled creativity: running on water, controlling an adorable flying dinosaur, racing against Koopas, and engaging in a 2D Donkey Kong homage. The classic outfits tug at my Nintendo nostalgia, and the photo mode opens up a lot of fun creative possibilities. The best part is I think we've still only scratched the surface of this game. Well, the best part for some might be topless Mario's nipples, but I guess that's a personal preference. The Switch bundle that includes red Joy-Cons and a Mario carrying case is pretty snazzy too.

2. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 The new footage of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 really emphasized just how vast and beautiful the world is. The living, breathing environments, built on the backs of massive creatures, look absolutely stunning and, like in previous Xenoblade games, simply beg to be explored. The Nintendo Direct presentation - evidently narrated by a bored, genteel British grandfather - was absolutely ridiculous and probably didn't garner many new fans, but it didn't negate my enthusiasm for this anime-influenced RPG. The special edition - including a music CD and a 220-page artbook - is somewhat tempting too, but maybe not for $100.

3. Project Octopath Traveler Even though it's not set for release until next year, Nintendo put a heavy emphasis on the ludicrously named Project Octopath Traveler for Switch. I know it's supposed to be a temporary name, but hopefully it finds a better one sooner rather than later. More exciting than the presentation was the release of the playable demo, which lets you sample the game as two of the eight protagonists, Olberic the warrior and Primrose the dancer, each with unique special skills. The inclusion of eight protagonists gives the game a Saga Frontier feel, while the retro graphics feel like a throwback to 16-bit Final Fantasy games. This one has a lot of promise.

4. Nintendo Arcade Archives This came out of nowhere. Hamster, the company responsible for publishing a ridiculous number of Neo•Geo games on Switch, will now be delivering Nintendo's classic arcade lineup in pixel-perfect form to a console for the first time ever. Nintendo should have tried something like this with arcade Virtual Console on Wii, but it didn't; now, at long last, the original versions of these seemingly lost arcade games will finally be playable once again. While the differences between the arcade and NES versions of these games aren't huge, they're a captivating piece of Nintendo history, and hardcore fans will love picking up on the subtle differences in games like Mario Bros, Vs Balloon Fight, Vs. Ice Climber, Vs. Pinball, and Vs. Clu Clu Land. For me, it's all about Vs. Super Mario Bros and Punch-Out!!, but if the price is comparable to past Arcade Archive offerings ($8 or so), I'll probably buy the whole lot.

5. Doom & Wolfenstein II I'm not a big FPS fan, so these aren't games I'll likely buy personally, but I love the fact that the Switch is diversifying its lineup and seeing more support from Bethesda in the form of these popular shooters. Hopefully other publishers will do the same.

6. Pokémon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon I loved Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon, and I want to say the same about Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, but the latest footage shown of these games didn't really inspire. Whereas Sun and Moon were exciting and refreshing, it looks like Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are going to retreat an awful lot of the same territory. The Pikachu Park and new beach areas look nifty, as do the new Ultra Beasts, but I was hoping for a lot more.

7. New Nintendo 2DS XL Hardware On the other hand, the Poké Ball Edition New Nintendo 2DS XL (coming Nov. 3) looks amazing. I have to believe this will be one of Nintendo's most in-demand hardware variations yet. And the new white-and-orange New 2DS XL (coming Oct. 6) looks perfect for fall as well.

8. Kirby: Star Allies It's bright, it's colorful, and it's full of multiplayer action and crazy copy abilities - it's definitely a new Kirby game. We still don't know much about this previously untitled Kirby game that was revealed back at E3, but it's sure to be a blast when it hits in spring 2018.

9. Mario Party: The Top 100 With a November 10 release date - less than two months away - this one came out of nowhere as a surprise announcement. But is Mario Party out of ideas? This 3DS release curates the best 100 minigames from past Mario Party titles and compiles them into one game. Mario Party games have a reputation for being very similar, but in this case it literally reuses the ideas from the past. Hopefully it has compelling boards to tie it all together.

10. Kirby: Battle Royale Taking a break from the usual Kirby formula, this is a four-player Kirby fighting game for 3DS. There's a single-player mode, of course, and several types of competitive play, but it's kind of a bummer that there's no stereoscopic 3D.

11. Dragon Quest Builders Essentially combining elements of Dragon Quest with Minecraft, this one was released on other platforms some time ago, but I'm glad to see that it's coming to Switch in North America.

12. Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition It's hard to believe there wasn't a 3DS version of Minecraft until now. This game probably would have had more impact if it were released a year or two ago, but better late than never, I guess! The digital version is already available for download, and a physical version will be coming down the road.

13. Snipperclips Plus The original Snipperclips was a tad too frustrating for my tastes - perhaps I needed better co-op partners - but it's nice to see it returning with an expansion, and with a physical release. You can grab the full package at retail for $30, or if you already own the original digitally, you can add on 30 new stages and other features for just $10.

14. The Alliance Alive Other than the fact that it's a traditional fantasy RPG featuring nine protagonists, and that the story focuses on humanity rising up against demon conquerors, little has been said about this one. But Atlus rarely steers us wrong with role-playing releases, and one of the writers of the early Suikoden games is involved, so I'm definitely interested.

15. Amiibo Release Dates If there’s one thing I love, it’s amiibo. And I can't wait for the latest releases, all of which now have release dates. Koopa and Gooma hit Oct. 6 (the same day as Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions); Chrom and Tiki hit Oct. 20 (the same day as Fire Emblem Warriors); and the Champions of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Mipha, Revali, Daruk, and Urbosa) hit on Nov. 10. Who knows? Maybe the second batch of BOTW DLC will hit around that time too. Of course, the Mario, Peach, and Bowser amiibo hit alongside Super Mario Odyssey on Oct. 27.

#nintendo #mario #pokemon #video games #xenoblade #amiibo

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jewelwriter · 7 years

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My Two Coins: My argument on Defense

Disclaimer: "My Two Coins" are to be read as such, someone's two coins about the topic at hand. IF at any point you disagree with it or agree, remember they are just my coins about said topic and the value you have of it will differ from my own because of religion, upbringing, beliefs, and logic based on your own experiences. Do not assume my coins are the international equivalent for it may be considered of a lesser value in the bank of public exchange. Thank you.

“Why didn't you complain about the previous third versions/sequels/whatever that did the same thing? That shows you are biased against Gen VII.“

I’m saying it Once and I’m saying it again.... BIAS MY@$$!!!

Welcome ladies and gentlemen. You've found a wild Jewelwriter.

And I’ve been given this a lot lately with some of my more personal allies and I feel like I have got to defend myself once again. Though it’ll be in response to each of the criticism that I’ve been sent my way along with extra notes to go with my replies.

=1=

"The removal could be to like you stated, the Framerate is poor. It also doesn't help that they weren't even popular in the first place. You queue for a triple or rotation battle in previous generations and you can be sitting there for maybe 30-40 minutes? Think about it, the game is all 3d, that is a LOT of space being used up and compressed for code and other information."

The patience some people have is sad when I look at it. (Though makes me wish that my time would have been included for that) I've considered that 3d animation takes time but at times the Pokemon have vanished when attacks are used...trainer included. So it could have worked still to a degree. This is the most bendable of points since the programming isn't easy.

And I mean it as the Programming that probably is going to be a problem when trying to get certain things into a certain space but then again they had managed to do it before to fit a number of details into the game so it isn’t as easy to do but it is possible if by working edges to smooth them out.

=2=

"Super Training was bullshit and I never used it. The change of pace for Island Trials was due to the face Alolan didn't follow the rest of the world in the system. The Gen I pandering is to be excepted as the region is neighbors with Kanto. The Ultra Beasts were an interesting twist on Pokémon Legendaries/Mythicals And really, the whole story. I'm sorry to say this, but it sounds like she is bitching over spilled milk, crying because she wanted another dull Pokémon Game.”

Super Training wasn't bs because it honestly will tell you what EVs you are giving which is a lot more than what the islands are doing.

Doesn't excuse how they aren't as filling as the trainer battles and Gym battles. The fact would be one of the more filling battles that were given with the gyms was oddly a Gen 3 battle (the 7th one oddly...better known in Emerald for having 4 Pokemon to worry about.) so in a way I wasn't in as much a headache with the Gym system and more with the Trials.

I might as well see Mt Moon with how that seems to be that close to Kanto with all those Pokes. I mean there are other generations that deserve some love and barely got any (Gen 5 especially...I mean Audino for the only mega poke? And I could count nearly 19 of them before you get through half the islands.) so it would help to see more mon that isn't just restricted to Gen 1 remixes?

Cosmog was an interesting concept. The Ultra Beast had some promise, but the story was about LILLY and her mostly needing your help to find answers while you randomly get the story pointed to you instead of the main goal of it being on you when the boring part of her quest kicks in. Followed by Edgy the wannabe rival that tries to be the blue you wanted at the last minute when the Professor did a better job of that and he was more interested in seeing you grow out of anyone else. And that's on top of the fact that I accepted that Hau wasn't going to be the strong battler rival of the game. So excuse me for being factual on something that was done wrong and judged the game on its own before comparing it to the rest of the legacy which this is the weakest by far.

And how can one defend this one since they literally have you working around everyone else and barely have anyone really interested in you as a true trainer to watch grow sans the professor when you begin. Hau is the friendly fighter who’s just trying to grow beyond his Grandpa, Edge Prince Gladion is a last-minute fighter using an apparent god fighting Pokemon that apparently got a type power up stronger than yours. At least the professor fights you on your level of sorts. Ultra Beasts storyline kind of is left to the aftergame and barely anything really revealed about them. The only one that kind of gets development before you get it is Cosmog who kind of goes with you all over (though it tells you something when Lilly is able to carry Cosmoem) so it’s workable.

=3=

“Seriously, Sun and Moon got me back into series after the disappoint of X/Y. I liked the story, but at the same time, X/Y was just boring outside of it. Same old same old. I mean, I love it when you beat the champion and then the old King himself AZ appears and challenges you. It just seems she hates everything new they are trying to do."

I honestly felt more enlightened to Pokemon thanks to Black and White and X and Y felt like more the most completed revival of the series that people wanted out of the Black and White. And sure I understand there are risk and reward for trying something new but when the new fails it is time to call it out on THAT and at least wait to see if it gets better or worst. I'm kind of happy that you can hatch 19-24 eggs in one time, happy you can get rare items and stones to sell and use for your Pokemon to evolve, and I'm happy that they added more ways to battle with the Battle Royal and made it that you are the champion and are defending your belt against different trainers instead of just taking on the same foe again (Fun fact: for the mission of that sort I took it on and did it 5 times which I took on Hau, The Dragon Rocker, the Professor, Team Skull's former babysitter, and the kid on route 1. :P ) so excuse me for seeing the negatives outway the positives but when it is true... it is flipping true.

And I’m not kidding about it since I had to hunt for the reasons why I liked Gen 7 instead of finding it flowing out like a river of water. If Orre was more memorable than alola then there’s a problem.

=4=

"Platinum and Emerald were done in literally half of a year. And B2W2 had worse footing then Sun and Moon. If that is not a paste job, I dunno what is anymore. I'm just going to stand on my ground of that, a majority of the Pokémon Community is spoiled. I mean, look at Kirby games. Most of them are nearly similar in gameplay and theme but always get extreme praise. There is very little hate towards it, so why on God's Green Earth is Pokémon getting it?"

-.- (GOD that is so incorrect.) Time for a bit of a time check...

Gen 1: September 28th, 1998 Yellow: October 19th, 1999 ({=Unexpected here. Then again I was moving during this time.)

Gen 2: October 15th, 2000 Crystal: July 29th, 2001 ({= Here is under a year.)

Gen 3: March 17th, 2003 Emerald: May 1st, 2005

Gen 4: April 22nd, 2007 Platinum: March 22nd, 2009

Gen 5: March 6th, 2011 B2/W2: October 7th, 2012

Gen 6: October 12th, 2013 ({= I had to flinch at how short this date was.) ORAS: November 21st, 2014 ({= Only thing comparable for the time.)

Gen 7: November 18th, 2016 Ultra S/Ultra M: November 17th, 2017

They only did going under a year twice... and that's before the 3rd comes up. I'm one of the few that try to make my own Pokemon from the ground up and the only thing I hate worst than this generation is what is flipping going with Smogon so think of it like this: I might hate Gen 7 (Which might not change my mind when the newest of it comes out and I got to work with it.) but I rather play with that than step anywhere near Smogon at all costs. Sure competitive Pokemon is a mess but I would want that to grow and be more diverse than what I'm seeing from the worst of the community which is in that area of toddlers.

And I’m being truthful here. I REALLY despise Smogon with such a fury that it makes My gen 7 hate I got to look like a cake compared to a Snorlax dinner that is the fury I have for Smogon.

And that’s EACH and every counterpoint and I will still defend my argument to the end since it is under a year...and in a way, I expected more in a way from Game Freak, The Pokemon Company, and the people that know their history and support them. I might be one voice but after all the things that went wrong with this one I’ll be glad to get out of vacation mode in Pokemon. Write to me if you feel like I’m write, right, wrong, or mixed in some way. After all THIS is a text box.

As for me... this wild one runs away!

#m2c #pokemon gen 7 #rant #counter argument #lbc

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bruciewayne · 5 years

Text

...and they were roomates!!

ao3 (use if ur on mobile kids

more works

steve and bucky are roommates. the avengers do not know this. but now they want to know who bucky's roommate is...

(mostly just domestic fluff, with a side of frustrated tony stark)

aka the shrinkyclinks roomate au

(winter soldier bucky, skinny artist steve)

“Roommate? What do you mean roommate?”

Tony squinted at The Soldier, “No,” he said carefully, the roommate vine playing on a loop in his head - Peter had been so disappointed when he’d found out that Shuri had introduced him to vines, and the subsequent horror that was Gen Z humour, before he could. Tony offhandedly wondered if The Soldier knew what vines were, technically, he could be classed as a millenial. Probably not. He looked over at The Soldier’s whole, demeanor, the Murder Stance™ (a sequel to the Murder Strut™) in full force, topped off with the ever-present scowl (this time, with a flavour of impatience) and decided, that no, The Winter Soldier definitely didn't know what vines were.

The Soldier, without turning around, yelled back, “I told you, I have a roommate.”

Tony turned around and frowned at the rest of the team, “When did he get a roommate?” he muttered, not really expecting an answer.

“His roommate,” growled Fury, from behind him, talking over Tony’s promises to ‘cat-bell’ him, “is none of your business. Why are you all still in my conference room?”

He huffed, “You gotta be paying him more if he has to have a roommate,” he knew New York was expensive, but the guy was a superhero , and he probably had like, seven decades worth of backpay.

“He’s getting paid as much as you are. Get out of my conference room.”

“I don't know how much I’m getting paid,”

“Check your books, and get out of my damn room,”

“But-”

“Out.”

Tony and the rest of the Avengers hightailed it out of there, not wanting to relive that particular day.

It was always so, liberating , when he got home, free from surveillance, although, he wasn't naive, he was pretty sure SHIELD knew he lived here. But that better be the extent of it. He’d made sure that the surveillance and oversight clause in his Avengers papers was very clear. Matt had helped. He’d had enough of the oversight bullshit with Hydra

Steve laughed into his chest and tipped his head up to look at him, “You have residual annoyed-scowl on your face.”

“All done?”

“Mmm, you cooked?” he asked Steve when he felt he was done messing up his quiff.

“Yup,” he nodded, tugging Bucky into the kitchen, “stir-fry.”

“I knew there’s a reason I fell in love with you,” Bucky said, grinning as he let himself he dragged by Steve. They both knew very well that Bucky could easily just, not, and break out of his hold, he had at least half a foot, maybe eighty pounds and some bastardized version of Erskine’s super-soldier serum on him. But he let himself be dragged into the kitchen, because it was Steve.

Steve saw right through him, “You forget, darlin’ I’m from Brooklyn too,” he teased in an horrific impersonation of his accent.

Bucky laughed at him, “You’re horrible,”

“Aw,” Steve pouted, “I thought you were in love with me?”

“Nah, I’m just in it for the stir-fry,” he said, grinning.

“Dick.”

“Love you too, baby.”

“Some guy’s trying to commission me for a peice of all the Avengers,” he said once his shoulders have stopped shaking.

“Why’s that so funny?” Bucky asked, smiling, even his not-laugh was infectious.

Steve shrugged, “Probably not, their users’ just ‘you know who i am’” he said, showing Bucky the message.

“Do it,” Bucky said, laughing.

Steve put his phone down and grinned at Bucky, “Yeah, yeah I will.”

“Oh, by the way,” Bucky said, suddenly, swallowing his mouthful of noodles quickly, “Stark asked me to move into his frat house, again.”

“Y’ thinkin’ of leavin’ me soldier?” Steve teased, hooking his foot around Bucky’s ankle.

Bucky smiled at him, “Nah, but I said that I have roommate,” he didn't want Steve to think that he was ashamed of him or something, he was so, so happy to live in a time and a country where a man with another man wasn't cause for a trial and a jail cell, or fear of being beat up in a nondescript alleyway. He told Steve all of this, months ago, when Steve asked if he was ok telling his colleagues about them.

“Why?” Steve asked, curious, not judging him.

“Well, y’know back in the dark, dark ages,” Bucky began, leaning forwards to take Steve’s hand across the table, “we used to say ‘roommate’ instead’a boyfriend, ‘cause, y’know.”

“Dark ages, yeah,” Steve murmured, playing with Bucky’s fingers, “so it was, what, a reflex?”

He did not deserve him. At all. He’s been so, so patient with him, with his goddamn laundry list of issues and problems.

“So, James, Jamesy, who is this ‘roommate’ of yours?” Tony asked, shooting at a doombot. “Not the time, Stark,” The Soldier growled, tearing the head off a bot.

“Romanoff asked about you today,” Bucky said, over dinner, “she did the whole, ‘you can trust me, this is a safe-space’ bullshit, soft lighting and all.” Steve hummed, taking a sip of cola, “Very homely, what’s you tell her?” “A fairly PG version of ‘fuck off’” Bucky said, stealing Steve’s drink.

“Barton asked about my mysterious roommate today,” Bucky said, apropos of absolutely nothing, after his… uh, second work out of the day. Steve rolled on top of Bucky, and pressed kissed to his neck, “Yeah, what’d you say?” Bucky hummed and ran a hand down his back, “Called ‘im ‘Legolas’,” he said, smiling proudly. Steve laughed, “You're cute when you think you're being funny.”

“So, James,” Bruce started, pushing a cup of green tea towards him, “you’ve made some friends outside of the team right?” “What the fuck is this, it tastes of grass.”

“Who’s this roommate of yours, Cable?” Sam asked, spinning around around in his chair and drumming his fingers on the table. “Keep writing your notes, Freedom Pigeon.”

Steve bent down and kissed his forehead, “You know I would, Buck.”

He turned around and walked straight out of the door, leaving Peter bright red and sputtering, whispering into the mic, “I think he wants you to stop asking.”

#steve rogers #bucky barnes #stevebucky #stucky #stucky fic rec #fic rec #fanfic #my fic #marvel fanfic #marvel

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