being a pretentious fuck is embarassing sometimes. bc if someone asks me what video games i play im like "yeah i only play story based indie games about depression and guilt" like omfg shut UP

stranger things au where when it's all done, instead of the general fandom usual of NDA's and cover stories, those guys at the NINA Project figure out a way to use that same technology that brought El's memories back to instead wipe the memories of anyone involved in saving the world/ anyone who saw anything abnormal and replace them with the mundane.

It's the only foolproof way to make sure that none of That gets out, to make sure that no one decides to go poking around again 10 years down the line or write a book or a song or a movie that hits a little too closely to the truth, and the government loves themselves something that seems like a foolproof plan.

But what does this mean for our heroes? They don't remember the circumstances that brought them together, only the cover memories that were inserted in their place. They don't remember why they care so deeply for one another because a summer scooping ice cream or a walk through the woods or an-- impromptu game of baseball???-- doesn't quite line up with how it feels.

It feels bigger than that. It feels--

There are explanations for Steve's scars, he remembers a big dog and a trip to the ER, he remembers getting in a car accident and the seat belt coming loose enough to get stuck across his throat instead of his chest. He remembers-- blood on his hands, blood on his clothes, the outline of a man torn half to shreds--

He remembers a bad trip with Robin, but sometimes Robin will say something and it's-- when we got drugged- took those- when we uh, y'know tried LSD that time?-- fuzzy because of the bad trip of it all.

It's easy to accept the truth as the truth, because he remembers. It's easy, for years, to let the truth be the truth, to forget entirely that there are pieces that don't make sense, that there's no reason he should be as close with Dustin Henderson as he is because wait how did we meet? over a missing cat? It's easy, to just let it be true, because the love is there and that's what matters.

The love is there for a year and two and five and ten and Steve's life isn't always easy, in fact he's gone through his fair share of therapists for the insomnia none of them can explain, the confusion that both him and Robin talk about sometimes in the dead of night but can't remember talking about in the morning.

Eddie gets medicated for some sort of psychosis for a while because he had years of these intense night terrors that he could never explain to people, screaming at the top of his lungs, but the minute he would try to tell a shaking and terrified Steve or Robin or Nancy or whoever was present what it had been about he would just sob with frustration because he couldn't remember.

Max has a condition which made her lose her eyesight rapidly as a teenager, who has chronic pain that no doctors have ever found a real cause for despite Steve dragging her to appointment after appointment with fierce protectiveness in his eyes and voice, a desperation that there has to be a reason.

It's easy to accept it as the truth, that they all gravitated towards each other because they're all just a little fucked up in unrelated ways. That they connected to one another because oh you get scared sometimes too? scared like I do? scared like no one else understands?

Lucas starts spontaneously sobbing when some Kate Bush song plays on the radio in 1992. Can't explain it except that it hurts.

Nancy goes to a shooting range and feels her hands go steady for the first time in years in '93. She's never shot a gun before.

El Hopper had a traumatic enough childhood that doctors say she likely won't ever remember all of it, that her brain is protecting her, that-- that's probably true. They're doctors. They know better than Steve, they know about everything except why Max's legs hurt so bad she can't move sometimes.

They know everything except why Eddie can't feel pinned down without having a visceral belief he's dying.

They know everything except why Jonathan swears that their old house used to be painted a different color in the living room.

There are explanations for Steve's scars. He remembers a big dog.

Sharp teeth. Snarling.

He's in his thirties when he kisses Eddie Munson for the first time, because they're fucked in the head in the same ways, because no one else has ever gotten close enough to see the scars and hear the screaming and feel the desperation and not suggested maybe you need bigger help than I can give.

He's a grown man, and it's easy to believe the truth of his past, easy to think that growing older means it's supposed to be a little fuzzy around the edges, and that's okay because this feels bright and clear and technicolor, this thing with Eddie who has run away and come back half a dozen times but always does come back.

Whether he goes to Seattle or LA, New York or Boston; whether he and Steve are in the same place at the same time for more than a couple of weeks, he always comes back, they always find their way back to each other no matter where in the world, except--

Except there.

Everyone left that town with a haste-- or was it one at a time? No, it was the Byers first to California, except-- didn't Will graduate from that school? No. Because El went to school in Chicago at the same time that Robin started college there and she helped Will apply to the Arts Institute and--

And it was Max who went to California-- no, she was from there, but she also-- did she go back?

And why does Steve remember the house he grew up in but the minute he tries to step outside the back door onto the patio in his mind, out by the-- with the blue light and--

"Have you ever been back?" he asks Eddie one day, 32 years old and living in Chicago now full-time together. Robin's just down the road, Nancy's at the Tribune, Argyle has been franchising that coffee shop of his, is opening a spot here in town near his friends who he met when--

"Back where?" Eddie trails his hands through Steve's hair, laying half on top of each other on the couch and listening to some old tape of Jonathan's.

"Where we're from."

Eddie's fingers slow to an almost still and Steve props himself up to watch the way his brow furrows in concentration.

"Why would we go back?" he asks, and Steve has this flash-- like they've had this conversation before.

Like they've talked about where we're from before, although the name of the place never crosses their lips.

"I dunno," Steve slumps into Eddie's chest. They're getting older though so maybe just, "nostalgia?"

"Are you feeling nostalgic?" A rediscovered rhythm to gentle nails across his scalp. Soothing.

"It's where we met," Steve says. It feels true, although when he thinks about it-- "remember? How we met?"

"I..." Eddie's jaw clicks. It does that sometimes, on the same side with the scar.

There are explanations for Eddie's scars too-- a drug deal gone wrong, too many guys with too may knives-- or was it broken beer bottles? They used those as weapons, yeah. Tattered clothes and tattered skin and blood on Steve's hands--

No. He wasn't there. Blood on-- it was Dustin who found him? No. Wait, it was Wayne. Wayne found him, yeah, exactly--

"We met there," Eddie's gripping Steve's hair now, by the root. "We met back there. High school. Do you want to go back?

"Why would we go--"

Steve startles himself with the words, like they just-- like they weren't a choice to say, like they said themselves, like--

"Ed."

Breathing is tight. Steve sits up straight and looks at him. Scars on his face. Eyes so big and deep they hold endless histories--

"Eddie, do you want to go visit-- visit, uh, you know?"

"Why would we--" Eddie claps a hand over his mouth and hums out a sound of frightened discontent. "What. What the fuck."

"How did we meet, again?" Steve swallows. Eddie stands up, paces to the other side of the apartment.

"High school."

"How in high school?"

"Steve, I stopped taking those meds because they didn't help, but this isn't helping me not feel fucking certifiable either--"

"Eddie, I don't remember."

"Okay, so we're getting old!"

"We're not even middle aged!"

Eddie stops where he stands, shakes his head, and Steve watches him because it's easy to watch him, easy to look at the life they've lived and accept that they found each other, fell in love, because no one else gets what it's like to be fucked in the head. To know what's true and still feel wrong in that truth.

To believe it and still get lost in it.

Eddie clenches down on the tremble of his jaw and his eyes go big and imploring.

"What's happening, Stevie?"

There are explanations for all of it, but no one has ever been able to explain Max's pain or Nancy's sharp-shooting or Robin and Steve's inability to get drunk without losing it or the color of the paint in the Byers' old living room in that fucking town that Steve can't even think the name of--

"I'm calling Robin," he says, already striding across the floor. "I want to go back."

There are explanations.

Maybe that's not good enough anymore.

two player gameplay mechanics for an mc game?

it’ll be like motorcity drive: one player is in charge of driving. But the thing is, mc drive is single player; so here’s what I thought of adding in case one more player is involved:

the passenger player will be in charge of aiming at bots & controlling a bit of the environment around them.

think power play from disney’s split second! just without being able to send literal helicopters and other cars flying at the person ahead of you.. maybe just lights & possibly even disabling boosts from another car for a second? just technical stuff.

They’ll also be in charge of activating abilities in mutt after a 5-10 second cooldown like the blastosaurus, the super charger, mag wheels, etc. Ur not supposed to just activate them without telling ur driver btw Dx The goal is teamwork! communicate with your driver! (or, unless u hate each other, go ahead lmfao)

in mc drive, the driver is responsible for both shooting AND driving. But the passenger does that already so far. since they’re only able to drive, I’ll add a few more mechanics the player can use on the road to help them around!

grappling onto the road to escape enemies

towing other players in case they are completely damaged

and maybe even self destruct? this feature might be disabled until towards the end of the game..

not sure if ejecting the passenger should also be a feature but if it is, maybe both players will be able to do will be to eject? idk, not every feature should be added i think.

You've Got Me Hooked - Chapter 15

Pairing: Captain Syverson x OFC (Riley McKenzie)

Word count: 2.5K

Warnings: Sex work, Stripper, OnlyFans, Oral sex (F and M receiving), stomach riding, face sitting, 69

Catch up: Series Masterlist

Taglist: @amberangel112 @utterlyhopeful-fics @marantha @kebabgirl67 @littleone65 @omgkatinka @luclittlepond @marytudorbrandon @enchantedbytomandhenry @narnianaos @foxyjwls007 @peaches1958 @identity2212 @summersong69 @liecastillo @islacharlotte @evansabove1981 @eskiix @lilacwineandthesinkingsunmain @tryingtoliveonmywishes

A/N: If you want to be added or removed from my taglist, let me know! If your name is crossed out, I can’t tag you for some reason.

Masterlist

Sy

The sound of door unlocking pulls my eyes away from my hand of cards, immediately putting me on high alert. The boys came by to watch the football game and decided that the night was still young and we should play a bit of poker. Since no one planned on having cash we're just playing with chips and the loser’s going to pay for food next time we get together. 

Since the stakes aren't as high, we're not betting as aggressively as we normally would and the game is dragging on a little. It's nice to just shoot the shit over a beer. Game nights usually involve more shouting than actual conversation.

Riley pushes the door open, her eyes going wide when she sees the guys and I around the living room coffee table. I really need to take Riley shopping for a proper dining room set one of these days. Or maybe we can just get something second hand for now since we mostly eat at the island anyway.

Don and I managed to buy a cheap car from a garage we sometimes do business with for spare parts. After selling Riley’s old rock we used the money to make a few quick fixes and Don gave it to Riley as payment for her help. I saw the spark of fight in her eyes when Don dropped off the keys. She wanted to refuse but I guess the rational part of her brain took over and she thanked Don without too much fuss.

The conversation dies down as one by one the guys notice we're no longer alone. Riley looks uncomfortable with the sudden attention as she turns to shut the door. Her big duffle is thrown over her shoulder and her hair is up in a loose bun. There's a few pieces falling around her face but not enough for her to hide as she unconsciously shakes her head the way she does when she’s feeling shy.

"I didn't mean to interrupt," she says as she slowly walks further into the apartment. Aika lifts her head from my lap at the sound of Riley’s voice. She lazily gets to her feet, stretching out with a whine before going off to greet Riley.

“Hi baby girl,” Riley whispers in that absolutely adorable voice she reserves for fluffy animals. Or chubby animals. Or tiny lizards. That girl just really loves animals.

I stand from where I'm seated on the floor — because I'm a good host dammit and the guests get priority which leaves me with either the floor or the spot between Luke and Sam on the couch where they’d have constantly been trying to look at my hand.

I leave my cards on the island and wrap my arms around Riley, making sure to put my body between her and the guys. She reaches up to slip hers around my neck and melts into the embrace, momentarily forgetting our audience. 

"Did something happen?" I whisper for her ears only. She's home at least four hours earlier than I was expecting her. It was her first night back at the strip club and I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been worrying about her since she left.

I know she can handle herself when push comes to shove and there’s bouncers around the club to look out for the girls but she went through something really traumatic and I’m worried that being at work might send her right back to that night. Bouncers can’t pull her out of her own head. I would know.

Thankfully, Riley shakes her head then looks up at me, pursing her lips and silently requesting a kiss. I'm more than happy to oblige.

"Two weeks off was too long,” she says, reluctantly releasing me. “I lost all my stamina."

Had we been alone, I’d have made a joke about her having plenty of stamina in the bedroom but I highly doubt that kind of joke is fair play around the guys.

I’m about to send her off to get some sleep when the couch squeaks behind me. I turn around to find Luke sheepishly extending his hand to Riley.

“It’s nice to finally meet you Riley. We’ve heard a lot about you.”

I’m slightly confused as to why he’s introducing himself when I know for a fact he remembers her from the club but Riley catches on before I do and smiles warmly at Luke, taking his hand in hers.

“Likewise.”

Jared and Sam both join in, introducing themselves before they all go back to their seats. This is a clean slate. This is them forgetting about the girl from the club. This is them taking the first step towards getting to know Riley — the real Riley. The girl I’ve been falling for fast and hard for.

Obviously I called Luke and apologized for assuming he’d set me up that night. We cleared the air and we agreed we wouldn’t bring it up again. Knowing my girlfriend spent the better part of an evening dancing for him and his cousin is bad enough, I don’t want the gory details.

But we never talked about what that meant where Riley was concerned or if she ever came to any sort of group function. Luke did this of his own volition and I think Riley understands that he is being genuine. I was worried she would never even feel comfortable around them but, after tonight, I get the feeling we’re going to be all right.

When I shake myself out of my shocked state, I give Riley a quick kiss goodnight before she shuffles off to her room. I return to my spot on the floor and for a long moment I just stare down at my chips, tapping my cards on the table.

“Sam raised by ten,” Jared helpfully informs me. I hum in acknowledgment and throw the necessary chips into the pot.

They all wait for me to show my hand but instead, I lock eyes with Luke.

“Thank you.”

He nods solemnly. “The least I could do.”

The game goes by much faster after that. It ends about twenty minutes later when Jared calls Sam on his all in bluff. We say our goodbyes then I stack the dishes in the sink to be dealt with in the morning. I take Aika out for a quick walk before retreating to my room. It takes all of thirty seconds after I get into bed for my door to crack open again. 

“Aika, out.” Riley snaps her fingers and points towards the living room.

Obediently, Aika jumps off my bed and exits the room, briefly licking Riley’s hand before leaving us alone.

“Thought you’d be asleep already,” I say, putting an arm behind my head.

I’m completely naked since I thought I’d be sleeping alone tonight and the blanket barely covers my waist. Riley has a full view of my chest and stomach and she is not hiding her appreciative appraisal of my body in the least.

I can’t help but smirk when she struts towards the bed, coming into the light of the lamp in the far corner. She’s wearing a thin mesh robe and nothing else. I can see her hardened nipples through the fabric and the bottom of the robe just barely covers the V at the apex of her thighs.

It’s the first time Riley has initiated something so brazenly. On the one hand, I’m incredibly proud of her and I want to see where this is going to go. On the other, I really want to press her into the mattress and fuck her so hard she forgets her own name.

“What do ya want, baby?” I ask, managing to keep myself in check. For now.

She reaches the bed getting on her knees beside me. “I want you.”

“Ya already have me.” Even to me, my voice sounds impossibly deep, almost like a growl even.

Riley’s hands reach for the belt of her robe, slowly undoing the loose knot. “I just need to feel you.” Something flashes across her face but I don’t press her for more information. We can talk about it later.

“I’m yours, darlin’. Do your worst.”

She sits astride me and reaches for my hands, placing them just above her knees. When I begin to move them up her thighs, she lets go and braces herself on my stomach, scratching lightly though the coarse hair of my happy trail.

I follow the path up to her hips, tightening my grip on the meat of her ass and pulling her to grind against me.

“Sy,” she gasps as the friction sends a spark of pleasure through her body.

“Ya like that?” Her eyes close as she gives a quick nod. “Then keep goin’.” I guide her to keep grinding her silky smooth folds against my clenched stomach. When she picks up the motion on her own, I resume my exploration of her body while she does the same with mine.

I pinch and tease her nipples and whenever her movements falter, I squeeze her thighs to get her going again. She’s gorgeous above me like this, letting herself go to simply feel good.

There’s a growing puddle of Riley’s arousal on my skin and I can’t help but feel like that’s a damn waste. I scoot down on the bed, pulling Riley up towards the headboard. She yelps at the sudden movement and reaches out to steady herself on the wall above my head. She looks at me wide eyed, wondering what she’s supposed to do now.

“Be a good girl and grind on my face.” Her breath hitches but she only hesitates for a few seconds before lowering her pussy down to my mouth. She cries out as I push my tongue inside her walls and feast on her like a starved man. She got herself so worked up that it takes no time at all to push her over the edge into her first orgasm of the night. Oh yeah, I plan on extracting at least two more from her yet.

I switch to soft kitten licks as she comes down, not wanting to overwhelm her. Not yet anyway. Eventually, she lifts one leg over me and I think she’s going to lay down but instead she reclaims the same position only this time, she’s facing my lower body.

She throws the blanket off the foot of the bed and lowers herself down to my neglected cock. Her hand wraps around the base and I groan as she tightens her fist. Her initial pumps are slow, exploring the way I feel in her hand. Then, to my astonishment, she lowers herself down and swallows my cock until I hit the back of her throat.

“Holy fuck!” I shout as my body jerks hard.

As it turns out, Riley sucks cock like a fucking goddess. She has me embarrassingly close to blowing my load in record time but I don’t ask her to stop. Instead, I return the favor and focus my attention on her clit.

She releases me as she whimpers my name and the momentary distraction is enough for me to cool down. When she wraps her lips back around the head of my cock, it’s a race to see who can make the other come first. I spread her cheeks apart, brushing my thumb over her puckered hole. She chokes around my cock and I repeat the motion with more pressure.

Every one of her moans send shivers down my spine but I don’t let up. I fuck her with my tongue and snake my free hand around to circle her clit. The mixed sensation sends her over the edge and she shivers above me as the coil in her stomach snaps. I’m so absorbed by the way her body responds to my touch that I don’t realize how close I am until it’s almost too late.

“Fuck… Ri, baby, pull off.” I tap her thigh but she doesn’t move.

My hips thrust forward into the wet heat of Riley’s mouth and I empty my balls down her throat. My cock jerks, shooting thick ropes of come that Riley swallows greedily. After licking up the few drops that escaped the corners of her mouth, she leisurely climbs off and stretches out at my side.

Riley’s hands never leave my body as we catch our breath. She peppers kisses everywhere she can reach and my fingers absentmindedly play with the silk trim of the robe she’s still wearing.

“Not that I’m complainin’, darlin’, but is there a reason for the extra attention?”

I’d foolishly hoped that I wouldn’t get jealous when Riley went back to work. Stripping is her job. Touching clients and having them touch her is part of that and I don’t ever want to make her feel guilty for doing so. I especially don’t want her to feel like my jealousy is her fault but I get the sense that this isn’t about guilt.

My question causes Riley to freeze where she was busy sucking a hickey into my chest. She begins to pull away but I hold her in place against me.

“Nothing has to stop, I just wanna know what’s goin’ on in that head of yours,” I reassure her, brushing the backs of my fingers down her temple. 

“I just…” Riley chews on the inside of her cheek before meeting my gaze. “I wanted to feel you instead of them."

Her quiet confession makes my heart ache for so many reasons. This wasn’t her trying to apologize because she felt guilty. This was trying to forget. I’d never considered how our relationship might change her own perception of her job or that it might make her feel uncomfortable now.

"Darlin’, you can always ask for what ya want. No need to play games to get my attention." I glide my hand under the fabric of the robe and push it off her shoulder. “Although, don’t feel like ya can’t surprise me like this whenever you’re in the mood.”

I sit up, switching our positions as I guide her to lay back. She looks up at me with a hooded gaze that makes me want to do unspeakable things to her so I start by leaning down for a kiss and brushing her lips with my tongue until they part and allow me in.

I explore her mouth before moving to her neck. She's so responsive, gasping whenever I hit a particularly sensitive spot, and attempts to hold me in place with a hand on my nape.

"Sy… I want you inside me."

I flip her onto her stomach, blanketing my body over hers. My lips brush against her ear while I rub my dick over her juicy ass.

"Good girl."

Chapter 16

2023 events

2022 events list

Again, these are not all of the events, just the ones i happen to come across with

- All of Sherlock Holmes is now officially public domain - Lil Nas X back at it again with... THE WIGGLES?! - Noah Schnapp, who plays Will Byers in Stranger Things, comes out as gay - US gov can't vote for a speaker of the house - McCarthy wins speaker of the house after 15 votes - Bolsonaro supporters storm the Congress and vandalize the whole place, are arrested on location -golden globes n stuff -JOJO LEAK JOJO LEAK ITS A BOY ITS A BOY -Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis Presley, dies at 54 -M3gan is a gay icon pass it on -AO3 down, 40 injured 15 dead -New FOB album - Velma show unsurprisingly sucks - Pink Sause on wallmart -Paramore back & new album coming soon - UK blocks scottish law that helped trans people and this might lead to their independence (pls) -TUMBRL ADDED POLLS! TUMBRL ADDED POLLS!! - #team snail worm deserved to lose the centopéia or however you say in english winning was RIGGED AND I CAN PROVE IT - Pete Wentz leaked Brendon Urie’s oncoming baby which leads him to breaking up Panic! At The Disco. Finally. - Holy fucking bingle! Trans Bi Lesbian It/She pronouns swiss hacker just leacked the US no-fly list, and plot twist, its very racist, what?! :3 - Justin Roiland is fired from Rick and Morty for being a bad person - Cecil from welcome to nightvale defeats Reigen in the Tumbrl Sexyman rematch pools! Idk who he is i just voted him bc i dont want reigen to win. -CECILSWEEP IS EVERYWHERE THE FINALS ARE SANS VS CECIL WHO WILL WIN - CECIL PALMER WITH THE STEEL CHAIR BEATS SANS TO PULP AT THE BACK OF PAPA JOHN'S!!! -The last of Us everywhere, seems to be a good game adaptation! glad to see more of those!

-Toby Fox scores the very first interview with creator of Yume Nikki, kikiyama with 9 yes or no questions and 1 "free response" question asking what they would get at a Denny's -FNAF movie officially starts filming - Marceline wins tumbrl woman - Just vote for vanilla extract and waive boys, just vote for vanila extract and wave - 7.8 earthquake hits Turkey and Syria, thausands of casualities - Spotted chinese (?) spy baloons (?) in America - Now theres a Tumbrl vanilla extract bottle, awesome - Hogwarts Legacy release discourse follows - Tear of the kingdom trailer out this is the most emotion link has shown in canon in 36 years - Youtube channel schaffrillas productions gets involved in car accident, Christopher Schaffer and Patrick Phyrillas pronounced dead on site while James Phyrillas in critical condition - Italian manwhore summer (Sanremo) - Netflix creating something thats gonna ruin password sharing people and everyone is mad - Brianna Ghey, 16 yo trans teenager, is stabbed to the death at a park -THE JOJOLANDS! AMAZING! MINDBLOWING! LIFE CHANGING! NEVER THE SAME! 10/10! -Succession will end in S4 -NEW MAGNAPINNA SQUID FOOTAGE HUNTING??

-New gen of TMNT (Mutant Mayhem)!! -Minesota lagislature makes trans health care (wait for it) LEGAL! - New mario movie trialer the babygirlification of Luigi continues -Willow project approved ‘_’ - More anti trans legislation. whats the news - Esc songs dropped the guy w the green top is already tumbrl’s top 1 jenn should have won etc etc -Gerard Way presenting in full office lady style. Tbh im just more impressed he did a show in tights. - Jojolands #2 out! Hot dog guy has a name now and Rohan canonically transcend the multiverse! - Taylor Swift eras tour congrats swifties - ICC issues arrest warrant to Vladmir Putin for war crimes -Trump to be arrested -Arab Cartoon Network hacked (Update: hacking was fake) - Tik Tok banned on government phones after spying accusations -New FOB album - The ladies from RWBY just kissed! mazal tov! - Justin Roiland case dropped - Kid in brazil attacks school teacher with knife - School shooting in US - Resident Evil 4 remake - Dobi dies in a glue trap -Trump got indicated, idk what that means but seems bad for trump which is good

-10 year anniversary of the Mishapocalypse - Ofc all your fave properties do an April fool’s special,, most notably Toby Fox’s “accidental foam pic” and Sonic The Hedgehog free murder mystery game that looks gorgeous?? they take the trophy this year -Kasane Teto gets her official voicebank for her 15th anniversary -wait... the DSMP is over..? it ended..? for real..?? WOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLL!!1!!11!!!!!11 - Dalai Lama [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] - Harry Potter HBO series... just what we needed ‘_’ - Misha Collins reveals Warner Brothers wanted him to stay out as bisexual after that one off joke last year - Out of touch thursday on 4/20 we did it boys - We DOUBLE DID IT BOYS! Elon Musk’s rocket explodes because he forgot to build a flame diverter?? Or did he not build one on purpose? Anyway no one was inside THANKFULLY - Movie markplier is working on is revealed to be..IRON LUNG?! - Elon Musk takes out all the unpaid blue check marks expecting the celebrity accounts to pay for them, instead #blocktheblue movements started in which you block all users with blue check mark, Musk then responds to this by awarding random popular users with check marks -Tucker Carlson fired, ill b real, I have no idea who he is -Don Lemon also fired, again, idk who he is - Ray Toro and Gerard Way on fnaf movie soundtrack?!? -Disney sues Florida governor Ron Desantis, woag.. I cant believe im saying this but it’ll be easier to make the governor leave than the rat theme park

-JASON DERULO JUST FELL OFF THE STARS AT THE MET GALA! 😱😱😱 - WGA on strike! -And may Eurovision posting begin! Im rooting for finland what ab y’all - Tony Hawk and chocolate guy collab?!?!?!?! -ABSOLUTELY BULLSHIT EUROVISION RESULTS KAARIJA IS THE REAL WINNER SWEDEN BE DAMNED -FNAF trailer drop -Barbie Movie trailer drop -IDubz apologises for content cop, better late than never ig -Succession finale - I saw that execution clip from generation loss cuz it cant be thaaat fucked up right? haha.... im traumatized -Seth Everman announces he will leave the internet in 200ish days -Ted lasso ends, and so, pride month begins.... -Hank Green got cancer

-Happy pride month guys! - Jojo musical adaption of Phantom Blood confirmed - Russian occupiers in Ukraine blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Station -Across the spiderverse takes the internet by storm AS IT SHOULD - Fires in canada kinda spreads the smoke like all around and its all a gray haze over there -Kaarija and Bojan concert together doing a shit job at beating ther allegations happy pride month kings -Hank Green is bisexual, likes Brennan Lee Muligan, and found that out because of wreck it ralph cosplays i can’t believe this is real -Redit blackout? 196? im very confused, but the redditors are here and tumbrl are welcoming them WAY better than we did twitter users which i find fitting lol -Adrien and Marinette from miraculous lb finally kissed omg its been like 8 years?? insane -The Idol sucks - Shit submarine w 5 people goes missing and the more we find out the more inevitable it felt       • Oceangate...gate brings awareness to migrant ships who drown and kill hundrents of migrants       • Iron Lung game sell suddenly spikes       •Submarine found, it imploded, all passengers dead - Joes Biden (US president)'s son committed tax fraud -Mark Zuch and Elon Musk are going to fight?? -Military coup in Russia (failed) -Miranda sings revolutionizing the YouTuber apology genre by apologizing for groomer allegations via ukulele - wtf is a grimace shake - Happy pride month! US overruled law prohibiting homophobic discrimination based on religion!

-Nimona is out! I haven’t watched it yet but the reception is great! (Edit: watched it, its good) -Superman finally got his long deserved sailor moon style transformation. good for him. -AO3 down, 500 dead 756 injured (Update: AO3 is down due to DDOS attack, which is when a group overwhelms the website with requests. This seems to be made by a group who claims to be doing it for homophobic reasons tho they likely have uterior reasons) -SAG-AFRA joins WGA strike - Universal prunes trees outside their building to try and prevent WAG/SAG-AFRA picket line. However, these trees are city property and "tree law" (heavy fine for destroying gov owned nature) might be called into action - Happy Barbenheimer tho all who celebrate - MITSKI ALBUM ANNOUNCEMENT?! - Fnaf DLC smth smth eclipse - Elon Musk tries to change twitter to X ? - Good Omens season 2 finale so tragically good it re animated OFMD SPN and Hanibal into trending page

- Tik tok parody of every 90's euro disco song goes viral - New James Webb telesc ope picture shows a giant ? in space. poetry. - Forest fires in Hawaii destroying homes -Anti semetic hate crime against USP teacher in Amazonas - Tik tok tried to create their Goncharov (Zepotha) and it turns out to be a plot to promote a musician's new song - Planet of the bass music vide out!! - Trump might actually get arrested, mugshot and all - Who thought it was a good idea to make the actor portraying Bernstein in the new biopic wear a PROSTHETIC NOSE?? - India first country to land on south pole of the moon! - Someone tracked down spanish spn’s rogue translator, who claims he did not add that in, meaning in some version of spn destiel was canon - Riverdale ends with all of them in a polycule. Which honestly is the best possible ending - TRUMP MUGSHOT TRUMP MUGSHOT

-That mole do be interesting -Castiel 15th birthday WAIT 15?? A DECADE AND A HALF?? - Ladybug and Chatnoir are emo now. Like, literally. - WGA strike succesfully ends -The Pokemonx Miku collab is everything actually - WGA stricke officially ends wed 27/9 12:01 AM, the deal is finalized and the writer’s guild got most of what they wanted! yay uniuns!

- Israel-Palestine conflict breaks into full on war with many casualities on both sides -NOOOOOO BAKUGO IS ALIVE PUT HIM BACK IN THE GRAVE!! KILL HIM AGAIN!!

- Spock wins the AO3 polls unsuprisingly - youtuber SSSniperwolf doxxes youtuber JacksFilms -Merlin twitter account is active...why? -Mathew Perry, Friends actor and advocate for alcoholism and drug abuse issues dies at age 54

-Happy 3 anniversary to Nov 5th -THANK G-D ATTACK ON TITAN IS OVER ITS FINALLY OVER FUCKK YES FINALLY -NOOOOO LIVE ACTION ZELDA CONFIMRED WHYYYY - Actor strike is over =D - GTA 5 anounced - SHREK 5???? - Omegle shut downs for ever - Zack and Cody’s restaurant reservation is today - Dream and the voice actor of Gumball beefed and tbh it was hilarious - Russia declares LGBT groups extremists organizations - Henry Kissinger, american politician, dies at 100 - SONIC 3 DATE REVEAL YEAHHH

-Hbomber guy DESTROYS James Somerton and Internet Historian’s career with his new video on plagiarism - TODD IN THE SHADOWS COMES BACK WITH THE STEEL CHAIR IN JAMES SOMERTON!! - BG3 Game Awards Sweep including GOTY

Thess vs Western Expansion

There's going to be more playing later - I'm in the exploration phase I tend to enjoy, so that's all fun. However, needed a bit of a break after trying a thing what I tripped over and should have known better than to really try...

First off, lemme dump that drone data back at base. Just so it's not nagging me, and-- Oh! I can have a chat with Zo! That's cool!

Oh. Oh, honey. Honey, the Chorus should be listening to you way, way more. I mean, I know that there'd be no game if there weren't any obstructive idiots, so you were kind of hard-wired into this frustration, but ... still.

So I've deposited my drone data and at least given Zo someone to talk to through her existential crisis. So now what? Question marks, that's what. Still stuff left unexplored in the Daunt, after all. Not much, but some.

Buuuuuuuut there's a rebel outpost in the way. If I want to make it a little easier for my allies to get over to this side of the mountains, maybe I should clear that out.

You don't seeeeeeee meeeeeee... Heeheehee. POONK.

I do love it when I can get through these without anyone firing at me. Now. What's over here?

Fire Bristleback hunting site. Cool.

Yes, I know I can override - and actually ride - the Bristlebacks. ...Oh, fine, I will ride the damn Bristleback.

You are CHONK, dude. I have decided I will not look too far into how fast you go.

Right. Back over we go so we can check out... Oh. We have Burrowers and Clawstriders in the way. Aaaaand I was not as careful about stealth as I should have been.

Wait. The Bristlebacks came back? I was only away for like ten seconds! Okay, now everything wants my face. AAAAA!

HOLD STILL SO I CAN WALLOP YOU, CLAWSTRIDER!

Ofuckofuckofuck...

Okay. Finally. Now, what is over there that I went through that idiocy for?

...Metal. Flower. I figure I have to deal with DEMETER for that. And DEMETER is last on the list (even though I'm technically at a level where I could do that, but still). Boo.

There's apparently a loooot of debate about which of the subordinate functions one should go for first. AETHER is apparently the lowest level one but is the longest to cope with and involves two big bosses, and POSEIDON is more about the sneak, but if I deal with DEMETER first, I get rid of the damn red blight all over Plainsong. I'm going to have to think on that while dealing with side questy stuff.

Anyway. Back to the hunting.

Huh. Another bit of rumour. Talk of another chef! Awesome!

Wait. Machine riders. How are so many people riding machines now?!? Well, it wants me to follow them, so I guess I'll follow them.

.........Charger racing. Seriously.

COMBAT Charger racing?!? You have got to be kidding - okay, fine, I will try this.

OW OW OW OW OW THIS IS BULLSHIT OW.

I made surprisingly good showing, but I didn't win, so I don't get to ask questions. Fine. Y'know what? I don't need these answers that badly. I have a world to save and more to the point? That fucking hurt. No more Charger racing. Yeah, call me a weenie if you want to, Tenakth machine-riders, but I think you'd rather not die.

And another rebel outpost nearby! I can clear that easy.

...They have a Ravager?!? Oh, fuck those guys.

Also they're smart and have sentries in the foothills. Still, no problem. I can cope with this.

Ugh. I'm going to have to break cover to get the leader again.

And knocked RIGHT off my perch. BUT I GOT YOU JUST AS IT BLEW, YOU SONUVABITCH!

And one last sentry aaaaaaaaaaand ... done. And there's ... ancient ruins over there. I should go look at those.

Car graveyard under and around a ... billboard. And collecting things that apparently will be required for something, somewhere, later. Mooooooooore collectibles. *sigh* yaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

LIZARD! Lizard give me your skiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!

YEEEEEEEEES LIZARD SKIIIIIIIIIIN! Also there's a peccary. I think I need those bones too! YAAAAAAAY!

Can I shoot the scorpion?

I ... can shoot the scorpion. How I have a whole "crunchy scorpion" when I shot it point-blank with a precision arrow I have no idea, buuuuuuuuut...

Okay, there's a campfire and I should probably start thinking about dinner. The Old World ruins can wait.

Wait. Hang on. Lemme check something.

...Those ruins have a metal flower. They're gonna have to wait. So I'll think about what to do next while I prep dinner.

Yep. More food than just some grapes and some corn thins is required. Lacy Person's chicken katsu curry it is. And then I'll see what I can upgrade, do some hunting, maybe find a Tallneck. Chill stuff.

Upworthy: The four magic phrases to use when you’re stopped by the cops

Whether it’s a traffic stop that turns into “We smell something in your car” or a “driving while black” situation, you have rights when you’re pulled over, and it’s for the best if you actually use them. So how does this work, anyway?

Well, you have rights when you’re pulled over. These have been established via case law, and ultimately, some stem from the Constitution itself. In order, here are the magic phrases, along with some graphics to help you remember.

1. “Am I free to go?”

In any situation involving the police, you can ask this question. Some people ask it slightly differently: “Am I being detained?”—which is a version of the same question. Basically, if they’ve got nothing on you, they have to let you go. If they answer no to that question, you are in fact not free to go. In that case, you are suspected of doing something, and it’s their job to try to get you to admit to it or to say a bit too much and incriminate yourself.

2. “I do not consent to any searches.”

One of the trickiest things that some law enforcement folks try is to talk you into letting them search your vehicle—or house, for that matter. “So if you haven’t done anything, then you’re ok with us searching your car … right? I mean, if you’re innocent. We’ll go easier on you if you let us.” Do NOT give up your rights that easily.

Are you certain your buddy didn’t leave a bag of weed in the glove box?

Are you sure your boyfriend took his target pistol out of the trunk after he went to practice shooting the other day?

Are you absolutely certain that the body in your trunk was removed and buried in that farm field … whoops. Did I say that last one out loud?!

The point is, don’t give up your rights easily. And believe me, cops are gooooood at trying to play psychological games. Which leads to #3.

3. “I want to remain silent.”

You have that right, and if things start getting thick, you need to use it.

“We clocked you going 60 in a 50, but when you opened your window to give us your license, we smelled marijuana.”

The correct answer to something like this is, “I want to remain silent.” The temptation is to say, “Yeah, my buddy and I smoked in my car this morning but I wasn’t driving, blah blah blah”—but then you’re already nailed.

Time for them to get the dogs and search. Congratulations, you’re on your way to the pokey for the night.

4. “I want a lawyer.”

If you’ve reach this particular point, then you’re in deep doodoo anyway, so go ahead and ask for one, and say nothing until he or she arrives.

Remember these four things. It will be hard in the moment, with your adrenaline pumping, your freedom in question, and when you’re possibly in physical danger, depending on the cops involved and your skin color.

"Am I free to go?"

"I do not consent to any searches."

"I want to remain silent."

"I want a lawyer."

Perhaps a word involving the first letter of the four statements will help you remember: FoSSiL (Free, Searches, Silent, Lawyer)

Or maybe a mnemonic:

— Fiscal Suns Scramble Lives

— Fresh Sushi Smell Lemons

— Flexible Straws Sell Lobsters

— Free Subjects Steam Lobsters

The clip below is a shortened version of a much longer one that explains your rights, detailing what you can and cannot do in these situations.

Note that the order of the above is a bit different than in the clip, but the principles are the same.

Good luck out there!

Copaganda adventures

I have no particular love for the police. In fact, I frequently make jokes about cops and doughnuts. Working for several years as a breaking news journalist didn’t help me change this point of view, since I watched way more videos classified under the term “officer-involved shooting” than anyone should be subjected to. In general, I think policing - at least in the United States - is a field rife with problems, and I usually steer clear of video games that glorify law enforcement or the military. 

That said, I have a high tolerance for classic point ‘n click games, and Sierra’s Police Quest franchise has long been a blind spot for me. I finally decided to fix this by playing through the first four Police Quest games (plus the remake of Police Quest 1) in release order, and what I found was a very odd franchise. The Police Quest games walk an unexpected line between hardcore procedurals - where you need to follow rules religiously or risk losing your badge - and wacky cop wish fulfillment, with plots and characters that feel like they were whipped up by an officer with a penchant for writing fanfiction about himself while eating Munchkins during his lunch break. I have no idea if this was the method by which Jim Walls developed the first three games in the series, but I like to think that it was. 

Walls, a retired California patrol officer who was recruited by Sierra’s president Ken Williams to spearhead the Police Quest franchise, is an interesting fella. He experienced his fair share of action as a cop, and the Police Quest manuals point out that he was involved in a highway shootout that left him with recurring PTSD. But rather than explore the mental health trauma that officers experience during their careers (an important topic, honestly), Walls’ first game, 1987′s Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel, focuses on a heroic patrol officer named Sonny Bonds. Sonny is your ideal cop who rises through the ranks, becomes a detective and takes down a burgeoning drug empire while getting smooches from his high school girlfriend-turned-sex worker Marie, who really wants him to rescue her from her life as a scarlet lady by being a cool blue stud. All in all, it’s a plot that screams “this was probably written by a conservative dude in Regan’s America.”

Police Quest 1 is infamous these days for punishing players who don’t follow correct police procedure. If you fail to do a walkaround inspection of your car the first time you take it out of the station, you get into an accident and die. If you don’t handcuff a suspect from the right angle, you die. If you type “remove clothes” at any point in the game, you promptly strip naked and die...presumably from embarrassment. These examples hint at the bizarre dichotomy that exists within the game, which pressures you into doing things “by the book” but also contains a strange undercurrent of silliness, including endless amounts of potty humor. (There are multiple descriptions of what happens when you lead Sonny Bonds to any bathroom. One of my favorites: “Panic fills your heart as you watch the nasty fluid nearly breach the rim, before it slowly subsides.”) I can only assume that this contrast exists because Al Lowe, Sierra’s resident funny guy who also designed the Leisure Suit Larry games, worked on Police Quest 1 behind the scenes.

Police Quest 2: The Vengeance doesn’t have quite the same polarities, but it’s still a goofy game. Sonny Bonds is now a hot-shot detective with a useless partner named Keith Robinson (who spends every second chain smoking and will call you a commie if you tell him to cut the cigs), and the pair are on a mission to recapture Jesse Bains, the drug lord from the first game. Honestly, Police Quest 2 is probably the best entry in the franchise, mostly because it leans hard into “’80s buddy cop movie” territory. The Roland-MT intro music is absolutely badass synth, and Sonny’s investigations veer into the realm of ridiculous spy movie shit, with a scuba diving section and a sewer crawl. He does the sort of stuff that would normally require a whole team of agents, and this is especially noticeable during a bonkers scene where a group of random Middle Eastern terrorists hijack a plane and Sonny’s expected to exit his seat, shoot ‘em dead and unwire a bomb they’ve stuck in the toilet. If you can look past the terrible portrayal of Arabs and accept that you’re playing through Jim Walls’ fanfic, Police Quest 2 is actually good - and hilariously, it’s the only entry in the series that got localized into Japanese, with everyone getting the full anime do-over package of big eyes and outrageous hair. Honestly, I’d love to watch a Police Quest 2 anime in the style of City Hunter. 

Unfortunately, anything resembling anime went out the window with Police Quest 3: The Kindred, a game that veered back towards the realism department. It's the first project in the series to utilize what was at the time Sierra’s brand new engine upgrade - their SCI1 interpreter - and it’s got 256 colors, rotoscoped animations, digitized closeups of actual people for speech boxes, and music composed by Jan Hammer, the guy who did the Miami Vice soundtrack. (You should watch this video of him jamming out to the Miami Vice theme, it’s pretty funny.) Unfortunately, Jim Walls left Sierra before Police Quest 3 was finished, and it shows. What begins as a fairly promising setup where Sonny’s now-wife Marie gets injured by cultists devolves into a nothing burger which...just kinda ends. The last act of the game feels like it’s building to a showdown with the cultists and Sonny’s new partner, a corrupt cop named Pat Morales, but everything concludes in a brief scene where the cult leader just gives up with nary a word. Pat tries to shoot Sonny but gets shot by vice instead. Marie wakes up, announces that Sonny’s gonna be a dad and everything is over in three minutes. Not that the other two Police Quests had fantastic finales, but this one really feels hollow, and despite all his quirks, it probably would’ve been better if Jim Walls had stuck around. (Walls would go on to work for Tsunami Media to produce Blue Force, a game I haven’t played but certainly seems like “Police Quest with the serial numbers filed off.” He also tried to Kickstart a Police Quest successor called Precinct in 2013, but never met his funding goal.) 

After Police Quest 3, Sierra developed a remake of Police Quest 1 using the SCI1 interpreter. It’s a very solid effort, and while not the game in the series I personally liked the most (Police Quest 2 still takes that trophy), it’s probably the most playable by modern standards. Everything has been upgraded to look more in line with Police Quest 3, but while that game suffered from a half-baked story, the Police Quest 1 remake has the original’s framework to fall back on. And the writing is greatly improved. Sonny Bonds’ characterization is way better - he makes banter with his colleagues, groans about how the public cusses him out as a dirty pig and seems to grapple with toxic masculinity on the police force. The game doesn’t do anything really meaningful with his thoughts, but it’s still cool. Marie also gets elevated from a tropey hooker into a conflicted woman who’s more fleshed out, which is good to see.

Following the remake, Sierra was in need of a new direction for Police Quest. Ken Williams wanted a big fish to headline the franchise and stir up sales, and of all the people in the world, he decided to go with Daryl F. Gates, former LAPD chief during the Rodney King riots. Gates was an edgy pick even by Ken’s standards, and it’s worth reading this Vice article from a few years back, or this highly-detailed Digital Antiquarian post detailing how the man who presided over one of the LAPD’s worst moments somehow became a creative consultant on a computer game series.

Even if we ignore Gates’ background, Police Quest: Open Season - commonly referred to as Police Quest 4 - is not a great game. Sonny Bonds was always a little boring, but now he’s been replaced by an utterly forgettable LAPD detective named John Carey. Carey’s mission to stop a serial killer is portrayed via digitized actors and low-res photos of LA that have not aged well and make the entire game look like pixelated mud. The plot is also fiercely out of step with the current era, feeling like a mixture of tastelessness and serial killer kitsch. While Jim Walls’ Police Quests definitely had their fair share of casual racism, the portrayals of people of color in Police Quest 4 are on another level. The Black characters are largely gangbangers, drunks or rappers who spout bad dialogue, and there’s an Asian convenience store owner literally named “Kim Chee.” The game’s vaguely homophobic and transphobic as well, going out of its way to stereotype a male sex worker and show him attempting to steal the tires off Carey’s car. The killer, meanwhile, dresses in women’s clothing and is depicted as aberrant for doing so. His motivations for killing are not explained - rather, the fact that he wears a red dress is all the characterization he needs for his murder sprees, at least according to the minds behind this game. While all of the Police Quests could be classified as copaganda, Police Quest 4 is the only one that explicitly feels harmful. 

There were other entries in the franchise developed in the wake of Police Quest: Open Season, but I didn’t feel like playing them since they veer wildly away from the adventure genre. Gates stuck around to oversee Police Quest: SWAT, an FMV game glorifying the special tactics teams that he elevated during his time as LAPD chief, and he was also there for Police Quest: SWAT 2, a real-time tactics game. Then Gates exited the scene and “SWAT” replaced “Police Quest” as the main title of the series, which gradually morphed into first-person shooters that were about as far of a cry as you could possibly imagine from Sonny Bond’s early adventures. (Sonny did cameo as a SWAT leader in SWAT 4, so at least the original boy in blue did well for himself as he got on in years.)

This brings us to the final question - are the first four Police Quests worth checking out, in spite of their tonal issues? In my opinion, you can skip Police Quest: Open Season, unless you're fascinated by the career of Daryl F. Gates and want to see how something with his name on it managed to be twenty different degrees of insensitive. The entries starring Sonny Bonds, in contrast, might be of interest to old school adventure fans, as well as those who want to see the progenitor of modern law enforcement and special tactics games. Compared to stuff like Rainbow Six: Siege, Police Quest is certainly quaint - and while the series never managed to completely change my attitude toward cops, I will say that there were moments that made me appreciate the regulations that police officers are supposed to abide by. Let me specifically note the fact that if you make Sonny wantonly shoot any suspect in Police Quest 1, you’ll instantly lose and be reprimanded for not following procedure. Considering that we live in a world where police brutality raged up a shitstorm of massive proportions in 2020, it’s pretty heartening to see that in a computer game from 1987.

The 2023 Hater's Guide to the West Region

This blog is not in any way affiliated with the NCAA, its entities, subsidiaries, or member institutions. This is a humor site and should be treated as such. We’re all on our way out – act accordingly.

1. Kansas (28-6). When Texas beat Kansas to end the Big 12 (8?) regular season, the intrepid videographer shooting the game happened to catch a KU coed wearing a t-shirt which read “I (heart) Dick.” A-fucking-mazing. Look, I don’t have to tell you KU fans need this one seed, need the wins, need a title more than anything to justify their continued existence. They live in Kansas for fuck’s sake – Interstate 70 ends in Lawrence and you are stuck wandering the plains like Denzel Washington in Book of Eli until you reach Colorado, and the interstate magically appears again. There is NOTHING to do here other than watch basketball, and that says a lot, because I live in Iowa!

2. UCLA (29-5). This is a Bruin, right? With that face, I am 100% sure his name is “Crick Monin.”

3. Gonzaga (28-5). There is a new Constitutional amendment which clearly states you are no longer allowed to refer to Gonzaga as a Cinderella school. It’s been twenty five years - I think the slipper finally broke. They’ve now been in every final AP poll since the 2008-09 season, and have appeared in every weekly AP poll since 2016-17, a streak of 115 consecutive weeks. I will never stop laughing when eighth year senior Drew Timme appears on my TV screen. All I see is TIMMY from South Park. Fuck John Stockton.

4. UConn (25-8). Go back to the AAC! Biggest group of crybabies in the country and it isn’t even close. When their women’s team had an injury plagued season (lost five games including back-to-back games for the first time in 30 years), Geno Auriemma vented to the media and to his team, telling them they had three days before the conference tournament to fix things. Then he got in his car and drove home to Manchester, wishing he could continue westward. “The way I felt was I want to wake up in California in three days,” he said. “I just want to keep driving, I don’t want to do anything, I don’t want to come to practice.” Jesus man, just fucking quit already and move away from that awful place. Twitter account CrimsonCast put it best: UConn continues to fail to shake the perception that they are simply an analytics darling. Like an east coast version of the Mountain West.

5. Saint Mary’s (26-7). Every bracket, no matter the site, always lists this school as “Saint Mary’s (CA).” Why? No one is confusing this school for the archaeological dig site posing as a university in Maryland, or the all-women’s college in north-central Indiana where many of the enrolled students play for nearby Leprechaun U, also known as Notre Dame. No, this is the school – in California – that gets exclusive coverage on ESPN Australia/New Zealand. Sixty percent of the student body is involved in organized athletics here, so it’s a good chance you’ll be handed a scholarship and some sort of ball upon move-in. It’s either that or forced labor washing jockstraps.

6. TCU (21-12). Their coach gives out a pair of “charge socks” when a Horned Frog player takes a charge. There’s a big bucket of these colorful dress socks in the TCU locker room. Charge socks? You have to be kidding me. You are in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, you can’t find a bag of blow or an extra couple of c-notes for your athletes? (Producer cuts in…garbled static…). Pardon me, I’ve just been informed that the “C” in TCU stands for “Christian.” There is no cocaine on campus. But NIL is legal now, surely you can find something other than a pair of sweaty dress socks to reward your unpaid employees. Perhaps a sad handjob from a coed who has already put on the freshman 15+15+15?

7. Northwestern (21-11). Congratulations, you finished top three in the Big Ten for the first time since 1960. You won your last conference championship 90 (!) years ago. You have made one (1) NCAA tournament and had to be retroactively selected as something called the Helms National Champion. Your most successful head coach played for Phog Allen at Kansas – in 1917! Northwestern basketball is the definition of futility. They are the Chicago Cubs of the NCAA; fitting for a program that markets itself as “Chicago’s Big Ten team” (insert jerking off hand motion here). Even if Northwestern won 25 games a season for the next 25 years, they would still have a losing record.

8. Arkansas (20-13). It is against state law to mispronounce “Arkansas'' while in the state, yet their residents  pronounce jalapeno “Holla-PEE-no.” Gun to my head, I wouldn’t be able to look at Sarah Huckabee Sanders naked, playing with a hula hoop, for more than a second.

9. Illinois (20-12). Brad Underwood is a bargain-bin Gene Keady who is very upset about “booty ball.” Every press conference he attends ends with him making a wet fart sound into the microphone.

10. Boise State (24-9). No one gives a shit about this team unless tater tots rise to $6 a bag – then it’s time to storm the blue court. I know exactly one person from Idaho and their personality matches that of the official state produce. This person is incapable of being corrected. They are always right. You are always wrong. If you say the sky is blue, their response will no doubt begin with “well, actually…” Boise is also not a state, you arrogant fuckhead.

11. Arizona State (20-12) or Nevada (23-9). Over 60% of the student body at ASU has some form of herpes. Unless you are a model, they throw you in an engineering building for four years. If you hate Duke just like the rest of America, you generally hate Christian Laettner and Grant Hill. But there’s one player from those early-90s teams everyone forgot: Bobby Hurley. As I’ve aged, my hatred for Hurley has waned, but I’ll always wish maximum pain for whatever team he coaches.

With the growth of legalized sports gambling across the United States, the University of Nevada has introduced several new classes for the 2023-24 school year: Kneecap Relocation, Intermediate Hammer Smashing Techniques, and Advanced Vig Calculation. Another new course addition as of Thursday morning: Getting Your Shit Pushed In By A Sun Devil Pitchfork. Too soon? Probably.

12. VCU (27-7). VCU stands for Very Completely Underwhelming. This isn’t a college, it’s an industrial laundry that has tricked 28,000 students into paying the institution to “work.” If you want a perfect example of the bloat in higher education administration, consider there are over 11,000 non-academic staff at VCU. Never trust a doctor from this school; they only practiced on centaurs.  

13. Iona (27-7). Someone is going to give Rick Pitino the best 14 seconds of his life to coach for them. 

14. Grand Canyon (24-11). By employing buzzer-beating Valpo alum Bryce Drew, this pretend university has already accomplished more in the NCAA Tournament than Mount Rushmore State, Hoover Dam U, Smokey Mountains College and SUNY-Niagara Falls.

15. UNC Asheville (27-7). Let’s have a quick check-in on how this college is doing. Student enrollment and retention are plunging at UNC-Asheville and top leadership is departing at the highest rate in the entire UNC system. While overall student enrollment in the UNC system has increased 7% since 2015, UNC-Asheville fell by a stunning 25%, the largest drop among the 16 public universities in the system. Of the incoming students UNC-A is able to attract, a high number of them leave before graduation. Retention of students, measured as those returning for a second year of school, is now just 68.6%, the lowest in ten years. Jesus, even Trump University would laugh at these numbers. 

16. Howard (22-12). Howard students recently had to protest living conditions in on-campus dorms – mold, mildew, and rats are apparently very commonplace in multiple residences. It is 2023; the only sensible reason these alarming conditions should be issues on your campus is when you have outsourced every part of the student life experience to a call center in the middle of the Himalayas.

Ive read a lot of your opinions on Jesse and Nacho and I just don't agree with your, it's your opinion and its fine, but I have never found Jesse to be this big moral character. He is just as bad and flawed as Nacho, if not more. I don't think Nacho had to die as away of paying for his crimes (why should Jesse not have died too?) Nacho suffered every bit as much as Jesse and I personally think he deserves more sympathy then Jesse.

Circumstances:

First there is there circumstances. Its true that Nacho "got in with both eyes open", but so did Jesse and I'll argue that Nacho was almost doomed from the start while Jesse was not. Jesse is white and privileged. He comes from a wealthy, two parent home, in a nice neighborhood with parents who care about him. He is lazy and entitled and didn't apply himself in school, does drugs and got into the drug world to make easy money for himself so he can hang out playing video games and doing drugs all day with his friends instead of pursing higher education or a job.

I don't know everything about Nacho's childhood, but what we see gives us a pretty good idea. Nacho is a visible minority. The son of an emigrant, raised by a single parent, his Dad. His mother is presumably dead and has been for some time. His family is not wealthy and struggles. His Dad works hard to support them. There neighborhood looks poor and unsafe. Nacho probably grew up in poverty, most defiantly surrounded by the drug world and had many risk factors white privilege Jesse never had to face. His father even knows the Salamanca name, while Jesse's parents in their nice neighborhood are completely obvious to the drug world. Nacho presumably got caught up in the cartel world very young and while he mentions to his Dad that he's working for the cartel again, as if he could have got out, but didn't, this is likely a lie. He probably could never get out and was just lying to his father to spare him. He made a mistake and got in over his head, so did Jesse, but Nacho had a lot more risk factors while Jesse had everything going for him.

Motive/Relationships:

Nacho most likely had better motive then Jesse too. We see him spending his off time from the cartel working in his Dad's shop. I think it's safe to assume that Nacho was using some of his money to help his fathers business. He mentions his Aunt and mothers family in one episode, implying that his Father helps them out, his family really needs the money and this would be a big motivation to a poor kid to join the cartel. Nacho's family is really important to him, he does not seem to want money just for himself. In the begging of the series he drives a crummy van and still live with his father, only after their falling out does he buy the fancy car and house of the latter seasons, but they bring him no joy. His relationship with his father is really beautiful. He does everything to keep him safe. He loves his father and ends up dying for him in the end, he never seeks revenge for all the things that were done for him, instead he dies for love.

Jesse's relationship with his parents is pretty terrible. Everybody loves to demonize them (because poor victim Jesse) but Jesse is responsible for their poor relationship. His parents tried to help him and continuously beg him to change his life around. There's only so much they can do, and letting him go to suffer the consequences of his choices is really the best thing for him, but Jesse acts like they are somehow betraying him or that he is entailed to his Aunts house. There is no deep love and respect there like Nacho has for his dad. Jesse even scams them out of a the house. He also appears Jealous of his little brother.

Murders/crimes:

All though Nacho's involvement with cartel and the drug world him indirectly involved in peoples deaths (same for Jesse). He only ever directly killed two people, both of them in gun battles where is was either kill or be killed. Jesse's direct kills are much more horrible.

Jesse out right shoots a man in the face. Although he didn't want to kill Gale and was put in a position where he had to kill to save Walt and his own life he still pulls the trigger. It was even his fault in the first place, because Walt had to kill Gus's men to save Jesse after Jesse own stupid choices (stealing from Gus and planing on killing some of Gus's man). He is also directly responsible for Jane's death. Jesse (and the fandom) love to blame Walt for Jane's death (as well as all of Jesse's choices). The fact is, she was dead the moment Jesse got her back onto drugs. She was clean until she met him. Even if Walt didn't happen to break in and see her overdosing (choosing not to help) she would have still died. If not then, then another night. She was doomed the moment Jesse got her (a recovering drug addict) but onto drugs. Jesse was so mad when he found out Walt didn't preform CPR he tried to but Walt's house down which punishes his innocent family, but Jesse doesn't care about that.

Personal reason I like Nacho more:

Nacho is smart, cleaver, capable, quiet, soft spoken and very skilled. He often figures out when his is being tricked and is able to get himself out of deadly situations all on his own. His relationship with his dad is sweet, and sad. He loves and respects his Dad so much and would do anything to protect him. He knows his Dad is disappointed in him, but isn't mad or defensive. Everything he does is to protect him.

Jesse is whiny, loud, rude, disrespectful, lazy, entitled, privileged, immature, never takes responsibility, blames others, and is a poser. He is much harder to sympathize with on a second view of the series. He has no relationship with his family and often only thinks of himself. He feels sorry for himself a lot, while Nacho doesn't blame other for his situation.

Nacho is just as much deserving of sympathy and a good ending as Jesse was. Nacho did not deserve to die for his crimes any more then Jesse did. They both suffered and and were sorry for the life they chose. The BOTH deserved a second chance, and I hate that Nacho didn't get one or people think he needed to die to atone or whatever, but Jesse just got to drive away, evading the police and responsibility and his crimes. Jesse is NOT more moral then Nacho, just because he cries all the time, while Nacho hides his emotions better. Jesse is not a more MORAL character period.

Just my opinion. Sorry for the long rant, its been bugging me for some time.

You are entitled to your opinion! But no, I don’t agree with your take. I think it is pretty clear that the arc of Breaking Bad is that Walt loses his conscience and becomes pretty monstrous at the same time Jesse develops a conscience and grows from a jerk kid into a decent human being.

Reads to me like a lot of this take is based on Jesse at the beginning of his arc; IE he’s just some lazy teenager selling meth. But if you don’t agree that Walt manipulated him into doing things he didn’t want to, I don’t know what to tell you. I think it’s pretty clearly laid out in the show. As for a moral comparison between Nacho and Jesse, Jesse is repeatedly shown to worry for the safety of children while the first thing Nacho does is intentionally endanger children so he can rip off their parents.

It’s not that Nacho is an evil character though or that I think he “doesn’t deserve” a happy ending or whatever. Or that Jesse is meant to be a superhero. When people make comparisons like that, they are talking about how those characters are framed in the narrative. The thing is that Jesse’s character development is centered around his guilt and his desire to be better. He wants out, he wants to do something honest, he wants to make boxes (IE create something he can be proud of). He throws his money away and sees it as blood money. It’s simply not Nacho. Guilt for the people he has hurt in the cartel is not an aspect of Nacho’s character. I mean, absolutely there is an argument to be made that he probably is a victim of poverty and, how much of a choice to get into the game does someone in that situation have, and I think if Kim Wexler knew his story she would want him to have a good lawyer. But when I say Nacho got in with both eyes open, what I mean is, he knew fully well the kind of violence he would commit for money, and made his peace with it.

You say Nacho did everything for his father but I think you are missing the point. Nacho did fall down the rabbit hole by trying to kill Hector, which he did for his father, but he wasn’t the kind of person he was for his father. He didn’t live his lifestyle for his father. His father specifically says he got *back* with the cartel, suggesting he was out and went back to make money. Nacho had a heart and ultimately he was willing to make sacrifices for someone he loved—but he didn’t do it *all* for his father, that was his draw toward his humanity, and the fact that he had it made him more vulnerable. Better Call Saul is all about the moral stuff of the characters. About what makes someone “good” or “bad”. Nacho is a monkey wrench because he is bad in almost every way, but the good side of him is the thing that he suffers for in the end. He’s a great character, and I love how much empathy he generates. He gets to be in a morally superior position to both Gus and Hector because he is framed as a victim to them both. When people say it fits that his death was sacrificial, I don’t think that is a moral judgment of his character, like he was BAD and therefore should DIE; certainly not if I have said that. It’s about his role in a meta sense, it was narratively appropriate for his arc to end the way it did.

I do think you are extremely hard on Jesse as far as responsibility for what he’s done (I mean, blaming him for Jane’s death, really? That is a pretty cruel take) but it’s not that I think Jesse is supposed to be some innocent kitten either. It’s just that his character resolves in exactly the same of moral crisis that Nacho’s father has: this shit is horrible, I feel tainted by this, I need to go to the police. That is what Jesse does and the price he pays for it is to be sold out by the man he trusted was looking out for his best interests and literally enslaved to keep him in the game. That’s why it fits narratively for Jesse’s arc to resolve in freedom.

In the end I think something is lost by taking these two nuanced characters and just making some kind of evaluation of “who is more EVIL? Who DESERVES to DIE?” It’s just that they serve different roles in their respective narratives. Jesse is the main moral counterpoint to Walt, the main protagonist of his show. Nacho is a piece of his show’s complex moral jigsaw puzzle of Mike, Jimmy, Gus, Hector, Kim, Chuck, Howard, Lalo… and I think the takeaway from him is the way his conscience and love affected the trajectory of what was an otherwise pretty heartless existence. Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul have some overlapping themes, but they are not the same, and the differing roles of Jesse and Nacho are, I think, evidence of that.

“contemplate your death”

what the heck? someone suggested I contemplate my death, and actually there is a larger context involved, but when that person said contemplate your death and I took it in a vacuum for the first moment, it was a bit overwhelming.

And this follows the fact I was significantly ill for a couple of weeks and was taken to a hospital via ambulance at the start of being sick. I won’t go into all the details, but I am here typing so take that for a good sign. I still tire easily and have lingering issues, but overall am back to work and other endeavors. so when I was told to contemplate my death recently I was in a place where I can. Or at least I hope I can.

And the actual contemplation is a personal journey,  for now though we can talk about the process of contemplation. I don’t even like that sentence even as I wrote it.

And what does it mean to contemplate your death? Does this mean think about how I want to die and that one is actually easy. I prefer to live much longer and die peacefully in my sleep. Unfortunately we do not get to choose our natural death, whether it be from falling off a building to a car crash to illness in our sleep or what ever the case may be. 

And what is natural death? Is it living long and dying peacefully? Is it any type of death not self inflicted? And is either consciously or subconsciously self inflicted death a non natural death? Shoot can a person decide they want to die and so they start not looking both ways when they cross the street?

Or do you look at the religious view that when I die am I going to heaven or not? 

Or do you look back at your life and determine whether you led a good life in general and did you impact others or improve someone else’s life in a good or productive way? And does that lead you to heaven. Were you a Saint or had Saint like life or is purgatory going to be a long ride?

We never know, but maybe we should contemplate our death much sooner than when you reach my age? Depending on your worldview much can be accomplished just by this contemplation. And of course does it change the way you live? Or hopefully it doesn’t change it much if you have done well for others. And subsequently is there a way to change your life by contemplating your death. On the surface you would think so, but until a person goes deep into the recesses of their neuron pathways of their brain they will not know. 

And does that contemplation need to fulfill profound philosophical thinking? I actually think not. It takes some self awareness and some honesty, but you can leave the philosophers in the books. Do you pull out the family Bible and find chapter and verse that answers your questions? Or do you get bogged down in the study of worship and not really reflect on your death?

I am still struggling with finding the inner strength to go down this path, yet I am feeling pretty confident that over time I am going to delve into this piece by piece. I do not think it has to be done all at once. You just have to set an internal compass in this direction and over time the path will be laid out for you. I would make it a point to put some effort to it since you want to have this resolved before you die. 

And it would be nice if the Dallas Mavericks would contemplate playing defense or putting forth effort for the full 48 minutes of a game. They just aren’t good enough to coast at any point and they are beginning to frustrate me to death.

And whose says editors don’t matter, after reading over this for a moment I have switched back and forth between the first and second person you must be  dizzy. And I am not resolving this issue, you, as the reader, get to claw your way back to standing upright and hope the room stops spinning. I will probably die due to indecision.

Cheers

The Wire S1

True stories, oftentimes, hit the hardest. Nonfiction - real stories, real people, everything. The Wire's first season, though completely fictional, is one of these.

Part of this is the lack of clear-cut roles. Part of this is the crude, documentary-style shooting. Most of all, the season is fucking brutal throughout.

Unlike most modern media, The Wire feels hopeless. It tells the story of how things cannot change, and how change never works as you wish.

We can analyze the entire first season with one character - Wallace. A 16-year-old from the low-rise projects working dope with D'Angelo Barksdale, nephew of the kind of drugs in West Baltimore, Avon Barksdale. Wallace is an honest kid, working well. 

Problem is, he's just that - a kid. An honest, decent kid involved in a violent, ruthless game. Wallace lives in a bando, caring for the little ones and just getting by. He is a kid, with more responsibility than most adults.

There's one scene that hit especially hard - it starts with Wallace on the terrace playing with a toy when he's supposed to be dealing. D'Angelo sees this, and, of course, calls for him to get back to work. We see here the first hints that Wallace isn't meant for the game - he can't let go of the life he should have if he wasn't born where he was. 

Later in the season, Wallace calls up Stringer Bell, Avon's advisor and best friend, because they've seen the boyfriend of a dope stealer named Omar playing pinball near them. The next day, Wallace walks out the door and sees the guy dead on top of a car, tortured to death.

He snitches to the police and goes down to his Grandma's house for a while. But, as the show continuously drives home, change is hard. He returns, and his best friends shoot him to death. 

The Wire is honest. It is unafraid to show a broken world and unafraid to show its pessimistic view of how things are going. While I might not completely agree, it's certainly something remarkable. 

9/10

The Last of Us – Season 1 Episode 4 – Review

Hey everyone welcome back to my review of another episode of The Last of Us. The show which I'm liking, based on a video game I've never played on a system that that I didn't continue after the second generation. As per usual this review will not feature any Easter eggs, because frankly I wouldn't know what one would be. I’m actually getting this out at a decent date, hopefully. I have also made another revelation when going back and reading what I’ve been writing. This isn’t just a review, but a recap and review. Although, since I also have labeled the previous posts as reviews, I’ll just keep going with that. This is just a little behind the scenes stuff, but secretly these should be named recap and review and thus you will be getting a recap and my thoughts on the latest episode of The Last of Us.The last episode was so heart breaking and I thing the writers knew the impact it may have, so that’s why this episode seems very light and only picks up on action towards the end. You have time to come down from the last episode and get some humor before things go down and you remember where they are going now and meet what happens to Karen’s when the world ends and they need use their powers of horribleness to gain followers. We start out this episode with Joel and Ellie at a gas station where Joel is trying to syphon some gas, let’s hope he saved the mint for after he was done. Ellie is secretly playing with her new toy aka the gun she took from the house after she found it last episode. She has also seemed to get her hands on a joke book that sounds like it was written by every collective dad in the world. The jokes are corny and are just invitations to mock the person that said them. In my circle of friends if you tell a bad joke you’re going to get a good 30 minutes of getting made fun of for trying to pass off a trash joke. Joel doesn’t do this but instead just sighs and takes it. During the car ride Ellie gets her first look at the mess that is called the male human body and makes Joel very uncomfortable as he asks her to put it away. Joel then decides to go camping since they had driven enough for that day.Deep in a forest where they’ve set up camp Joel whips a batch of the most elegant 20-year-old Chef Boyardee Ravioli, and they eat like kings. Ellie wants to start a fire but is told not to as it will attract people that will do much worse to them than kill them. This bit of truth is a little too much for Ellie as she wants confirmation that no one knows they’re out there and Joel obliges. You then cut to Ellie sleeping as Joel stands watch over her protecting her. Dad mode never goes away, no matter if the person you’re looking after is your own flesh and blood or not. Ellie wakes up to what sounds like a steampunk alarm clock, but it’s just a pot of coffee brewing. Ellie leans over and takes a smell and says it smells disgusting, and that they had Starbucks at the quarantine zone. I guess in the great fast food war Starbucks and it’s spinach and tomato panini’s won. Joel and Ellie are driving when Ellie inquires about Joels brother. He informs her he’s a joiner, which is a nice way of saying he has family issues and constantly is looking for a new group to resemble one. Joel tells of how he joined the armed forces, and after the outbreak he joined the fireflies and that’s how Joel met Tess. He says where they’re going and if his brother isn’t there they’ll go to another possible location. Ellie falls asleep and wakes u when they hit a stopping point at a location that’s blocked. Ellie is playing navigator and is guiding Joel through the city to get back on the highway, but get stopped by someone who is hurt. Joel seeing they are just a lying liar who lies and guns it towards them. They start getting shot at and crash the truck into a small store. After a shoot out that involves just Joel. He takes one out and the other one ambushes him. Ellie takes out her gun does whatever any of us would do in that situation. She shoots him in the back, Paralyzing him and Joel asks Ellie to go hide because he doesn’t want to see him give this guy another hole in his body. Joel and Ellie take off to hide and we then meet Kathleen, who is the Karen of this whole city. You learn that they most likely turned on the government who was stationed there to keep any order. Kathleen is playing both nice and mean cop to a doctor who she believes knows where her sons are and who tipped possible mercs off who may or may not have picked up her son. She’s informed that one of the men Joel killed is this lady and she blames the doctor for being a part of tis and ends his life. We also learn that Kathleen is a master at manipulation and a big lover of secrets as there’s a sink hole opening under one of the buildings where infected will most likely emerge and wreck some stuff.Joel and Ellie makes their way to a very tall building where they imitate Ghostbusters from the 1990’s and climb the stairs and locate a room where they can rest until it’s safe. Joel sets some traps to work as an alarm system and Ellie hits him with her most devastatingly dad joke of all dad jokes. I laughed and so did Joel who went to sleep laughing but woke up to 2 guns pointed it at them. Overall this episode was good. I continue to look at what the world will look like when nature takes over. This wasn’t as heartbreaking as the last episode, but it was still a solid way to help the character progression with Joel and Ellie. We shall see how next week goes and how they get out of having guns pointed at them. Read the full article

Get hydraulics on gta 5 offline

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4 GHz/AMD Phenom 9850 2. GTA 5 / Grand Theft Auto V Download PC Full Version Free Installer: So finally I would like to say download GTA 5 and get an awesome adventure for a lifetime. Player can spend money for fun activities, upgrading or paint vehicles, buying vehicles, buying buildings or businesses, changing appearance, haircut, tattoos, outfits many other thing. Ability to spend money as the player wants is a very awesome facility provide by the game. They have special abilities deferent from each other like fighting skills and etc. As i said before there are three main characters in this game. The health meter depicted on the top shows how long the player can survive in battlefield. Player can use firearms, explosive or other weapons to o fight enemies and he can run, jump, swim or use vehicles as he wish. Out of the missions the player can roam throughout the countryside which provide larger area than any of the previous versions. This is a WORK IN PROGRESS so its not fully done and is not fully complete there is a lot of stuff I have to do.

Player should complete multiple missions and objectives to progress through the story. Huge Thanks To These People: Hi, This is the GTA ONLINE experience brought to Story Mode, Tired of failing cause of teammates need no worry no failures here just fun, Tired of shark card promotion getting shoved down your throat then here ya go no stupid microtransactions here. So as said before Grand Theft Auto V designed to play by first person or third person view. Because GTA 5 downloaded millions of people in the first day at the market by earning US $800 and $1 billion in the first three days. You start with 8,016,020, and you should also be aware that there is an unavoidable loss of 20,0000. This epic Grand Theft Auto 5 broke industry sales records and became the fastest selling entertainment product in history. For this heist, every time you or your accomplices get shot in the back, you lose money. The designers conduct field research around California throughout the development and captured footage for the game’s landscapes That hardworking is the reason for this game to be much successful. If it’s low its good for your “criminal hood”.ĭesigners focused their every muscle, every nerve to design this epic game, but it took more than 4 years to complete this. If the wanted level is high there are more police troops on your tail.

Only way to get cars like Kuruma or Insurgent in single player is through mods or a trainer. I bought a cheap car for 5, and thought I could just get them but. The response of the low enforcement for the crimes shows by the “wanted level”. How to put hydraulics on a car in gta 5 story mode ( Updated : Octo) I just want a car with hydraulics but dont have enough money. The game has many missions involving shooting and driving. They can be switched between each other during and outside of the missions. In GTA 5 players control 3 protagonists throughout the single player mode. Players can be roam throughout the city by foot or by vehicle. GTA 5 can be played from either first person view or the third person view.

Focus 2015

#Focus 2015 movie#

#Focus 2015 code#

#Focus 2015 movie#

It’s almost as if the movie is trying to focus your attention elsewhere.First introduced in the smaller Fiesta last year, Ford’s 1.0-liter three-cylinder EcoBoost engine joins the refreshed-for-2015 Focus lineup as a $795 option. Plus, Margot Robbie looks so damn beautiful with her hair backlit by the streetlamps in the final scenes you’ll realize that’s more interesting than any far-fetched plot pretzels. When you rerun certain scenes in your head, it all checks out. This is partially why it is somewhat disappointing, as it feels like Ficarra and Requa went so far afield as a mandate. The final third is obviously building to some rug-from-under-you reveal, and all I’ll say is that while I knew something was coming, it’s a twist that no one will be able to predict. Men have upper-body strength, women have batted eyelashes. (“Hello?!? I’m right here!” she cries out in one of the funnier moments when one of Nicky’s colleagues makes a lewd remark.) Like a Bond villainess, the power of feminine wiles is presented as a piece of equipment. Jess doesn’t exactly encourage lechery, but she seems somewhat at peace with the chauvinism of her chosen profession. There’s also a sense of sexual candour wafting throughout. Theft on a large and small scale is considered a noble art. There’s not a wisp of moralising within 50 feet of this film. It’s a little confusing, and gets more so when characters from the past keep showing up.Įven in this second half, which has considerably less steam than the first, Focus must be applauded for sticking to its mission. He isn’t trying to steal, but to infiltrate an opposing team and slip them a thingamajig that will lead them to think they have an edge, but will actually do just the opposite. Unfortunately, after a “three years later” card we meet up with Nicky in Buenos Aires as he starts planning a con involving a car race. If the projector broke after the New Orleans job and I stopped watching there, I’d be over the moon about this picture. That is, until the twist comes and Nicky manipulates Jess into helping him pull off an enormous (and, admittedly, ludicrous) con inside the Superdome. They do brisk business, gobbling up every bag and briefcase they can find. Jess fits in nicely with Nicky’s crew as they bop around the French Quarter boosting wallets and watches. The film’s action soon heads to New Orleans where a “big football game” (not the Super Bowl, though, should lawyers be watching) has the town swimming in easy money. They are both terrific in this, especially relative newcomer Robbie who shows tremendous comedic range. The hotels and high-end clubs in Focus are extraordinarily furnished, and Smith and Robbie look splendid gallivanting among them.

#Focus 2015 code#

Usually the phrase “very visual” is critics’ code for complex camera moves or unusual angles, but it can just as well mean casting gorgeous actors in breathtaking costumes and plopping them in a great urban or interior setting. It is one of many remarkable scenes that directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa shoot in a very straightforward manner, taking advantage of the obvious beauty right in front of them. As the coloured lights of midtown Manhattan shimmer against Lincoln Center’s snow-topped campus, Nicky playfully educates Jess in the art of the psychological grift. He plays along out of curiosity, then takes pity. We didn’t land the big score, but we did come away with a few sparkly trinkets.įocus opens in a swank New York restaurant where small-time grifter Jess (Robbie) thinks she’s spotted a mark in Nicky (Smith). Once the scaffolding crumbles, we’re left on a limping getaway. Alas, this is merely a setup, as the film’s second half eventually reveals that it’s all been a facade. Focus, which stars Will Smith as a master con man and Margot Robbie as his new apprentice, spends much of its running time convincing you it is the best entry into the genre in years. Trouble in Paradise, The Sting, The Spanish Prisoner – these are films more about manipulating people than just stealing something. H eist movies come and go, but a good con film is little different.

Seven Secret Belongings you Didn't Learn about Minecraft Download

It's go time. Or extra precisely, it is time to maintain refreshing the launcher each 0.Four seconds until the server lets you in. 2. Once the launcher opens, don’t click on the play button as common. Whats up guys free minecraft video games | play minecraft online without downloading site exhibits you methods to obtain and set up minecraft, the rationale why i didn't in that case minecraft download totally free today and set up full model on your computer. It is a game that is both superb and addictive at the identical time, but officially you cannot, but unofficially you may, here is methods to download free minecraft games to your mac personal pc. This article has talked about one of the best three methods to free obtain. All three games enable gamers to create worlds, a cornerstone of the metaverse idea. The Community Marketplace, which hit Pocket and Windows 10 editions in June, was an enormous part of this transition, permitting gamers to search for, buy and sell their very own in-recreation creations. You may even use most skins interchangeably across editions. We even have a listing of the perfect Minecraft skins you should use if you want to take a fast choose.

With this mod, you can list all of the items accessible in the sport and discover the recipes to craft them in your gameplay. Plus, you'll find skins inspired by YouTubers, superheroes, and whatnot. Furthermore, every server comes with unique options that you will not discover in the base sport. When the Baritone Minecraft utility was initially released, the first goal of the instrument was to supply options to maneuver by means of the map mechanically. If you are desirous about Home windows 11, you can learn concerning the Home windows 11's best options, or you can study in regards to the operating system's multitasking options that might help increase your productivity. You can even use the flowers to construct a magical portal to the world of elves in order for you. Getting a handle on those issues in an much more freewheeling setting will probably be daunting, they say. That will set you again $300, although the hardware is self-contained and does not require a Laptop or game console to use. If it's a game with quests, there needs to be an possibility to just say, "I can make higher use of my time than holding down the run button and navigating again over terrain I've crossed a dozen occasions before to go to an NPC that I've already talked to several occasions, so simply take me there!" Granted, you cannot put all that in a hotbutton, so I am going to take Free Realms' condensed model any day.

The error can be very properly facilitated attributable to an account synchronization difficulty. Getting to grips with a brand new computer recreation normally involves some trial and error. Exterior of fiction, Linden Lab created Second Life, a digital world that launched in 2003 and attracted car corporations, report labels and pc makers to open digital outposts. Fortnite has hosted live shows, including performances by rapper Travis Scott and pop star Ariana Grande, that attracted attention to the already popular shoot 'em up. Games like Minecraft, Roblox and Fortnite have also been described as metaverses. Simpler variations of a metaverse experience, similar to Roblox or Fortnite, are already available. You can too enter present metaverses, comparable to Roblox and Minecraft, out of your computer, pill or telephone. When that pair wears out, you can begin again or use extra advanced polymers to craft shoes that will go farther and quicker. Our best guess - and it is just a guess - is that the metaverse will start as a slate of competing platforms, each laying declare to being the metaverse. There are also quite a few other VR headset makers: Valve, HTC, HP and Sony, whose gear works with PCs or a PlayStation 4/5. Anticipate more headsets, a few of which could start connecting with telephones, by the top of the yr.

The internet broadly works that means now with battles between agreed-upon protocols and proprietary requirements, content material from a host of companies and competing software ecosystems. Now researchers are utilizing Minecraft as a device to check the skills of artificially clever avatars - however the game, beloved by youngsters world wide, is proving to be relatively a problem for the machines. Twitch is probably the most well liked platform right now for this enjoyment and profit-making enterprise. Try transferring a pores and skin you bought in Fortnite to a different platform. For now, make certain you will have a working version of Minecraft, and let’s get started by finding a very good pores and skin in your character. While referring to Minecraft servers are my thing , we will concentrate on the pores and skin packs for our protagonist as a substitute of the entities or mobs in the sport. It is unclear whether one firm's VR headset will be suitable with another firm's expansive multiplayer world or cloud-based graphics. The thought behind the deluxe Metaverse - the one which requires a headset - is an immersive, 360-diploma digital world. But that requires them to agree on how they work collectively.