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sweetmariihs2 · 5 months ago

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I MADE A 🎊FEAST OF FOOLS🎊 INSPIRED PLAYLIST!!

Lmao I don't get nothing to do this. But I think it's fun and I love to share the crazy stuff I make.

I don't know what happened to me, I just decided that I wanted to make an "ambient" playlist inspired by the scene of the Festival Of Fools (tm) in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. I think it happened when I was practicing my habit of searching for similatiries between my hyperfocuses and the songs I like, and it had enough potential to make a playlist about it. And since Spotify doesn't allows me to add little notes to each one of songs in the playlist, I'M GONNA MAKE THIS HERE ON TUMBLR, BECAUSE I NEED TO TALK ABOUT IT

I would also like to point out that the songs are put in order of the events during the whole scene. From the moment Quasimodo arrives at the festival, the party and parade itself, Esmeralda's dance, Quasimodo's humiliation, Esmeralda's "justice" discourse and running from Frollo's guards. Yes I have songs for each one of this events in order that match the lyrics and sometimes even the instrumentals :)

These parts are like, "divided in sections". Idk how to explain it to you, but I do this often, it's like "part 1 of the playlist, followed by the part two, then part three..." it's like dividing the playlist in acts yk

And I thought it was better if I came here to explain each one of the songs instead of just waiting for someone to find the playlist somewhere and discover by themselves

So let me explain the reason why each one of these songs were added in that playlist, specifically (yes i'm autistic how did you found out)

First section of the playlist - Start of the Feast Of Fools!!🎊🎉

That's where I put the "start" of the festival. The court of miracles is included because let's be honest Clopin eats it up every time, and this song has such a strong Topsy Turvy vibe too.

Feast Of Fools - When Quasimodo arrived.

Topsy Turvy- The start of the festival itself.

Court Of Miracles - Because it makes sense, our party goes on

Second section of the playlist - The festival!

I was really excited to talk about this one, Cure For Me it's so Feast Of Fools/Clopin coded idc

Cure For Me - It's a song about self acceptance, being proud of who you are - despite having hateful people out there, it's not your fault, their hearts are bitter, yours shouldn't get too (which really reminds me of the whole topic of the movie, Quasimodo, Esmeralda...) That's the meaning! Now, the visuals and instrumentals just give those jester vibes. I feel like a clown in the best way possible. You should totally search for the visuals, like the music video or just the photoshoot! Aurora (the singer) dresses and dances like a jester, along with misterious masked figures. It just feels like a party in Venice. As you can see, there's two versions of Cure For Me; the first one is the studio one, the second one is acoustic. I decided to add the acoustic because it's inspired by brazillian's bossa nova, it has a choir of people singing, played by real instrumentals, it just sounds more like... someone singing in the streets. I like both versions!

I've Got A Dream - THAT'S SO COURT OF MIRACLES CODED I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO SAY IT JUST IS. All those dangerous people reunited and threatening the protagonists of death while singing an upbeat song and showing that deep down they're not so bad just makes perfect sense. (Lmao we're really finding a lot of similarities between HOND and Tangled aren't we?)

Kingdom Dance + Kingdom Celebration - I don't even need to explain but I will for the minority of people who don't get this one. It's the song that plays in Rapunzel's village during a festival, they dance and have fun, and the second song is a similar song that plays at the end of the movie. It was also made by Disney, which makes it better.

Third section of the playlist - The party continues!! They're for immersion lmao

These are a bunch of circus/medieval festival songs I choose to add a bit more of "realism". I didn't just added them randomly, I searched for medieval songs, medieval festival songs, circus music, VINTAGE CIRCUS MUSIC WITHOUT MAKING IT HORROR AND SCARY (it's rare but happens every time lmao), and even inside those playlist, not all of them made up to get here.

I made this part just in case you wanna pretend you're inside the festival bc I know how it feels to enjoy daydreaming and being delulu, I know I know

Fourth section of the playlist - Esmeralda's dance!

Actually not all of these songs are part of the Esmeralda's dance section. I know *the crowd starts to boo

I just feel like they're not really part of the last section. So I'm gonna explain why did I put them in the playlist:

Some Type Of Skin: Aurora often sings about being a sensitive person and wishing the world was kinder, this song is not different. I can't explain exactly why this song reminds me of HOND, there's something in the quotes "however much it feels to bleed, it's only temporary", "we're good people and we both deserve peace" and the happy instrumental that just makes me want to dance and wish for a better world with her. To be honest, it kinda reminds me of Esmeralda! But Idk. It's a bit unrelated, I just wanted an excuse to add this to a HOND playlist. Let's pretend it's just part of the festival.

Giving In To The Love - Once again, this song is about hoping for a better world. BUT, IN THIS CASE, the context and lyrics are a bit different. I already spoke about this in other post I made, but the main topic of this album is how radical religious people sometimes harm more than they help. That post is great, the songs are amazing and they fit so well in the context of HOND, BUT, I'm just focusing on this playlist this time. This song I'm talking about has quotes like "I'm tired of the rules and your corrections... (self-explanatory) I want to live my life, be all of it's pages... (try things, love without being considered sinning, stuff like that) And underline that I am not an angel... (I'm not 100% pure, I'm a human) 'Cause if I'm not pure, I guess that I'm too much! I never know how to keep in, keep in touch... (self-explanatory) If I'll be somebody, I'll never let my skin decide it for me; I never had the world so why change for it? [...] ...Giving Into The Love." The music video is Aurora in a garden with statues that sometimes portray hateful and painful moments, like someone separating a gay couple, for example. At the end of the song the statues come alive and learn that loving, talking, making friends is better than being hateful. They all then go to take a swim in the lake. Yay! That was also a song I just wanted to fit in here. Let's pretend it's also part of the festival, it won't hurt a single fly

NOW THE TIME WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR:

Rythm Of The Tambourine - That's an extra song added in the Hunchback Of Notre Dame musical. The people involved wrote these songs inspired by the ones in the movie, they added new original tracks AND OFFICIAL DELETED DISNEY HOND SONGS to the musical. That's an original track, and it's an extended version of Esmeralda's dance during the song Topsy Turvy, she sings here, and it lasts more. There's like Quasi's, Frollo's and Phoebus' reactions to Esmeralda's dance. It's a musical after all, so... and it's really good!

Artemis - It's one of Aurora's songs again! I never quite understood the meaning of this song though. The song is about the goddess Artemis, and it has a sexy and somehow dangerous and threatening tone to it. She sings in a low tone about decisions someone can make about the goddess (I believe so), since I can't explain you the lyrics, it will be better if I just show it to you.

I just feel like this song is the personification of "fire Esmeralda" to Frollo. I can't explain why. The instrumentals remind me of Venice, there's an accordion in the middle of the song, which somehow still sounds sexy and misterious. If you'll hear to the song, you will know what I mean.

ARE YOU READY FOR THE GRAND FINALE AKA THE BEST PART OF THE PLAYLIST IS FROM HER TO THE END?

FIFTH SECTION OF THE PLAYLIST - QUASIMODO'S HUMILIATION

*eating my own hand* if you know these songs (c'mon guys you're on tumblr) you know that's already great and we're not even in the best part yet (It WILL GET BETTER THAN THAT)

Pity Party: If you're not familiar with Melanie's songs, which is hard to believe if you're someone who grew up in the internet, this song is part of an album called Cry Baby. This album tells us the story of a little girl called Cry Baby, she was bullied and abused throughout her whole life, sometimes based on the singer’s life, and it was a big comfort for this huge outcast group we know on the internet (including myself), often criticizing society in her lyrics. This song specifically is about Cry Baby's birthday, but no one showed up for the party. She organizes the party perfectly and wait for her "friends" to arrive, but they don't which makes her question why, wondering if they're just making a cruel joke, and wondering that maybe if she had took different decisions in the decoration they would have shown up, but at the end she notices that it's because people just don't like her, and this drives her to madness, basically. She sings "It's my part and I'l cry if I want to", while proceeds to cry and destroy the decorations and toys she had scattered around, who she pretended were her friends, but then noticed that they're just... not real people and that she's alone. Reminds you of someone?

When Quasimodo was choosen as the "king of fools", people choose him because he had "the ugliest face in Paris". It was something good, because he was being treated as a king, but it was also bad because it wasn't for good reasons... people were just mocking him. (Lyrics)"Maybe it's a cruel joke on me, whatever, whatever" yes it is a cruel joke. The parallel between them is that they're being delusional and telling themselves that "those people aren't really mean, are they? They like me. It's just that *excuse*". But after sometime they notice that they're just convincing themselves of that, and well, yes... people don't like them indeed. In a day that was supposed to be a party, the best day ever for them. "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to [...] I'm laughing, I'm crying, it feels like I'm dying"

The Contortionist: Melanie again! This song is more about an abusive relationship. Her abuser twists her like she's a contortionist, and that's not being pleasurable to her. The person claims that they love her, in one second they're loving her, in the other their pushing her, pulling her, grabbing her, and twisting her like a contortionists. It vaguely reminds me of that terrible scene, so I added it here.

Show And Tell: YOU'RE NOT MENTALLY READY FOR THIS ONE. I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO START HELP. THIS ONE IS SO IN CHARACTER THAT I DON'T KNOW HOW TO PUT INTO WORDS. Do you remember when I mentioned that Melanie had that "Cry Baby" album about a girl with the same name? That girl went to school now and the album is called "K-12"... it's also a story. In this song, the protagonist did something that broke the principal's rules (he's supposed to be interpreted as a political leader or authority figure, this whole album is a metaphor for society) and the principal, an ugly bastard old guy, decided to punish her for that. Inside the context of the album, which is really surrealistic btw, she's turned into a ventriloquist doll to be waved around in front of the whole class (the society, people). In the music video, she's a little doll being controlled by the teacher to dance while all the students watch, laugh and shout, as if her suffering was entertainment to them. The principal knows that, and he doesn't care, because "she deserves this treatment" (she didn't do anything). At the end of the music video she's thrown by te teacher at the public, and they destroy and hurt her, because it is with her suffering that they entertain themselves with, until she's a broken porcelain doll.

The whole song and music video is a metaphor about how the artists are treated nowadays. The methaphor behind being a ventriloquist doll is how people control you to sell you to people, and the people are the students. They watch you close, have fun with your suffering, and they don't care about your boundaries. REMINDS YOU OF SOMETHING? HUH? SOMEONE? SOMEONE OUT THERE?? (lmao I thought this would be funny)

The ropes pulling her around, making her "dance" for them while she's clearly unhappy with everything. All of these lyrics. Shut up I'm not okay

Cry Baby: It's the opening song of the album "Cry Baby". Talks about her character, she's crying in front of everyone and they're laughing at her for it, calling her a cry baby, while they don't know and don't give a damn about her kind and soft heart. You get why this matches Quasimodo don't you

Mr Potato Head: Another one of Melanie's songs. This one is not exactly related to the huniliation scene but it fits Quasi's character and I just wanted to add. This song talks about beauty standards, how people are modifiying themselves in an obsessive search for beauty, without realizing that they are erasing their own identity. She says ironically "No one will love you if you're unattractive [...] will a pretty face make it better?"

THIS LAST SONG. OHHHH I HAVE A POST ABOUT IT. YOU SHOULD CHECK IT OUT. PLEASE DO IT. THIS ONE IS ABSURD.

You Keep Me Crawling: That's part of that one Aurora's album about the harm that religion causes sometimes, and this song, You Keep Me Crawling, can be interpreted in two ways: as an abusive relationship, or as someone's experience in christianity. In the first verses, the lyrical self is trying to understand why the "abuser" treats them that way, why do this person makes them feel less, at the same time somehow excusing what this person is doing to them.... "maybe if I forgave you more, or that, I wouldn't be treated that way... maybe you never meant to do that? To make me suffer? That wasn't your intention, right?" and they start to question "but why do I feel less when I'm around you? Why do I feel smaller? Maybe it's because I need to serve someone..." and in the chorus the singer just repeats in a pleading, beautiful and yet deeply saddened way "So you keep me crawling on my knees, Lord you keep me crawling on my knees..."

In the next verse, though, she starts to wonder if that if she act a certain way, this abuser will understand, "If I keep confessing (religious hints) maybe if I'll believe that you never meant for love to hurt for me, maybe you'll feel a bit of sympathy..." and then she starts to noticed that, maybe, this situation can't be fixed... this person can't be fixed... and it reminds me of the scene where Frollo tries to stab Quasimodo, and Quasi finds out that the evils in the world that Frollo spoke about so often were just him. The person that was manipulating and abusing him was Frollo. And in that part of the song Aurora starts to notice that it's the abuser's fault and not hers, "why do I make you feel stronger? Why do you keep hunting like an animal? Maybe it's because you need to own someone..." and she keeps on singing "lord you keep me crawling on my knees", but this time, in a more desperate and heartbreaking way. Her emotions are stronger here. And the song ends with "maybe if I stop believing you will see that giving into love should never hurt for me... giving into love should set me free..." which is clearly a reference to the song I mentioned "Giving Into The Love". "Loving shouldn't hurt, so what you do to me it's not love, it's abuse". It reminds me of Quasimodo and Esmeralda, both in their own ways.

Last section of the playlist - "Justice!"

EHEHEHEHEHEHH THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR *rubs my hands in a villainous way lol*

The Principal - This song is part of the "K-12" album that I mentioned. You remember when I told you that this album was about a school that was a methaphor for society? The principal was made inspired by a real political figure the singer doesn't support, and this song is about the character itself, and his role inside the story. The protagonist, who's singing the song, absolutely hates him, and she's the only one who was brave enough to tell him what she thinks of him in his face, without fear of punishment. All the other students are silenced by him, they're all afraid of saying out loud what they feel in fear of punishment, but she's not. In the song, she grabs a phone and says to him everything she thinks of him. "sneaky, greedy, money-seeking, always peeping, fucking creepy, got it on the down low, so you think you're always sneaky - what If I had told your mother... her son was a cruel mother fucker?"

And she proceedes to sing about his behavior, how he forces people to stay silent and follow him, when everybody thinks the same as her, but they're too afraid to say it out loud. "I've tried to make you listen, but you won't, it's your way, right? Killing kids all day and night [...] you're shooting at the angels while claiming your the good guy" it's like he's hurting the purest beings (angels) while he's claiming himself as the right one there. It's a song about protest, really, you should check it out.

A Soul With No King - Another one of Aurora's songs that has confusing lyrics! The instrumentals really do remind us of a medieval dance, most specifically a witch one, and I'm sure she did this on purpose. The lyrics, though, have some quotes that remind me of Esmeralda, but it's hard to explain exactly. It looks like Aurora is opposing against someone somehow. She starts somehow menacingly with "I know you know me... and you always will... like a man with no wisdom, and a soul with no king." She later continues "I know you fear me" and repeats "nothing will ever change, no gain, no shame; call out my name when you need me again" (we know very well that Frollo hates and loves Esmeralda at the same time, he wants her, and he's afraid of her somehow. But when he wants her and "needs her", he "calls out her name", you know what I mean? Hypocrisy). "If you know who I am, why don't you call my name?", (Are you afraid huh? Are you're afraid of calling my name?)

There are two quotes in this song that particularly catch my attention: "you speak of the devil like he's not your friend, when the world starts to burn give water to men" (you say you hate the devil but you're no better, and the part about the world burning is very ambiguous, but it reminds me of Frollo's actions) and my favorite one: "But if this is what you want, why speak of right and wrong? You still go in for the kill..."

This girl would be white men's nightmare if she was alive during medieval times (just like Esmeralda is Frollo's nightmare probably). You should DEFINITELY check this one too because it's not only the lyrics, but also the instrumentals, they both fit very well with HOND.

The Devil Is Human - OHHHH I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY. IT'S 1 AM I'M TIRED I WANT TO SLEEP ARRGGGGH. In this song, Aurora pretends that she's talking to God, but she's actually calling out bad christians for the absurds they force people to swallow. Not only bad christians but also some... well... outdated social norms that are in the bible and they're also harmful to today's society. This one sounds like Esmeralda is talking directly to Frollo too. I want to sleep so I'll stop here but it's really worthy of your time. And I also spoke about this song in that other post I mentioned here, is that the third time I talk about this? I don't know, it's just a good post

Churchyard - This song talks about hate. Someone (a man) is saying hateful words towards the lyric self, saying that she belongs in a churchyard, she should be dead- and that she can walk away but she won't go very far. The lyric self, then, tells us this information very calmly, and sings about knowing that this person is bitter, blinded by the hate in his heart, and she hopes, truly, that one day he'll notice what he's doing and regret his actions. It's a really good song. And that's how we finish the playlist (and the festival), during Esmeralda's persecution.

I made this playlist for funsies!! I make relations to my hyperfocuses and songs all the time, and I want to share, I NEED TO. Now you guys can hear to the playlist and pretend you're in the Feast Of Fools with me lmao

#the hunchback of notre dame #hunchback of notre dame #hond #thond #claude frollo #judge claude frollo #frollo #quasimodo #phoebus #capitain phoebus #esmeralda #playlist #clopin

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retphienix · 4 years ago

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It's been 6 years :)

On March 30th, 2015 I decided I wanted a gaming side blog. (so we're early, but shush, it's the month for me)

I didn't know what I'd use it for exactly, but I had ideas- something I always have even if most of them only get as far as daydreamin' or writing out before closing them :P

For proof on the lack of direction the blog initially had- the March 30th date is the anniversary of my first post, an in-depth and lengthy review of Dragon Warrior Monsters for the GBC.

If you know the blog then you know "Extremely long and in-depth reviews" aren't the norm around here. As a matter of fact, that first post is the ONLY one I've done!

The closest I've come to ever repeating that would be the (word of the day) Directionless video I put out on Hades to get a grip on the concept of making videos, but that wasn't nearly as much of a 'review' as that first post is.

Tangent, definitely planning on trying my hand at videos some more for the foreseeable future. Probably not gonna use the tagline Full Impressions that I tossed as a whim for the Hades video but yeah- I'm excited to try my hand at a few videos :) tangent over.

It didn't take me long to come up with what I'd like to do for the blog though :)

A few months later I liveblogged a challenge run of FFT where I used only Ramza- a solo run. - Which maybe only happened because I tried a nuzlocke run a year prior on my main account-

(Nuzlocke | FFT challenge run)

Thanks to that haphazard liveblog experiment I started to realize a couple things which became the primary motivators behind this blog.

1) I LOVE sharing experiences. No brainer, I'm sure, but being able to share my experiences, and compare them with others' experiences, and just that mutual sharing is uplifting and feels good to do.

2) Liveblogging is an EXCEPTIONAL motivator to buckle down and play all those games I said I'd play (cue everyone laughing because I'm still way behind and have an immeasurable backlog).

But I mean that, on both respects. I have plenty of motivators toward the blog today, but if I were to be concise it's pretty much "It's easier to beat games if I liveblog them- otherwise I get distracted and play other games" and "I love sharing experiences and thoughts with people about my favorite thing- games."

Since 2015 I've tackled around 70 games as full playthroughs, and an untold ton as one offs or just to ramble about for a bit.

I've had a lot of highlights over the years, and I don't talk much about it as an overall experience so I thought for the anniversary I'd try to do just that. Not everything- I can't say I have photographic memory that would bring all of it up without prompting after all :P But whatever comes to mind as I browse some of my old stuff- as well as some thoughts on what I'd like to see in the future.

It's gonna be a bit self-centric I assume as I type this preamble to it, so let me say outright that this blog wouldn't be half of what it is without all the people who've given it the time of day over the years.

From recommending games they love or appreciate, to comparing thoughts, to offering kind words for analysis I've done over the years, to pointing out when I'm dumb and misread a situation :P- to, yes, even the people who decided "Fuck this guy's ramble" and deleted my captions before reblogging my gifs way back during Hamtaro (Of COURSE I remember that! It's amusing lol).

This is better because of others, because of the interactions and the people I've gotten the chance to chat with or befriend. It's just a liveblog more or less, my own little bit of fun I toss out for myself if for anyone- so seeing others enjoy this or that from the work I put into sharing my experiences or thoughts is always a joy in itself :)

Anyway, onto selfishly rambling about some tidbits of the past :)

Also sorry but no, opted to not shove a ton of photos in, it does have a handful of links to old posts though :P

This'll be disorganized as heck as I'll add to it over time before I feel it's worth posting (or the tumblr post editor becomes a hassle and more or less forces me to).

First~

FFT Solo Ramza Challenge: Considering it was roughly the first thing this blog has done, it's also something that's stuck in my head a lot more clearly than most of the other stuff I've done to be honest lol.

In truth, this is partially because FFT is my favorite game, bar none. But it's also because the whole experience was pretty new to me. Prior to it I had really only done one self-imposed-challenge that wasn't requested by the game in some manner and that was a nuzlocke run of Blue version.

So adding a challenge to my favorite game was a fantastic experience!

Notes I just wanted to say today about that run: If anyone enjoys FFT I honestly recommend giving it a shot for the unique story it lends itself to. I do recommend skipping the rules until after the second battle but that's up to YOU to decide.

My first post on the subject is me complaining about spending 4 hours grinding out the second fight and, despite hyperbole being my natural state, that was NOT hyperbole.

It DID take 60~ restarts to beat. It DID take 4 hours. The reason is that that 2nd battle is RNG as HECK, you HAVE to have Delita do some meaningful actions, you HAVE to have the enemies miss and make poor plays, you damn near HAVE to crit a few instances to save yourself from taking too much damage.

It's a numbers game to the extreme, so I wouldn't fault anyone for 'cheating' and skipping the 2nd fight for the ruleset lol.

The memory that stands out the most for that run is actually isolated in a post in which Ramza (Purrick in this run) talks like a total badass as just ONE DUDE running into a room full of enemies. I just think on that as a great encapsulated view of what it was like. The run started off face grindingly difficult, but because FFT is a game that offers so much freedom to the player it was extremely easy to 'break' the game into making Purrick overpowered as hell.

That's something I love about some tactical RPGs, I love having the ability to play smart so that I can play stupid later on, and breaking the game into making him one shot god is certainly a good payoff for playing smart early on :P

RetQuick: I miss RetQuick, it was primarily a short experiment I did in 2015 where I'd play a game for a short span of time (REALLY short, like 10-20 minutes) and record that for the purpose of making gifs and saying a short piece on what I thought.

It's one of those formats where the purpose was pretty shallow- but had a reason. I wanted to try making some gifs with some tools that existed online, so I made an excuse to do just that.

I also wanted to play a TON of games, usually through emulation on my sister's PSP, and this let me do that.

These two minor goals came together and so I spent a while making RetQuicks which were honestly more fun to make than they had any right to be. I mean the gifs were tedious but the playing? The thought sharing? The end product ocassionally having more appeal than just a photoset? It was fun.

I'm thinking whenever I have trouble picking a game for the blog I'll revisit the format... sorta.

I already reused it for a short stint to show clips I had no plan on expanding into a playthrough, but that died as well as it was too similar to Tidbits posts (another tag I no longer really use).

My thought is to rebrand retquick as something of a tryout for what game comes next. Play a handful of my backlog games for an hour or so each and say some thoughts before saying which one I'll continue as the main game for that period of time.

Old Tag Stuff: One of those things that only sticks to me since I made the decisions but it's always funny for me to look back on my old posts because I was apprehensive as hell toward making my posts visible. The reason my early playthroughs on the My-Tags page are variants of Ret instead of just "The name of the game so people can find this post" is because I felt like a liveblog would just spam the tag to hell-

Something I don't remotely feel bad for doing anymore.

So I avoided getting any sort of spotlight for quite a while on the blog for little reason.

Why Retphienix?: This is just a dumb thought I wanted to share and I'm sure I've said before.

It stands for retro!

Yeah!

Ain't that dumb and also not a real shorthand? lol

I think I have some sort of deer in headlights anxiety towards naming things, I mean do you think I think Full Impressions is a good summation for a video? I don't. But perhaps that's overshadowed by the other inexperiences and anxiety driven decisions that had- doesn't matter.

Retphienix is Retphienix because I sat there in 2015 and thought "Well... what do I name an alt account?"

My main is Redphienix, which yes, is ALSO a terrible name AND is misspelled. But it's that because of sentimental reasons. As a kid I misspelled Redphoenix when making my gamertag (I knew how to spell Phoenix back then as well, I was too excited about xbox live and misspelled it) and it's become something of a sentimental misspelling.

So I wanted to make a mix on that for my game blog, but I had no idea what. In the end I thought "RetroPhienix? I don't know. Retphienix is closer to Redphienix. I'll do that" and so it was done.

And just like how Redphienix is both bad and misspelled but exists because of sentimental reasons- Retphienix has acquired the same 'flavor' in my eye lol.

Aspirations for the blog: I have no immediate ramp up plans or road map or whatever, and in truth I'll be happy if the blog stays just as it is forever- up until tumblr ends- I cry over lost posts- and I reopen it on another platform.

But I do have blurry half-considered daydreams that I'd like to see happen for the blog through some hard work or shifts on my part.

One is something I'm already doing kinda, hence my embarrassing means of bringing it up a lot lately. Videos- I want those. I wanna make some looks back on series people don't talk about that I enjoy, I want to make videos sharing my thoughts on games I beat for the blog (like what full impressions kinda was, but I don't think they'll have a unified name from here on out). Maybe retrospectives, but mostly when I think of making a video tied to retphienix or me in general it's me looking at a game that said something to me, and saying it louder with my own interpretations on it.

You know the kind, videos where they talk about a video game but not the whole thing- just a singular message they really heard loud and clear from it intentionally or not. I dig those and I know I end a lot of games having plenty to say that could be directed into such a format.

We'll see.

And I'm along for the ride on that one as well- currently I'm keeping my eyes on whatever is directly next, which happens to be "I plan on playing Omori, if it clicks as something to talk about I would like to take a shot at that in a video too!"

The other is that I'd like to build a small community. Wouldn't know the first thing on doing that in a modern sense, but just a little online friend group to chat with and play games together. Something that could open up multiplayer and coop experiences being better shared on the blog and would just in general expand my gaming to what it used to be back on the 360 when I had a large group to play with.

Since the 360 era ended I've pretty much closed off- stopped playing competitive games due to lack of interest- and slowed down to playing all games either solo, with randoms (and no mic usually), or with my cousin. It's a rare instance when I play with some good people like @gamesception or another friend of mine, John.

When I diverted from playing competitive games nonstop toward other genres I didn't intend to also cut out all my online gaming buds, it just kinda happened, and I never really put any effort into rectifying that.

So more or less I'd like to one day sit down and work on a discord server, and then buck up and put the leg work in to make some gamin' buds again, but that's such a vague concept anymore.

Sounds all sad and what not but it's more ambivalent, I made decisions that

changed how gaming worked for me after the 360 and this is just where it landed for better and worse- I'd just like to see if I can make it a little better :P

General things I think when I think retphienix: Honestly? I think of how much fun I've had over the years and how thankful I am to have had an outlet that encouraged me to explore more of the medium.

I REALLY love games. I went to college for games, I've written LEAGUES about games, I've played countless games, my childhood was games, my adult life is games- games games games yada yada yada.

So when I think of retphienix I think of how without it I probably wouldn't have explored a lot of the corners of gaming that I have.

I genuinely, and I mean this, might not have sat down and beaten FF7 for myself and would have considered the amount I played as a kid to be enough.

I might not have played Chrono Trigger yet, and I KNOW I wouldn't have played Chrono Cross, and I'm happy as hell to have played both of those. CT was a mind blowing moment for me that showed me just how good an RPG can be, and CC gave me miles to think of in terms of innovating an RPG and how beholden to the narrative a sequel should be (I don't feel CC should have been chrono at all lol).

I DEFINITELY wouldn't have given New Vegas another chance. And I know I'm a sourpuss on NV, I've been that way since I maxed my achievements on the 360 for it, but replaying it really did reveal to me how exceedingly negative I was being.

My memories had become "It's brown and a boring location >:(" and "The factions all suck and it doesn't do anything with the idea of bad factions >:(" and became "It's... a little brown guys, not a big fan of the area" and "They didn't do enough with exploring the gray factions" while adding "Wait. This is pretty damn fun. And 90% of the additions are stellar. And I forgot about Dead Money, my favorite dlc in any game ever with a story that tears at my heart every time I think of it, NV good actually?"

Faxanadu would have remained a cool game I saw on SSFF and not a game I played to the end and fell in love with the aesthetic feel it has!

Also that's a game I cheated like crazy on lol, I would do it again! Save state scumming games meant to be rudely difficult is only fair :P

I probably would have never sat down to play through Windwaker which was such a positive and uplifting experience that I now get the most relaxed and warm feeling in my heart when I see those blue waves.

There's so many experiences I would have left on the table in favor of like... putting more hours into a live service title or something.

Maybe, and no offense to my cousin or anyone else playing it, but maybe I'd be no-lifing World of Warcraft nonstop just stagnating my interest toward the skinner box mechanics of an MMO?

Some offense, actually but lightheartedly lol.

But beyond the entire games I've played for the blog, when I think retphienix I picture all the time making gifs, all those games I played on the PSP for short stints, buying a retron 5 to add to what I could explore and being stoked when they shipped a freebie box of old controllers to go with it, getting angry at the retron for being a Piece Of Shit lol, crying at the end of damn near every game with an emotional story because I'm a big emotional mess of a person who finds investing and crying at a story way too easy thanks to empathy pulls, oh!-

Getting excited whenever I found that I had a "*controversial*" opinion that no one would care about lol. Like the one that comes to mind is that I thoroughly believe that Dragon Ball Z II: Gekishin Freeza!! for the NES is WAY better than the fandom recognized and appreciated sequel/remake Dragon Ball Z: Legend of the Super Saiyan!

How many people do you hear talking about either game, let alone saying the NES game that is roughly half of the SNES remake is the better one :P But I stand by that! The SNES one is a remake of DBZ1 and 2 for the NES but it loses all the charm and some of the fun of the NES ones by being a lackluster SNES game!

lol

I admitted wholeheartedly that this post would be a lit-

little directionless (gotta love the new tumblr poster making me break sentences like that), but to sum things up.

It's been 6 years. It's been an untold amount of work to be honest- liveblogging a game, at least for me, hasn't been the easiest thing. It's a lot of thinking out my thoughts (heh), it's a lot of learning tools to make the capturing process possible, it's a lot of experimenting, it's a lot of writing and editing, and, well, sometimes it's just tough.

I mean I went to school for coding, not video editing, not writing, not image processing, not this or that- but this hobby has introduced a lot of things even if only at a VERY base level (I admit fully to using online alternatives to make gifs for instance).

I learned a lot about, well, a lot of things in order to use this blog to learn more about games- and all that work has become part of why I've loved all 6 years of this blog.

6 years of gaming, work, and you all- and it's been worth the investment :) Here's to many more and all of you whether you stumble upon this post or not- literally anyone who's interacted in these 6 years, thank you, and anyone who hasn't I offer you well wishes as well.

#Retphienix #gaming #video games #gaming liveblog

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