#(the game is by japanese creators and i feel like that's A Factor too; but there are Eerily Accurate evangelical things going on here)

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

analyzing hermes, emet-selch, the ancients and ascians, how they're written, and the fandom's reaction to them be like hm. emet-selch's role in this fuckery is compounded by the fact that his backstory as a genocide survivor is incongruous with his ruling a huge genocidal colonialist world power in the present da [ANTISEMITISM BLAST]

[timemachineyeah]

Hi, I really appreciate your points on Madoka! Thank you for providing that insight that is so desperately needed! Because I am so sick of dudebros acting like it's better than female-empowering Magical Girl works aimed at girls, or how whenever I or somebody else critiques the storytelling and message we just get told "Madoka is perfectly feminist actually and if you don't think so then you're just too stupid to understand how DEEEEEEEP it is go back to your stupid sweet and fluffy anime that's for GUUUUURLS" or alternatively "oh so female characters can't ever suffer ever and have to be happy all the time ever or it's misogynistic trash?!?!?!?! check and mate bitch" like I am just so tired. I'm glad to see your posts even though some of them are quite old. I have to say thank you once again for your genuine critique of Madoka because at this point I feel like I'm being punked whenever I talk about what's wrong with it.

Sorry! I saw this earlier and completely forgot to answer!

My few posts have given me a reputation as a Madoka hater (and, fair enough, because I certainly don't blame anyone who is. Please hate Madoka all you like). The truth is I really do like the original show quite a bit, but YEAH.

YEAH.

I think the thing that gets most exhausting for me, over and over, is bringing up these criticisms and being told, "No! Because Madoka fixed all that!" and even ignoring Rebellion (which I am inclined to do anyway), the girls still die.

They die.

The happy ending is a montage of girls dying. Which is a happy ending only because what they were getting before (specifically as a consequence of choosing to be a magical girl) was a fate worse than death.

And it's worth noting how the incubators are portrayed. They aren't portrayed as malicious. They aren't "evil" in that sense. What they are is practical and indifferent. They are taking advantage of inherent factors in the universe, not creating those factors.

Which means that there's something about PMMM that is saying, this is reality. At least in this fiction, this is the reality of femininity. And it is inherent to femininity! Kyubey even explains - it's weird! But only teen girls are like this! That's why we use them!

I think it's fair to be like, hey, that's fucked up. What kind of gender essentialist fatalism? Bro?

And it's also just denial to pretend it isn't about fanservice or a male audience.

As anyone who's been on my blog recently will know, I'm kinda super into Love Live! right now. It's cute. It scratches an itch.

And there's a lot of plausible deniability built into it, and a lot of pushback from English speaking fandom about it, but, uh, Love Live! is an idol game but it's also a waifu collector.

It's also a catalogue of nonthreateningly sexual anime teenage girls specifically designed to appeal first and foremost to lonely awkward Japanese young working men with disposable income.

And, idk, knowing that doesn't impede my ability to find it cute and wholesome and fun and escapist. The fact that it is that does lead to some of creative decisions that make the series less fun for me (it's not very diverse, for example. The yuri elements are subtext for another. And I either wish the girls were less sexualized or older, personally). But I'm not going to deny what it is.

I'm not even particularly interested in shaming the men its aimed at for liking it, or shaming the creators for making it that way per se (well, okay, sometimes I am interested in shaming the creators a lil bit). But I do think most the things about it that read as feminist to me as an American read that way because I am so far outside the original intended subculture. And I think the same is true about Madoka. You can absolutely read feminist messages in it. I certainly do. But placing these works in their original contexts tells a very different much more... regressive? picture. They were not made for women and girls. They are not made to uplift women and girls. They CAN! And they DO! Both in Japan and elsewhere! But that's anywhere from (at best) a secondary market to (at worst) a complete accident.

It's hard for some people to wrap their heads around because in America at least I think the idea of a "cute" (even if that's subverted in Madoka) media starring a large cast of only girls being for men is pretty alien to how we do stories and marketing. Here we understand playboy magazines and swimsuit editions, but we don't understand men collecting merch of a cute fictional girl they like. It would be seen as emasculating.

We understand the reverse. We get that boy bands and anime like Free! can be aimed squarely at women while being comprised entirely of men or male characters. Which is part of why I'm not shaming the male audiences, because... desiring anime tiddy isn't inherently predatory anymore than a lady desiring anime ass. And that's a crass way of putting it anyway. We don't frame hanging a boy band poster up that way, or playing a game like Mystic Messenger. It becomes more complicated because we live in a complicated patriarchal structure that protects and empowers men and women differently and unequally, but that seems like a poor reason to try to tell individual men they aren't allowed to enjoy things in a way that is obviously natural and parallels how... most humans like to enjoy some things sometimes.

But that also doesn't mean we can't look at those broad cultural patterns and... make observations. And have criticisms. And talk about how it affects people, and the back and forth between media and culture.

But, Madoka is for men first. The girls' suffering is a form of male gaze, and pretty unambiguously a kind of very very softcore torture porn for male gamer types. That's not a judgment against it, that's just its literal intended share of the market. It's a pretty easy read if you understand the context in which it was released and the culture it is coming from and catering to. My Little Pony is a little girls toy franchise. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sells toys to boys. Home & Gardens is for housewives. Top Gear is for car dads. These are true even if other people like them. When an adult fan of children's cartoons (I say, as an adult fan of children's cartoons) tries to say, "But it's not really a kids cartoon!" I feel about the same way I do when a feminist fan of some clearly male-centric media says, "But it's not really!"

And that's - own your shit. Own it. It's fine. It's fine to like it. It's fine to love it. It's fine if it means the world to you. It doesn't mean there's something wrong with you if you like a media that maybe isn't the most mature or progressive masterpiece out there. Just don't pretend there's no validity in obvious criticism. I love some real garbage made by real garbage people. I have survived.

Madoka exists in a fictional universe where the laws of that fictional universe are that 1) girls are uniquely emotional, 2) that emotion and their own aspirations can easily be harnessed against them in such a way that in the best possible universe all it does it kill them. In the normal universe it turns them into evil witches. That's just true. That's the world. I'm allowed to look at that, especially in conversation with magical girl media that came before, and go, "you know what? in that context, that's pretty fucked up" and it doesn't even mean that I stop liking the show, so I don't see why everyone else has to get so defensive about it.

(Y'all have no idea. Those posts are old now, but I got so many asks. I had to block so many people. I'm not trying to take your precious anime away calm down.)

Idk if I completely agree with the tone of my original posts - there's a little bit of offhanded vilifying of "men" as a shorthand for... all the bullshit... and I no longer love that language. I love men. Men are people. Some men can be shitty, but shitty individual men and patriarchy aren't the same. But I do still agree with all my broad points.

Plus, yes, also. The thing of a new (often male) fanbase getting into something you've been into for a long time with some new entry and acting like it both invented and fixed everything about the genre (PMMM and magical girls, Friendship is Magic and girl cartoons, Stardew Valley and farming sims) is frustrating, and to hear many an incurious nerd tell it, magical girls were floundering before Madoka! And I hate that.

Anyway, oops, I went on a little rant. That still makes it look like I don't like Madoka. I actually really do like the original series. I have rewatched it multiple times and probably will again. I even tried to play Magia Record (briefly - I couldn't really get into it). I can't speak to the many many spinoff media - but those have so many different writers and so much different lore that I think it'd probably be hard to try to pin any kind of single ethos to the franchise as a whole any more. But while I couldn't get into Magia Record I'd bet there's a short manga story or something that I'd love at this point. When you make like 200 magical girls or whatever that's bound to happen.

Thanks for the ask. Sorry Madoka fans are still so hyper defensive apparently. I hope you are able to survive them and find some better magical girl series out there. <3

[skaruresonic]

While I'm out here tossing spicy onions, I'll go on and say the reason stuff like IDW and Frontiers (and even Daniel Barnes' stories to a lesser extent) have me feeling colder than I want to is because the "Sonic is anime" approach still feels a little reductive towards the series' overall identity. While I like anime, I also don't think Sonic is Literally Shounen. To me, Literally Anime would be something like Ace Attorney or Danganronpa, which were drawn and written in explicitly anime-leaning styles. You can see there is an almost direct influence. And even then, their nature as video games would make that a tad debatable due to the added interactivity. People have been beating the "Sonic wants to be an anime" drum for quite some time, and it's like, if Sonic really wanted to be an anime, it would have been an anime by now. And I don't mean Sonic X or the OVA, those are just offshoots in much the same manner SatAM and Boom are... I mean Sonic would have been an anime from conception. It wouldn't have been a video game. You can't just ignore the video game part. Despite being made by Japanese creators and therefore harboring Japanese sensibilities - which still wouldn't equate to "anime," lmao - Sonic isn't that anime in the grand scheme of things. It's not DBZ with a vague furry coat of paint slapped on. It's a melting pot of influences which create something unique. Like it or not, cartoons also factor into Sonic's core design. It's just that during the Pontaff era, they leaned a bit too far in that direction. But I also don't think discarding the cartoon part of the franchise's identity in favor of a more shounen one makes for a properly balanced art shift.

We also have to ask ourselves what kind of anime Sonic is, because it can just as easily be moe as it is shounen. Yet somehow Ghibli doesn't come up nearly as often as DBZ in these discussions.

[jcmarchi]

Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble Preview - Bringing Monkey Ball Back In 2024 - Game Informer

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/super-monkey-ball-banana-rumble-preview-bringing-monkey-ball-back-in-2024-game-informer/

Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble Preview - Bringing Monkey Ball Back In 2024 - Game Informer

Last month, I had a chance to play Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble, the first all-new entry in the Super Monkey Ball (SMB) franchise in more than a decade. While I went into the demo skeptical that the series, which experienced its best years in the early-to-mid 2000s, could feel like a modern experience in 2024, I emerged from the demo impressed by the gameplay improvements, single-player level design, and the game’s approach to multiplayer (you can read my full preview here). 

Shortly after the preview, I had a chance to dig deeper into Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble with several of the developers behind Ryu Ga Gotoku’s franchise that isn’t about the seedy underbelly of the Japanese organized crime to learn how the team worked to modernize the franchise while still remaining true to its roots.

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Recently, we’ve received some remakes and remasters, but no new entry for many years. Why did the franchise take such a long break?

Nobuhiro Suzuki, Producer: We believe this is the result of a combination of factors. Whether it was due to development resources being refocused towards other large titles, the creators leaving the company, sales numbers, and more, the SMB development line disappeared and there was a period of time when production came to a halt. However, after releasing two remakes, Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz HD in 2019 and Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania in 2021, and after receiving positive feedback from our fans, we decided to release a completely new title, Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble. We hope fans are excited to play this first brand new entry in over a decade!

With that unique position in mind, what were the primary goals of Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble?

NS: Following the release of those two remakes, Banana Blitz HD and Banana Mania, our goal is to firmly establish the revival of the SMB franchise with this completely new title. To that end, we set out to make a new entry that firmly inherits or captures the best qualities of past SMB titles while also feeling like an all-new game with 16-player online battles, refined game and character designs, and the addition of new characters and storylines. 

With such a big gap between the last all-new, non-remake/remaster release, were there any updates to the design and gameplay best practices that needed to be applied to this latest entry to ensure it feels modern in 2024?

Daisuke Takahata, Director: Based on the data we pulled, such as the number of people who cleared each world of Banana Mania and comments from various playtests, we updated the game with a level of challenge that new players (as well as longtime fans) will enjoy. Compared to the past titles, the difficulty level of the early worlds is now milder (in previous games, things were too difficult right from the beginning). We also made it so that the first time you boot the game, you will be taken to a tutorial that will help you learn how to play the game and use the controls. The same goes for the camera, where we made some small adjustments to the default settings to help make things feel smoother. Players will also be able to fine-tune these settings in the Options menu, which we think longtime fans will appreciate.

The physics in Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble feel good. How did the team go about overhauling the physics, and how did you know you got them just right?

Jack Ko, Programmer: Banana Rumble’s physics actually builds upon those in Banana Mania, which in turn was based heavily on the original GameCube version’s physics. We made special adjustments to the movement in the previous game to make it viable as a remake, but thanks in part to comments from fans, we were made aware of a few elements that might contribute to some of that unintuitive behavior caused by the physics in Banana Mania. With Banana Rumble being a new entry to the series and having its own new stages, it means that this time around, we were able to focus on making the movement feel simpler and more intuitive.

Additionally, the physics system is extensively parameterized, meaning that designers can make adjustments to different parts of it on the fly. With internal testing happening at least once a week during development, tweaks were made incrementally and whenever needed. We knew we had it right when anyone could just pick it up and be able to immediately roll out like a pro.

Why was the Spin Dash such an important inclusion in this entry? What do you think it most adds to the experience?

NS: In creating this all-new game, we wanted to add the right technique that would give users a wider range of play and challenge. Also, in order to implement the 16-player battles, we needed something that would really emphasize the user’s technique so they can overcome the competition. As a result, the Spin Dash was implemented. While the Spin Dash is simple to perform, we believe it adds a lot to the game; for beginners, it’s an exhilarating element that allows them to sprint and bounce off obstacles, and for advanced players, it can serve as a way to find shortcuts and quickly reach the goal. We are very pleased how players have been responding to it.

This question may be better asked to the localization team, but with the Super Monkey Ball franchise so reliant on puns and wordplay related to bananas, did the team ever consider calling it “Peel Out” instead of “Spin Dash?”

NS: To be honest, we didn’t think about it at all. [Laughs] We wanted to make it easier for users to understand just by looking at the name, so we made it straight out “Spin Dash.”

When creating a level in Adventure mode, what factors must be considered to create an effective stage?

Yukio Oda, Designer: As for “what elements,” our basic idea is to combine “various elements” in a complex and effective manner. For example, if we break down a stage into smaller pieces, you can see that the “path” includes various elements such as “thickness,” “curve,” “slope,” “moving path,” and so on. Depending on how these parts are combined, the stage can be easy or difficult, interesting or boring. The Monkey Ball team has a lot of expertise in these combinations, all accumulated over many years with the series, and we always aim to create an interesting stage based on that know-how. But the first step in creating a single stage starts with the inspiration of the stage designer.

How does the team balance fun with challenge when designing stages?

YO: The stages created by our stage designers are regularly playtested by dozens of people inside and outside the team. Not only do we pick up a variety of opinions, but we also analyze data such as the percentage of clear rates and times, and we are constantly making adjustments to make the stages even better. We are also strongly aware that the Monkey Ball series has been characterized by its contrast between having very easy stages and very challenging stages. Sometimes, even if a playtester finds that a stage is deemed “too difficult,” there are cases where we end up leaving it the way it is. However, we are always pleasantly surprised when, after launch, we see users uploading videos showing how they were able to complete extremely difficult stages with ease. 

The stages I played were very enjoyable and sometimes over-the-top, but they were just in the first two worlds. How wild should players expect the challenges in Adventure mode to become?

DT: We are glad you enjoyed the early stages of the game! As we announced, there are 200 all-new stages to be found in Banana Rumble’s Adventure Mode, all spread across different worlds. The final world, in particular, has a variety of exciting gimmicks waiting for players, which will prove challenging even for fans who started with the previous titles. Stay tuned for a “very wild” challenge!

Can you talk to me about the process of designing the Battle modes? They bring such enjoyable twists on the Super Monkey Ball formula, and I’ve always found the minigames/side modes to be as enjoyable as the main Adventure mode.

YO: Thank you very much! When it comes to the game design of Battle Mode, we paid close attention to how “control” and “sense of speed” were expressed during gameplay, as they are key characteristics of this series. We also took care to ensure that the skills players learned and improved upon by playing through Adventure Mode can be utilized in Battle Mode as well. One of the main features of this game is its emphasis on “ease of understanding” – basically, we made sure not to make the rules overly complicated when adding any twists and turns, so players are able to enjoy themselves.

Where would you like to see the Super Monkey Ball franchise evolve from here? Do you think there is a place for multiple releases in a shorter time window than we’ve seen in recent eras?

NS: First of all, as a basic premise, we will continue to carry on the fun and originality the SMB series is known for, and make sure SMB fans can fully enjoy their time with it. On top of that, we would like to evolve the series to a level that offers something that incorporates a variety of exciting new ways to play that is altogether unique to Sega. With the support of our players, we believe we will be able to continue to release new games on a regular basis. We would really appreciate everyone’s support for Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble and the Super Monkey Ball series!

Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble arrives on Switch on June 25. For more on the upcoming series revival, head here to read our full, hands-on impressions.

[earlgraytay]

As someone who, general interest wise at least, has a foot in both STEM and art - do these STEM people not realize that one of the main factors that gives art value is the person who created it? And I’m not just talking the big names that sell for millions at auction. I mean the small creators and hobbyists and fanartists too. I follow the artists I do because I enjoy the individual personality they put into their works, or the way a particular artist interprets a specific subject. And that is something an AI will *never* be able to replicate.

Yeah.

I get the feeling that in the future, specific AI will be able to develop A Personality in the same way? And a lot of people like AI art right now because of its weird, hallucinogenic style, which is itself its own kind of personality.

But again: I think the aptest comparison with AI visual art is synthesized instruments, autotune, and Vocaloids. Synthesized instruments have not made physical instruments obsolete. Autotune is ubiquitous in modern music, but it's gotten good enough that unless you're a singer it's easy to not notice it. And Vocaloids cannot replace human singers- the industries that churn through hundreds of human singers per year have not replaced them with Vocaloids.

AI-generated art lowers the barrier to entry to make a pleasing visual image, in the same way that synthesized instruments lower the barrier to entry to make pleasing music. A kid who doesn't know anything about music theory can hop onto LMMS or Vocaloid5 and make a song that sounds okay after a few hours of fucking around. Similarly, a kid who doesn't know anything about art technique can hop onto Dall-E or CrAIyon and make a visual image that looks okay after a little bit of fucking around.

A lot of music producers nowadays cut their teeth on synthesized video game remixes; in particular, a lot of Japanese music producers spent some time in the fanloid scene. But most of those artists, for one reason or another, use real instruments and real singers in their work eventually.

AI-generated art and AI-assisted art are tools. AI art is a tool that artists of all skill levels can use, and it's a tool that most artists will eventually want to move past.

[dizzydennis]

Sonic x Metal Sonic Cover Story!

Translator note: I am not totally fluent in Japanese so please understand that my translations are not perfect, but I hope you can enjoy this fun story. Any constructive criticism is appreciated.

Deep within Dr. Eggman’s abandoned, secret lab... a robot connected to a database booted up made note of the current situation. The evaluation was as followed:

[[Current status... "unfavorable"]]

While this robot was in rest for maintenance, Dr. Eggman was once again defeated by Sonic. Yet again, “he” was unable to rush to protect his master from crisis.

The same amount of bitterness stirred inside him... or perhaps even more.

It longed for the opportunity to defeat Sonic.

This mechanical piece of intelligence was known as “Metal Sonic” and it was created for the sole purpose of destroying Sonic. It continued to analyze the situation:

[[Current status is "unfavorable"]]

☆ ★ ☆

"Speed ​​Highway" is a super-three-dimensional highway that runs through a plethora of high-rise buildings.

It has many acceleration lanes such as the “360-degree rotating loop” that rises to the sky and a corkscrew that stretches into a large spiral. It attracts the souls of speed enthusiasts everywhere!

Sonic was running around in good spirits as he hummed to himself.

CRASH!!

Suddenly, something attacked Sonic head-on! He barely avoided it as the road just ahead turned into a pile of rubble from such a shattering impact. Sonic let out a gleeful grin.

“I’m worried. You didn’t damage yourself with that stunt, did ya, Metal?”

It was, in fact, Metal Sonic that stood up from the rubble.

Metal gave a piercing, sharp gaze towards Sonic. Within a second, he quickly closed the gap between the two of them while pointing his left hand to Sonic.

“Hey! Isn’t that--!?”

It was the flickering of a Chaos Emerald. Metal’s other hand pointed to the innermost parts of Speed Highway. It was unwavering.

Sonic instantly understood what Metal Sonic meant.

“You’re gonna bet that in a competition against me? That doesn’t seem very fair now, does it?”

Sonic then took out his all of the Chaos Emeralds he had on him.

“Alright, Metal! This is for real then. All or nothing!”

In an instant, two blue shadows dashed out onto the street, illuminated by the lights of the skyscrapers at dusk. The race that moved faster than the speed of sound had begun!

☆ ★ ☆

As the sound barrier was broken, the rush of wind echoed through the elevated roads that were cast as a valley between the buildings.

A corkscrew twisted down from a 360-degree loop as it curved to the right and then to the left. It then went into a spiral that took them up and down and all around.

Sonic lightly traced across the road’s surface as he felt enthralled by the difficult course of the Speed Highway. Metal Sonic was able to glide across the road with the use of a jet engine.

The race continued with the two hedgehogs barely gaining a step on each other, but a big change occurred in the middle of the course. A super long and sharp curve came out after a speedy decent. Metal Sonic decided to engage in some close combat before this area.

He boosted forward as his body entered this shocking, electromagnetic state. It was a sudden attack, but Sonic was able to avoid it. He must have read his moves. Metal Sonic’s energy output temporarily dropped at the end of the boost as he slowed down; just as planned. He could clear the curve with just the right amount of speed. Sonic had to slow down here too and Metal Sonic had nothing to lose!

Everything was going fine, but at that moment, Sonic was speeding up and approaching fast. Metal Sonic’s thoughts became fragmented if only for a moment.

[[......!?]]

Sonic, as he started to tumble off the side of the course due to his great speed, had put his hand out and grabbed Metal Sonic’s head, curved inward, and accelerated towards the inner-section of the course. He pushed Metal downwards and perfectly made the curve.

“My bad!”

Metal Sonic, who managed to regain his posture, raised his face, he saw Sonic running far ahead.

Metal Sonic tried to analyze the situation

[[Current status... "unfavorable"]]

☆ ★ ☆

Metal Sonic continued to analyze everything while giving chase. He had never won again Sonic ever since their first battle. He was built for the best performance and had a tireless, steel body. There were many factors of his creation that should have meant he was unbeatable.

But I can never win.

Why? Why... it’s just a hedgehog that runs fast...

Right at that moment,

A buzz of electricity rippled through the robot’s AI and it’s train of thought.

Is it because it’s not just “fast.”

 [[............!]]

Why was this robot made to resemble Sonic?

Perhaps, the creator, Dr. Eggman, created this body simply to not waste time creating it, but to also be a replacement to Sonic.

It was created for that specific purpose. There’s something that had to be done.

Metal cut all non-essential parts such as “fire control” and the “electromagnetic spark capacitors.” All systems were set on full power to “Speed.” Metal sharpened and gutted himself on the inside.

A moment later, a creature of blue steel, which had become the pure concept of a new “Metal Sonic” began to chase after Sonic the Hedgehog.

☆ ★ ☆

Meanwhile, Sonic had already taken notice that something had changed with Metal Sonic. The distance between them was gradually getting shorter.

Metal Sonic was purely a machine. There’s no way to know what it could even be thinking about. However, Sonic could sometimes tell. He could sense Metal Sonic’s joy, willpower, and unhealthy obsession towards victory.

“Looks like things are heating up!”

Sonic sped up even more, with a serious expression, muttered words of amazement while suppressing a grin that was continuously rising to his mouth.

“Heh, you don’t feel like you’re getting burned out?”

It was a straight line from the left-twisting, half-corkscrew to the goal. Below, you could see the surface of the city piercing upwards. The two blue streaks sped up the outside of a vertical skyscraper.

The goal was just around the corner. Sonic was in the lead.

Metal Sonic’s AI became fully aware at this point. It would not win at this rate.

How can it win!? Perhaps it could increase the output from the jet propulsion unit a little more, but where there even enough resources to do so...!?

☆ ★ ☆

"...?"

Just a few hundred meters from the goal.

Right then, Sonic couldn’t understand what happened.

Metal Sonic pulled out to Sonic at an impossibly fast speed! A dazzling seven-colored light erupted from Metal’s chest as a bright red flame with black smoke gushed out of the jet exhaust hole on his back. Parts and debris flew off of him in a violent roar.

“Metal...!?”

That’s right. Metal Sonic absorbed and utilized Chaos Energy! However, the power of the Chaos Emeralds was not stable and was very uncontrollable.

While speeding ahead, Metal lost his balance and collapsed.

Upon seeing this, Sonic tried to call out...

In a single moment, Metal was swallowed the the seven bright lights as they were then engulfed by smoke. Metal Sonic turned into a glowing red bulb.

The explosion sent an impact out that knocked Sonic back. As he looked up to the sky...

Against the backdrop of the night sky, Metal Sonic’s scattered body parts, which drew a trail of red flames alongside shimmering shards of window glass seemed to fly by in slow motion.

For a single moment, Sonic thought it was strangely beautiful.

Immediately after, Sonic got to his feet while being shocked at the explosion sounds that came soon after. When suddenly...

Metal Sonic’s upper body, which only had the torso, head, and right arm attached had crashed to the floor. As it made attempts to crawl towards the goal. The efforts proved too exhausting as he soon stopped dead in his tracks... just 10 meters away.

Shortly after, Sonic begrudgingly crossed the finish line; putting this little game to an end.

A Chaos Emerald flew towards Sonic. As he caught it, he looked back with a unique and serious expression. Metal Sonic had tossed the emerald with the last of his power.

[[......!!]]

Metal Sonic jumped to restrain Sonic as he approached with his fiery eyes.

Sonic felt as if Metal Sonic was saying that it’s impossible for two people to have crossed the finish line.

The damage that Metal Sonic had taken wasn’t as bad as Sonic had expected.

Sonic spoke in his usual tone, feeling uncomfortable with how relieved the situation felt.

“It was a good race.”

As Sonic let out his remarks, he never turned back and said,

“I’ll be waiting for a rematch.”

☆ ★ ☆

The defeated Metal Sonic was analyzing the current situation.

This time, it was an utter defeat.

Metal tried to re-calibrate all of his resources, but still couldn’t win.

Metal Sonic tried to sharpen his strengths, but it was all too late. In the end, he lacked a way to channel his resources and self-destructed.

....However,

it should be noted that an unprecedented performance was achieved this time.

 Even with the final Chaos Emerald, considering that the race would have been lost regardless, it wasn’t necessarily a bad move... but a more detailed analysis is to be postponed.

A rescue signal was already issued. Aid was available and recovery could be achieved at Eggman’s base. If Metal connected to the base’s main computer and analyzed today’s data, he can definitely win next time. There is room to not only improve speed, but also inhibitory behaviors and attack patterns.

I can still reach a tier of being and there will others who can surpass or fall victim to that tier!

At the moment, Metal Sonic was forced into a deep sleep mode due to a drop in his voltage energy. His ability to think dropped rapidly and Metal Sonic obtained an analysis result that was unbiased and unemotional.

 [[Status is... “favorable."]] 

[yurimother]

LGBTQ Light Novel Review — I'm in Love with the Villainess

A stunningly profound, entertaining, and queer title that eclipses other isekai and Yuri series

There are few titles the general public seems to be as excited about as Inori and Hanagata's I'm in Love with the Villainess, as it has been sitting at or near the top of Amazon's LGBT Manga list for months and Twitter is consistently abuzz with the latest news on this isekai Yuri series. I was somewhat more skeptical, as I have had relatively poor experiences with isekai and fantasy Yuri. Still, my excitement went through the room, and I eagerly boarded the "hype train" upon the cover reveal for the third volume. Yuri families, where two women raise children together, are one of my greatest desires and something I rarely see portrayed in the genre. However, I still had mostly low expectations for the series going into the first volume. I looked forward to some light meandering comedy and typical boring trope-filled isekai shenanigans. However, I'm in Love with the Villainess more than exceeded my expectations. No, even this statement is far too moderate to describe how utterly stunned and blown away I was by Inori's creation. I'm in Love with the Villainess is completely shattering and easily one of the greatest light novels I have ever read. Thus, I have no choice to award a perfect 10/10 score, my first ever for a light novel.

After waking up in the world of her favorite otome game, Revolution, protagonist Rae is ecstatic to be faced to face with Claire Francois, the game's villainous rival. However, Rae never played Revolution for the thrill of romancing any of the three attractive young princes. She was always in love with Claire. She attends the academy and studies magic in the fantasy world alongside Claire, the princes, and various other supporting characters. Using her skills from the modern world and her encyclopedic knowledge of Revolution, Rae manipulates the situation to be close to Claire, becoming her maid, and garnering status and money along the way. As an inevitable conflict looms closer, Rea begins to enact plans to protect herself and Claire, many of which are not fully understood or explained until the finale fantastically reveals the reasons for her actions. There is a natural and steady pace to the narrative that awards readers’  predictions and attention to detail.

I'm in Love with the Villainess has some excellent supporting characters, all of whom have unique personalities, histories, and abilities, some of which are revealed by Rae's exposition and others naturally throughout the novel. However, the stars of the show are the central couple, Rae and Claire. Claire is an elite aristocrat and extremely bratty. She often sneers at commoners and makes her disdain of Rae very clear from early on. On paper, she sounds like the perfect villain and someone all readers would despise. However, Rae's utter devotion and infatuation with Claire is so sincere that we cannot help but be pulled in and adore Claire and all her tantrums. Rae is a delight herself, continually flirting and poking fun at Claire, which gets her verbally berated, much to her masochistic pleasure. However, she is also exceptionally cunning and intelligent, and some of the light novel's greatest joys are listening to her analyze a situation or watching one of her plans fall into place.

“Ah, I’m… Well, it doesn’t matter. I mean, it’s irrelevant to cuteness—because, Miss Claire, you are cute.” “Huh?!” She pulled away. It was perfect—such a pure reaction. “Miss Claire, you hate me, right?” “Of course!” “That’s fine. Please keep teasing me. I love it.”

The beginning of the book does not immediately clue one into its brilliance. Sure, Claire and Rea get some great one-liners as they bully each other, and the scenarios are authentic and fun, but it is nothing shattering. I was feeling pretty relaxed and having a lot of fun with the characters, their relationship, and the various slice-of-life style scenarios they encountered until one section, I remember the exact page, 81, as it stopped me dead in my tracks. I was flabbergasted and briefly frozen before shooting up out of bed, shouting expletives as I ran to my office to immediately record what I had just experienced. It all begins with the line, "Hey, Rae. Are you what they call gay?" What followed was one of the most thoughtful, condensed, informative, and nuanced discussions of gay and queer identity (both terms used in this scene) I have ever seen in Yuri. Everything from representation in media, the perceptions of and prejudices against gay people, and the role gender plays in romance for bisexual and gay people are analyzed. Its commentary is succinct yet so respectful and forthright that it could have only come from genuine experience, thus selling the book and its characters so much more.

"Queer people were still overwhelmingly closeted in this world, which was rife with prejudice and nurtured little understanding. As I noted, the queer people depicted in the story were either the sex fiends Claire imagined or the free-loving sort Lene had in mind. Diversity and acceptance were a long way off.”

Thus, Inori's writing's beauty exposed itself, and the book opened itself up to a delightful cycle. The narrative masterfully integrates isekai slice-of-life hijinks, like running a cross-dressing café or battling a giant slime with nuanced and challenging moments that dissect complicated topics. The latter mainly consists of a growing rift between the aristocracy and common people, mirroring real-world wealth gap issues, but the novel also touch on matters such as unequal prison sentencing and segregation. Every scene helped further the complexity of the characters and their relationships or else built onto the world of Revolution. Speaking of which, I'm in Love with the Villainess has some of the best worldbuilding ever seen in a light novel.

Initially, brief exposition establishes much of the world, which is adequate if not exciting. I will mark up to a casualty of the light novel's serialized nature, as it must present readers its setting immediately. However, Inori does not stop here. Through the narrative, new elements are established, such as a magic system and the kingdom's politics. Rea notes and describes how the world, while clearly based on medieval Europe, has many modern Japanese attributes, as Japanese game developers created it. Her pointing out the intersection of the two is fascinating. Furthermore, A great deal of time is spent establishing characters and organizations all have their own wants, agendas, and methods, many of which are not even directly involved with the story. Instead, they act as a background and help further contextualize others. For example, the Church publicly appears to lean towards supporting the commoners in their efforts for equality but has its own agenda of superseding the nobility. While they play little role in Rea and Claire’s adventure, they are one of numerous factors contributing to the unrest of the lower class. All these additions are interesting, and it never feels like the story or characters suffer for their inclusion, quite the opposite.

“The Bauer Kingdom had started a step behind other countries when it came to magical research. They dominated the surrounding countries in military strength, and this had made them complacent, leading them to underestimate the value of new magic technology until the best researchers had all been enticed to other countries. Even after the king came up with his magic-focused meritocratic policy, Bauer lagged behind.”

I can only make complaints by scraping the very bottom of the barrel. Hanagata's beautiful art is too infrequent to add much to the light novel, and many scenes crying for illustrations are left to the readers' imagination. However, Inori so wonderful writes the story that one hardly cares and can easily picture every moment with delight. Besides, the manga adaption will nullify this issue. Where I cannot complain at all is the spectacular translation by Jenn Yamazaki and Nibedita Sen, one of Seven Seas best (which is high praise considering the competition). Sure, I was slightly disappointed at first to see the adaptation left off honorifics, but the more I thought about the setting, the more sense it made. I am sure people much smarter than I gave the issue much more consideration, and I am happy with their decisions.

I'm in Love with the Villainess left me reeling with how pleasurable and powerful it was. The story and characters are such a joy, and I cannot wait to see Rea and Claire bully each other again in the next volume. Astounding worldbuilding and powerful, thought-provoking politics surround their antics and the high stakes plot. Every moment of their journey will enthrall readers as they squeal with glee at its hilarious set pieces or are shocked by its commentary of society's most significant challenges. Inori has created one of the most delightful, heartfelt, complex, profound, and genuinely queer light novel series ever. If you only read one thing I recommend this year, let it be I'm in Love with the Villainess.

Ratings: Story — 9 Characters — 10 Art — 5 LGBTQ — 10 Sexual Content — 2 Final — 10

Review copy provided by Seven Seas Entertainment

Purchase I’m in Love with the Villainess in digitally (9/23) and in print (11/10) today: https://amzn.to/32NEyG1

Supports creators by purchasing official releases.

[pseudonymphomania]

How Many DiaLucis Am I Holding Up; An Interrogation of the Story-Telling in Obey Me Within the Context of Diavolo and Lucifer's Friendship

Me? An Idol Apologist? 🥺😭 Damn... that is a very surprising statement but thank you for saying so.

There’s really a lot I want to say, but I’ll try and keep it as short as I can make it. (newsflash, it's still pretty damn long)

Writers decisions: I feel like there is absolutely no nuance; with this game now rated 10+ (and even as low as 6+ in some other countries), much of it reads like the LOLrandom kind of anime writing that enchanted me when I was much younger. OG sits like a monolith framed by the setting sun since the company has now made their money back on it and are trying to float the new game, and in my opinion, flanderizing the characters even more than their foundational archetypes. Diavolo slathering Lucifer with praise is like Beel saying he’s hungry, just like how Lucifer is almost perpetually annoyed even when he doesn't have to be. The characters feel like skeletons of themselves sometimes and that begs the question of whether I can still enjoy something despite its agonizing qualities, but I can hardly blame the writers for the problems of corporate systems and investor meddling. At one point the chapters were coming out every seven(?) days, which I consider to be an untenable pace for something that deserves more thorough thought, and then the events on top of that with four days in between each one. Honestly, I’m surprised the story is even readable with that kind of punishing workload (written in Japanese and translated to other languages, and encoded by programmers into the underlying system).

Harassment: ok, this may be surprising, but hear me out; I find I actually don’t really agree with this assessment. It’s a really common sentiment among the fandom community and I found myself thinking about Dia's praise in those terms too, but it didn't feel right to me so I had to interrogate why. What makes something harassment is the perception that it is harassment by the person being subjected to it and I find that people often put Lucifer into that sort of framework and ignore interpersonal relationship and extenuating factors and assume he is uncomfortable because it would be harassment for us in the real world with our boss that we don’t like. It forgoes the fact that Lucifer arguably has the most agency in the entire story even despite his propensity to be forced into a corner to make certain decisions for plot-related reasons, especially against MC. Suffice to say, I actually don’t find him in discomfort like he’s a long-suffering heroine. I see him annoyed at anything that upsets the status quo and not Diavolo in-specific, only as someone who cares about his personal image and the way he projects himself [pride], fighting against the nonsense of his brothers antics or Diavolo’s youthful fun 101 ideas etc, playing up his old-man-yelling-at-the-clouds personality that the creators have given him. Even in the egregious Shout Your Heart Out card, where Diavolo slathered his praises ridiculously, Lucifer only commented "Another ridiculous game..."(Fabsnap) but never commented on what Diavolo was saying and was, in the end, pleased that Levi was getting into it. I made my comments on that card here which addresses a bunch of points you already made, but even with his "Good Grief..." in the DG, it is never about what Diavolo says. He only commented on it when his brothers did (when his self-image was called into question which is honestly typical Lucifer) but when asked by MC, Lucifer said "he [Diavolo] can do what he wants", indifferent, but not chagrined. People take Lucifer's lack of resistance despite his annoyance to mean that Diavolo has absolute power over Lucifer and that Lucifer can’t say no, but historically, Lucifer has said no to a lot. It’s almost his catch-phrase after "yare yare". It’s only Sometimes that Lucifer gives in at Diavolo’s insistence but, to be honest, so would I if a friend made requests of me, especially if I knew that they were a bit spoiled and lacked some crucial social skills, but especially because I enjoyed their company (which is explicitly stated as one of Lucifer’s major likes on his ID card in BOTH games) [and I have done this in real life so I can extrapolate!]. Lucifer is also quite rude to Diavolo in Nightbringer as well, and to me that isn’t the face of someone who is absolutely beholden. Even in OG, Lucifer's "subservience" was greatly influenced by the plot and he lost that thread when the plot no longer demanded it (he was even mad at Diavolo and tied him up at one point). A meta analysis of all of the above and my real-life experiences is why I don't think of it as harassment, but I can definitely agree that Diavolo's character is being assassinated and their canonical Friendship sabotaged. Regardless, it’s alright for every one of us to have different interpretations of things because we are all different people after all and there is never just one way to look at something. I quite like this post by Arvandus that goes into Diavolo’s psyche and almost seemed like they pulled it straight from my rotting brain.

Story-telling: Speaking of the S2 of Nightbringer, the plot itself leaves much to be desired. There are numerous storylines that the writers have dropped entirely in favor of randomness. Things hinted at don't come to fruition. There is no equal character treatment. (Satan's sin arc vs Levi's sin arc for example). Every now and then there is real build up, drama, and you get a hint that maybe things will be better written- oh. No not this time.... Oh! Oh... not this time either. (Like Chapter 37 and 38 of NB, the battle between Diavolo and Lucifer, the interpersonal drama and then it drops into “father actually LOVES us” even though there was the whole thing with Lilith that started this whole franchise… holy wow... retcon the entire narrative of the game why don't you?)

I'm a lover of good storytelling above all, so often I am left wondering how I am suppose to interpret the things that happen. Do I feel out the foreshadowing when the story always forgets its there? Do I read into the characters actions and words if both will/may be reversed in a future chapter? That is exactly what I mean when I feel like I have to hold back on what kind of foreshadowing I'm picking up, because just as often they drop the plotlines entirely. It feels like they're working up to a villainous Michael reveal and he could really be the mastermind and not father? Intrigue. But they are just as likely to explain it away like Barbatos' animosity toward Solomon about being 8th place on a list and it's really up in the air whether the filler shenanigans is hiding the True narrative and whether this game even needs to be that kind of complicated. Why would they need to double bluff you when they've been completely random with a lot of things lol but goddamn if I wasn't completely compelled by DIAVOLO kneeling and that carried enough weight for me that my brain worms knitted them a new suit.

I have so many thoughts about “ethics and morality and toxicity” in shipping, but that is literally a dissertation-length commentary so I won't; I'll make my own post about it someday (I even made an info-graphic!). I’ll end by saying that fandom seems to have become a place where we all must make statements that Beg the Question. We have to announce that we can see and know how an imaginary audience might see it as "problematic" before making our statements. Lets not do that. I’d rather my statements stand on their own and if I have to defend it then I will, but not before someone even has a chance to read it as a cohesive unalloyed thing.

As the game twists and turns in its own way, positively or negatively, I have decided that no matter what happens, I will enjoy my experience in my own world and be delighted whenever there are "hints". That doesn't mean I don't have criticisms, but if I care to still be here then I must find a way to be happy otherwise I will find something else to do with my limited time. Though, if the devs introduce a feedback form like that survey that they had last year, I'll definitely do my part to fill it in.

Anyway thank you for your reply. I didn't expect it, but it gave me the opportunity to be serious at something that is decidedly unserious and I enjoyed writing down my thoughts about it.

Medicine Taste Makeover

That is absolutely going to be the Devildom's equivalent of gummy vitamins and chocolate laxatives

That... actually explains a lot... #mood

I love it when they're like actual friends 🥺 BRAVO SOLMARE, BRAVO! More like this please!!!

I've been taking benadryl for several days in a row and having allergic reactions and I would really like that to stop now, please. *consumes a jar of Diavolo's medicinal candies and chugs it with Barbatos's tea*

[filmmakerdreamst]

Xena: Warrior Princess Review

During Pride Month 2020, I finally got around to watch ‘Xena’. A show that had been in my to-watch list for years, but never got around to start. And when I finally did, I was pleasantly surprised. It was not what I expected and it was everything I think my 11 year old self would have loved.

The one thing that surprised me about the show, was the lack of packaging. Even though it was a fantasy, it also played with different kinds of genres too. I’ve talked about this before in my other review - ‘Xena’ was made at a time when TV had very few rules/rarely had a set audience, since there were parts of the show that were clearly for kids and there were other parts that were clearly for adults (therefore had much more flexibility). I admired how they weren’t afraid to break barriers and touch on deep themes such as religion, morality, redemption, spirituality, motherhood, forgiveness etc - even more than shows of today are able. I also loved how they played into the idea of ‘murder’ and how much it can damage a person - not just the person who commits the act, but the many people affected afterwards. I wasn’t expecting it to be that extreme. It made me think that this must of been the inspiration for ‘Game of Thrones’. 

I see a lot of comments here and there, saying how ‘cheesy and terrible’ it was but to just accept it because its part of the fun. And while like any show it does suffer from the occasional spell of bad writing (the whole of season 5) but it was also shown to be very aware of that fact and never took itself too seriously - unlike some shows I could mention. 

And regarding the ‘cheese’ factor (what 90s show wasn’t) It definitely can be, but I would call it ‘camp’ and ‘experimental’ more than anything else. (Don’t diss the poor use of CGI - I’m personally sympathetic to what was avaliable to them at the time) The style of humour reminded me of Taika Waititi’s filmmaking. If you’ve watched any of his films such as ‘Hunt for The Wilderpeople’ or ‘Jojo Rabbit’, then you know what I’m talking about. I liked how little they cared about being accurate or logical, which added to the ‘bonkers’ element in the show - which you can see in all of Taika Waititi’s films.

In all seriousness, a show centered around two women in their late twenties, who are realistic sizes (not trying to play teenagers). One of whom is a reformed mass murderer, who has lived a life experience, trying to do good in the world for the first time, picking the other one up who has no life experience prior (after they bugged them until they said ‘ok fine’) in their path to redemption. Just two women who become friends travelling the world together, fighting crime, having a laff, learning from one another without any toxicity - when suddenly when the stakes are raised - they realise ‘oh I'm actually falling in love with this person’ I have watched a lot of badly written shows in my childhood enough to know that, that’s not ‘cheesy’. I’ve never seen a story like that in my entire life. I’m not at all surprised that Russel T Davis was inspired by it while writing the Doctor and Rose’s relationship in ‘Doctor Who’ since he’s gay himself.

What’s more amazing about their love story is how they’re both develop as separate people as well. There was this video essay explaining ‘Why you should watch Angel’ the spin off series to Buffy; how ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer ‘was all about growing up and ‘Angel’ was all about being an adult. With Xena: Warrior Princess, you have both of those stories at the same time. 

Xena’s character was such a multifaceted experience to watch. And I can’t imagine anyone else who could play her as well as Lucy Lawless. What planet did they get that actress from? She's flawless! The amount of skill she has to put herself into a very physical role is astonishing. I personally had a love/hate relationship with her character all series long. Not in the way that I hated her, just that I couldn’t trust if she was all good or bad, which I know was intentional on the writers part. I haven’t seen a character quite like her before. She felt very much like a fallen angel; almost like the villain of her own story. Some of my favourite episodes come from fleshing out her character and dark past (‘Locked up and Tied Down’ is one of them) which reminds the audience that's she's not the stereotypical hero everyone expects. I loved her transformation from being this incredibly stoic warrior to being content and happy with who she is in season six, all because of a woman she fell in love with along the way. 

I’ve always thought of Gabrielle as the real hero and narrator of ‘Xena’. She’s the prime example of ‘a normal person becoming extrodinary’. Gabrielle’s coming of age story starting out as an innocent girl from a poor village dreaming of adventure, and ending as this vicious warrior who realises the ‘adventure’ wasn’t how she made it out to be is honestly the best character arc that I’ve ever seen. I loved how travelling with Xena made her realise her passion for writing (which was never going to happen in her home town, given the ‘sexist’ and ‘heteronormative’ ideas) and that she became a amazon princess like Xena. In regards to her sexuality, which is more up for debate than Xena’s (which I think we can all agree is bisexual) I personally interpret her as gay, just in terms of how she was written. Theres this moment in season 4 where she's being held up her hair, and Xena “symbolically” cuts it off ‘freeing her’. And she never really gets with a man afterwards, unless she’s being ‘possessed. It reminded me of a moment in one of Hayao Miyasaki’s films ‘Laputa, Castle in the Sky’ where the bad guy Moska shoots Sheeta’s ‘princess hair off’ which symbolises her transition from child to adult.

The cinematography was breathtaking. There was some great utilisation of New Zealand as the scenery. So was the soundtrack. You could tell it was made by experienced filmmakers. One of my favourite things about the show was the domestic elements - moments in the show where time seemed to stop - which made the world around the characters seem very real and magical. Even though it was a show that featured a lot of action/adventure, there was also this gentleness to it as well. For example, you could feel the wetness of the rain, the warmth of the sun and the clashing of the waves. This technique is used in Hayao Miayasaki’s work a lot .

The technique is referred to as ‘MA’ 空虚 meaning emptiness in Japanese. ‘Miyasaki describes this as the time between a clap’

“If you just have non stop action, with no breathing space at all, its just busyness. But if you take a moment, then the tension building in the film can grow into a wider dimension” - Hayao Miyasaki

The episode ‘A Day in the Life’ in season two is a really good example of this technique being used.

To my understanding, they used a lot of the local actors in New Zealand, which according to Lucy Lawless, consisted of ‘African immigrants and other different ethnicites’. It was so refreshing to see such a diverse show (despite some slip ups) especially in the 90s. I appreciated the idea that if the actors or extras couldn’t do an ‘american accent’ people could just talk in their natural speech which was also very refreshing. 

The LGBT representation was surprisingly amazing. I never expected so many queer characters in one show - especially under the censors. There was this one episode where they had a trans woman - played by an actual trans actress - win a beauty contest. It made me cry. Not to mention the actress was an aids activist. It was actually Lucy Lawless’ idea to kiss her which was incredibly controversial at that time considering how everyone thought you could catch aids just by kissing. I can definitey see how it validated people back in the 90s.

When people told me that Xena: Warrior Princess was one of the greatest love stories, I thought they were exaggerating a little. But no, watching the show in context, I found out that it really is. Despite its obvious restrictions, It made me realise (regarding token gay couples today) how often television writers rely on physicality and drama to convey a ‘love story’ and how much of it is actually pandering the audience. One of the reasons why Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship felt so genuine is because it was built on mutual respect/compassion and they were also best friends. I felt like I was witnessing something very real and private. It didn’t need kissing scenes or drama to make it interesting. 

It really helped that most of the writers were queer also. There’s this opening scene in season 4, panning over to Gabrielle giving Xena a massage (metaphor for sex - because they weren’t able to show that on screen) which I consider to be one of the most iconic scenes in media - considering how I wanted to sick up my supper when I watched the 10 minute ‘empty’ explicit sex scene in ‘Blue in the Warmest Colour’. The difference when something is written by a queer women vs a straight man.

Because the creators weren’t allowed to write their love story in the normal way, due to the studio forbidding them to, they found creative ways to showcase that love on screen - which made for a very magical/sensual experience. And I can safely say, if anyone has doubts about watching ‘Xena’, whenever I expected to be queer baited at a few points in the show, I was proved wrong time and time again. It’s the most romantical show I’ve ever seen in my life!

[rigelmejo]

7/16/2021 - other stuff:

I started translating the simplified print version of Guardian that has additional scenes! I am not sharing it yet, but may in the future at some point. (Notes for future reference: taking a picture in good light with the page flat, depending on if needed upping contrast so its darker/lighter in photos, then opening in OCR in Pleco works pretty well at converting the text to digital so I can make notes and edit and look up words more easily. Also so far 1 page takes 1 hour to translate roughly so keep that in mind ToT).

I am yet again tempted to to a full on Listening Reading Method ‘test run.’ By that I mean: picking a novel, (step 1) reading in english, (step 2) reading in chinese with chinese audio (repeating as needed), (step 3) reading in english with chinese audio (repeating as needed), (step 4) listening to audio only. Yes I’m still debating if I’d do step 3, then step 2 - since I tend to flip which I do first depending on the day. Also debating if I ‘prep’ first by listening only (I could call it step 0). Also still debating if I’d do instead: step 0 listen only, step 1, step 2, step 3, ~step 2 again~, step 4 listen only. Basically I did tiny tests with The Little Prince, and I’ve done 20 chapters of Guardian so far (which did help) but Guardian is so long I end up varying how I do it each day into whatever way gets me TO do it and Guardian is so long it will be months until I know what ‘completing a book’ is like for the process. The original forum creator of L-R Method would do like 3-6 hour books or like 10 hour books. Guardian is... much longer. Also, if I pick a book both harder than The Little Prince (so there’s more vocab to learn) and easier than Guardian (so I can get to a natural listening stage faster) I wonder how much progress I’d make. Right now books I am considering for a ‘test method’ run are: Harry Potter 1 (simply because someone made parallel text with audiobook videos already so it is super convenient to do L-R Method, also the book has  2600 unique characters and 7700 unique words so I would likely reinforce my hanzi knowledge and learn maybe a couple hundred more, and likely increase my vocabulary by several hundred to a couple thousand depending on how much I focus, I’m fairly sure I can blow through it quickly the only limiting factor is like The Little Prince I am not sure if the reading level is low enough that I may not pick up significant amounts of new words compared to how many I pick up from Guardian - https://youtu.be/NLu0JW6VtGM). Sherlock Holmes - The Hound of Baskervilles (the book is 7.5 hours so not nearly as long as Guardian, I could probably L-R Method it in 2 weeks, the novel is written for adults and a mystery genre so genre-words I may find more useful to me while also probably having a bigger vocabulary than The Little Prince,  P74 巴斯克维尔的猎犬 01 audiobook - https://youtu.be/hDKfUjienKA, full playlist of the sherlock audiobooks - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1QFMgv0n_Y&list=PLVyDH2ns1F757P-m8MHckuIFqWapl6y-1, and bilinguis.com has a parallel text which I am checking if it matches the audiobook - http://bilinguis.com/book/baskerville/zh/en/c1/). Bonus, just one day I’d love to test it with Alice in Wonderland in French since bilinguis.com has an audiobook and parallel text - http://bilinguis.com/book/alice/fr/en/c3/. Or Le Francais Par Le Methode Nature, since that also now has audio and text and one day I’d like to finish reading it - https://youtu.be/0uS5WSeH8iM.

Fun fact: I am listening to P74 巴斯克维尔的猎犬 01 (by  知识改变命运 ) in the background right now and the first thing I hear is “qinai watson” my dear watson ok. ok sherlock i see you. ToT. Aside from that I just keep hearing random words I know. If you plan to listen to a chinese sherlock audiobook though - I do recommend this playlist. I’ve found a few sherlock audiobooks and for some the audio is very rough like it was recorded from the radio, whereas this one is fairly clear and the reader speaks very clearly, and has a rhythm to sentences (which for me personally helps me listen easier and parse out words). So if you know some words they are much easier to hear, and if you are looking at the parallel text I linked on bilinguis it is quite easy to follow along. 

I really want to get into the habit of some extensive reading with audiobooks (as in reading while listening) just because it speeds up my reading, and I pick up some words in reading while practicing listening. Its also somewhat doable, whereas just listening I may often get lost unless I know the material well. Last night I read chapter 1 of MoDu while playing the audiobook and following along - obviously I did not read as in depth as if I’d have done L-R Method and looked up all unknown words with pop-up english. But combined listening comprehension and reading comprehension I understood ENOUGH to follow the plot and keep reading, at a faster pace than if I only was extensively reading and at a much better comprehension than if I only listen. (My listening comprehension is a bit better if I’ve read the text beforehand, but that’s sort of artificial since i prepped by reading the text beforehand). Yes, I learn new hanzi better with slower extended reading where I have time to really slow down and look at the new hanzi a lot. But I’d like to aim for quantity of materials read for a while? I’d if simply reading more will help, but a lot of the general advice seems to be the more extensive reading you do where you can follow the main points the more you will improve. And hey, maybe that applies to simply ‘listening a lot more’ too?

A lot of articles I’ve found recently emphasize repeated listening, and I want to try to include that more in how I study. While I might not do it as intensively as some articles suggest, I can definitely continue to do it in Clozemaster and continue playing audiobooks of chapters I’ve read already (so I can follow the audio ok) in my downtime. A LOT of my chinese study lately has not been active, its been mostly just ‘playing audio in the background.’ So since I’m not studying actively much, I might as well try to get in more listening.

I checked out the cdrama Forward Forever recently and opinions: if you understand basic chinese JUST watch it in chinese because wow are the english subs a hot mess ToT. I tried watching with subs and there were so many clear ‘wrong’ portions I just had to turn them off, they were made from google translate though so I’m not super surprised (but Xin Xiao Shi Yi Lang has much more decent auto-generated subs so ToT). I’m not sure if I’ll watch more or not, but I can definitely tell it was adapted from a BL source material with the way the main two guys are immediately set up as characters and then meet. I also want to check out Secret of the Three Kingdoms but I’ve seen like 3 minutes and I already am pretty aware I’ll probably like the show so much that I’ll want to put the english subs on for clarity. Secret of the Three Kingdoms feels Very well made.

If I was gonna try to summarize what my study plan has been this month:  - Listen-Reading Method Guardian (its going fine), with some experiments on the structure of the activity - translate some of Guardian (not really study as I’m pretty familiar w the chapters so just rereading things, mainly its translating practice) - Doing a few random things in japanese: read Guardian in japanese, play japanese video games a little bit, watch japanese-teaching video game example vids a bit (basically more tiny bits of japanese I’d add up to idk under 6 hours? just me glancing at things) - Reading this japanese grammar guide (I’m 1/3 through) - https://sakubi.neocities.org/ - Listen to various chinese audiobooks, with and without text. - Read various chinese chapters, with and without audio. - Listen/Read a bit of French, in Gigafrench (i truly mean a bit like a couple hours), Dracula (just listening) - some Clozemaster japanese, and a tiny bit of Clozemaster chinese (mainly to pick up stuff in japanese, and practice shadowing in both) So - some random chinese stuff reading/listening/L-R Method, some japanese exposure/grammar guide/clozemaster, a tiny bit of French (mainly listening practice). 

[sonicfanj]

I’m a big fan of AUs and the freedom that fans have to explore Sonic or any fandom in ways that diverge from the source material, but with AUs and more recent Sonic stuff being what a lot of new fans brought in from the movie will see, the possibility of providing false information is far to high if we are not careful. That SEGA also spreads misinformation only makes matter worse and it is the heart of this particular post.

One of the biggest misconceptions of Sonic that SEGA perpetrates both through retcons and from Sonic Generations onward is that Sonic before the Sonic Adventure (Adventure henceforth )rebranding back in 1998/1999 is that “Classic Sonic “ as he is dubbed these days is possessed of an age of around eleven and is even shorter than Sonic’s 1 meter/3′3″ height. The height can actually be sourced to a profile of Metal Sonic’s that lists him at around seventy something centimeters as well as Generations making him shorter to account for the difference in proportions. But the truth is, Sonic was always listed at 1 meter tall, both before and after the Adventure redesign.

[Character height chart for reference - http://info.sonicretro.org/images/9/99/Classic_character_heights.svg]

Age on the other hand is where things get really strange. Again, a retcon for Generations makes sense to an extent, especially when you consider that the characters had their ages shuffled around as it was with the Adventure redesign. Amy aged up from 8 to 12 and Knuckles aged up from 15 to 16. Tails remained the same but Sonic actually received a subtle change. Bios that listed Sonic’s age before Adventure typically listed him at 15 to 16 years old. That would actually make him the same age or older than his Adventure onward counterpart. But it gets even weirder. According to the Sonic Technical Files (currently hosted by Sonnic Fansite Sonic Retro here - http://info.sonicretro.org/Original_Story) Sonic was actually originally thought about to be even older, around 18 years old. Suddenly, Sonic from his typically dubbed Classic Era is actually definitively older than his modern counterpart, yet is portrayed as a younger bubbly child from Sonic Generations onward. And I assure you, this is a retcon.

If you grew up in the 90s like I did and were introduced to Sonic when he debuted back in 1991, then you will remember the western advertising over embracing his teenager with an attitude description. And it wasn’t just in game ads, it was in all Sonic media available in the west. The US cartoons, the Archie and Fleetway comics, and so on, portrayed Sonic as an uppity teenager with an attitude problem (some cases being far worse than others). That teenager of a high school age mentality was the backbone for why the Archie Sonic comics were littered with teenager romance drama, which would look rather distasteful if you think about it post retcons now. But they were not at fault for portraying Sonic based on being high school age. The material and information they were provided told them as such and so they based their interpretations off of that available information.

But it wasn’t just a western mistake either. If not for input from key members of SEGA of America (henceforth SoA) Sonic would be rather different and would even have had a human girlfriend by the name of Madona who was anything but a child.

[Pic here - https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/d/dc/Madonna.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090313035151]

Madonna was not the only time it happened either as one of the last pieces of pre-Adventure release Classic Sonic material is the Sonic OVA or Movie produced by Japanese animation studio Studio Peirrot where a catgirl (read human girl with cat ears and a tail) was the main love interest and whom even Eggman/Robotnik wanted to marry (it’s weird, I don’t argue that). But more importantly, two of Sonic’s primary creators, Yuji Naka and Naoto Oshima, were listed as Production Directors for the two episode Original Video Animation (OVA) and were rumored to be involved quite a bit with the film. You can typically find it on youtube though I recomend the subbed version, bad video quality and all, to get a better representation of the Japanese perspective. It’s really eye opening and was very nostalgic in when I first watched it post Sonic Generations release.

The thing is though, the OVA released in 1996, years before the Adventure rebranding, and is strongly believed to be how Naka and Oshima see the character. This is actually reflected in the Sonic Adventure redesign as Yuji Naka on record (a shame I can’t find the link) has stated that Sonic was redesigned to bring him closer to the original character idea and to erase the growing cute identity that he was developing due to marketing. He even goes on to say that Sonic was never intended to be cute and that being a cute mascot character would inevitably pit him against Hello Kitty which would not have ended well. Yet, SEGA retconned the Naka/Oshima Sonic into being a bubbly hyperactive kid who was much shorter and generally hyper cute compared to his more modern interpretation of the character. This retcon is only made even more complicated when SEGA decided they didn’t like their “New” Classic Sonic being treated as the same character as their Legacy Sonic and even retconned that come Sonic Forces to say that he was actually from a different dimension. Years after Sonic Forces release that decision still riles up many more dedicated fans as it breaks the series continuity. Arguably, it has too. After all, if Naka/Oshima Sonic is older than Legacy/Modern Sonic and has the same height yet New Classic Sonic is shorter and strangely mute then something had to be changed or it just starts to fall apart for a cohesive narrative. Of course Amy’s four year gain already threw things into question but on it’s own was fairly harmless considering her role in the franchise as the main female lead and primary love interest. But New Classic Sonic’s muteness is what this post will be carrying on from.

One of the biggest misconceptions of Sonic before the Adventure redesign is that he did not speak. The primary reason for this misconception I usually attributed to him not speaking in the classics. this is actually a false statement as Sonic speaks in Sonic the Hedgehog CD, SegaSonic the Hedgehog, and is quite the chatterbox in a Japanese only popcorn machine. Admittedly, these are all difficult to experience items, especially pre-Adventure, but by the time of Soinc Generations’ release a good deal of these could be researched and Sonic CD was readily available to the public again thanks in no small part to Christian Whitehead of Evening Star Studios. but even outside of the games SOnic was shown to talk quite a bit before the Adventure redesign. Again both the western comics and cartoons and even numerous Japanese comics all showed him speaking quite a bit before the Adventure redesign. Of a more canonical nature however, the Japanese instruction manuals for most of the games from the original onward will show Sonic talking.

So, where did this misconception gain enough steam to become a retcon? It’s hard to say, but there are a lot factors that could lead to it. Major fan backlash was threatened when Generations was first revealed if they got Sonic’s voice wrong and hat it’d be better if he didn’t talk at all. SEGA is known for overreacting to negative feedback at odd and seemingly random times and this appears to me to be yet another case of it. But his muteness only got weirder when people started latching on to him being mute as a matter of shyness. I don’t know where that one originated from, but Sonic’s shyness is actually a trait of his, but it is specifically tied to how he feels about his self-proclaimed Amy Rose. When asked about, Yuji Naka once said that Sonic does likely like Amy deep down, but is too shy to act on those feelings. Naoto Oshima expands further on that stating that Sonic has a boyish immaturity in regards to his feelings and thus won’t act on them but should he mature in that regard he would end up with Amy. In other words, boyish immaturity and shyness are part of Sonic’s character, but they only reflect on certain facets of his character. His shyness and immaturity of his feelings for Amy though were instead stretched out to cover most of his character resulting in New Classic Sonic being a mute, when Naka/Oshima, Legacy/Modern, BOOM! (just to throw in another iteration where he is shy about his feelings for Amy), and even Movie Sonic are all rather talkative.

So that there is three misconceptions about pre-Adventure Sonic that are perpetuated officially by New Classic Sonic effectively being placed over Naka/Oshima Sonic. Again, I don’t aim to bash fanfics and AUs as I love them and the way they explore the characters in new ways, but for the sake of new fans not being overly confused, it should be noted if your Classic Sonic is New or Generations based, or the Naka/Oshima, pre-Adventure version. There are hugely massive differences between them with things like height, age, and talkativeness being hugely noticeable. Otherwise, keep writing, drawing and having fun, and may all of the movie’s fans who find their way into the fanbase enjoy themselves

[nadziejastar]

@Disney and SQ: Make LeaIsa canon u cowards. They had so much chemistry and history it would be make sense.

Saïx and Axel’s Fascinating, Complex, Beautiful and Extremely Well-Written Relationship

Write more about LeaIsa? Don’t mind if I do. YES! It’s such an underrated relationship, probably because of how poorly it was treated in canon. I would pay so much money to see it actually done justice in canon. And I rarely get invested in fictional ships to this degree. You’re right about their history together. It’s another reason I like LeaIsa so much. It’s the only Lea ship that I saw any evidence for. Axel’s relationship with Saïx is so unlike any other relationship in the series. I just found it so complex, unique, compelling, and mature in the way it was written. Seriously, it’s one of the most touching fictional relationships I’ve ever seen. And it’s written with such subtlety.

The writers force you to read between the lines, instead of spelling everything out for you. That made it even better, since it never once felt cheesy or forced. But with almost everyone I’ve talked to outside of Tumblr, the importance of Saïx and Axel’s relationship went right over their head. One person I talked to even said that the introduction of their past friendship felt pointless; simply an excuse to give Axel more “drama” in Days. Which was sad for me to hear.

It’s why I am so bitter that this relationship got shafted by the story as badly as it did. It’s such an insult to everything the writers accomplished. Unfortunately, I know many people in real life who would…not react well if they found out that Axel loved another male.

I can’t help but think that was a factor in why their relationship was handled so poorly, even platonically. It’s just so stupid to me, though. What a waste. It’s such a shame that stuff like this happens when creators try to step outside the box with their characters. There’s a real lack of healthy male/male intimacy in fiction, especially when it’s handled with actual maturity. It’s why I loved the KH2 ending with Sora and Riku so much. But hey, I still give gotta them credit for trying and almost succeeding.

As much as I loved the Roxas/Axel/Xion friendship, it was clear that Axel was the “dad” of the group. He was only half-joking about babysitting them. I feel even more strongly about this now than I did when I first played these games. It’s been 10 years since I first played Days and now I’m a bit closer to Axel in age than Roxas, lol. I don’t think Lea’s story could have ended truly happily unless he had another adult around him that he was close to.

Lea: In memories, you live forever, you know?

Isa: Well, you may be a really small part of my memories, but at least you’ll never disappear.

Lea: I’m SO flattered.

Isa: You’re such a pain.

I agree that they had a LOT of chemistry during their interactions. What I liked about Isa was that he was an equal to Lea. Someone his own age. He gave us an opportunity to see how Lea would interact with someone he could relate to as a peer, instead of as a mentor. Plus Isa was said to be very smart and mature for his age, which is probably why he didn’t seem to have many friends. And Lea was definitely much more on the intellectual/philosophical side compared to someone like Roxas or Sora.

He was a 15-year-old who talked about wanting to live forever in people’s memory, after all. I think that’s why Isa liked him so much. He was outgoing, very friendly, and smart, to boot. He’s the whole package. I used the Japanese translation for that scene since it made them seem even more flirtatious. I found way Lea joked with Isa to be so…cute. He just never smiled or acted that way with anyone else.

And I felt the same way when Isa smiled during that scene. I could tell he admired Lea’s outlook on life. He likes how he wants to make every interaction with others meaningful. He probably feels the same way, though he has a harder time showing it. Isa obviously does not have many people that he feels comfortable opening up to. I always got the feeling that Lea was very special to him. I don’t have trouble believing that Isa was intended to sacrifice himself for Lea. Not at all.

Roxas: I found out about love on today’s mission–that it’s something powerful.

Axel: That’s true. It is. But I’ll never get to experience it.

Besides, you don’t just give a character dialogue like this, and then NOT have them find true love. I mean, come on now.

Riku: Heh, I sometimes envy how simple your world is.

Sora: Is…that a compliment?

Riku: I envy whatever makes you think it could be.

Sora: Gee, thanks.

Isa and Lea had a somewhat similar dynamic to Riku and Sora. One was an introvert and the other was way more extroverted. I loved seeing the effect Sora had on Riku. It was very sweet. But no offense to Sora…Lea and Isa gave me the impression that they were much more intellectual equals, compared to him and Riku. I doubt you would ever see conversations like this between them, for instance. So for me, they struck a perfect balance. They were opposites, but still very similar.

It was such a sincere question that Axel barely swallowed a laugh. The evidence was right there; Roxas wouldn’t be thinking of anything else.

“’Cos you’re relatively simple,” Axel replied. “Well, most Nobodies are.”

Despite being the “cheerful” one, Lea’s world was anything but simple. He’s not unfailingly optimistic and he has a very prominent dark side. He might make friends very easily, but I could tell that he had a strong desire to form very deep emotional connections that are rare and don’t come easily. So Lea and Isa complemented each other very well.

“It’s just… I’ve always wondered why we’re here, on this island. If there are other worlds out there, why did we end up on this one?”

Now I think it was because we had to be there to meet each other. And if this really is the end of all the worlds, I don’t mind fading out here.

“If the world is made of light and darkness…we can be the darkness.”

Beside him, Sora looked at the sea and idly stretched his legs. “Yeah. The other side, the realm of light…it’s safe now. Kairi and the king and the others are there.”

Even without us, the worlds will be okay, he thought as he gazed at the horizon. I don’t mind becoming part of the darkness, if I’m with Riku.

I still love Sora, though. No matter how many Disney worlds he went to, he never forgot Riku. I’m sure Isa was envious at times of Lea’s ability to instantly make friends with everyone. Isa only came out of his shell around Lea. He doesn’t get close to people easily. I’m sure he had as many insecurities as Riku had, if not more. He probably was clingy, even. But I doubt Lea would mind. I’m sure that he felt like no matter how many friends he made, he could have deeper conversations with a shy introvert like Isa than he could with anyone else.

Axel: Nothing lasts forever, man. Least of all for a bunch of Nobodies. But you know, we’ll still have each other…even if things change and we can’t do this anymore.

Roxas: Yeah?

Axel: As long as we remember each other, we’ll never be apart. Got it memorized?

Roxas: Ha ha, wow, Axel. That sounded ridiculous.

Axel: What? I thought it was pretty deep.

To me, Axel always came across as extremely intelligent, with a lot of inner depth and complexity. But he always kept his true feelings bottled up inside.

Roxas grinned. “Who are you, and what have you done with Axel?”

“Hey! I tried, okay?” All that effort to cheer them up, and they just turned it into a punch line. Chagrined, he looked away.

Xion burst into giggles, and then, as if it was contagious, Roxas started laughing, too.

“Oh, c’mon, it’s not that funny!” Axel scolded.

They paused, looked at each other, and giggled again.

“I don’t know why I put up with this…”

In the novel, he actually was pretty hurt and embarrassed during that scene, because he was being 100% serious.

Pence: Do you guys think we’ll always be together like this?

Olette: I sure hope so.

Hayner: Huh? Where did that come from?

Pence: Oh, well, you know. Just thinking out loud.

Hayner: Well, I doubt we can be together forever. But isn’t that what growing up’s all about? What’s important isn’t how often we see each other, but how often we think about each other. Right?

Pence: Get that off a fortune cookie?

Hayner: That’s it, no more ice cream for you!

Of course, I found it interesting how Roxas was later put in such a similar position to Axel. All these things happening to him that he can’t talk about with his friends. Being told he was never supposed to existand entering an existential crisis. The time when he would relate to Axel the most is when he doesn’t even remember him.

But to address the main topic of this post, I must say: Axel and Saïx’s whole relationship in the novels is just so excellent. I always liked it in the games, but the novels made me appreciate it on a whole new level. I was reading them for the first time a while ago, and I swear, I couldn’t help but pick up VERY strong romantic vibes between Axel and his memories of Isa. It’s not that I was looking for it, either. I wasn’t. It just really, really jumped out at me.

“Well, I think you can be inseparable, even if you’re apart,” said Axel.

Roxas and Xion shared a look.

“…Even if you’re apart,” Roxas murmured.

They trailed off, and this time Axel finished his ice cream. So he started talking again. “It’s like, if you feel really close to each other. Like best friends.”

Followed by…

“Love is what happens when there’s something really special between people.”

“More special than friends? Like…if they’re best friends? Inseparable?”

“Well, you can care about your friends, but that’s not exactly it…” Axel paused, groping for words that might make sense to Roxas.

“So it’s a step above best friends?”

“No—it’s not about steps.”

The wording was just so…intentional. Axel was obviously thinking about Isa when he was talking about best friends being inseparable, even when they’re apart. And he was obviously thinking about Isa when he said that as long as he has memories, he’d never have to be apart from anyone. Then Roxas uses the exact same words when he asks him about love. There was no way it was just a coincidence.

I was like, “Am I crazy, or are the writers trying to imply that Lea was in love with Isa?” Then I read the rest of the novel, and I’m like, “Damn, I guess they really are”. I swear, the novels are what totally convinced me that the writers genuinely viewed them as a romantic pairing. And then when I looked at the 358/2 Days weapons, I was like, “Okay, I guess I’m not crazy after all.”

I am working on a meta about the symbolism of Luxord’s Tarot cards. It’s just…incredible how the Fool’s Journey that’s depicted in those cards, follows Axel and Saïx’s character arcs so perfectly. There was so much care put into that relationship. I’m sure that the Tarot cards had meaning for everyone’s else’s weapons and character arcs, as well. But since we never actually get to learn that much about the other Organization members, it’s harder to interpret whatever meaning they have. There was more than enough with Saïx and Axel to read between the lines and see a whole arc. But Marluxia and Vexen? Eh, not so much.

“You mean I can’t talk to you unless I want something?”

“I didn’t mean that, but it’s—” a hassle. But if I say that, it looks like she’ll make it even more of a hassle. Axel shut his mouth. “Why are you talking to me? There are heaps of other people to talk to.”

“I don’t want to talk to rough old men,” Larxene clearly intoned.

“If that’s so—there’s Demyx, or Marluxia, who joined just before you did. And then there’s Zexion. There’s also Saïx, in a way—”

I found it interesting how Axel related to women. He talks about how you can’t push the wrong buttons with girls. Larxene touches his face in Re:CoM and his reaction is so annoyed. And then there’s the way he reacts when she flirts with him in the novel. Yeah, I know Larxene is a bitch and that really doesn’t prove anything. But those scenes felt like they were meant to show how Axel just isn’t interested in women that way. Also I like how he says, “in a way” when he refers to Saïx. Well, I guess he is young at least. However, while we’re on that subject…

Demyx: Who’s ready for a vacation? I’m ready for a vacation.

Axel: Saïx only gives days off when he’s in a good mood. Which is never.

…I found Axel’s dynamic with Saïx so fascinating due to their shared history. Saïx always has the most dead, lifeless expressions on his face. I think it hurt Axel deeply to see how miserable he was all the time. Axel must have assumed his condition was the result of the trauma caused by the experiments and losing his heart. After all, Nobodies typically have the same basic personality they had as humans. And Isa was not cold and robotic.

Indeed, Axel is all too aware of Saïx’s total emotional emptiness and he’s rather introspective about the whole issue. He reflects on it rather frequently in the novels.

“Shouldn’t you already be out on your mission, Axel?” Saïx interrupted.

Mission? Saïx hadn’t given him his assignment yet. Axel blinked up at him, and Saïx stared back.

Oh. Axel felt a little bit sorry for Saïx and his inability to lie.

Saïx can’t even fake emotion enough to tell convincing lies. At least Axel can do that much. He genuinely feels sorry for him.

In a way, Saïx put more effort than any of them into pretending he had a heart, Axel thought. And yet, he was more lacking than any of them.

Here too. Saïx is more lacking than any of them. He’s the only one who was turned into a vessel against his will, so he can’t just nurture a new heart like everyone else.

After watching them go, Axel stretched and turned to Saïx, expecting to see a scowl. But the expression had left Saïx’s face, leaving him as dispassionate as usual.

Of course, he had been faking it in the first place. Nobodies had no hearts; they only imitated what emotions they remembered. The very proof of their emptiness showed how desperately they each longed for a heart.

Axel probably did the same thing himself without noticing, and yet, for some reason, when Saïx did it—or actually, any of the others—it seemed so out of place.

None of the others in the Organization were that bad, though. They all had personalities and didn’t have to try so hard to fake one. And we know that they could grow hearts.

Saïx had no time for all these deliberately oblique remarks from Xigbar. “Nonsense. I see no problem whatsoever.”

Xigbar only laughed louder. “Pa-ha-ha! No, apparently you don’t!”

“Something you find amusing?”

“Oh, the things you hear from a guy with no heart,” Xigbar said through his hilarity.

None of us have hearts, Saïx was about to remind him, when Xemnas spoke again.

All except Saïx. No, he was unique, even among Nobodies.

He’d never deluded himself that tracking down Riku would be easy, and neither had Saïx. It was just that if he went back and reported that he couldn’t find anything, he would have to deal with those attempts at “personality”—the sneers, the snide remarks, the only trappings of human emotion that Saïx ever showed.

He tries so hard to have a “personality” that it’s actually very unsettling for Axel to witness. Yet, it was the only human emotions he ever showed. Because he’s nothing but an extension of Xehanort, with no heart of his own. He literally can’t connect with anyone or experience any emotion other than flat, numb, dispassionate misery.

“Don’t let us down now, kiddo. Shouldn’t be too much trouble without a heart,” Xigbar told Saïx.

Saix was a very tragic character. He became the way he is when he was just a kid, too. This is thrown in our face time and time again, so I was extremely surprised at the direction they took with his character in KH3. It made absolutely NO sense whatsoever.

In a room made of white marble, a large mirror reflected Demyx as he prepared to leave for the mission. He took particular care with his hairstyle, painstakingly manipulating the brown strands with a comb to make them stand straight up.

Saïx observed him from behind with what appeared to be distaste. In stark contrast to Demyx, Saïx left his long blue hair unstyled. The X-shaped scar on his forehead was all the style he needed.

“What d’you want? I’m kinda busy.” Irritated, Demyx turned around.

Instead of responding, the other man simply disappeared.

“Excuse me?!” Demyx shouted at the space where Saïx had been standing.

I doubt Saïx had any clue how uncomfortable he made Demyx. He just didn’t have the emotional capacity to pick up on things like that.

“No… Kingdom Hearts…” He opened his arms, bathed in the moonlight. “Where is my heart…?”

He dissolved into dark mist and faded from existence.

I don’t think Saïx was really Isa, and I think his and Axel’s relationship was very unhealthy, obviously. BUT. Axel thought Saïx was Isa and tried to relate to him as such. And that tells you a few things. Axel clearly thought of Saïx as someone who could understand his pain in a way nobody else could. And Saïx was a pretty miserable character. Even Sora couldn’t help but feel sorry for him when he called out for his heart. And back then, Sora thought Nobodies weren’t even capable of feeling anything. Yet, other than Axel, Saïx was the only Organization member whose disappearance left him genuinely sad.

All of it disgusted him. Saïx looked up at the skyscrapers, tracking Axel’s presence. He wanted a heart more than anything. But what could he do to get one? Here he was, yearning for a heart so badly, while Axel had managed to gain one without doing anything at all.

The blue-haired man had been the very first to join the organization after the founding members. He should have been special. The way number 13—Roxas, wielder of the Keyblade—was special. Axel was not. And yet…He remembered what the witch Naminé had said.

Axel seemed lonely. The man himself had denied it, but she was absolutely right. Axel was lonely. He’d lost Roxas.

Lonely. Didn’t that mean he had a heart? How had he gained one? Why only him? Was it an effect of his contact with the boy, or was there something else at work? He had no idea…

Saïx was jealous of Axel…but not quite in the way KH3 depicted. He was jealous of his ability to grow a heart. He was jealous that Axel even had the capacity to feel the loneliness of losing a friend. Saïx yearned for a heart more than anything. I can’t think of a single reason he would willingly join the Organization after being re-completed. It’s not even possible to describe how out-of-character that was.

Saïx collapsed to his knees. “Ngh— How much longer…?” He groaned through clenched teeth. “Kingdom Hearts… Will your strength never be mine?”

I think Roxas felt sorry for him too, after his defeat. He had the perfect opportunity to take him out, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. There’s no way Roxas was capable of taking out someone so utterly pitiable. Roxas just stares at him for a few seconds, dismisses his Keyblade, and moves on in silence.

“I feel bad for you, too,” she told him.

“What are you talking about?” Saïx towered over Naminé.

“You haven’t even noticed yet…that you have a heart.”

Several Nobodies emerged from a rift out of the corridors.

“A heart? I have a heart? No one wants your nonsense!” Saïx raised his sword over Naminé—but Riku was there with Soul Eater to intercept the blow.

“Hmph. I don’t have time for these games.” Darkness welled from a rift behind Saïx. “Run along and help your dear hero.”

With that, he disappeared.

“Are you all right?” Riku helped Naminé to her feet.

“Now I understand…,” she murmured.

“Naminé…? You understand what?”

She was silent for a moment and quietly shook her head as she stood. “It’s nothing. We have to find Kairi.”

Naminé felt sorry for him, too. Of course, she seemed to realize that his situation was unique and even worse than the other Nobodies. His heart was in Xehanort’s clutches. Saïx was genuinely anguished by what she said, though.

Maybe she had been sent away somewhere on a long-term mission, like Axel at Castle Oblivion.

But…asking about Axel seemed to put Saïx in such a foul mood, Roxas couldn’t bring himself to inquire after Xion.

I think Saïx was still subconsciously influenced by Isa’s captured heart, making him feel even more hollow and empty. I think that’s what forgetting his “true purpose” was all about.

“You made it back in one piece, didn’t you?”

Were you worried I wouldn’t? Axel almost said, but he didn’t want to deal with putting him in an even fouler mood. Disgust and rage seemed to linger closest to the surface of Saïx’s memories.

But ultimately, what we saw in 358/2 Days is this: Axel always empathized with Saïx, no matter how unlikable he was. Especially in the novels, he always exhibits profound empathy, patience, and understanding towards him. Their relationship is nothing like how it was portrayed in KH3. It was honestly so sad to see how badly Axel wanted to connect with him—to have things be like they were before. He was desperate to find any evidence that Saïx still cared about him.

He didn’t look at Saïx, but he did have one thing to say.

“Keep your mouth shut.”

Roxas had never heard him speak so coldly to anyone before.

Saïx made no reply.

The one time Axel loses his patience and confronts Saïx in anger, it hurt him more than it hurt Saïx. Axel couldn’t even look at him. But Saïx never acts hurt or offended after this scene. He’s just angry that Axel won’t listen to him. He couldn’t care less if Axel insults him, as long as he’s compliant and their plans remain unchanged.

But his voice was still oddly low. Running into Saïx had brought out a different side of him—and that side was a little scary.

Something just felt wrong about it—Axel was putting distance between himself and Saïx. Just like Xion did with him.

Axel was certainly deeply affected, though. Even Roxas, who hated Saïx, felt something was wrong about them drifting apart. He actually compared them to Xion and himself.

I just did what I thought was the best thing at the time. For Roxas, for Xion, for the Organization—and for Isa. But most of all for me.

He thinks like this even after he told Saïx to keep hid mouth shut. Even after that, he was still motivated by…well, not Saïx, actually. It was “Isa” who he mentioned. It’s the only time he used his real name as a Nobody, whether spoken or in his own thoughts. He talks about Saïx a lot. But when he thinks about his hopes for the future, it’s not Saïx’s name that comes to mind.

It’s Isa’s name. That’s how much of a distinction he makes between Saïx and Isa. The past and the present. It seemed like he desperately hoped that once Kingdom Hearts was completed, maybe Saïx would go back to being Isa again. And he clung to that hope for dear life. I couldn’t tell who wanted Saïx to get his heart back more—Saïx himself or Axel.

When he woke up after being re-completed, it was like he forgot all about their past conflict. He just wanted his friend back finally. This scene where he used Isa’s real name really stood out to me. It was the clincher. I knew there was no way that Lea did not love Isa with all his heart, when he had one. And after he started to grow a heart again, those feelings never left. Axel still loved him.

“Things are finally right again,” Saïx went on. “Of course, we’re better off this way.”

Axel had no retort for that. Maybe because he didn’t want to alienate Saïx anymore.

“Xemnas is exasperated from all the ‘fixing’ we’ve had to do. We have to set things right. There is too much on the line…Lea.”

Hearing his old name, Axel glanced up to see Saïx watching him intently. He remembered being human. Memories surged inside him, crowding the space in his chest. For Nobodies, memory had all the weight of a heart.

I remember. I won’t forget. But those sunsets with Roxas and Xion were part of his memory. Axel broke away again from Saïx’s gaze, looking down at nothing.

You can tell how conflicted he is when Saïx also uses his real name a little while later. He desperately wants to think Saïx still cares about him as well, but he’s starting to realize that he’s deluding himself. 

“I trust you.”

Axel let out a low chuckle. “Yeah? Because your heart tells you to?”

“Just the memory of it. But if you continue to interfere, I’ll have to overwrite that memory with everything I’ve learned as a Nobody.”

“…Should I take that as a threat?”

“More or less. Keep it in mind.” Finished with the conversation, Saïx walked away.

Axel didn’t move for a while.

This is the first time that Saïx actually threatened to do more to Axel than just end their friendship. He actually threatened to kill him, and he is totally in shock over it. He can’t even move. I found it so telling that Saïx always spoke about his memories in a way that made them sound so foreign to him. His memories of Isa tell him that Lea was once really important to him. But they are so at odds with his personality as a Nobody, that all he ever does is use those memories as a weapon to manipulate and punish Axel.

“We don’t need them both. Just one. And pretending won’t change it.”

We, who? Axel wanted to ask, but he held it in, along with a bitter laugh. He wasn’t sure if that “we” meant Organization XIII or just Saïx and himself.

“Think about that.”

Oh, I am. And I’m sick of it. I’m even desperate enough to ask you if there’s another way.

The words nearly escaped him, but Saïx was already walking toward the Grey Area. The set of his shoulders told him plainly what the answer would be.

Axel realized how great the rift was between how he remembered their past and what he saw now.

Why am I even here? I don’t know anymore. What am I trying to do?

But Axel forgave Saïx over and over and over again. He risked his life constantly whenever Saïx needed someone to do his dirty work. He cared SO much about Isa. But he’s starting to question everything now. What good are their plans if Saïx doesn’t even care about him anymore? If there’s no hope that their relationship can be like it was in the past?

KH3 says that Saïx felt forgotten by Axel, but I just didn’t see that at all. How could he have possibly felt abandoned by Axel of all people? All Axel did was pine for him the whole game. Axel would have been overjoyed if Saïx so much as asked him about how his mission went, or what he ate for breakfast that day. As long as it was something other than the Chamber of Waking. Of course, Saïx knew Axel didn’t forget about him. It’s why he knew calling him “Lea” would be such an effective tactic for his compliance.

“That’s enough.” Saix turned his head, giving Axel a sidelong look over his shoulder. “Traitor.”

Axel scowled darkly.

“I’m going. You know, don’t you, that you won’t stop me except by force? And even if you tried, you would fail.” Saïx went on his way. Memories informed him that he hated this kind of thing.

Here we go again. Saïx is still serious about his threat, and Axel is still deeply hurt. His memories tell him that threatening Axel should make him feel awful, too. In the past, he would be devastated with this situation. But, he isn’t. I really think Saïx simply had access to Isa’s memories, thanks to Ansem’s experiments on the heart. Just like how Xemns had access to Terra’s memories while he was talking to Aqua’s armor and calling it a “friend”. But he was never really Isa.

He had been using the Organization for his own ends from the start. The only thing that had changed in the meantime was who it was all for. Maybe Saïx would call that a betrayal. But his world had changed.

It took until this moment at the very end of the book, for Axel to finally change his mind on who he was doing everything for.

The Roxas that I know is long gone. Fine, I see how it is…

This is the moment where Axel has to finally accept the harsh truth. The truth that he’s known for a long time, deep down, but didn’t want to admit. The Isa he knew is long gone. Which was just so sad to me. Their relationship was SO messed up—it was incredibly damaging to Axel. How could KH3 make Lea and Isa just get over their past so easily? It was ridiculous.

There’s no way that Saïx was planned to be Isa all along. That would be so unfair and insulting to both of their characters. “Yeah, sorry Lea. Your best friend really DID want to kill you all along. So much for healing your pain…Here, have some ice cream.”  

“I sent dusks in before you in numbers. Think of failure as leading to immediate erasure.”

“Certainly, sir,” said Axel, and he bowed exaggeratedly.

“Was that supposed to be a joke, Axel?”

“That’s not too far is it?”

“…It’s not at all funny.” Saïx resumed typing on the keyboard.

Maybe, this is the last time I’ll see Saïx, too.

Thinking, Axel looked at the seated Saïx’s back.

“We’ve known each other for a pretty long time, haven’t we?”

Ignoring Axel’s words, Saïx continued typing on the keyboard.

This is during the time of KH2, when Axel is going to infiltrate the data Twilight Town. There was something incredibly moving about the way Axel related to Saïx. It resonated with me on a deeply personal level, in a way few stories ever have. It was so powerful, without being the slightest bit cheesy or forced. In fact, it flies right under the radar unless you really pay attention.

Axel displayed true unconditional love. He just kept trying and trying and trying—even when his efforts got him absolutely nothing in return. He was totally undeterred. He’d just wait longer, and try even harder, until the day finally comes when his friend wakes up and comes to his senses. He was incredibly hurt by Saïx’s indifference towards him…but he never stopped loving Isa. Even when he lost all hope that he’d ever see him again…he never wanted to forget the pain of losing him. 

Axel didn’t waste a second grabbing his chakrams. But his body was reluctant somehow.

I don’t want to disappear… But still, it wouldn’t be so bad if I did. Not here.

Regardless of how bad things got, even when Saïx followed through with his threat and tried to kill him…Axel STILL loved him, even if only because of how he remembered Isa. Fighting Saïx killed him inside. I like to think that during that scene, on some level, Lea could sense Isa’s true heart inside of Saïx. And that Isa still loves him, too. After all, they are supposed to be inseparable, even when they’re apart.

I truly believe that in the original idea for the story, Lea refused to take off his Organization cloak because he couldn’t bring himself to be “free” until Isa was. I also think that was why he was always staring off at the sunset, looking wistful. There’s a certain type of bonding people experience during shared trauma, that is unlike any other.

Lea and Isa joined the Organization together. They both lost their innocence and their youth to the Organization. There was no way Lea could be free until he knew Isa was, too. He would never, ever be able to move on from the past. And when Isa was rescued, he and Lea would always have that shared history as test subjects. I think their pain was always going to be something they understood better than anyone else.

Terra: I just– When I really need you, Ven, I know you’ll be there.

Aqua: Ven, I’m sorry…I might not make it back as soon as I thought. But Ipromise I’ll be there, one day, to wake you up.

To me, these quotes felt like foreshadowing. Ven is promising the audience that he’ll use the power of waking on Terra, and Aqua assures us that she will be the one to use it on Ven.

Go on, you just keep running. But I’ll always be there to bring you back!

There’s not a doubt in my mind that Lea was going to use these exact words while trying to use the power of waking on Isa. I think Isa would have been so traumatized that his soul fragments would initially refuse to go back to reality. It would not be easy to convince him to come back. Even Riku needed to pass a “test” to revive Sora.

The sun sank lower and lower as Axel watched, his mind wandering.

If he stared for too long, the image would burn itself into his eyes, visible even after his eyes were closed.

A phantom sun.

Someone had once told him why sunsets were red… Who was that?

First of all, Tomoco Kanemaki’s writing is so beautiful. Secondly, why do I get the feeling that it was Isa who made an off-hand remark one day, informing Lea why the sun sets red? 

Axel is lost in thought, staring at the red sunset, before Roxas and Xion arrive. This is just before he talks about how they’ll never have to be apart as long as they have the memories of each other. Which is so similar to what he told Isa all those years ago. “If I can live forever inside people’s memories, then at least Isa can live forever inside mine.” That’s what I believe Axel was thinking that day.

You see, light is made up of lots of colors. And out of all those colors, red is the one that travels the farthest.

The red phantom sun. It burns into your eyes, staying visible even when you close them.

Pandora opened a jar containing sickness, death and many other unspecified evils which were then released into the world. Though she hastened to close the container, only one thing was left behind–hope.  

Axel’s Pandora Gear is called Prominence. Solar prominences are large, bright red-glowing loops of plasma extending outward from the Sun’s surface. They can measure many times larger than Earth’s diameter and last for weeks or even months. Saïx’s Pandora Gear is Crocea Mors, or Yellow Death; the one that looks just like his Berserk state Claymore.

Prominence is shaped like a swastika, or manji. It’s a symbol used to represent the harmonious interplay between opposites beyond the limits of time and space. In Hinduism, the arms pointing clockwise (卐) symbolizes surya (‘Sun’), prosperity, and good luck.

I wholeheartedly wish that Lea got to reunite with Isa—the real Isa. Not the watered-down Xehanort clone masquerading as him in KH3. There’s NO way the real Isa could have EVER inspired the type of devotion we saw from Lea, if he was ANYTHING like Saïx.

[parar0tted]

so I was actually talking abt this with my partner the other day and I 100% agree but there's even more factors beyond that I feel

from what I understand, the 90s Attitude era was in full swing when both sonic adventure games were being made, and said Attitude era was mostly sparked by a rise in interest about rap, hip-hop, and black youth culture.

A lot of american cartoons at the time not only started shifting to a sorta EXTREME and TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL attitude, but tv shows for children and teens also began dressing their actors sorta like Will Smith from the Fresh Prince? (only real point of reference i can think of atm)

"But Miette, what does American 90s culture have to do with a game from Japan? Wouldn't it be based on Japanese 90s culture?"

No, actually! Sonic has always been made with a western audience in mind, drawing inspiration from western sources. Eggman is based partially (design wise) on Teddy Roosevelt, and Sonic himself is based on partially on Michael Jackson as stated above (Michael even made some music for the series, but I'm unclear if it was scrapped or not)

With that being said, Sonic in both SA and SA2 are HEAVILY steeped in that sorta "too cool" 90s attitude (even though SA2 came out in 2001 I know-), which, of course, is also based on 90s black culture specifically. I feel like its also worth mentioning that this game was also the one that gave Knuckles a rap song as his main theme.

So its this odd cultural pipeline from things that were in with black youth in the 90s -> things white youth also thought were cool and started emulating -> being considered part of the wider youth culture. This still happens today too, as many black people have pointed out how very specific AAVE terms will get picked up by the white internet and then be turned into "youth slang"

Modern Sonic is still heavily based on his characterization from SA and SA2, though he's definitely lost some (a lot) of his edge over the years, which is ironic for an animal best known for having sharp quills.

Sonic has also just been associated with black culture and characters by coincidence, for lack of a better word rn. Both movies feature black artists as the creators of their credits songs, of course there's the MJ connection, Sonic's voice actor for Prime is a black man, and Satam Sonic was voiced by Jaleel White.

To sum this ramble up ig my point is that yeah, Sonic is definitely black coded, but its also way more complicated then some mummies and Egyptian inspired areas (bc lets be real, a lot of cartoons will depict Egyptians as white if they pull some Egypt inspired Mysterious Ancient Desert Culture stuff)

A lot of what's considered American Youth Culture comes directly from black people, as white people discover something cool they like from it and begin passing it around as well. It happened with both Elvis and Eminem, famously. Sonic being based on American culture from his inception sorta meant that, in a way, he'd always be based on black culture as well, which i find quite fascinating.

So uh, TL:DR sonic is absolutely black and white Americans need to give more credit to black artists for a lot of our staple "american" things

ok so i’m making a list of intentional cultural coding on mobian characters (ex: blaze is coded south asian via her outfit, kingdom architecture, etc; knuckles was originally intended to be jamaican) and i just realized like. how many of you know that sonic is legitimately coded as black

[didilysims]

I meant to do a batch of these a couple of days ago, but then I noticed tumblr wasn’t showing some of the comments on the Activity page, so I left them, hoping they’d show up later. Alas, they did not. I thought we were past this, tumblr. :( I think I’ve tracked them all down now, but apologies if I missed anyone. It wasn’t intentional.

Anyway, here’s Part One of the

regarding the recent university and graduation posts plus the late-night thoughts for @dramallamadingdang​ @nekosayuri​ @taylors-simblr​ @moocha-muses​ @strangetomato​ and @penig​.

dramallamadingdang replied to your photo “There’s no ballet barre anywhere near here, Jamal. Did you lose a...”

Hey, he makes that leotard look *good*! :)

I think that leotard always looks good. Usually improved by the presence of a ballet barre, however. But even without, looking ridiculous doesn’t mean you can’t look good too!

nekosayuri replied to your photo “*sneak sneak sneak* Jonah: Oh, the door’s open. *saunters in* Jonah:...”

LOL that post you linked is amazing

Gotta love those crazy profs. :D I’m still looking forward to meeting the drama prof in this ‘hood...

nekosayuri replied to your post “Late-night thoughts & ramblings on tumblr that I have been pondering...”

@didilysims​ Kawaii is indeed Japanese for cute :3 I wholeheartedly agree with you on the shipping thing, by the way, just so you know. :D The thing I dislike the most is also when the creator of a story gives in and puts characters together that they didn't plan on before, because of fanservice. It goes completely against the plot, too. I don't do crackships either ¬.¬ I only recently learned what it even was. xD

Yay, I’m not alone! Ha ha. It bugs me a lot when creators give in to the fans too, especially when so often the story would have been better without these forced pairings. But I’m also the type of person who likes bittersweet endings best and I cheer for characters who choose duty over “love” (more often lust), so... Long, drawn-out, boring, and/or forced romance subplots just aren’t my thing, though I do enjoy some good relationship drama, as obviously my blog evidences. ;)

taylors-simblr replied to your post “Late-night thoughts & ramblings on tumblr that I have been pondering...”

I don’t get the not tagging thing either. I love tags, I overuse them, it’s where I put all my extra thoughts and they’re super helpful for searching. I try not to be rude to anons, I usually ignore any rudeness in a message and put it down to the person being in a hurry, or a non English speaker or something.

So useful for searching! That’s the part I really can’t wrap my mind around--do these people never go back and look for stuff on their own blog? I mean, maybe, but I have to wonder: why not?? Especially if you’re reblogging stuff, isn’t it so you can find it later? I won’t tell anyone how to run their own blog, so it’s really not a big deal, but I cannot understand.

I would say being in a hurry is not really an excuse for rudeness. Is it really so urgent that you can’t type out a please or thank you? Non-native speakers is totally cool, and I find people who are apologizing for bad English are usually way more polite and grammatically correct than their native speaking counterparts. :P  I definitely don’t want to excuse rude anons (when it’s obvious they are being rude) but sometimes I think people more often have their guards up when they get anon asks, and sometimes maybe the guards are too high. Which makes sense, considering the few who ruin it for everyone by sending anon hate. I think my filters are low because I don’t get a huge amount of anon asks, and have never been sent hate, plus most of the nonnies I see are often kind and helpful--those are the best anons!

(This reply kind of ran away with me...sorry!)

moocha-muses replied to your post “Late-night thoughts & ramblings on tumblr that I have been pondering...”

I've never realized it before (I'm not a very visual thinker) but my mental Anon image is apparently a generic stick figure typing on a keyboard.

I don’t often think visually either. Not really sure how my thinking works, actually, except that it does work...usually. :) I visualize people usually as vague faces without most features except maybe one unique thing, like the smile in this case. If I ever witness a crime, I would be totally useless at describing the suspect. “He had hair...I guess. Probably eyes too. And a nose. Overall he was...human-shaped.”

The typing stick figure is super cute, by the way. I can visualize that quite clearly!

strangetomato replied to your post “Late-night thoughts & ramblings on tumblr that I have been pondering...”

I feel as though No. 2 could be directed at me. I wish I were able to give everyone the full benefit of the doubt for every ask that their tone is just off, but if reading it initially felt like a punch in the gut, I don't see anything wrong in letting them know that "hey this came across as hurtful". I usually give myself some time to reflect before answering, and I often run them by someone else. But sometimes people are just rude, whether they mean to be or not.

And also, for myself, mood state can greatly influence how I react to things (see: feeling like this post was criticizing me, haha), which is why I do things like try to wait and see how I feel later. So I think if we're allowing anons the assumption that their tone might be off, we should allow those answering asks the benefit that maybe their negative thinking is colouring how they are interpreting the ask. And past experiences with anon hate can also be a factor.

These are some really good points and I appreciate you sharing them. I don’t get a huge amount of anon asks (although sometimes they come in a big wave, weirdly enough) so I don’t have to deal with constantly weighing the tone of each, and I imagine it can be tiring. Whether intentional or not, if someone can come across as rude, it’s not a bad thing to politely let that person know. In my experience of following you, I would say you have been overall kind and courteous to anons. This definitely wasn’t an aimed criticism, just a random late-night thought that I probably should have kept to myself. Please don’t take it personally, but I do appreciate you weighing in. It’s good for me to get the other side of the story, so to speak.

penig replied to your post

By "Parent Trap" fantasy I mean that a lot of kids whose folks divorce get elaborate fantasies about getting them back together, which can be fed by watching the movie. This is a big enough thing that counselors sometimes warn people dealing with the children of divorce not to let them watch The Parent Trap, as it creates false expectations and makes adjustment harder.

I sort of figured it was something like that. Makes sense. Too bad there weren’t any counsellors around to warn Allegra about the trouble her daughter could cause...

dramallamadingdang replied to your post

Exactly! It's the lactic acid build-up from the repetitive motion. So, if you play lots of chess, best to be ambidextrous so that one arm isn't bigger than the other. ;) And speed chess is best for muscle-building. Could be considered a cardio workout, even! ;)

I think we’ve got a new workout routine planned out! Quick, let’s patent it and start our own chess gym. We’ll be rich!!

nekosayuri replied to your post

I did send my sims on some outings, but it never happened to me :O maybe I should do it more often XD

You should! I used to always ignore the phone call invitations because they were inconvenient and I was busy doing other stuff, and thus I never bothered to go on outings. But now I nearly always accept the calls and I’m really enjoying the new minigame it’s added to my playing. To warn you, I found it really hard to get a decent score at first. It helps a lot to have an outing with friends that will always accept quick and fun interactions to get the score up!

dramallamadingdang replied to your post

Confession: Lately, I've been putting Bob Ross videos on YouTube and listening to them as I fall asleep. So relaxing! And I think I'm picking things up subliminally b/c my digital painting efforts are improving. The game needs a TV channel w/a Bob-Ross-li

Gah! Hit Enter by mistake. Anyway...a Bob-Ross-like character that gives Creativity points and Arts & Crafts enthusiasm. Jamal could be the star. His glasses could be the trademark rather than the perm. :)

He’s totally relaxing. I watched a lot of his videos before Christmas when I was knitting presents and his soothing voice fit the cozy atmosphere just right. I love that TV channel idea too. Might have to get Jamal to do a few video shoots! Once he gets his creativity skill up a bit... He’s been in pottery most of his life, which surprisingly (annoyingly) doesn’t count as creative.

[aion-rsa]

How PS4’s Most Divisive Exclusives Captured the Console’s Legacy

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

The PlayStation 4 will go down as one of the most successful video game consoles ever made. While its success can most easily be measured in sales figures (over 113 million units sold so far), most gamers will likely best remember the PS4 for its incredible library of games, which includes critically-acclaimed exclusives Bloodborne, Uncharted 4, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Marvel’s Spider-Man.

In that same library, though, are a few games which some PS4 owners will ultimately remember differently than others. That’s obviously normal, but what is somewhat unusual is how the PS4’s three most divisive console exclusives each reveal a key component of how Sony won the PS4/Xbox One console war in terms of hardware sales and how the company will look to continue its success into the PS5/Xbox Series X generation.

You may love them or you may hate them, but each of these three PS4 exclusives tell us something important about the console’s legacy.

Days Gone

For the most part, I found Days Gone to be glitchy, uninspired, and, at times, poorly written to the point of parody. It was a game I really wanted to like but ultimately felt was a solid rental rather than a particularly impressive entry into an otherwise stellar collection of PlayStation exclusives. I honestly didn’t suspect that there would be many fans who would disagree strongly with that assessment once the game was released a couple of days later. 

However, that’s pretty much exactly what happened as exemplified by the noticeable difference between the game’s user and critic scores. The divide between critics and users over Days Gone reignited an already heated debate about the review process, expectations, allegiances, and what some see as a cultural divide between critics and the “average gamer.” Days Gone is still considered to be one of the centerpieces of that debate.

What was the source of that divide? It never comes down to any one factor, but when I think back on the wildly different reactions to Days Gone, I think about what Sony accomplished with its games during the PS4 generation. 

Many of the PlayStation 4’s best exclusives — including God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Ghost of Tsushima — feature a fairly similar design scheme. That is to say that each of them has an open world (or large world) that features RPG-lite character-building elements, a variety of main and side objectives, and strong character-based stories that encourage you to finish the single-player campaign. It’s essentially an evolution of the open-world action-adventure style that Ubisoft has popularized in the last decade, though it’s really more complex than that. 

The fascinating thing about Sony’s increasing reliance on this basic formula is how various PlayStation first-party studios have found ways to make it feel unique to their games. Each of the titles I mentioned above has its own distinct personality, art direction, tone, and some kind of unique mechanic that separates it from the rest of the exclusives library. While it’s a little odd that God of War allows you to improve Kratos strength through equipment given that he has god-like strength in the first place or that Peter Parker is still discovering so many significant abilities so late into his career, PlayStation’s first-party developers have typically done a very good job of expanding on the formula. 

That’s the strange thing about Days Gone. It’s certainly not devoid of personality — many fans fell in love with its Sons of Anarchy meets The Walking Dead cinematic style — but it often feels like the purest distillation of that “open-world game with RPG-lite elements and a variety of objectives” idea. You would think that the familiarity of its gameplay and zombie apocalypse premise wouldn’t really “inspire” people, yet many gamers passionately praised Days Gone for the way it let them play out a robust Walking Dead-esque scenario while giving them more of that beloved PlayStation formula.

That’s possibly the biggest takeaway from Days Gone divisive legacy and its ultimate success. A glance at the game’s engagement infographic shows that there really does seem to be a sizable number of gamers out there who have bought into the PlayStation formula and will perhaps even overlook a game’s flaws for the chance to dive into a bountiful experience that feels both new and familiar.

A year ago, players took their first ride on the Broken Road. Thanks for sharing all the great memories you’ve had in #DaysGone and amazing photo mode screenshots! We love all of you! 💕🏍️ pic.twitter.com/tFohFefdcy

— Bend Studio #DaysGone (@BendStudio) April 26, 2020

That’s not to say that there aren’t qualities unique to Days Gone but rather that a sizeable portion of the game’s most vocal defenders focus on the PlayStation experience it represents and the fact that in a realistic scenario where most gamers only get to dive into a certain number of games a year, Days Gone has a lot to offer.

During the PS4 generation, Sony invested heavily in a particular design formula. Days Gone suggests that it paid off.

The Last of Us Part 2

Shortly after its release The Last of Us Part 2 became the poster child for many of the most notable controversies of this console generation.

The pathetic blowback over The Last of Us Part 2’s LGBTQ representation reminded us that this was the era that saw the rise of the Gamergate alt-right movement and the toxic culture of bigotry it fueled. Meanwhile, the debate over the game’s relationship between interactivity and storytelling echoed a divide we’ve seen in discussions over so-called walking simulator games. Even the disagreements over the game’s subversive storytelling bring to mind certain discussions about whether creators have an obligation to please fans of a franchise. 

But if you’re talking about what The Last of Us Part 2’s divisive nature tells us about the PlayStation 4’s legacy, then the most interesting talking point may be the scope and nature of the game’s development process and what it says about Sony’s commitment to its first-party partners.

The Last of Us Part 2 was in development for over 6 years, a period which included numerous delays and reportedly quite a bit of crunch. It allegedly cost over $100 million to make, and it doesn’t even feature a multiplayer mode, the seasonal DLC content most gamers have to expect from AAA releases, or any post-launch microtransactions. In many respects, it is not the kind of game that most major publishers pursue in the modern era. 

Sony Interactive Entertainment isn’t most publishers, though. With games like God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, and The Last of Us Part 2, we’ve seen the publisher reward its most notable first-party studios not only with large production budgets for single-player epics but what seems like complete trust and cooperation. It’s a strategy which brings to mind the message that Sony sent early into the PS4’s lifecycle: this console is about games. 

It’s entirely possible that you didn’t like The Last of Us Part 2. I ended up feeling decidedly mixed about the game. Yet, part of the reason that the PS4 was so successful is that the console boasted a lineup of exclusives that often bested AAA offerings from Activision, EA, or Ubisoft but were less focused on the monetization schemes that often plague games from those other publishers. Sony instead invested in a stable of first-party developers that could deliver compelling experiences you couldn’t get anywhere else but on PlayStation. 

At the same time, the perceived bloat of the AAA development scene, the sometimes absurd amount of money being pumped into the production of such titles, and the way that both of those elements negatively impact the corporate culture of major studios all raise serious questions about the full value of development processes this expensive and time-consuming. 

There is a fiscal and human cost to making these games that heavily suggests crunch- based development cycles are unsustainable in the long-term. If the industry does move away from this style of production, especially for a purely single-player game with little long-term monetization opportunities, then it could be some time before publishers figure out the best way to pursue making games like The Last of Us Part 2.

However, we fully expect that Sony will continue its commitment to its partners’ visions, even as we start to ask new questions about the development process.

Death Stranding

Death Stranding is a very strange game. 

Much of what makes Death Stranding such an oddity stems from the mind of its infamous creator, video game auteur Hideo Kojima. Much like Naughty Dog creative director Neil Druckmann’s work on The Last of Us Part 2, Death Stranding is very much representative of the unique mind of its creator. The writing, characters, and themes of Kojima games are typically divisive, and Death Stranding’s bizarre contributions in all of those respects represent what you could call “Kojima unchained.”

The key difference between a game like The Last of Us Part 2 and Death Stranding is that Death Stranding was not developed by a first-party PlayStation studio. In fact, the game is available on PC (though it remains a PlayStation console exclusive). Furthermore, unlike other PS4 exclusives, Death Stranding doesn’t adhere to that basic gameplay design mentioned above. In fact, its gameplay, which largely emphasizes the difficulty of navigating different types of terrain and making deliveries on time, is possibly its most divisive quality. 

All of that may lead you to believe that Death Stranding is too different to really teach us much about the PlayStation 4’s library and legacy. But that’s not the case. Death Stranding is really just the most recent example of how Sony’s relationship with Japanese developers and creators helped shape the PlayStation 4’s library and define its success. 

It’s no secret that Sony’s relationship with Japan and the PlayStation brand’s popularity among Japanese gamers has been a key component of the company’s success over the years. Microsoft has struggled to make significant headway in that market, and Nintendo’s success doesn’t necessarily seem to noticeably cut into PlayStation’s historical sales figures. In the PS4 generation, we saw Sony build on that market success by investing heavily in notable notable Japanese-developed titles like Bloodborne, Persona 5, and Death Stranding. 

Even if you put aside the regional component, Death Stranding shows us Sony’s unusual commitment to equally unusual console exclusives. Until Dawn was a choose-your-own-adventure tribute to B-horror movies made by a largely unproven studio. It was a hit. Persona 5 was a downright bizarre entry in an equally bizarre franchise — at least by conventional Western design standards. It was a hit. 

Much like how Death Stranding left some gamers feeling disappointed, though, Sony’s commitment to sticking to often eclectic developers and their unusual ideas hasn’t always paid off. David Jaffe’s Drawn to Death was largely a bust,  Team Ico’s The Last Guardian garnered a notably mixed reception, and Quantic Dream’s Detroit: Become Human was well-received but seemed destined to be overshadowed by the rest of the PS4’s major hits. 

Whether or not the homogenization of the AAA games industry will eventually weed out games like Death Stranding remains to be seen, but based on what we’ve seen, it seems like Sony is still committed to giving games that don’t quite fit the conventional blockbuster mold a high-profile home on its platforms. 

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If nothing else, Death Stranding reminds us that it’s harder for a game to be controversial if it doesn’t take a chance on something. Sony took a chance with the PS4’s library and it largely paid off in the end.

The post How PS4’s Most Divisive Exclusives Captured the Console’s Legacy appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[nanogame]

What the hell is Phase Paradox and why has nobody heard of it?

I recently came across a very interesting game for the PS2 called Phase Paradox and, to my surprise, the information online about this game is very limited. I was intrigued... How can a game released over 15 years ago for one of the biggest consoles ever, be so unknown? I decided to do a little digging to find more and that’s what I’ll tackle in this post, but before we begin talking about it, a proper introduction to the series is due... Yes, to the series. Phase Paradox is no less than the sequel to the PS1 title, Philosoma. Never heard of it either, right? Don’t worry, I’ll elaborate... and spoil a bit of the first game, so be aware.

Philosoma was the first game developed by Epics Inc, the same Japanese studio who brought us Ape Escape Racing and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex for the PSP, and a bunch of other titles you might have heard about. It was one of the first games to ever be announced for the original Playstation and it was scheduled to be a release title, however it was only released in mid-1995 in Japan, and in 1996 in the subsequent regions due to complications during development. Despite the prolonged development time, it only received mixed reviews, praising the impressive FMVs and OK-ish gameplay but condemning its dull visuals. These didn’t stop it from receiving an award for Best Shooter of 1995 by Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine.

But what is it? Philosoma plays like any other 2D/3D space shooter (with a lot of resemblances to other shooters like Galaga and Gradius) but places its emphasis on the multiple perspective gameplay, which varies from isometric to top-down/vertical scrolling to full-fledged 3D. The story is pretty simplistic: a recently colonized alien planet named Planet 220, reports a devastating attack by an unknown force and requires assistance. The player assumes the roles of D3, a rookie pilot, as well as his commander Nicolard Michau and has to try to save the planet. In the end of the game (spoiler alert) , the said planet blows up and this is where Phase Paradox picks up.

But before we get into the story and gameplay, let's see how this game came to life. Phase Paradox, as opposed to it’s prequel, was not developed by Epics Inc, but by Sony Interactive Entertainment themselves, whom had published the first game. However, for the roles of lead designer and supervisor, Sony decided to hire Takahiro Matsushima, the creator of the original game. They setup a somewhat big team, which also included Tatsuya Ishiyama as a cinematic director, who would proceed to work on the cutscenes of the very acclaimed SoulCalibur IV. Don’t let me stop you from getting amazed but there are some more names you might recognize.  The character of Renee is voiced by no less than Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (who’s also the voice director in the game), the singer of some of the non-instrumental songs by Akira Tamaoka in Silent Hill. The character of Umma is voiced by Patricia Ja Lee, whom you may know better by Jill Valentine’s mo-cap and voice actress for Resident Evil 5. Steve Kramer, who has worked as an actor and voice actor for countless productions that range from cinema to video games, voices Lance Fuller’s character too... This only shows how big the production for the game must have been and how much Sony was betting on it.

The first announcement for the game was made by Sony in January 2001 but other than the game’s genres, very few details about it were given. They also announced it would be released in two DVD-ROM discs on the 22nd of March of the same year in Japan, but no dates for the other regions were given. The first demo only appeared in Tokyo Game Show Spring 2001 and by then, the game had been postponed to May 24th, the day it was released in Japan (in only one DVD). The first impressions were decent: people were praising the sci-fi atmosphere but were reluctantly talking about the gameplay:

“Three playable characters from different time frames and different places solve mysteries from each character's perspective. Once they all meet at a certain point in the game, the mysteries begin to unfold. As opposed to the theme of humans vs. aliens or zombies in most of the recent action-adventure games in the genre, this game is about human interaction, trust, and deceit...”

Now, this is where things start to get interesting! If you’re confused, because you were expecting details for a shooter, don’t be! Despite being a direct sequel to Philosoma, its genre is completely different. The sequel is not a 2D/3D shooter like its predecessor, but an action-adventure game with a lot of sci-fi and survival horror influences. The player can control three characters across a field map with pre-rendered backgrounds, similarly to the original Resident Evil games, however the action factor is not present. What I mean is, the player doesn’t shoot or solve puzzles. The player simply moves the characters in between cutscenes and is prompted to do binary choices of yes and no by pressing the X or circle buttons. By making the “wrong” choice, the player usually dies and is prompted to try again. This being said, the game can be easily completed by trial and error and this might just justify why most of the reviews I found online, even if scarce, were all condemning this gameplay mechanic. I’m not saying it’s very good but it seems to me that they’re were going for what could’ve been the beginning of tell-tale games like we know them today. The game also has three different endings, one for each playable character, depending on which one you choose to follow during the final phase of the game (you eventually play them all, to finish the game), which I thought was pretty interesting.

In my opinion, there are two things that this game nailed completely. The UI design and the atmosphere. The cover of the game is beautiful, that’s not an argument, but wait until you boot up the game! The main menu is gorgeous and damn satisfying to use. It’s the perfect intro for the game, which in its whole, gave me a vibe of “Blade Runner meets the The Thing”. Maybe because of the futuristic look of the pre-rendered surrounding environments, along with an interesting sound landscape that heavily relies on background noises, using music only when really necessary. The voice acting (done entirely in English with Japanese subtitles) is pretty satisfactory and goes well with the animation and even though it feels a bit cheesy at times, which game doesn’t? The cutscenes are decent, however, I’m really saddened by the fact that they couldn’t get the facial expressions right while the characters are talking, but hey, they tried! 

I got used to the game and to its flaws after the first hour, and got some enjoyment out of the whole experience and that’s why I’m writing this post. Most reviews of the game are bad, but I would still recommend it to anyone interested in survival horror and/or sci-fi, and any PS2 enthusiast. 

It’s an interesting landmark in PS2′s history that went completely unnoticed. But why? Despite the English voice over (which kind of proves Sony was intending to release the game worldwide), the game never got released outside of Japan. That means that if you owned a NTSC-U or PAL console, you’d need to import the game and you’d also need a modchip or an emulator to play it, hence making it hard for a common gamer to find and play the game. That doesn’t explain, however, why the mentions to this game on Japanese websites are nearly non existent... The game does have a small page on the Japanese Wikipedia, but there is no page for it on the English Wikipedia, so I’d say the Japanese are winning on this one!

For those of you who are interested in trying the game, you don’t need to play the first one (I didn’t) to enjoy Phase Paradox and even though all text is in Japanese, that will certainly not be a problem since all voices are in English. My copy of the game cost me a little over 5€ on eBay with shipping included, so if you want to add it to your collection, price will certainly not hold you back either. I’d recommend not watching any videos on it, since they might ruin the experience for you, take your go at it with an open mind and above else, have fun!