#and so if it's your first time seeing a pokémon you could conceivably believe that's the normal form of the pokémon

[front-facing-pokemon]

[songsofacagedbird]

Is that BALIAN “BALO” DRISKELL? Wow, they do look a lot like EMILIIE DE RAVIN I hear SHE is an EIGHTEEN year old high school SENIOR. Word is they are a REGULAR student at Luxor Academy. You should watch out because they can be NAIVE and SENSITIVE, but on the bright side they can also be BUBBLY and OPTIMISTIC. Ultimately, you’ll get to see it all for yourself.

the basics //

Full Name: Balian “Balo” Grace Driskell

Preferred Name: Balo Driskell

Age: 18

Birthday: February 23rd

Zodiac: Pisces

Gender & Pronouns: Woman (She/Hers)

Sexuality: Balo doesn’t label her sexuality, she’s part of the LGBT+ community (and has canonly dated both girls and boys) but she doesn’t feel comfortable labeling it personally.

Occupation: N/A, she occasionally does commissions though (both art and in like making clothes)

Relationship Status: In a relationship with Cade Carroll (npc) since early May 

Place of Birth: Rochester, New York

Hometown: Saratoga Springs, New York

Country of Citizenship: United States

Languages Spoken: English (first) and French

deeper dive //

Hobbies and Talents:

 ○ Sketching (in particular people and animals, an inspiration board for her sketch book can be found here.)

 ○ Painting

 ○ Gymnastics (her leg is her left leg! By “her leg” I mean the leg she leads off with / does her split with for her floor routine / has better balance)

 ○ Fashion Design and Sewing

 ○ Cheerleading

 ○ Gymnastics

 ○ Yoga

 ○ Roller Skating

 ○ Scrapbooking

 ○ Dancing (a hobby, not a talent)

 ○ She can touch her nose with her tongue

Favorites:

 ○ Color: The entire rainbow, Balo has issues with picking one favorite color so she doesn’t choose.

 ○ Food: Balo’s not the biggest on food but she has a weakness for popcorn. Extra butter, light on the salt.

 ○ Animal: Cats

 ○ Drink: Hot Chocolate

 ○ Flower: Sunflowers

 ○ Book: a fairy tale collection she got from Zander when she was a child

 ○ Holiday: Christmas, to the point she’ll start decorating as early as she can. (June? Why not!)

 ○ Movie: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

 ○ Scent: Strawberries, real a bit more than the artificial but she adores both.

 ○ Place: Her “little art studio” (technically just a corner of her room with her art supplies).

 ○ Quote:

“Butterflies can’t see their wings. They can’t see how truly beautiful they are, but everyone else can. People are like that as well.” - Unknown

Bêtes Noires:

 ○ Color: Dark brown, although she won’t admit to it

 ○ Food: Chicken à la King

 ○ Animal: Spiders, Balo does not like spiders and would like to stay far away from them

 ○ Drink: Matcha

 ○ Flower: Nepenthes peltata

 ○ Book: The Divergent Books

 ○ Holiday: 4th of July

 ○ Movie: Rugrats in Paris, she thinks it’s practically a horror movie

 ○ Scent: Garlic

 ○ Place: The Driskell family home in Saratoga Springs

health //  

Conditions:

          ○ Anorexia Nervosa

          ○ HIV

Allergies: N/A

Sleeping Habits: Balo gets to bed usually at a good time and sleeps 8 hours at a shot.

Exercise Habits: She exercises multiple times of day, between gymnastics and cheerleading, it’s important she’s in prime shape. Dance and Yoga are her go-tos outside of practice.

Addictions: N/A

Drug Use: Very rarely. After a bad LSD trip (when she wasn’t aware she was being drugged until after the fact), she’s very wary of drugs on average.

Alcohol Use: Occasionally. Balo doesn’t have a high alcohol tolerance, she gets tipsy after one drink and if she keeps drinking, after a couple the odds of her stripping are extremely high. (It’s not a sexual thing, she overheats and doesn’t really think about the consequences).

personality //  

MBTI: ESFP

Enneagram: 2w3 (The Helper with The Achiever Wing)

Alignment: Neutral Good

Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff

Percy Jackson Parent: Iris

Pokémon Type: Dragon

Pokémon Subtype: Ghost

Winx: Nature

appearance //  

Height:  5′11” – not at fc height (I enjoy her being a few cm taller than Zander too much to put her at fc now #oops)

Tattoos: One

Scars: None

Piercings: Ears

Hair: Blonde

Eyes: Blue

Fashion:

 ○ link to balo’s closet

 ○ link to balo’s shoes

life at luxor //  

Classes:

 ○ Communications

 ○ French

 ○ General P.E.

 ○ Visual Arts

 ○ Fashion Design

 ○ Human Biology

 ○ Beginner Ballet

Clubs and Activities:

 ○ Art Club

 ○ Cheerleading (Flyer)

 ○  Gymnastics

fun facts //  

 ○ Balo has been attending Luxor since her Freshman year.

 ○ Balo’s kind of a literal ray of sunshine who believes (almost) everyone is truly good at heart.

 ○ Very easy to manipulate, please manipulate her. I’ll literally give you my firstborn.

 ○ Usually you’ll see her running around with a smile trying to brighten everyone’s day. She tries to put everyone’s happiness before herself, however, she’s slowly getting better about forming boundaries.

 ○ While it’d be easy to assume Balo’s dumb, that’s not quite the case. She only remembers the information she wants to. The issue is... most of the information she wants to learn is relatively useless. Want to know how to sew sutures? She’s your girl. Want to know the definition of cannibalism? Well, ask Jack how that goes.

 ○ She has two teddy bears and an American Girl doll living on her dresser. Duffy, Shelley-Mae, and Robin Banks. They’re decorative, but they make her happy.

 ○ One of her best friends is Logan Keller, the boy who went missing during the summer camping trip. The two are still in touch, and extremely close, so occasionally he gets mentioned here and there, but it’s still a sore spot for her (I am still in touch with the person who played him, so I run stuff by his mun when / if he comes up).

 ○ Jack’s adoptive parents recently adopted her, although she hasn’t said a lot about it. Your muse probably won’t know unless one of the two directly told them (or they heard it from Zander). It’s not a secret, she just didn’t make an announcement or anything.

 ○ In October 2019, Zander had an intervention for her to force her to get help for her eating disorder. She was in inpatient until April 2020, when she returned to Luxor.

 ○ Cheer and Gymnastics team member from Freshmen year until her intervention, and she returned to both teams this fall with the new school year.

 ○ Balo’s left handed (the only one of my muses that is a lefty)!

 ○   I’m aware Balo’s family page can be complicated, please feel free to dm me with questions. Also, please remember Balo doesn’t know she’s Daniel’s daughter, let alone the fact there’s even a chance Lance isn’t her father, which means your muse has absolutely no way of knowing this.

 ○ Befriended a stray racoon on the Lake George campus she named Reese Withercoon.

 ○ Literally only just said her first swear word this June, we’re very proud of her for finally getting that done. (#ThanksAxelAndLeo)

 ○ Balo finds the Winnie the Pooh theme song extremely soothing, which resulted in her naming a certain group chat with a set of friends the 100 Acre Woods - because she finds spending time with them soothing too.

 ○ I’m always willing to discuss my muses, so feel free to hit me up if you have any questions at any point.

a tl;dr history  //  

 ○ Balo’s home life growing up was far from perfect. Her father, Lance - is an abusive alcoholic, and while her mother tried her best to protect her children - she also covered things up without hesitation because she loves her husband. It wasn’t uncommon to see a Driskell in the ER with a lie and people willing to back up the story.

 ○ Balo was conceived during the time Lance and Cassandra were seperated the only time that her mother tried to leave. She’s completely unaware that she’s not Lance’s biological daughter (as is everyone else).

 ○ She’s been attending Luxor since freshman year, although she had to leave in the middle of her Junior year had to leave for a few months to attend extensive inpatient treatment. She came back in April, although she could not rejoin the cheerleading and gymnastic teams until her therapist confirmed she was doing well (so the start of her senior year) because of concerns about her well-being.

 ○ She was disowned following her HIV diagnosis over the fall. Over the winter, the Fieldings adopted Balo.

 ○ I strongly recommend skimming Balo’s timeline page before interacting with her. These are just the bare minimum basics, and there're more things your muse may know on there.

wanted connections //  

 ○ Friendships

 ○ Someone to manipulate her, please I beg you

 ○ Anyone who knows her from the gymnastics and/or cheer teams, or the art club

[eldritchsurveys]

641.

Would you convert to a different religion if your fiancé/fiancée was of a different faith? >> Fortunately, this was never an issue. Even if she did have a religion, there’s no obligation for me to share it. I tend to be the one interested in religions (although the jury’s still out on whether I’d ever actually feel comfortable adopting one).

The world is ending, and you can save one group of five people: who would be the five people that you save? >> First of all, if the “world is ending”, then I do not want to be stuck as one of the six humans left to deal with the aftermath and trying to survive in an inhospitable landscape. Also, this is just way too implausible a situation for me to take seriously.

Is happiness a delusion? Is happiness only real when shared? Why or why not? >>The idealisation of happiness is a bit delusional, I guess, but it’s a shared, social delusion -- just look at all the “wellness” “self-help” “self-care [the “buy this thing” kind, not the real, practical kind]” nonsense being peddled to us on a daily basis. Any feeling that is not happy-cheery forced positivity is aberrant and pathological and has to be “fixed”. That’s not a healthy way to think, and I hate that we’re all made to feel that way about perfectly normal ass emotions. I don’t know if happiness is only real when shared. I’ve always had someone(s) Inworld to share my happinesses (and everything else) with, so I can’t speak as to what it’d be like if I didn’t.

What would the cover of your biography (presumably written by somebody else who never knew you, postmortem) look like? >> I... really have no idea.

Write about a really good or creative Tumblr URL that you see frequently on your dashboard. >> inflagrante-delicatessen is a funny one.

If swear words were not things like “shit” and “fuck” what would they be otherwise? >> That’s, like, impossible for me to predict.

Write a very vivid description of what is/would have been your most perfect way to lose your virginity. What is your exact definition of ‘losing your virginity’? Also: will you/would you have liked to save your virginity for marriage? Why or why not? >> I don’t really care about this, you know? It’s not like if my first experience was earth-shattering, it would have somehow made up for all the horrible experiences I had later. I don’t have a definition for “losing one’s virginity” because that’s not a phrase I like to use. I don’t like making a point of dividing people’s experiences into “before sex” and “after sex” to begin with, but also, just focusing on a certain kind of sexual act as a “goal” to reach or whatever is... kind of weird to me. The whole shit is just weird the more I think about it.

Write a six-word fortune cookie. >> I’d rather not.

Why do you think eyebrows exist? >> I don’t have a hypothesis about this, but I’m sure there’s some educated theories out there if I was ever curious (right now, I am not).

If you could only have one contact on your phone, who would it be? >> Sparrow is the only person whose phone number I actually use on a regular basis, so, her.

Your bucket list is limited to three items. >> I don’t have a bucket list, period.

Do you wake up first or do you open your eyes first? >> I assume that I wake up first, and then open my eyes? But maybe it’s the other way around, what do I know.

Write a love/thank you/appreciation letter to someone you take for granted. >> No.

What makes you feel infinitely sexy? >> Can Calah makes me feel sexy. King Crimson makes me feel sexy. Sexiness isn’t something I feel outworld.

Make a video and talk about something for two minutes. Anything. And don’t edit out any parts of it. >> Uh, no.

Write a poem you’d stick on a refrigerator. >> Also no.

Are you afraid of aging? Why? >> I’m not afraid of ageing. I actually look forward to seeing what the rest of my life will bring, especially internally. What I am afraid of is infirmity, degenerative illness, that sort of thing. I’m afraid of losing my personal quality of life. (I know there’s a lot to unpack in regarding one’s quality of life as diminished if one develops a physical disability or something, because people live full lives with those things all the time. But I cannot predict how a change of that magnitude would affect me, personally, and I worry that I will not be able to adapt.)

Describe one time you basically thought you were the shit, when your self-confidence was soaring through the roof. This is meant to be a positive thing. >> Hm. I can’t remember a time like that right now.

If there was one person you could get drunk with and kiss and then later blame it on alcohol, who would it be? >> I would not do that.

Does perfection exist? If the word perfection did not exist, what word would be in its place? What would perfection mean instead? >> I guess the concept exists, at least. I don’t know if it’s something I can measure and perceive.

The next book you see that has over 300 pages, open up to page 136. Find a sentence you like, copy it down, and then write about it. >> I don’t feel like getting up to grab a book.

Who makes you laugh the most? >> ---

What is one thing that you are proud of, that you think lacks praise/lacks appreciation from the people around you? It could be a simple thing; it could be a secret thing. >> I don’t really seek appreciation from the people around me, so I don’t know.

If you could accuse somebody of being fake/a bitch and not suffer any repercussions, who would you accuse, and how would you do it? >> I’d really rather not. What even would be the point?

What is the funniest one-liner Tumblr text post you’ve ever read? >> Dude, there are so many funny ass posts on this website. I collect them at @officialaynrand.

Rewrite a verse of lyrics from your favorite song. They have to sound good when you sing it out loud along to tune of the song. >> Nope. But I will say that my brain insists on hearing the “heavy metal broke my [heart]” line in Fall Out Boy’s Centuries as “heavy metal Pokémon” and even though I know the lyrics I still sing it like that because it just kills me every time.

If the SATs/grades did not exist, in what way should colleges/teachers evaluate applicants? >> I have no suggestions.

Do you feel at home in your home? Is home a place for you? A book? A thing? A person? What would you want your home to be? >> I feel at home in Xibalba. I feel at home in my room here in the apartment, too. But I guess I’d feel equally at home in any place as long as I have a room of my own, a controlled environment that belongs solely to me.

Write your own eulogy. >> “Mordred Shadow Lastname wishes to inform us, the gathered, that it is just as surprised by this turn of events as we are. Except it actually isn’t surprised, or anything else, because It’s too busy being dead. Surprisingly. The unbelievably-deceased would like to request that if someone asks how it died, it will haunt whoever dares to say something stupid like ‘natural causes’. Make up a good story or pass the mic to someone who will.” Dunno what else I’d put in a eulogy about myself. That’s not really for me to write, anyway. Funerals are for the living, they can write the damn thing.

What is something you felt like you deserved or should have belonged to you, but you never got? >> There is nothing I feel that way about.

Do you feel ‘connected to nature’? Do you frequent outside? Do you believe that a connection with the earth we live on is necessary in the first place? >> I mean... I love to be outdoors, but I also love to be in a server room. I feel the same sense of awe and connection in both settings. For me, there is no real difference between the organic states and the transmuted states of matter. It’s all matter, innit? I don’t believe that feeling connected to Earth is necessary. I believe it’s healthy, sure, and common, but I don’t believe it’s unhealthy to not have that connection, or to feel connected to something else instead. It’s possible that some future generation of Homo sapiens will be born on another planet. What happens to that supposedly-innate “connection to the Earth” then? (Will they feel connected to their home planet instead? Or, something else? Or, nothing?)

Your opinion on oral sex? >> I don’t have an opinion on it, exactly. Just a preference: I prefer not to give or receive it. That’s all.

If one TV show could be real, which one would you want it to be? Which one would screw our world over? >> That is a complex question with a lot of variables and I don’t think I feel like devoting mental energy on it right now.

How many kinds of love are there? >> I… don’t know? As many kinds as people can conceive, I imagine. Or maybe it’s all just one kind, with different expressions. *shrug*???

Which word needs to exist (or be used again)? >> I mean, if I thought a word should be used again, I’d just use it. That’s literally how it works. If it’s been phased out completely enough that no one remembers it and it’s not recorded anywhere, then I can’t want it back, because I’d have to know a thing used to exist in the first place in order to want it to exist again.

What is the absolute hardest thing about staying alive? >> This pesky nag called “death” that keeps asking, “are we there yet?!” from the backseat.

What is a book that has been recognized as ��great literature’ that you dislike? Why? >> Oh, I don’t know. The only time I ever read “Literature(tm)” was in high school, so I don’t know how I’d feel about any of it now. I'm just not really interested in it.

What is one change that you would make/have made to your life that will make/has made it better? >> *shrug*

Is everything you do for yourself? Can you truly be selfless? >> No, not everything I do is solely for myself. I do things for others as well. But I don’t like doing things for others if doing so threatens my quality of life, survival, or mental health. I don’t think it’s possible for a human being to act without a single note of self-interest. I mean... isn’t the survival instinct an instinct of self-interest?

Are you the same person you were two and a half years ago? >> I’m not the same person I was a second ago. (I also am not the same person I was about... 5 or so years ago, but that’s a... different thing.)

Can you possibly conquer the labyrinth? >> What labyrinth? Jareth the Goblin King’s? I’d try my best to conquer it if only to get to dance in the ballroom scene with him.

As a hyper intelligent pan-dimensional being, what is the answer to the ultimate question, the life, the universe and everything? What is the ultimate question? >> The ultimate question is obviously “how the fuck does CatDog poop?”

[aion-rsa]

The Nintendo Fan Games That Tried to Revitalize Pokémon, Metroid, and Super Smash Bros.

https://ift.tt/331g4Zh

In 2016, Milton Guasti’s Metroid 2 remake (AM2R) was released online after a decade of work. One day later, Nintendo sent DMCA takedown requests to the websites that hosted it. Many fans were shocked by the decision. Guasti seems more surprised by the efficiency of it.

“Throughout the years I started seeing that [a takedown] could be possible,” Guasti recalls. “What I was not expecting was that it happened so fast.”

New fan-made gaming projects are developed and distributed all the time, and often embraced by studios, but as those in the creative community know, Nintendo has historically been adamant about protecting its properties and taking down fan games. From novelty game mods to NSFW art of Bowser, there’s no guarantee that fan creations based on Nintendo games will survive online for long.

So what makes someone spend years on a game that may only be widely available for one day? For Guasti, it was the chance to learn programming within a fascinating framework.

“I decided I wanted to practice a little bit of programming, so I downloaded GameMaker and did a couple of mini-games here and there just to learn a little bit of how game logic and design are done,” Guasti says. “Since most of the effort in designing something is getting the first couple of decisions, remaking something that’s already done seemed like a good idea to save time. I had recently played Metroid: Zero Mission on the Game Boy Advance [a remake of 1986’s Metroid], and since there was no similar treatment for Metroid 2, I said, ‘Well, this is a black and white game. Whatever I do with ripped sprites might be better than this. So I guess I can make a Metroid game.'”

For Guasti, the appeal of making his own Metroid game was more about the design of the franchise than his overwhelming love for the series. He described himself as more a Metroid “enthusiast” than a “hardcore fan” when he started working on the game. For others looking to learn how to develop and design games, the choice of which game to use as a starting point comes down to franchises they’ve always loved.

“It was my childhood dream to make my own Pokémon game,” says fan developer Involuntary Twitch. “Thus began my nine-year journey with fan game development as a hobby.”

That hobby became Pokémon Uranium, a Pokémon fan game the size of a major franchise installment. Involuntary Twitch wanted it to feature all of the things that she loved about Pokémon games: “pixel art, exploring, discovering new creatures, and uncovering mysteries.” For the many ways that Uranium was designed to be an homage to Pokémon, there was at least one element Twitch hoped to improve.

“I have been my entire life saying that Pokémon can and probably should do a little bit better with the stories,” Involuntary Twitch says. “I don’t think Pokémon needs to tell this grand, epic story with all these plot twists and betrayals and darker themes…but I think that what makes a good story is just the feeling that your actions actually matter, that the things you do are instrumental to the outcome of the plot.”

As the tale of a young trainer whose mother was lost in a nuclear accident roughly 10 years before the mysterious appearance of radiated Pokémon coinciding with the construction of a new power plant, Uranium‘s plot is darker, more complicated, and perhaps a bit more mature than what many of the games in the Pokémon franchise aim for. It’s also a big part of the reason why Uranium was widely hailed as a breath of fresh air for a franchise that largely sticks to the same formula put in place in the ’90s.

Yet, the story of Uranium that many more people are familiar with is what happened after the game was released. Much like AM2R, Uranium was hit by DMCA takedown requests issued by Nintendo shortly after the project’s 2016 release. After over nine years of work, Uranium‘s widespread availability could be measured in hours. Once again, the move did not come as a complete surprise.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

“I think our mentality was that we’d already had multiple playable releases out of the game, and so whatever its ultimate fate may be, we owed it to ourselves,” says Involuntary Twitch of the decision to continue working on the project despite the likelihood that it would eventually be taken down. “This is the single biggest project that any of us had ever done in our entire lives…So, we owed it to ourselves and we owed it to the people who were excited to see this game fully realized to see it all the way through the end”

So why didn’t Involuntary Twitch and her creative partner JV just make a copyright-free clone of a Pokémon game? 

“I did consider it, but I mean, at that point, we were in too deep,” Twitch says. “Literally every single part of the game would need to be thrown out and reconstituted to the point where it would be unrecognizable. And in exchange for doing that, we would get way less exposure, and we would basically just be filing the serial numbers off something that’s meant to be our love letter to a franchise…I feel like doing that would’ve drained what drove us to make this game in the first place, which was our love for Pokémon.”

That certainly seems to be the dilemma. Many Nintendo fan creators are often inspired by their love for Nintendo games, but there are times when Nintendo can be hard to love. The company will go years without even acknowledging beloved franchises but it’ll immediately litigate when fans pursue the projects and ideas Nintendo won’t. 

Those bespoke projects are often designed to appeal to a section of the fanbase Nintendo has sometimes ignored. Uranium featured a more mature story not commonly seen in Pokémon games. AM2R focused on one of Nintendo’s most complex (and often ignored) franchises. And in terms of notorious Nintendo fan projects designed to address something that was missing, few titles are as compelling as Project M: a Super Smash Bros. Brawl mod designed not to reinvent the wheel but simply make that game feel closer to its predecessor.

“Brawl took away almost everything that many people enjoyed about Melee from a gameplay design perspective,” says former Project M webmaster Taylor “Warchamp7” Giampaolo. “The floatier gravity, the slower gameplay, the removal of many character control nuances like dash dancing and wave dashes, and random factors like tripping that took control away from the player all contributed to a game we found less enjoyable. Project M‘s main goal was to bring back the elements of Melee that we all enjoyed like the faster pacing and balance of risk/reward.”

On the surface, a mod like Project M probably comes across as the work of a fanbase that felt Nintendo had gotten it wrong. Yet, that’s not necessarily the case. If anything, the game is more often talked about as a kind of “What if?” scenario designed to explore what may have happened if the competitive community that embraced Melee had become the primary audience for future installments.

“Project M is definitely our alternate take on what we’d like the series to look like,” Giampaolo says. “Melee‘s competitive nature is sometimes considered a happy accident, and I’d say Project M is a deliberate execution of those competitive aspects.”

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Melee‘s expansive multiplayer modes make it clear the game was intended to be played competitively between friends, but what many believe Nintendo did not necessarily anticipate was how the game would be embraced by more “hardcore” fighting game fans. What was essentially conceived as a Nintendo mascot brawler became a mainstay in the competitive fighting game community, and some of the things that made the game so different are also what made it popular among the genre’s most dedicated fans.

“Melee‘s mechanics offered an extreme freedom of movement that provides limitless options in various situations,” says Smash Bros. modder Dan Salvato. “I think most notably, simply moving your character around on the screen is extremely fun in itself. Most fighting games are balanced around what you can’t do in any given situation, but Melee kind of rips out the brakes and hands the keys to the player. You might get a lot of Melee die-hards giving you a list of reasons that Melee is ‘better,’ but I think that it just provides a different experience that captures a different audience of players.”

As a look into a kind of alternate reality for the Smash Bros. franchise, it’s easy to again wonder why the Project M team simply didn’t create their own Smash Bros.-like game based on Melee‘s mechanics. Much like with Pokémon Uranium, the decision to stick to the Smash Bros. name and the many copyright conflicts that come with it can be attributed to a combination of love and logistics.

“Everyone on the Project M team was incredibly talented but a lot of members had skill sets that were specifically tailored for modding Brawl,” Giampaolo says. “Some of the people that did programming on the team didn’t know any normal programming languages; they only knew assembly and had learned it through modding. Some of the animators didn’t have any experience with industry animation tools; they only knew how to use the community-created ones designed for Brawl‘s file formats. I consider their work even more impressive because of that but it means they wouldn’t have had an easy transition to making a ��real’ game at the time.”

The Project M team was aware of the risks associated with the game they were making, and, as such, decided to institute a series of rules that they hoped would help protect the game against an immediate takedown. For instance, they encouraged people to play a “hackless” version of the mod that still required them to purchase Brawl, and they didn’t add new characters to the mod that weren’t already present in Brawl in some way.

In a way, the guidelines worked. Project M wasn’t hit with an immediate takedown request, but the constant threat of future legal actions and the desire to start on an original project accelerated the end of its development. But before that happened, Project M was embraced by the Smash Bros. competitive community who began using it and other modded versions of Smash Bros. as the feature attraction in many tournaments.

It doesn’t seem many of those fans expected Nintendo to embrace Project M or officially support any Smash Bros. mod. However, many of them wanted Nintendo to at least recognize their passion for the series’ competitive elements and how many felt Melee, in particular, best represented those qualities. There’s a degree to which the competitive Smash Bros. community lived in that same “under the radar” territory that Project M tried to exist in, and there’s a degree to which the competitive Smash community just wanted to be seen as fans who built a tournament scene based on love and shared passions. When Nintendo finally noticed them, the real trouble started.

“Over the years, the most community backlash hasn’t come from Nintendo not caring, but it has come from Nintendo interfering,” Salvato explains. “I think a decade ago, the Smash community felt more desperate for Nintendo’s acknowledgment…but once Nintendo stepped in, though, all of their regulations followed, and the Smash community started to question whether they actually wanted it.”

In 2020, Nintendo sent a cease and desist letter to a beloved Smash Bros. tournament that planned to use a Smash Bros. Melee emulator to host a digital event during the Covid-19 pandemic. The letter even targeted the event itself, which meant the hosts couldn’t simply feature the latest Smash Bros. game instead. After years of being ignored, the Smash Bros. competitive community was dealing with the fallout of being seen. While Nintendo has helped event organizers in the past, it was that lingering threat of things quickly going the other way that so often made the relationship uncomfortable and, at times, impossible.

Guasti can tell you more about Nintendo’s history of acknowledging the work of fans in their own strange way. A year after shutting down AM2R, Nintendo revealed and released an official Metroid 2 remake for the 3DS called Metroid: Samus Returns. Given that the franchise had been dormant for some time and that an unofficial remake of that same game had just been taken down a year before, the reveal of Samus Returns came as a shock to many, including Guasti.

“It was quite a surprise. Nobody saw it coming,” Guasti recalls. “Once I finished seeing the trailer, it was like, ‘Hmm, so that’s how the Metroid fights look with a budget.'”

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By Matthew Byrd

Games

15 Strangest Legend of Zelda Unsolved Mysteries and Urban Legends

By Matthew Byrd

Samus Returns and AM2R are actually quite different in terms of their visuals and mechanics, but in a way, the differences made the speed at which the latter was taken down before the former was released that much more surprising.

“If you think about it, it’s super fascinating,” Guasti says. “These two points of view of the same story have been developed in parallel. At least one of the parties didn’t know that the other existed. Even if there are a couple of elements in common, the way that they conveyed the game feel and the whole environmental design, how Samus moves around and all of the elements in the design are completely different.”

Maybe there’s an alternate timeline where the differences between the two games meant both were allowed to exist, but Guasti doesn’t seem to dwell much on that. As strange as it may seem for someone who spent so many years of their lives on a project they couldn’t profit from, Guasti seems satisfied with how things worked out.

“I can’t be mad,” Guasti says. “I reached the audience that I wanted to reach. I learned everything that I wanted to learn from that…I’m really happy how that stage in my life turned out.”

Considering that Guasti’s work on AM2R helped him find a job in the video game industry where he later worked on the Metroidvania title Ori and the Will of the Wisps, you may think that the fate of AM2R is only easy to accept given that it led to a career and all of the benefits that come with that. Yet, there are many creators who share the belief that the real value of their work was the chance to share something with other fans like them.

In fact, some wouldn’t even mind if Nintendo essentially released the games they worked on without even giving them direct credit, much less a check.

“I would be ecstatic,” Giampaolo says of the possibility of Nintendo releasing its own Project M without acknowledging the mod’s creators. “We created Project M because it was the game that we wanted to play and it is, to date, my favorite entry in the genre. I’d love nothing more than for more players to get to enjoy that.”

Of course, Project M is a mod to an existing Nintendo game, and its creators were always aware of the fine line they were walking when working on it. They also got to end it on something closer to their own terms, and the mod is still massively popular among its intended fanbase to this day. But what about Involuntary Twitch whose project was hit by one of the swiftest and most complete takedowns in fan game history? How would she feel if the next Pokémon game was essentially a copy of Uranium but she received no credit?

“I’d be thrilled,” Twitch says. “I wanted to play one of my own games on a Nintendo handheld my entire life. And even if they didn’t put my name in the credits, I would still know that I was there, that I had inspired some type of its DNA. That, to me, would be enough. I mean, I am not here to chase clout. I don’t make fan games for attention. I make it because I like to do it and it’s a fun hobby for me.”

While there is something exceptional about those who create to fulfill a vision and share it with the world, this mentality seems to be the lifeblood of the fan game community.

“The modding mentality is that you have a community that loves a game so much that they want to extend its lifespan and help each other enjoy the game even more,” Salvato says. “In my experience, mods are always full of a lot more love for Nintendo than they are of disappointment. Modders are proud and passionate, and they love what they do.”

You could argue this love is rarely reciprocated by Nintendo, but some creators suggest we may need to change our perception of success by recognizing that completing and sharing these projects can be more important than profits and fame. 

“I hope that it brought them some joy because, to me, creating stuff is something that defines who I am,” Involuntary Twitch says. “I hope that it can help other people to find out who they are and develop their skills and find a place where they belong.”

Why does someone spend years of their lives on a project that can’t make money, will probably be shut down, and will never be embraced by the company that inspired them? The answers vary but seem to often come down to a surprisingly simple philosophy. You can spend years waiting for Nintendo to do make something, or you can spend that time doing it yourself and letting the memories, the love, and the quality of the games justify it all.

The post The Nintendo Fan Games That Tried to Revitalize Pokémon, Metroid, and Super Smash Bros. appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/331lELf

[imaginemycroftholmes]

Hey, I'm guessing that you've done a imagine between an ex-president and Mycroft before, but I don't know. Or if you haven't, please do. Maybe a blind date, where Mycroft doesn't figure it out until after she/he has been greeted by some high up politician. Thank you ❤️🐟

Hmm, My only issue with this is that when it concerns politics Mycroft knows everyone that matters-past and present with the exceptions of smaller positions like regional positions like county mayor or minor jurisdictions that don’t have a bigger role when it comes to what the government will do or say. It would pretty much be like a professional actor not knowing some of the most influential or up and coming film makers in the business. With that being said I think I can tweak this into making it a bit more conceivable if you’ll allow me.

-M

“And then I said to the guy, that’s not a Machop, that’s my baby brother!”

Mycroft could not curtail his mirth even if he tried as _____ regaled him with tales of her past.

Prior to this moment had Anthea told him he would have this much fun with a blind date much less a Pokémon trainer Mycroft would have told her to cancel it as he had little patience for vagabonds that went around battling people and making it a nightmare to collect taxes.

Honestly Mycroft had this image in his head how these trainers went about trespassing on private property to find items, vigilante justice and team rocket causing terror by chasing said trainers who would give up a perfectly good education to battle their  younger years on some far-fetched dream of becoming a Pokémon master.

Never doing more of anything but buying supplies for the road and creating ghost towns for places not near a gym would drive most government officials to drink trying to come up with ways to keep their towns a float.

However this young woman was anything but the image

She was educated, kind, intelligent, a Pokémon trainer but recognizes the science and force that can be applied to help humans to achieve new feats that can’t be done with machines alone.

If anything Mycroft would rather not have the date end at all he’s having so much fun when a young man approaches their table with Pineco floating at his side.

“Excuse me, former Kahuna _____,” he stutters terribly, “I-I know you’re on a date an all and you may not remember me but I just wanted t-to say thank  you for believing in me back on the islands and to keep moving forward.”

For her part ______ seems not to be put off by it. “Of course I remember you Marty and I’m quite impressed that you made it this far to England so does this mean you’re putting off the Sinnoh region until next year?”

“Um sort of…You see I met this girl,” Marty says voice lowering as his face became enflamed and started to fidget looking between ____ and him. “Anyway, I’m sorry for interrupting I just wanted you to know!” he says quickly trying to make his escape before ____ had him by the collar.

“Not so fast Marty,” _____ states in mock seriousness, “I’ll give you my number first so you can tell me later about this girl.”

The boy struggles a bit before he gives in and lets her type in her number before he’s let off with a loving scratches for his Pineco.

Turning back to him ___ apologizes. “Sorry about that Mycroft but you know how it is holding a high position like mine,” she says with a smile and graciously accepts more rolls from the Mr. Mime waiter.

“Excuse me?”

She gives him an incredulous look. “ You’re in charge of the government here much like I am for the islands back in the Alola region,” ____ explains slowly, “Did your PA not tell you that?”

Mycroft can see this date spiraling out of control if he doesn’t respond properly and after having such a wonderful time he’s not about to be set back by ignorance.

“I’m afraid not as I’m woefully out of touch with anything beyond my borders gym leader wise,” Mycroft replies carefully, “But I would love too know more from someone with first hand experience with it. Say next week at eight?”

Please say yes. Please say yes. Please say yes.

______ rather thoughtful while she considers the invitation putting Mycroft on edge until she says, “Sure, I love to talk about my culture but on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You have to battle me at least once on our next date.”

[swipestream]

SUPERVERSIVE: Of course objective quality exists, and everyone knows it

“Quick, think of an anime literally everybody agrees is awesome”

There is a curious phenomenon that you see many times in critical circles, a dogma if you will. This dogma is maintained with near fanatical certainty by some, and among more leftist critics especially (re: most critics) it is VERY popular.

The dogma: There is no such thing as objective quality. Every opinion is subjective. It is impossible to judge whether something is good or bad objectively, only your personal opinion of it. If somebody disagrees it merely means they aren’t as good at justifying their opinion as you and can’t justify a show’s good qualities.

Naturally, this is total nonsense. And everyone knows it.

It is impossible – literally impossible – to be a critic and not believe in objective quality. Every time, without fail, no matter what, every single critic HAS to speak as if they have discovered objective qualities that make a piece of media better or worse than another. If they didn’t it would be impossible for them to talk about anything.

What is objective quality though? Well, I’m no Aristotle, and I didn’t write Poetics. I can only submit a few basic guidelines:

If the work is designed to appeal to a specific audience, does that audience appreciate the work?

I they are trying to execute certain things – for example, construct a plot with no plot holes – do they actually do it? Or do they fail in their stated purpose?

Look at works that have stood the test of time. What qualities keep appearing in those works? Does your work hit upon any of those timeless qualities?

The purpose of media likes shows, movies, and books, on the most basic level, is to entertain. Did you create the work with that intention?

Are you attempting to communicate truth or lies?

Maybe these guidelines aren’t exactly right. Maybe I’m way off. But even so, let’s apply it to two works – the original Star Wars film, now “A New Hope”, and “The Last Jedi”.

Did “The Last Jedi” entertain? It was a big hit, but as time has gone on it seems a growing group has come to the conclusion the answer is “No.” Certainly it entertained far, far less than “A New Hope”.

Was it attempting to execute a certain thing, but failed to do it? I’d imagine it was trying to avoid glaring plot holes, but it had them. So, without even going through the rest of the film, the answer is an immediate “no”. “A New Hope”, on the other hand, has plot holes, but due to following the structure of the fairy tale its plot holes are far less important than its structure, which it executed almost flawlessly – and those plot holes, if they even exist, are very minor.

Does it attempt to capture the sorts of qualities that have made works last the test of time? The answer with “The Last Jedi” is “Absolutely not”. In fact it is specifically attempting to do the opposite – to deliberately avoid those sorts of qualities in favor of complete deconstruction. “A New Hope”, on the other hand, is a fairy tale, a Hero’s Journey, and it intentionally invokes those timeless qualities in constructing its story.

Does the audience “The Last Jedi” was aimed for appreciate it? No. Even the die hard Star Wars fans were at best lukewarm, in aggregate. Meanwhile, the public loved “A New Hope”.

Does “The Last Jedi” attempt to communicate truth or lies? The answer is “lies”. The character assassination of our childhood heroes and the attempted lifting up of morons and losers to replace them is a lie. Meanwhile “A New Hope” shows the true power of heroism and true heroes and the triumph of good over evil. “A New Hope” tells the truth.

So what does this mean?

It means “The Last Jedi” is bad.

Obviously I am vastly oversimplifying. Again, I’m not Aristotle. I’m not trying to come up with a full theory of beauty here. And sometimes a work is only trying for certain specific things and deliberately neglect other aspects in order to make a good work. “Gurren Lagann’s” plot makes absolutely no sense, but that’s because it’s focusing on going as big and as over the top as possible knowing that this wouldn’t gel with a perfectly intelligible plot, and so chose to make that sacrifice. And sometimes the stuff a work does well it does so well that you’re more willing to overlook it’s flaws. “A New Hope” is about as cheesy a film can get, but who cares, it’s awesome!

And everybody knows this. The subjective factor is when, for some reason, somebody likes a work that is objectively bad, or for personal reasons dislikes a work that’s objectively good. “Cowboy Bebop” is a masterpiece but I know people who don’t like watching it because of how dark it gets. Alternatively I know factually that the early seasons at least of Pokémon are objectively terrible, but I like them anyway due to nostalgia. Nostalgia, however, should never be used as an excuse to avoid admitting a word is bad.

“But wait. You think Tolkien is a greatest fantasist ever but I don’t. What does that mean?”

It can mean a few things. First, it can mean that we disagree and one of us is actually wrong, though we haven’t come to a consensus on which one of us it is. Or it can mean that one author does things exceptionally well but other stuff not so well and vice versa, and each of us values something different about the work. This is where you get into real subjectivity, and the debate gets tricky – but this does not mean objective qualities of good and bad don’t exist.

And everybody HAS to speak that way, because if they don’t they can’t communicate their views properly. What does that say about the world? Is the concept of “good” or “bad” media truly so difficult to qualify that it is actually almost impossible to speak with language that doesn’t give a value judgment? Is that truly the most plausible explanation for what’s going on here?

The best argument I have seen contrary to this point of view comes from Digibro. I will warn you that even the title of the video contains strong language, so I’ll give you some space to scroll past it if necessary if you’re watching this at work or on break at school or something like that.

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Digibro’s argument is, to my eye, quite bizarre. He tries to argue that because we don’t know all of the rules of reality and can conceivably be living in the Matrix to mean it is impossible to know anything about objective truth. In way of comparison he brings up the (true) fact that we don’t perceive every spectrum of light.

This is quite true in itself, but the overall point is absolutely wrong. The very rules of logic and reality mean that there are certain things that MUST be true, and using those rules we can deduce other things about reality. For example, something cannot be both true and false at the same time (we’re not talking about a trick of language here, we’re talking “I am typing in this universe at this very moment” cannot be both true and false). Aquinas reasons to the existence of God not from observations about reality but rather unbreakable rules of logic. These things will always exist, because without them, nothing would exist.

Digibro, funnily enough, denies that he can even know his hand is in front of him, because he “cannot reason for absolute truth”. This may be true, but he CAN know that it is impossible for his hand to be both in front of him and not in front of him.

So why do we assume that “Good” or “Bad” in media is not something that can be deduced from logical principles?

Is it POSSIBLE we are wrong about what we are talking about? Technically, sure. But so what? That’s what discussion is for. That’s what debate is for. The whole point of criticism is to make the argument that something you like is good or bad. If that isn’t the point of criticism then criticism has no point.

To explain what I mean, Digibro himself explains at the end of his “Asterisk War” series (link to the first video later) that the point was to help people try to understand the difference between a “1 and a 3, or a 3 or a 5” (I’m paraphrasing) on a 10 point scale. But why should he care? If the majority of people think “The Asterisk War is Great” then to them the show is a 10 and Digibro’s point is irrelevant. His whole series is reduced to navel-gazing meant for people who agreed with him in the first place.

Digibro goes on to say that it is impossible to say whether him HAVING a hand is good – that there is no metric that can be used to decide good or bad. It is remarkable that Digibro has managed 3 minutes and 10 seconds into his video to completely ignore the tradition of Natural Law morality that would argue, in fact, from logical first principles, that having a hand is, in fact, good. And if that is the basis of his video, it all falls apart; there is littler left to discuss. To see more of THAT argument, read the works of Dr. Edward Feser. His blog posts are short and easily digestible, and will help you get a primer on this sort of thinking if it is new to you.

There is little else to say about Digi’s video. He goes on to state that the metric for figuring out a definition of “Good and Bad” can only be understood if you “Know what God thinks of the world”, which is at best highly debateable and at any rate irrelevant if you believe that God actually does exist and can be proven by first principles. He has no understanding of the vast philosophical history about this very topic and as a result undermines his entire career. I suppose it helps lolicons feel better, though.

And all of this would be excusable if it was something in the realm of complex philosophy we could never expect regular people to truly grasp. Except that my position is not new. It was – really, is – the historical norm of western civilization for millennia. It was understood something like objective beauty existed, and this has been the basic assumption underpinning the creation of media throughout the entirety history of western thought. To throw it aside because you don’t understand it is a variation of the Chesterton’s Fence paradox – if you’re going to throw something as fundamental as objectivity away you better be sure you knew why people believed it in the first place.

This is all very unfair to Digibro, who is himself just one very small symptom of one very, very large problem. He has a lot of good stuff. Check out his Asterisk War series if you haven’t. Plus I’m essentially punishing him here for having the clearest video on this topic from his perspective that I’ve seen, which is in some ways a compliment. Still, this is no small matter. An issue this important, especially to a critic, cannot just go unaddressed.

Whew. This video has gone off into the weeds a bit. Now we’re in highly esoteric territory. Let’s steer into our conclusion:

Good and bad do exist, they can at least debatably be proven from first principles, and even if you don’t think that the very structure of society assumes that it does, and this includes media criticism.

Have an (objectively) great day, folks!

SUPERVERSIVE: Of course objective quality exists, and everyone knows it published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: Found in Translation - "Naruto" and the Importance of Gateway Anime

When I was in eighth grade, Rock Lee from Naruto was my inspiration. I thought his methods of training were really cool. Although I wasn’t quite stupid enough to give myself a bowl haircut, I did wear leg weights underneath my pants in an effort to make myself “stronger.” This was without a doubt the darkest period in my life.

  Although I have since distanced myself from Naruto and my dark past, I don’t regret watching the anime. (Well, maybe I regret the leg weights…) Naruto, you see, was a really important show to me. It was the very first anime I watched in Japanese, and it was the first anime I thought of as “anime” in the first place.

  In other words, Naruto was my gateway anime.

    For many non-Japanese anime fans, especially those who grew up in the West in the 90s or earlier, a gateway anime serves an incredibly important function. Although we are surrounded by Japanese cultural products and exports, the idea that they are Japanese is often not immediately obvious to us. As a child, it would never have occurred to me that Pokémon, Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, Final Fantasy, and Super Mario were Japanese, for instance. It was only in later years, after I became more acquainted with Japanese culture, that I could look back and see the Japanese elements in those franchises that had existed all along.

  It’s common for anime fans to clearly distinguish between the anime they watched before and after their gateway anime, as if the realization that anime is Japanese is an epiphany. One might wonder why that matters to begin with. You can still enjoy anime even when you don’t know it’s Japanese, right? And that’s true enough. But if you ask me, it’s important to appreciate the origins of things, and to understand and respect other cultures. Plus, the fact that so many of us need a “gateway” anime to make the Japanese connection in the first place is worth thinking about on a deeper level.

  In 2002, incidentally the same year Naruto first started airing on Japanese TV, a Japanese academic named Koichi Iwabuchi published a book called Recenterizing Globalization. He argued that one of the main reasons why Japanese exports have become so popular overseas is because they lack “cultural odor”— that is, noticeable traces of a foreign culture. One example of this is Pokémon. When the series was first dubbed into English, all the Japanese names were changed into English ones, among other changes. Notoriously, even the onigiri (rice balls) were changed into “donuts,” resulting in much hilarity among viewers.

    As a result of these changes, however, many youngsters who might have been confused by the Japanese cultural references in Pokémon were able to accept the series as if it was something they had grown up with.

  Japanese products aren’t “culturally odorless” just because of localization, however. Sometimes they are designed from the ground up to lack things that would remind the consumer of Japan—and this doesn’t just apply to anime and games. I’m sure that most people don’t immediately associate Sony Walkmans with Japan any more than they think of Samsung phones as Korean. Even when we technically know where they’re from, the lack of “odor” in the technology allows us to pretend that Asian products were not conceived by Asians.

  When you think about it, this is a pretty messed up state of affairs. Yet for better or worse, products with a heavy cultural odor tend to appeal to a niche market, and this applies to the vast majority of anime. (It should be noted that most anime are also niche in Japan, but that’s a topic for another day.) But just because something is foreign in origin doesn’t mean that it can’t appeal across borders, and the sheer number of anime fans around the world should attest to that. Most of us just need a gateway into the medium.

    The need for gateways might be why articles like “the best anime for beginners” or “the best anime to introduce to your friends who don’t like anime” are so popular. A good gateway anime is often different enough from what the viewer would normally watch in their home culture that it encourages them to seek out more anime. But it also can’t alienate the viewer entirely. Picking a good gateway anime for a friend is like trying to translate something for them. We often translate things to give others a peek into a different culture, but there’s no point to a translation that the audience can’t understand. When we try to recommend a gateway anime to someone who doesn’t yet “get” anime, we walk the same tightrope between the foreign and the familiar.

  On retrospect, Naruto was an excellent gateway anime, especially for young people. It’s pretty hard to ignore the “Japanese-ness” in a show about ninjas where everyone has Japanese names, after all. Also, if you want to make a Japanese product that can appeal to American sensibilities, ninjas are a fairly safe bet. It’s probably no surprise that out of the “Big 3” Shonen Jump manga (Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach), Naruto is easily the most popular in America.

  Naruto is also a special gateway anime to Americans in particular for another reason—it was one of Crunchyroll’s very first simulcast titles. One might even argue that it was Naruto that helped CR soar to popularity as an anime streaming service. Unlike earlier generations of anime fans, Naruto viewers overseas were able to watch new episodes every week at almost the same time they aired in Japan. This is something we may take for granted today, but the sheer convenience of on-demand video streaming and weekly updates has made it easier than ever to become an anime fan. At this point, it no longer matters that Japanese anime is a niche product when it’s so easy to find and watch one of the ideal gateway anime.

  I’ve taken Naruto for granted for so long that it’s hard to believe that there will be no more Naruto episodes from now on. Technically, the manga ended in 2014, and there’s an anime sequel airing next season focusing on Naruto’s son, but Naruto’s epic quest to become the Hokage of the Hidden Leaf Village is now over. The first Naruto TV series began airing on Japanese television in 2002, and here we are, fifteen years later, watching the final Naruto Shippuden episode on Crunchyroll. Naruto fans around the world must be experiencing bittersweet feelings.

    Was Naruto your gateway anime? If not, what was? And what would you recommend? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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  Kim Morrissy is a freelance writer and translator. He writes about anime, light novels, and Japanese culture on his personal blog. You can also follow him on Twitter at @frog_kun.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com