#and like Classically if a character has a problem with their memories its BAD memories but no. no not testament.

[lesbiangiratina]

“Hobbies: slaughter, playing with children” mostly makes me giggle but Memories being listed in missing link testament’s dislikes fucks me up badly its not even funny

[blueskittlesart]

did u not like totk?

i LOVED totk. i think it was well-written and did its job as a sequel to botw very well. HOWEVER. i do think it suffered slightly from the commercial success of botw. as i mentioned in my last post, nintendo does this. thing. when one of their games gets popular where every game after it has to be Exactly The Same so they can make all the money in the world via comparison marketing. (and this is a problem with the wider game industry in general but also a very observable pattern in loz specifically.) I know it's been a pretty long time since botw came out, but before (and immediately following) its release there was some pushback from longtime fans who worried that the open-world and lack of traditional dungeons meant that the game had strayed too far from the classic formula that makes a game a "zelda game." this is to say, botw was EXPERIMENTAL. and the devs had no idea if what they were doing was going to be successful or not. the open-world of botw wasn't a gimmick, and it wasn't the devs jumping on the open-world bandwagon. it was what CREATED that bandwagon. the open-world was a deliberate choice made specifically for botw because it reinforced the story that botw was designed to tell. the game is about exploring a desolate world, about making connections, and rebuilding both the broken kingdom and the player character's shattered sense of self by traveling and learning and building relationships. a large open-world map with only minor quest guidelines and lots of collectibles and side quests lends itself perfectly to this specific story, which is specifically about exploration and rebirth.

the problem is, botw was. almost TOO good. it was so good that every other game company on the planet started scrambling to build giant open-world maps into their next release, regardless of how much sense that actually made narratively. and because of that, when it came time to release a sequel to botw, the devs had a lot to think about. they had HUGE shoes to fill in terms of fan reception, but they were ALSO being asked to follow up one of the best-performing games of all time, commercially. totk needed to SELL as well as botw. And, likely because nintendo was worried about that potential commercial value, totk needed to keep people comfortable. I don't know for certain, but I definitely get the feeling playing totk that the devs were specifically told not to stray too far from what made botw marketable and successful--that being the open world and the versatility of gameplay. so in order to follow that up, they made... 2 more huge open maps, and new gimmick gameplay which was explicitly super-versatile.

do i think that the extra maps and ultrahand were BAD choices? no. however, i don't think they necessarily ADDED anything to the game as a narrative whole. one of my favorite things about botw was how everything seemed to be designed AROUND the narrative, with gameplay elements slotting neatly into the story thematically. totk just. didn't really have that, imo. there wasn't a huge narrative benefit to the gigantic, completely unpopulated depths and sky maps. ultrahand was cool, but within the context of the story it meant basically nothing. in some ways, i almost think totk could have benefitted from a much more linear approach to its storytelling, a la skyward sword, because there are a lot of story beats that have to be found in chronological order in order to have the right emotional impact, but because of the nonlinear open-world it kind of became a struggle to hit all the important story points in the right order. an easy example of this is the dragon's tears in comparison to the memories--the dragon tears have a very specific set order in which they happen, and finding them out of order can make the story you're seeing in them feel confusing and disjointed. the order in which they should be found is technically displayed on the temple wall, but most players aren't going to pick up on that or follow it--more likely, they're just going to explore the geoglyphs as they come across them organically, and therefore will likely witness the story in a completely disjointed way. compare this to the botw memories, which ALSO technically have a set order--the order in which they're displayed on the sheikah slate. however, because they're largely just small moments in time, and not one continuous story, finding them out of order has a lot less of an impact on how you as the player experience the narrative, and it's not hugely detrimental to your experience of the story if you find them naturally as you explore rather than explicitly seeking them out in order. If TOTK had been allowed to deviate from the botw formula a bit, i think we may have ended up with a more cohesive game in terms of narrative beats like that. as it is, i just think the game is torn slightly between wanting to be its own new game with new gameplay and needing to be botw, if that makes sense.

[theresattrpgforthat]

THEME: Monsters Protecting Themselves

Hello @fromreddit, I'm sorry but you must have tried to ask me a question while the inbox was closed! However, I'm finishing up on the most recent queue of questions, so I now have time to answer your request. Here we go!

Who’s the Monster Now?, by Solo RPG Voyager.

Who’s The Monster Now? is an RPG where players take control of the enemies in the fictional game of Scatterash. One of these players, however, will take control of someone known as the Streamer, a character who will play the main character of Scatterash, whose goal is to defeat all the bosses and win the game. Everyone else plays as those very boss monsters. However, they’ve become aware of the character’s existence and have prepared themselves to stop them at all costs.

The setting of this game is a video game, but the details of that video game are up to you, the table. This means that if you want to play fantasy monsters, urban monsters, or aliens, all should fit! The game uses pools of d4s that shrink depending on the numbers your monsters have in their stats. The game uses a roll-under mechanic with a threshold of 8, so the lower you roll, the better! If you roll too high, you have a BAD TIME, which can have dire consequences for your character.

The Skeletons, by Jason Morningstar.

Years fly by like dead leaves.  Everything is darkness.  Everything is silence. You stand vigilant before the sarcophagus without thought or breath-such is your compulsion. 

You do not remember your name and still you watch.  The flesh has fallen off your bones and still you watch. And then one day there is light and motion and you weigh your bearded axe and raise your shield, lusting for the fray, eager to measure your skill against these tomb-robbing children so full of blood. 

You’ll never be alive again, but in this moment-in the chaos between violation and destruction-you truly live, and you remember what you once were, and you taste the sun. 

The Skeletons flips the script on the classic dungeon crawl— here you play not the intruders, but the guardians, cursed to spend all of eternity defending a tomb. As time passes, both the tomb and its guardians will change. Ferocious battles are fought and won, and the skeletons slowly remember who and what they once were. Melancholy, introspective and spanning epochs, The Skeletons is unlike anything you’ve ever played.

The Skeletons comes with eight complete characters that the players will pick from when they sit down to play. Part of your game will involve learning more about who you are as you play, your memories being the only part of you that you can control. You check off different items during each encounter until you reach The Desecration, where your skeletons will finally be defeated - and laid to rest.

Bridge Trolls, by Melfy.

What fantastical problems befall you and your siblings as you struggle to run a bridge business? Deal with meddling adventurers, petty witches, dreadful bards trying to pay their toll with song, arsonist wizards and more!

One page with easy to understand rules and character creation & another page with tables for encounters and troublesome travellers.  

Bridge Trolls is a two-page game about protecting your bridge from unwanted travellers, either through brawn or wit. All of the players are siblings, and at the beginning of the game, you collaboratively create your home and the bridge that crosses it. The rules are reminiscent of Lasers & Feelings, with a higher Brawn meaning a lower Bluff and vice versa. It’s a simple game with an interesting premise - and it’s free!

Minions & Mayhem, by ignotus17.

Minions & Mayhem allows players to portray the servants of an ambitious Boss.  Define the boss with objectives, powers, and flaws.  Describe the lair, its location & strengths.  Assemble a Crew, a Party, a Horde, a Kabal, or a Cult.  Play to find out if the dark master can shape the world to their will.

Each session of Minions & Mayhem begins with the player characters receiving a mission from their boss. Over 12 or so sessions, you hope to complete your Boss’s wishes, whatever they may be. The Boss you design will grant you special boons and abilities that will help your monsters in specific areas. The rules are inspired by Blades in the Dark, so I know it’s probably not what you’re looking for, but I wanted to include it in the list because it matches pretty much everything else - and some folks might still want to check it out.

TROLLS, by Secret Hearth.

Trolls is a six page analog game of trampling, terrorizing, and evil-doing created for the 2019 Mega RPG jam.

Be Trolls. Pillage. Defend your den.  Take back the Black Wastes.

This is a 4-player game about the last clan of Trolls, defending their homeland from human invaders. The game cycles through three phases: pillaging, fortifying, and defending.

In the Pillaging phase, you try to earn as much contempt from terrorizing the villagers. In the Fortify phase, your trolls will first draw up a map of their den, and then spend their contempt to create measures and precautions that will help them in the final phase. In the Defending phase, a trio of heroes alive and attempt to move through your den in order to slay you. The Defending phase culminates in a battle, during which you will either perish, or succeed. Complete this cycle three times, and you have won the Black Wastes for the Trolls!

You might also want to look at…

No Sacrifice Without Blood, by hyphen artist.

B.B.E.G., by Maps N’ Quests.

Here, there, Be Monsters!, by wendi yu.

Worm Spring, by rpgnatalie.

[incomingalbatross]

Things that make Weirdmageddon a top-tier finale:

Every victory and ally the characters gain is essential to pursuing the next victory.

Dipper needed Wendy to reach the bubble, needed to talk down Gideon to reach Mabel, and needed to reconcile with Mabel to do anything. Then they needed to reach the Shack to get Shacktron, needed Shacktron to reach Ford, needed Ford and all their previous character development to build the Zodiac—oops! not enough character development! REVERSAL! But they still pulled out a win from having all four Pineses in the Fearamid, which wouldn't have been possible except as salvage from their previous victories.

It all builds really nicely—it's easy to get your characters running in circles to fit in enough action and/or screentime (see certain Classic Who serials), but that doesn't happen here.

Personal issues and plot problems were interwoven in a way that genuinely made resolving the former a basic step in resolving the latter.

The big problems at the start of the finale were the rift between Dipper and Mabel, the older, deeper rift between Stan and Ford, and... well, the Rift. And Bill. The finale is able to resolve all of these things together because it is, in fact, crucial that the Pineses all be able to work together; they need each other to defeat Bill. This means that, for instance, Mabel and Dipper's reconciliation is the urgent first step on every level, personal and situational (neither of them will accomplish anything until Mabel's free), and that Stan and Ford's reconciliation is a necessary condition for the last step of beating Bill. It's seamless—no one has to take time out of the plot to talk about their feelings, because the plot can only move if their feelings are being addressed.

Even more, the action works in such a way that Stan and Ford have to show character growth to defeat Bill and the way they defeat Bill then results in healing for both of them (Stan gets to be a hero while Ford gets to let go of his hero complex).

Gave time to addressing the big themes and made them structurally important, too.

This ties in to the point above, but... the fact that Dipper and Mabel's conflict (the manifestation of a much longer-running tension of "is it possible to grow up and still be happy? is it possible to be sure we'll stay in a close and healthy relationship, and not lose each other?") is given its full weight. Dipper and Mabel have the conversation they need to convince themselves, each other, and the audience that this ghost has been expelled from their futures. That's big.

And the themes continue consistently throughout the finale! They answer the questions raised by Stan and Ford's estrangement—first through Dipper and Mabel and then repeatedly through the rest of the cast—with consistent reassurance and hope for the future. It's thematically sound. That's not easy to balance with plot progression in a way that makes sense, but like. The plot can only progress to a happy ending if these themes are tested and found to be true.

Plot development and emotional impacts hinged on information the audience already had.

When the finale revealed new information (the zodiac's function, for instance), it was almost always answering specific questions the show had previously raised for fans (what's that zodiac about??). Not always true—the barrier around the town was not foreshadowed—but a very high percentage of the time.

More, the moments with a big emotional punch hinge on us realizing something at the same time as the characters and sharing their reactions to that thing, rather than reacting to their reactions. That sounds clumsy, but you know what I mean—"Grammar, Stanley." Ford pulling out the memory gun. "Get off me, Waddles!" Ford holding out the picture of the Stan O' War. The finale builds on what we already know so strongly that we can react to good or bad events alongside the characters.

(Well, except for the exact moment revealing the twin switch, I guess. We are not having the same emotional reaction as Bill Cipher there. ;P)

A fully satisfying send-off.

After the plot is resolved, and even after the eucatastrophe moment of Stan getting his memory back, we get to stick around and see for sure that everything's okay. The twins turn thirteen. Stan and Ford plan to go sailing. Soos gets the Mystery Shack. Everyone in Gravity Falls is fine. Everyone gets to say goodbye. We end on repeated reassurances that the thing the story most highlighted as crucial but uncertain will, in fact, happen—that they'll stay a family and they'll all be happy.

I'm not saying every story needs to end with a wrap party, but it was the right move for Gravity Falls, and they nailed it.

[eggbert9000-blog]

My Thoughts on Persona 2: Innocent Sin (PSX)

I Think my introduction to the Persona series is quite unique compared to other people. Like many I heard about the series from the modern trilogy (3, 4, 5), The first Persona game I had tried was 4 when Golden was released on Steam, but I never completed it at the time.

(I since have completed 4 by the way, I thought it was fantastic!)

However for whatever reason Persona came back onto my radar around early this year right off the heels of me completing Final Fantasy VIII for the first time, gaining a new appreciation for underrated JRPG's. That's when I thought to myself "why does everyone talk about Persona's 3, 4 and 5, But not 1 or 2?" So I did a little digging and found that the Persona 2 Duology had developed a sort of "cult classic" feel to it and that it had one of the best stories in the whole Megaten franchise. (I can't attest to that as I have only delved into the Persona side of the series as of now, but the rest of the series is now on my list of things to complete). I also learnt that the PSP version of Innocent Sin botched the difficulty of the original PSX version, so that's why I decided to play through the PSX version as my first Persona game.

So what did I think?

Overall I thought it was fantastic! However I have some problems with it. So let's start with that.

Demon Negotiation

This was one of the things I was most excited about going into the game, and I think it does a good job at showcasing the characters personality. However the amount of options that the game gives you is overwhelming and makes you feel like you are just guessing when you are not using a guide for contacts, which is what I ended up doing because I got too frustrated with contacting.

(4 options per character, including pairing them up... oh man...)

However I found ways of working around it. If I ever wanted Tarot cards I would end up going to the Abandoned Factory, making a contract with a demon, and then farm Free Tarot from them to use them on whatever personas I wanted. I also ended up using the Prime and Ultimate personas often as they were pretty good while not requiring any fusing.

Overall Slowness

There were many times in the game when I thought that the game felt sluggish. One of them involves the encounter rate. Now listen, I'm a little crazy and I would say I love random encounters in JRPG's and I don't even care about high encounter rates, which this game notoriously has (even though I don't think its that bad), but in the PSX version there is this noticeable pause between getting the encounter and the game putting you into the transition, which threw me off a couple times, but I got used to it. What really bothered me was the lack of a minimap in the PSX version, which as a first time Megaten-er, gave me a sort of hard time. Very often I would have to pull up the map, which took a second or so, but it got annoying quick. What I find particularly confusing in hindsight was that the previous game, Revelations: Persona, had a minimap, so I think its a bit strange that they decided that they didn't need one for the sequel.

(This was also one of those things that was fixed in the PSP version, but I think the PSX version is still worth playing over it, but thats a discussion for another time).

There are also moments in the game that I felt dragged a little bit. Like around the middle of the game after Aoba Park where you go to defuse the bombs around Sumaru in places like Smile Hirasaka and GOLD that I didn't find super interesting. Or places like Xibalba where it just feels like its going on forever. It felt like I was just going through the motions.

Aaaand thats about all the problems I had with it.

"Wait that's all that you had problems with?"

Yup! I think this is one of my favorite RPG's that I have played in recent memory. It's time to talk about what I loved.

The Setting

This is something I think the original Persona trilogy does extremely well, These games have some of my favorite dungeons in any RPG i've ever played, especially the Persona 2 Duology. It reminds me a lot of the MOTHER series in the way that the dungeons are (mostly) grounded in reality with the obvious exceptions. Like one moment you are running around the club and the next you are trying to save kids in an Aerospace Museum. Then you are running up Mt. Katasumuri in the deep forest. Or you are exploring the aforementioned Abandoned Factory with some of the most kickass music ever heard in a video game. Sumaru City as a whole is one of my favorite settings in a videogame.

The Music and Tone

The music in this game is incredible, 'nuff said. Every dungeon I entered I was excited to hear what banger was about to come on and I was treated almost every single time. Sometimes the music is a jamfest like with the Abandoned Factory or Smile Hirasaka. Or sometimes is melancholic and sombre like Mt. Iwato or Aoba Park.

I think the music represents the tone/atmosphere of the game incredibly well. Dark, but with plenty of cool or humorous moments to not make it completely depressing.

Now I don't think that the story of Innocent Sin is the "darkest best story in the whole francise" as many try and sell it to be. But they would be correct in the fact that Innocent Sin definitely has Dark or Sad undertones that make it one of the most emotionally investing stories. Oh I should probably talk about what I thought of the story...

The Story

It's really good, like it was one of the main driving forces as to why I wanted to complete the game. I won't go into spoilers here but all I will say is that I loved the way the game balanced out the serious stuff with a lot of humorous things. The concept of rumors becoming real is such a cool idea and I think they knocked it out of the park, starting with relatively small stuff like "I heard this ramen shop sells weapons", and having it escalate to something being a whole threat to the world, made it really investing.

The characters too, are fantastic. They all feel like family and I couldn't help but care about each and every single one of them. They all have such great chemistry and I loved having them as the party.

One character I really fell in love with was Tatsuya himself, because unlike other silent protagonists like him, he feels like an actual persona and not someone you are just supposed to self-insert yourself into. He has his own personality and past, you learn throughout the story how much he cares about his friends and his determination to protect them all, evident through how he carries his zippo lighter everywhere, which I wont mention the lore significance of. And all of this is not even including his involment in Eternal Punishment where he really gets his time to shine, but this review isn't about Eternal Punishment so lets leave it at that.

Eikichi is a lovable guy and I love his personality (and his weapon is badass too), same with Lisa where I felt her whole romance with Tatsuya was done very well in that it dosen't get in the way of her main personality, I really liked her chemistry with Eikichi.

Maya is a person who I really ended up caring for and I love how she acted as the big sister or leader of the group often, Without going into too much detail, this group really loves Maya and that connection is something I really enjoyed and it made me care about Maya a lot as well.

I also want to use this opportunity to talk about something that I think the Original Persona Trilogy does that's cool in hindsight. They all feel really connected, it's really cool how Yukino from Persona 1 is just a party member again and you get to see how she grew, and just being able to see the P1 cast around Sumaru and how they are doing in life. It makes the world feel lived in, and like every game and the stories in them matter. And that world building is something that I feel like is sadly lacking in the later entries.

Overall this game is worth playing for the characters and story alone.

CUSTOMIZATION!!!!

This will be the last thing I talk about to keep things a little short but I'm just going to say that the customization in this game is some of the most fun things about it.

The fact that everybody can change their personas is MASSIVE and SO MUCH FUN.

I often found myself thinking "OH! If i fuse that guy I could do THAT fusion spell, or I could get THAT spell that would be really good"

And the fact that they can swap personas ON THE FLY gives me a customization rush that I haven't felt since playing with Final Fantasy VI's Espers or Final Fantasy V's Jobs.

I could swap a character from being a healer to damage dealer or debuffer and there was no limit to how I could do it. It was fantastic.

And Im gonna use this oppertunity to talk about the combat because in the PSX version I find that it's really smooth and fun to do once you get the hang of it.

And Fusion Spells are such a cool mechanic, it reminds me a lot of the Dual and Triple Tech's in Chrono Trigger and I was all for it!

And of course, shoutouts to Nova Kaiser being one of the coolest spells in and RPG, its so satisfying to use.

Conclusions

I love this game, and I couldn't think of a better way to be introduced to the series. After I beat Innocent Sin I immediatley went and beat Eternal Punishment, and then Persona 1 right after that.

The Original Trilogy is something that I think deserves to be remembered and praised, as they are magnificent games that I think unfortunatley are not as accessable to a general audience.

But I implore to whoever cared enough to read this to give it a shot.

I do think that the PSX version of Innocent Sin is the best because the PSP's botched difficulty is not the only problem I have with the port. The menus feel awful to go through, and I feel like Atlus knew that too and fixed it with Eternal Punishment PSP and made it more like the PSX menus. But at the end of the day IS PSP has a better translation, more quality of life, new bonus content and remastered music which is also pretty good, so whatever version you prefer is the best version.

So Please give Persona 2: Innocent Sin, and the rest of the Original Trilogy a shot, you might find a gem and a new incredible JRPG that you never knew you would like just like I have.

[vigilantempathy]

Why Crowley can’t go back to Heaven and can’t be restored as an angel…

…using Satan’s soliloquy from Book IV of Paradise Lost by John Milton.

Because I have a deep-below-lower-deep unholy decade-long obsession with Paradise Lost and Good Omens S2 has prompted a re-read.

(Quoted from the UPenn online version, linked below.)

Broad Context: In Paradise Lost, Satan fell because he “trusted to have equaled the most High”—he pushed for equality with God, challenged the idea of Omnipotence, and led war against Heaven trying to prove that God was not supremely powerful and if he and his forces could achieve victory, that they deserved power, too. But they lost, Lucifer fell and became Satan, and everyone who fought with him was cast Down as well. He wasn’t claiming to be above God, but challenging God’s supremacy was an act of hubris. There are TONS of themes, language, and visuals from classical/Hellenic myth and epic poetry and Satan reads largely as the hero of a Greek tragic epic. He follows Aristotle’s Poetics ideas of peripety and discovery: he massively fucks up his own life, leading to his own tragic downfall, and only realizes too late that all his ruinous problems are his own damn fault (pun intended). People have debated since publication the degree to which Milton knowingly or unknowingly had sympathy for the devil (cue Rolling Stones) but tend to agree that Satan isn’t a typical obvious bad guy villain.

Kind of like how Good Omens’ Heaven/Hell dichotomy isn’t really about Good/Evil and its main characters are a demon who is a bit of a nice person and an angel who is enough of a bastard to be worth knowing.

Scene Context: Post-Fall, Satan struggles with the understanding that he fucked up his own life, that he fucked up the lives of everyone loyal to him because they were all punished for that loyalty, that he deeply regrets his choices knowing now how they worked out and wishes he’d never Fallen, but that he can never go back to Heaven or to being “some inferior angel” knowing what he knows now.

SCENE SETTING (Lines 17-31)

And like a devilish engine back recoils

Upon himself; horrour and doubt distract

His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir

The Hell within him; for within him Hell

He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell

One step, no more than from himself, can fly

By change of place: Now conscience wakes despair,

That slumbered; wakes the bitter memory

Of what he was, what is, and what must be

Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue.

Sometimes towards Eden, which now in his view

Lay pleasant, his grieved look he fixes sad;

Sometimes towards Heaven, and the full-blazing sun,

Which now sat high in his meridian tower:

Then, much revolving, thus in sighs began.

SATAN’S SOLILOQUY (Lines 93-113)

“But say I could repent, and could obtain,

By act of grace, my former state; how soon

Would highth recall high thoughts, how soon unsay

What feigned submission swore? Ease would recant

Vows made in pain, as violent and void.

For never can true reconcilement grow,

Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep:

Which would but lead me to a worse relapse

And heavier fall: so should I purchase dear

Short intermission bought with double smart.

This knows my Punisher; therefore as far

From granting he, as I from begging, peace;

All hope excluded thus, behold, in stead

Of us out-cast, exil'd, his new delight,

Mankind created, and for him this world.

So farewell, hope; and with hope farewell, fear;

Farewell, remorse! all good to me is lost;

Evil, be thou my good; by thee at least

Divided empire with Heaven's King I hold,

By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign;

As Man ere long, and this new world, shall know.”

Good Omens Read:

For many of the same reasons as Satan in Paradise Lost, Crowley can’t return to Heaven. He can’t trust it anymore. He knows what it did to him and others like him. He can no longer abide the lie that Heaven is the side of the ang— the side of the good guys. Good guys don’t do the things that God and Heaven have done. Heaven and Hell take similar, parallel actions throughout Good Omens but at least Hell doesn’t pretend to be righteous about their destructive, cruel, unjust actions. Hell is awful but at least it knows that. Better the devil you know, if the alternative is the angel who is fundamentally dishonest.

If Crowley returns to Heaven, he’ll saunter back downwards immediately and there will be nothing vague about it the second time. He doesn’t trust it, he can never trust it again, and he has 6000 years of anger towards Heaven for his own Fall, which are 6000 years of viewing Heaven as the enemy, even if only as lipservice to maintain professional courtesy.

But now he’s been cast into a deep personal hell, (“a lower deep;” the internal turmoil that makes a shitty external situation orders of magnitude worse) because now Heaven has taken Aziraphale from Crowley.

And Heaven can hurt him. They’ve tried to destroy Aziraphale before. They tried to destroy Gabriel by destroying everything that made him Gabriel. They’ve been threatening “extreme sanctions” and removal from The Book of Life and Crowley only recently learned that was a real possibility and not a made-up horror story.

Crowley hadn’t trusted Heaven in 6000 years, but Heaven hurting him and Heaven hurting Aziraphale are incomparable metrics to Crowley.

Contrast Crowley’s typically cool responses to being personally threatened with his incinerating rage at anyone threatening Aziraphale.

Crowley responds to threats to his own personal safety and well-being (Hastur, Ligur, and Shax all threaten Crowley himself and Crowley responds with one-liners, sarcasm, cinematic threats that makes a cheap plant mister sound like a ‘44 magnum, and, you know, holy water) without breaking a sweat. But threaten Aziraphale and there isn’t a one-liner to be found. He can’t pretend to be unaffected when Aziraphale is in trouble. He sputters. He trails off. He shouts. He snarls.

Noting also that when Crowley forgets to act cool is a good indicator that something has deeply rattled him. Ex. Soaking wet, ash-streaked, screaming, sobbing, knocked on the ground, grief-wrecked Crowley in the bookshop fire. So when Crowley doesn’t have a quip ready, he’s actually scared. In the moments that matter, Crowley is as cool as crocs with mismatched socks.)

Crowley hasn’t trusted Heaven I’m 6000 years because of what it did to him. He could never have gone back.

But now Heaven has taken Aziraphale and can hurt him. So now Heaven, through the Metatron, offers Crowley the possibility of return.

The Metatron knows as well as Crowley does that Crowley can never go back. The Metatron knows it as well as God knows the same to be true of Satan in Paradise Lost:

“For never can true reconcilement grow,

Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep:

Which would but lead me to a worse relapse

And heavier fall: (…)

This knows my Punisher; therefore as far

From granting he, as I from begging, peace.”

There was never an honest offer to restore Crowley to Heaven. He could never have trusted Heaven, even if he’d returned, and he’d have Fallen again immediately. That’s why the Metatron offered. Because Aziraphale still wants to trust Heaven and Crowley never can again. Because the Metatron knew Crowley would say no. And the Metatron knew that even if Crowley accepted to stay with Aziraphale or to protect him, Crowley would be cast back Down in short order anyway. (“Does anyone ever ask for death?” The Metatron asks Nina.)

Would Crowley have chosen not to Fall, knowing what he knows now? Probably. But he did. He can’t go back. Neither could Satan.

Satan’s soliloquy after the Fall, or Crowley’s pining melancholy drunk divorce rant after Season 2:

“So farewell, hope… all good to me is lost.”

[quibblet21]

My Headcanons For BLU Scout

This is a follow-up to "My Headcanons For BLU Sniper," which I attempt to characterize over two fanfictions, 'Bubo' and 'Dichotomy.'

While BLU Scout is a secondary character in those stories, it's sometimes fun to write him. There are many fans who have headcanons for the TF2 team and several are quite interesting to the point that I adopted some of them.

So, this is just from my point of view. Anyone who finds these ideas dumb or absurd, oh well, can't please everybody :)

Like with the rest of BLU Team, he's a clone, supposedly created by TF Industries. In reality, aliens did the work and supplied the clones to the human scientists.

Since the clones don't have given names, he calls himself Billy, after the historical outlaw, Billy The Kid. An earlier concept version of the BLU Scout resembled the outlaw, so this is what I based it off of.

He tends to be of a cheapskate with money.

Despite appearing to have the same cockiness and mannerisms as RED Scout, he can sit still longer during 3 hour films and quickly gets over bad things, holding only a few grudges in his life.

He's not as hotheaded as RED Scout, so it takes a bit more to really anger him, despite his violent actions in matches.

He still retains the warfare skills, speech, learning and muscle memory of how to fight from his RED counterpart, despite being a clone.

He is more naive about things, as he lacks RED Scout's street smarts. This is due to barely having any memories of the latter growing up in Boston.

He gets along with his clone dad, BLU Spy. Both love playing pranks on the other teammates and strangers sometimes. This is nearly opposite to RED Scout and RED Spy's antagonistic relationship.

He finds it cool when he discovers BLU Spy is his dad. They still treat each other like teammates as Spy lacks the paternal instincts and views Scout more like a cousin since neither have solid memories from their RED counterparts.

Unlike RED Scout, who has dyslexia, he tends to get words mixed up that he hears. While RED Scout can occasionally have this problem, it's more chronic with BLU Scout.

Despite his naivety, he did inherit both Spys' ability to be sneaky in matches, so he's not as direct in offensive as RED Scout is, preferring to fool the enemy into thinking what his next attack will be. He'll also eavesdrop on conversations.

He named one of the base's guard dogs "Jerkwad" since the dog barks alot and is the meanest of the three. The other BLUs just accepted the name.

His bird friend is a Blue Jay, while RED Scout's is a Cardinal.

Like RED Scout, he hates spiders.

He likes Tom Jones music, but tends to branch out in other genres like classic rock, funk and ballads.

One of his favorite stock weapons is the Nail Gun, which the mod game "Team Fortress 2 Classic" features. It was scrapped from the game's debut, though its a primary weapon for Classic Scout from the first "Team Fortress" game.

He doesn't get along with BLU Demoman at times since the bomb expert picks on him, like an older sibling would with a younger one. BLU Engineer usually has to stop their fights like a distressed dad.

His ADHD is not as bad as RED Scout's, so he tends to listen a bit more when someone is talking to him.

He still retains some of RED Scout's characteristics, like talking too much and wanting to get the glory in a match to later brag about.

When not having fun with BLU Spy, he hangs out with BLU Pyro and BLU Sniper. He has outside friends, but keeps quiet about his mercenary role.

He has his dumbass moments like RED Scout.

When drunk, he starts blurting out his real name in public until the other BLUs have to gag him or knock him out from revealing more secret information. This is why he's never allowed to go drinking alone.

He does better in hot, dry environments since he was "born" in the Badlands and used to its arid weather. RED Scout fares better in the cold since he grew up in Boston and hates the heat.

He's one of the first to be open to a truce with RED during Mann vs. Machine. While some of the BLUs aren't happy about him being so accepting and berate him for it, he tends to forget what happened during most of the matches. In contrast, RED Scout remembers nearly everything bad done to him and holds a grudge longer, refusing at first to work with a former enemy.

Like with the other clones, he was designed to last 10 to 12 years. He's the last BLU to go and makes it one more year, dying in November 1981. RED Scout outlives him by six more years (going by the comics).

His sexual preference can go either way.

He befriends a Scout bot who abandons Gray Mann's army, and convinces BLU Engineer to hide it. RED Scout hates mockeries of himself, including mechanical machines, so he's hellbent on destroying the robot. He accepts clones though, as he finds them cool and sympathizes with them being persecuted, treated like lab experiments and forced into slavery by their benefactors.

[tomyo]

Maka Supplementals

Hey welcome to my "Maka Supplementals" post aka when you become so obsessed with an anime character, you start to treat any other character that looks like them as that character. I've been in this fandom and ancient amount of time and for some reason, I'll just notice a very Maka like quality in them.

Neiro from Kaiba

I'm probably ruining myself by starting with the best. Kaiba (2008) is really a series you can easily project not just Maka AND Soul but the rest main cast onto. I stg I thought Bstar and Popo had the same VA (they definitely have the same god complex). Naturally the pigtails and droopy eyes were a huge connector and the orange/green color scheme is frequently used to represent our fav duo. As for the story, it's mostly around Kaiba and Neiro being just out of reach of each other and a new technology that allows people to store and transfer memories to new bodies. Neiro also makes a good Kaiba type as a stern person in the present but soft and kind in the past/later on. She also has family trauma which may be a theme. On its own it's a masterpiece but I actually made my first SE friend in part due to us both separately coming into SExKaiba au art.

Mikan from Gakuen Alice

I only ever read the series but I figured anime art would pop more. Mikan, the mc, our classic lightish hair color in pigtails and you could possibly call her eyes droopy shaped. Tbh I can hardly remember this series since it's been 11+ years since I last read it but I do remember Mikan having mother issues. If I remember right it's a magic academy shoujo and I probably wouldn't have included it but I wanted to show off that cute angel outfit she's wearing.

Shizuku from Tonari no Kaibutsu

When I watched this series in 2014, this was the first time I said "Oh, this character is just Maka" and thus this list was born. Did you ever want to experience Maka in a Shoujo where her love interest looks like DtK but acts like Bstar? Here you are, the most frustrating romance ever. Shizuku Mizutani is a pretty perfect Maka type, she's quiet, serious, extremely studious, and constantly annoyed by everyone else's shenanigans. One day she's sent to deliver socially maladjusted Haru Yoshida his homework and naturally a classic nightmare romance starts. I'm not kidding when I say every episode one of the two confesses to the other who then turns them down. Honestly, that's the plot. The first confession is right at the end of episode one and it doesn't stop. Can't lie though, I love high school tropes and aesthetics so it's a fun way to reimagine the crew's life going.

Kirin from Gakuen Babysitters

Absolute baby. If you want to imagine was toddler Maka was like then Kirin is pretty good for that. She's not really a main focus of the story but Gakuen Babysitters is still surprisingly good. Kirin really feels like the tiny Maka we saw in Chrona's soul, very outgoing and friendly to those who aren't as confident. She often fights with a Black Star like nursery mate and has an aggressively doting dad that aligns perfectly with Spirit. One small story arc with her is wanting to be a witch. Not really a lot of anything but a cute detail to point out.

Marnie from Pokemon

She has pigtails and 2011 me drew Maka in the exact same outfit. Ngl, this is a real head empty one but I'm still not over that happening.

Nino from Fukumenki Noise

Sorry this is actually just another kind of annoying shoujo. Outside of the hair, Nino is pretty much nothing like Maka. Unlike most series where the story is a string of misunderstandings, Nino's naivety is often a major problem where she cheerily sings over listening to her best friend/crush's home problems and doesn't reflect on the ways her actions could be affecting others. So why is she on here? The music segments. There's this raw and unpolished nature to the singing that really just brings something special to it. Honestly just watch the singing proportions, ignore the bad cgi (in 2017 no less) and pretend its Maka "I don't get music" Albarn singing it.

Sana from Kodomo no Omocha

Probably the only series I've watched before Soul Eater on this list. I recently rewatched and kept feeling weird about the Maka vibes I was getting off of it. Sana does start the series pretty annoyed her schooling is being interrupted and her middle school uniform looks like the Sparoi uniform but her more core characteristics is being a child star and is extremely hyperactive because of it. So what was it? She's voiced by Laura Bailey. It's very interesting to hear her distinctive wobble in Sana's voice. Of course that isn't all, Sana has family issues and her genki personality is related to people pleasing so it's interesting to see when that facade drops. While the manga leaves a stronger impression, the end of 17- start of 18 has a few particularly beautifully scenes of animation.

Also something I want to point out is Sana's amazing wardrobe. Despite being 90s, the bright colors work great for Y2K looks that feel right for Mala's style sense. I wish I could use more than 10 photos to show them off. The anime uses a lot of long sleeves and skirts and the manga has some more trendy fashions like the fur trim cardigans that are popular right now so I'd look there for some outfit Y2K revival references.

[wandringaesthetic]

Regarding the open world, the world map, and Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth

(no/minor spoilers, this is about world maps, I'm in chapter 9)

Gamers tend to call either Final Fantasies I thru IX or I thru X "classic" Final Fantasy. They mourned the turn-based or ATB based combat once it was gone after X, or they mourned the world map, gone after IX.

They also mourned pretty much every other change to the series before and after that, so they weren't necessarily right. Final Fantasy is a series defined more by crisis than identity and I personally wouldn't have it any other way. But the series *has* been even more difficult to define post about 2001, whereas before one could at least point to gameplay and structural similarities. Through the years, I've played and thought about Final Fantasy an amount that is probably actually insane, and my most honest answer to the question of "What makes a Final Fantasy a Final Fantasy?" is "checking most of the boxes on a list of about 50 things."

But anyway, the world map. The problem was, once it was gone, nothing really replaced it. Nothing made the gamer feel like they were trotting over the entire globe like that.

The world map was always a sort of placeholder, a conceit that was accepted because we don't have enough memory and budget to render an entire globe to scale. The map offers the illusion of being nonlinear, but isn't actually. You are driven in a certain direction in a certain order, dictated by what sort of transportation is available to you. Original Flavor PS1 FFVII offers a couple of detours that can be tackled whenever or not at all (Fort Condor, Wutai), but not many because it would interfere with the plot and with game balance.

Final Fantasy VII was the first Final Fantasy I played, the first JRPG I played, and also the first video game I had played in several years when I first played it. Midgar already felt huge. Stepping onto the world map was awe-inspiring. (Or... It was once I figured out what I was looking at. The polygons rendered Midgar as a huge but not to scale alien disc on a blighted landscape. It took some getting used to.) If you were already impressed, you ain't seen nothing yet. There is so much more. The world is your oyster.

I would argue that no other Final Fantasy has recreated that sense of scale. It's the time to world map (ttwm) that does it. You have trekked through several hours of city and reactor and slum before the game needs to resort to shorthand to render its world.

Final Fantasy Remake extends the Midgar section to its own full game, and Rebirth recreates that feeling of opening up onto something proportionately just as big.

But also, at this point in gaming history, in the year of our lord 2024, most of us have played an open world game. I am not an expert on these, since the only ones I've played are Horizon Zero Dawn and Forbidden West, but even I have done enough to feel Open World Fatigue. As soon as I climbed the first communication tower, I was putting my face in my hands, saying ohhhh noooo it's an open world game.

Or, well, is it? It's subdivided into regions and chapters. Some chapters aren't or mostly aren't on the world map, you spend a lot of time in towns and dungeons. You can check all of your boxes in one region and then advance the plot and move on to the next. It feels a bit more manageable and directed than a "standard" open world. But it does follow the "about eight different sets of things to find" format.

Is this good? Bad? Indifferent? Is this just what video games are now? I've enjoyed it, but I'm willing to extend this world and set of characters and even developers more time than I would most, since they probably literally redirected the course of my life and all. I cannot be an impartial judge, probably of any Final Fantasy but maybe especially of this one.

How much did the old world maps have to do, really? They were just some scenery and random encounters as you moved from point A to point B. The "sets" of things to do in the new world sometimes feel contrived, but they give the huge areas purpose and give motivation for exploration. They make the world manageable without reducing its scale. I would be intrigued to see what an original Final Fantasy did with this format.

So is this the answer to Final Fantasy's identity problem? Is the open world the new world map? I'm a little chagrined to see Final Fantasy follow the pack on this one, and to follow pretty far behind at that. But FFVII Rebirth is so often so weird and goofy and has such a bizarre number and variety of minigames that I can't say it doesn't have its own identity. And after all, FF didn't do the world map first. It was taking cues from Dragon Quest and Ultima.

I can't help comparing Rebirth to Final Fantasy XVI, a game I overall enjoyed but have some mixed feelings about. I'm just having a lot more FUN with Rebirth. I haven't read any reviews and have avoided most coverage for Rebirth, not just because I want to be free of spoilers, but because I want a pristine mind, free of strangers' opinions on it, until I've judged for myself, but one can live under only so large of a rock. I've seen the metacritic score and a thumbnail with a bunch of 10 outta 10s on it. I gather Rebirth is being reviewed a little better, as well as selling at least a little better, than XVI. (Which reviewed and sold decently. I know subtlety is hard, but do not take the wrong message from me here, quit it with your FINAL FANTASY XVI is a WRETCHED FAILURE thumbnails)

Not speaking to the quality of FFXVI for now, I'm afraid Squeenix and maybe gaming at large is going to take the wrong message from this. More remakes, play it safe, play to nostalgia. And that SUCKS, because I can't even say Remake and Rebirth are low effort, low risk cash grabs. Rebirth is constantly doing The Most. So much more than it ever had to and possibly pissing a lot of people off by the end by changing things. (I'll find out just how much after, uh, 20 to 50 more hours of gameplay)

So what is the right message? Chop your open world into manageable chunks? Maybe what people mean when they complain about linearity is that they want rewarding exploration? Is Open World just being late to the party or is that the secret ingredient that would shut up people who have been saying Final Fantasy doesn't feel like Final Fantasy anymore for years?

[lyxthen]

Extremely mildly niche academic-ish rambling ahead. Might wanna skip this one. It is long and boring

One thing that does make me happy is the Latinoamerican Literary Boom was so big it actually went on to be translated in other languages. There are still authors that I feel need to have their works translated (mostly women, I wonder why) but many of the video essayist I watch keep mentioning Borges in their videos, and truly I can't blame them because his work is rad. I don't know about him as a person but he lives 30 layers of post ironic meta fantasy or some shit like that. Cortazar is really cool also. In terms of living authors I really like Juan Villoro, his writing style is very fun. The Wild Book is a children's book about literary theory, like, Theory of Reception, Death of the Author, stuff like that. It was a really fun read as a child but the themes are interesting as well.

I feel like, I don't know, it's so hard to find Latin American fantasy books these days, or at least they are not as available. The YA genre is dominated by books originally writen in English or on books written in Spain (think Laura Gallego, which I just found out has a Netflix series made out of her most famous series of novels, but I am derailing) with the exception of Benito Taibo, who is Mexican, and has one (1) high fantasy trilogy that is kinda mid. The ideas were great, but they could've been expanded, you know? Camino a Sognum had so much potential, and you can *see* that it was inspired by classic epic fantasy like Earthsea, but it needed some more *spark* to actually work. I have not read Normal Person, but I plan to. Maybe it is better made?

And it's funny, because a book like Mexican Gothic, that was written in English, is so darn good! But only if you read it *in English* because the Spanish translation did this thing where they try to "neutralize" the accent and manerismd of the characters to make it appeal to the wider Spanish-speaking world and it doesn't sound or feel Mexican at all.

I am not sure where I am going with this. I have been discovering the local literary scene lately (and I mean *local*, like city-wide local) and it is mostly so boring because no one is writing fantasy! No magic realism! It's all kind of depressing dwellings on how we are being gentrified and indigenous people keep being oppressed by the mestizo majority and corporations and the goverment keep stealing the land to make Coca Cola and we are dying of diabetes and we don't got water and Capitalism sucks. LIKE I AGREE BUT CAN YOU PUT FAIRIES IN THERE OR SOMETHING. And I guess that's why I've never wanted to read Cómo Agua para Chocolate, because it is just *too real*, cuz it's a story I know by memory and I don't wanna live it all over again verbatim. Probably a great book, but I just cannot.

I don't know man idk idk.

The funniest think about this is that my favorite book ever (like actually, for real) is a children's book, written from the perspective of the imaginary friend of a child, and it is so gracefully narrated, and the characters so well constructed, and it touches real problems like Teen Pregnancy and Childhood Depression and Anxiety while also managing to be funny and whimsical? The very premise of the book (memories of an almost true friend, it's called) is already so creative and the execution is masterful. BUT I AM THE ONLY GUY ON PLANET EARTH THAT SEEMS TO KNOW ABOUT ITS EXISTENCE ITS DRIVING ME INSANE.

Where was I going with this. Ah yes. Youtubers talking about Borges. Well. Um. I. I think imma translate some of my own texts to English and put them on Wattpad or something. They are not the kind of thing Wattpad people are into but I gotta archive them somewhere and doing it on AO3 feels wrong since they aren't fan works. And on that note, I also wanna write more fan works.

Ugh I could be writing an essay but you got me writing a Tumblr post. What is wrong with me. I'm too bad at word weaving.

Aaaa (??????

Thoughts?

Help

I did take my meds today BTW. I don't know what is happening to me I just wanna WRITE ok I LOVE WRITING BUT WHY MUST I DO TUMBLR INSTEAD OF MY PASSIONS?

Oi I'll end it there

[destinygoldenstar]

My Pretty Cure Season Tier List

Futari Wa: I don’t actually have strong opinions or memories on the classics, but I more appreciation for the first seasons existence than its actual plot. I also appreciate the bond of the two leads here. I’m not one to demand duo teams, as that could either mean more character development or more filler, but when done well it’s done well.

Max Heart: I don’t like the sequels. They’re so pointless. I’m not saying a sequel season can never be done well, but Pretty Cure has not been able to at all, to the point where I do not miss it. It’s not lower because there’s nothing I remember of it that infuriated me.

Splash Star: I don’t actually have good memory of this. But if I did I feel like it would be higher.

Yes 5: Okay so there’s nothing I have to say here. I think this is THE average Pretty Cure season. The highs are high. The lows are low. No more. No less.

GoGo: Again, a mistake. I wish the GoGo designs were the original Cure designs, and that is the ONLY thing this season is worth.

Fresh: …okay look, it’s good. But I think it’s overrated. There is ONE thing in this season I find truly exceptional and that’s the villains. Eas’s redemption arc speaks for itself as the most iconic story arcs in PreCure history, and the generals are both funny and menacing with actually evil plans. And the world building of the villain faction is compelling. But other than the villains, there is so little here that speaks to me. I didn’t care for this lamb baby or these attacks, and the Cures are… fine, if a little selfish. Now, I don’t mind selfish heroes, but they need to be done well and there’s some great examples. These girls are fine, but I think Sword, Moonlight, and Princess are far more memorable examples. But I do give credit for the burnout chapter, that REALLY needs to be done more often in this franchise.

Heartcatch: I mean what do you want me to say?! This is the most popular season and it has every right to be. There’s nothing else I could add.

Suite: This is the worst duo team. I don’t like these two. I don’t like the cat. I don’t like the villains. But there’s also Otokoji and Ako.

Smile: Bias. BUT even without that, I love this season to bits. When people talk about this season they often say ‘it’s fun’, which is true. But I think this season deserves a lot more credit for its character building, creative shenanigans, and messages on personal happiness. This season has some of the best of the franchise in this regard. The plot is very paper thin and stretched out enough to snap in two, LITERALLY, but when the show is making me THIS engaged in its charm and emotions, I could care less. This is the ONLY season I can safely state that all the filler is acceptable, because it is a blast. You will never get episodes like this in any other season. I could go on. But good gosh don’t watch the dub. I tried introducing the show to my friends, they chose the dub instead of the original, and they told me the show was bad. Saban should be sued for that. /j

DokiDoki: I dont think this season is that bad. Sure it has problems like Aguri who is… the staple of bad Cure characters. But I like how little filler this season has and how many characters are allowed to be fleshed out to sell a theme-again, minus one person.

Happiness Charge: Hime is the only good thing. Change my mind.

Go Princess: I think this season has the best cinematics of any Pretty Cure season. You all know it’s good. I don’t need to tell you why.

Mahou Tsukai: This is the gay season. I don’t remember a lot besides that. I think the world was pretty wasted all things considered, and the only content I get from this is the bear and the gays.

KiraKira: This is mediocre. I love the character designs. I love the art style. I love the cat and dog gay episode. But that’s about it. The plot is a mess and all over the place, where stuff just kinda happens with no build up, and there’s little substance with the characters besides the cat and dog. It’s a waste of a great art style if you ask me, so this annoys be beyond repair. The lack of combat doesn’t help. The underused MC doesn’t help. The pacing doesn’t help. Promoting junk food doesn’t help. BUT I will say this: thanks to a certain OTHER season, I have come to appreciate KiraKira a whole lot more and some of its elements. It made me realize that while it’s not good, it could have been so much worse.

Hugtto: I am frustrated. I like the season. I do. There’s stuff I love here. But it is these LITTLE details that butcher the S tier for it. There’s some odd pacing choices. Awakening two Cures with completely different personalities and story arcs at once is not my preferred awakening arc. The cameos fusing with the story. Shipping the MC with the villain and not being concrete about the idea that he was toxic and she dumped him in the future and Homare is the dad. There’s also s lot of sexual content here… I am asexual. This is completely a me problem. I’m sure someone out there has a baby making kink that will love this. Again, there’s stuff I love here that the season does exceptionally, and I wish I could give it S tier. I can’t though.

Star Twinkle: First off, this season gets too much hate. There is value here. The biggest problems are the dark themes of genocide being brushed off casually, and THAT ENDING IS AWFUL, I’m story. And yeah, you could complain about Hikaru being a… lackluster MC in terms of a story arc, but I thought she was fine personality wise. I prefer a flawed MC than a perfect one. But at the same time she isn’t exactly a good character either, as her dynamic with Lala is the highlight here. But honestly I can’t put this season in D tier because it’s just so charming. This season is a huge inspiration for my fan made season, Sketched Artistry Pretty Cure (on Ao3), even though I would make that until two years after Star Twinkle ended. I don’t know, I think I just don’t trust Toei with art theme seasons /genocide backstories so I just do it myself.

Healin Good: Earth is the worst part. That’s it. The rest slaps. I love this season when it’s not focused on Cure Earth, and I love the character building and having such a relevant message at the time. It also has one of the best rivalries in the franchise and Nodoka, my favorite PreCure.

Tropical Rouge: It’s charming. It doesn’t take itself seriously and that’s admirable. Laura is also great. But I think the season has several tonal issues to the point where the comedy is hit or miss with me. Don’t bother with the drama! Just embrace the humor! That’s all I needed. This is trying so hard to be Smile but it’s not Smile. I know there are people who love this season though so… I am sorry.

Disaster Party: So this nickname is actually one my gf came up with. (Trying to introduce her to the series). And I’ve been using it ever since. This, so far, is the ONLY PreCure season I have downright HATED. Yeah. I hated this season. There was nothing that worked for me. Not the designs, not the world building, not the lack of cooking in A COOKING SHOW, not the narrator ruining the moments, not the joke of a redemption arc, not the jokes, not the promotion of junk food, not the worst MC of the entire franchise, not the bad gay rep, not the time traveling, not the filler, not the characters sitting around doing nothing the entire story, not the magical girls being downright useless, not the toxic positivity that is harmful to its audience. There was NOTHING that I liked here. I kind of wish the characters here were unlikeable as I’ll get out, because then I would feel something for them. Not no. They’re all boring. I feel nothing towards them. If you like this season, good for you. I wouldn’t understand. It doesn’t even deserve D tier, cause D tier is just for mediocre seasons. It gets its own tier. Congratulations.

Hirogaru Sky: there’s no picture here, and it’s still airing, so my opinion will definitely change. But for now if you want to know… I would be struggling between A and S tier. I like the season a lot so far. Its highs are so high right now that it ALMOST makes me forgive Delicious Party’s existence. But it’s still airing. I also think the pig villain is overused, but I think it’s because they’re doing a Sailor Moon thing, so maybe it’ll be worth it. There’s also the issue of the spacing between Cure awakenings. I’m not a fan of it. I think it’s fine to have a few episodes in the middle, but Delicious Party was really pushing my tolerance for that, and it’s worse here. Right now, we don’t even have Butterfly. We are 13 episodes in! You’d think all the Cures would be here by now. I would excuse it if Butterfly was the sixth ranger, as that’s expected, but no. She’s not. Those are my only problems so far. Everything else about this season is phenomenal, and I hope it stays that way.

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

The film The Nutcracker and the Four Realms most closely resembles is Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Like it, this reinvention of the classic story overrelies on CGI effects, seems more concerned with creating a flashy-looking world than a working one, and throws its empty characters into a floppy storyline. Unlike the 2010 movie, this bad holiday pudding by Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston has no chance of being fondly remembered, even by misguided fans. It’s so derivative of other works it fades from your memory as soon as the credits roll.

On Christmas Eve, Clara Stahlbaum (Mackenzie Foy) searches for a key that will open a music box left to her by her late mother. On its trail, she wanders into a magical world divided into four realms. All live in harmony, except for Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren) and her army of mice, who rule the realm formerly known as the land of Amusements. Along with Captain Philip Hoffman (Jayden Fowora-Knight, playing the titular Nutcracker… sort of), Clara sets out to find her key and restore order to the realm her mother discovered years ago.

It’s essentially a watered-down version of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” minus the wonder, excitement or anything else that made it good. The residents of the four realms are ridiculous caricatures rather than living, breathing beings we should care about. The Land of Amusements is barren. There’s just a couple of “buildings”, which is supposed to be spooky - I think. Mother Ginger’s army of mice should fill us with terror but the rodents can barely come together to make one human-sized soldier, much less pose a threat. What do the realms need a savior from, again?

If I talk about a film’s running time, it’s usually because someone's overstaying their welcome. The Nutcracker and the Four Realms has the opposite problem. It’s way too short. By the time we're introduced to the major players, the world, the rules and the conflict, there’s no time for anything else. No one has any depth. The movie is about nothing more than Clara finding the key to her music box and stopping the threat during the final act. You don’t get to know her or the Nutcracker at all so it’s no surprise the two of them don’t get romantically engaged by the time the movie ends. They’re blocks of wood no one could get excited about.

There’s nothing for you to get invested in or fall in love with. Fan of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite? There are a couple of brief dance sequences but before you get into it, writer Ashleigh Powell whisks away to witness another barrage of fantasy story cliches. Keira Knightley’s Sugar Plum Fairy is revealed to be the villain all long. Even if you didn’t see it coming, you won’t be shocked. Let her take over the world with her army of toy soldiers (so weak and impotent they make the Battle Droids from the Star Wars prequel trilogy look terrifying). Maybe then, something interesting will happen.

You could make a long list of everything about The Nutcracker and the Four Realms that feels off (Matthew Macfadyen is creepy and I don’t think he’s supposed to be) or doesn’t make sense but why bother? Even if the impressive visuals could make you overlook all of the flaws, no one would ever hold it close to their heart and call it a favourite. It’s dull and empty; as though it wasn’t even spawned by a committee or focus group, but by a machine. (December 27, 2019)

[prophecytoad]

The Beginning

Hi reader! Thanks for stopping by! This is the first post of my fortnightly blog. I plan for this blog to be a center for my game development journey, as well as for my perspectives on game design principles, problems, and frustrations. I hope that you will find the material in this blog to be enlightening!

Before we get into any of the good stuff, allow me to first introduce myself!

My name is Dan, but online I go by ProphecyToad. I named myself after my love for amphibians and my need to always plan ahead. As of writing this, I am a 28 year old, third year university student studying a Bachelor of Games and Interactive Environments, majoring in Game Design and minoring in Software Development.

Why do I play games?

Video games to me have always been a display of the beautiful minds of so many people, that have come together to create something that people can invest themselves into in their own unique ways.

I personally play video games for two main reasons: Emotional investment, and mechanical skill display. I love a game that is well written and has themes that can get me invested in the world and characters, but I love a game even more if it has a great deal of well-designed mechanical skill expression.

My history playing games

I’ve been playing video games since my earliest memory on the Windows 98 operating system, with classic games such as “Putt Putt saves the zoo”, “Tyrian 2000”, and “Doom”. Over the years since, I’ve played many different games, sometimes forgetting to do anything else for days at a time (oops).

I was introduced to competitive games as a teenager with the likes of Halo 3 and Guitar hero, and became absorbed by the idea of skill expression in video games. This interest carried me to other games such as Magic: The Gathering, League of Legends, and Rainbow Six Siege.

My Favourite Games

My top 3 favourite games + 1 nostalgia game as of writing this post

Monster Hunter World

This game at its core is simple: go on a mission -> kill/capture a monster -> make equipment from monster parts. The concept is extremely simple to understand, but is done VERY well; largely due to the exceptional combat and creature design. The game is built entirely around allowing the player to demonstrate their skill with incredibly well-paced combat.

Photo retrieved from https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/01/25/monster-hunter-world-review

Resident Evil: Biohazard

The only game in the last decade that I immediately replayed after finishing it, and intentionally unlocked all the achievements for; this game is a masterwork of its design. The levels, puzzles, and story of this game had me invested from start to finish. The game doesn’t try to be more complex than it needs to be, and instead makes use of the sparce systems and mechanics to add to the ambience of the game.

Photo retrieved from https://www.ign.com/games/resident-evil-7-biohazard

Halo

Now, I’m not going to get involved in the debate of which is the objective “best” Halo, but Halo has always been a highlight point for me whenever a new one released. Futuristic powersuit fantasy? Check. Shooting cool, but bad aliens? Check. Saving the universe? Check. What’s not to love?

Photo retrieved from https://www.ign.com/articles/halo-infinite-release-date-preorder

Nostalgia

Digimon World

The first game that I played that made me think, “I can’t wait to get back from school to play this!”. Digimon World combined my love for digital creatures and my love for adventuring into a neat little package with its own unique sense of style.

Retrieved from https://www.ign.com/games/digimon-world

 Check out this cool frog that I did a poster for in primary school: The Turtle Frog!

Photo retrieved from https://museum.wa.gov.au/explore/frogwatch/frogs/turtle-frog

[bookswithsyd]

Was the Live Action ATLA Good Or Bad?

Fans of the original Avatar: The Last Airbender cower in fear when hearing the words Live Action. After the disaster that was the live action movie back in the 2010s, hearing that Netflix was going to try again with an eight episode series, I know I wasn’t the only one who was worried. The only hope that fans held onto was the fact that the original creators were involved in the Netflix adaptation. Then, the fear started to crawl back in more and more as the release date crept closer. The original creators left the project after disagreements happened, news about major changes to the characters were announced, and worry about a new mess welled back up in the back of everyone’s mind.

And then, the show was released.

Taking a step back, the only way I was able to enjoy this show was to view this as what it is. It’s an adaption of a cartoon. Things will be changed, it was never marketed as a one-to-one remake of our childhood classic. Viewing this as a different retelling of events was the best way to get the most out of the live action.

The characters are different. That is obvious from the start. Aang is more mature, he doesn’t feel like that free-spirited child that fled his responsibilities in the cartoon. Katara lacks the rage that drove her to action, she has this air of constant calm. This alone makes everything feel off if you are trying to find that chemistry that was in the original.

Removing things like Sokka’s sexism when landing on Kyoshi Island had me worried that he wouldn’t learn those valuable lessons that women can also fight, you don’t have to be a bender to be valuable, and teamwork is crucial in a battle. And this is a prime example of how the show twists and turns the story. Sokka still gets all those lessons. He learns through his awe that the Kyoshi warriors are strong and are the protectors of the island. The teamwork demonstrated during the invasion showed how much he respects her as a fighter, he respects all the warriors.

The only big issue that I had with the storytelling was the fact that it had to be rushed. Due to it being limited to eight, one-hour long episodes, the major events took place in Omashu. It felt super odd to see so many characters that never really meet and are from different regions, different arcs, it almost felt wrong.

Since I am looking at this series as its own entity in a way, the compression of events is the main problem I had. Other than that, this series did a lot of things well.

One of the best add-ins was the backstories. Including a better look at the past traumas that shaped who they are for both Katara and Sokka gave more depth. Now knowing that Katara’s actions caused her mother’s death makes me understand why she was so attached to her memory and why she would constantly bring her up in the original. Sokka letting down his father is a perfect event that would push him to be the best warrior that he could, he felt the need to prove himself for his dad.

Even more impactful was the bigger role that Gyasto had for Aang. Being able to feel the connection that the two had drove home how upset Aang was to be deemed the Avatar and how he didn’t want to be sent away from his friends. Seeing the added scenes of Gyasto talking to Aang in the spirit realm and knowing that when Aang returned, he would not be there drew out so much raw emotion.

One of my favorite add-in scenes was the ones between Zuko and Iroh. The relationship between the two was one of my favorite even back in the original, and seeing it more fleshed out in the live action made it even better. In the original, we never knew the name of Iroh’s son, in the live action, we got a while funeral scene plus the sorrow Iroh and Zuko shared after losing someone close. Being able to see the interactions between the family (especially the early addition of Azula) gave a great overarching look at the family dynamics.

All this added information gave so much more substance to characters that I already though were three-dimensional with flaws and goals of their own.

This is not something that I would recommend to someone who has not watched the original cartoon if they want to get the full story. The live action is rush, it changes personalities, and mixes somethings from the original. But, I think this is something great for fans of the show that want more. Yes, you will get annoyed that Aang can just fly using air bending, but getting the extra look into the past of each character was worth it. The acting was good, the cinematics and effects were great (I was worried about the bending but was pleasantly surprised), and the martial arts for the bending was one of my favorite things.

The show was good. I think the people who say otherwise are stuck in the nostalgia they had with the original show. The live action was a solid take of the series, yes, it changed things, but I don’t think I ever wanted them to try and do an exact copy of the original.

[biblioflyer]

What is lost by leaning into "realism"

Discovery and Picard are not entirely unique in challenging Star Trek’s conventions and daring to show a more complex, more challenging universe where logic and empathy are not always triumphant, at least not right away. DS9 and Enterprise certainly blazed that trail. Some of the arguments I’m making may also fit them, but they’re not the ones that get piled on and they're too distant in my memory to fairly judge.

I think I hit upon a critique of Picard that both rings true but also still leaves many unanswered questions. In updating the tone of the show to reflect modern expectations of “prestige drama” in terms of the aesthetics, acting styles, content, dialogue, and the overall world building Star Trek is being positioned to explore more fully Ben Sisko’s observation that “it's easy to be a saint in paradise” and thus keep Star Trek honest. 

It keeps Star Trek honest by committing to the enduring tradition of introspection and questioning norms of both storytelling and mirroring back uncomfortable truths about society. The Federation can be a fundamentally good place but if it is entirely free from fault, it has nothing to teach us. 

Star Trek needs to have room for its characters to be fundamentally good moral actors: people who care deeply about core Trek values like justice, mercy, and curiosity but if they are always in possession of the right information and free from internal confusion or distress when making their choices, then the only drama to be found is in going around and lecturing rubber forehead aliens. 

Now there has always been value in this, even if it feels more than a little neo colonial or very 1990s Francis Fukuyama style triumphalist. Self criticism makes us reflexively defensive and thus allegory is often easier to swallow. Yet it is also quite problematic if we never take time to ask ourselves if maybe this week we are the problem instead of the Pakleds.

However, the particulars of how Discovery and Picard update the franchise also have undeniably made these two series feel like everything else on TV. The mystery boxes, the way all of the characters are constantly suffering, the shocking twists, the ignoble deaths, the not so subtle implication that it isn’t even enough to punch a Nazi er I mean alien gangster you have to vaporize her. There’s no other form of justice or harm reduction available.

I’m not even saying that Episode Five (and yes I’m still salty about Episode 5) did a bad job of setting up the trolley problem that Seven solves through summary execution, but in creating a scenario in which executing a noncombatant, even one as heinous as Seven’s rival, is the most morally defensible course of action, Picard crosses a line where it feels like The Witcher. It feels like The Expanse. It feels like Andor.

All of which are amazing shows but their grim moral dilemmas are functions of their core conceits. Namely that people are mostly terrible and will reliably build nightmare societies in which exploitation is inevitable. At the very least, breaking free from cycles of abuse and exploitation in these settings is not easy or safe.

Star Trek has a long tradition of relatively straightforward “stop the bad guys” stories but it also has a tradition of finding win/wins and harm reduction over direct violence. To be fair, Picard’s first season does end through enshrining classic Trek values of achieving mutual understanding via open mindedness and exposing false assumptions that have brought people to the edge of apocalyptic conflict. The journey to get there with episode after episode of hard choices and backsliding, is not an easy one.

And maybe it shouldn’t be because Star Trek has always had its critics that it undersells the difficulty of resolving conflict and appealing to people’s better nature. Yet, if everyone else is doing a phenomenal job of making the quest for a better world seem as dirty and torturous as it may really be, does Star Trek actually need to do that too in order to be a “responsible” show? 

Is there a moral argument to be made for simpler narratives and inspirational parables rather than cautionary tales?

For now I think Strange New Worlds has the balance just right. Although I have concerns going forward based on the Season Two premiere stinger that it may be tempted to become too naive and simplistic in some ways and too cynical in others.

For more like this check out my other essays reevaluating Star Trek Picard and interrogating the widely held fandom criticism that Picard made the Federation into a Dystopia.

[miloscat]

[Review] Super Meat Boy Forever (PS4)

What a shame.

I’d just finished playing through a bunch of grapple-related games. Some of them were hard-type precision platformers. This put me in mind of Super Meat Boy, which happened to be on sale on PSN. And so I decided to replay it for the third or fourth time, and it remains a classic for a reason. After 4000 glorious deaths I’d finished Cotton Alley, unlocked the guest characters (the console releases have a different set than the PC version) bar the N Ninja and the Kid, cleared all the warp zones, and got the true end, although I skipped the other Dark World levels after doing half of Rapture’s. It was such a rush, that sticky, slippery, floaty movement fascinating to master all over again, with the benefit of nostalgic muscle memory. I even came to enjoy the replacement soundtrack.

This was all in aid of getting me in the mood for the sequel, a decade in development. I had been looking forward to Super Meat Boy: The Game, a mobile spin-off that ended up being heavily reworked into this PC/console sequel. As it turns out, Forever feels like a strange mishmash of components and conventions of Super Meat Boy with the remnants of its own mobile past, while integrating some new mechanics. Sadly the unsteady combination ends up tripping over its own feet, and I guess falling into a buzzsaw.

I just couldn’t get on with this game the whole time I played it. The fact that it’s an autorunner rankled with me, especially in the finicky boss fights. It also uses random generation for its levels, so each one is a long gauntlet made up of chunks slapped together with checkpoints (and the occasional error). Ostensibly this is to aid replay value for the game in general, but for me it hurt the experience if I ever tried to replay a level for a collectible, a better time, or on the tedious hunt for a warp zone (I ended up only finding one of the five). I only unlocked a few Dark World variations and their step up in difficulty was too extreme to be much fun for me.

Meat Boy and Bandage Girl are both playable by default which is nice, and they have a new two-button set of abilities to go along with the autorunning dynamic, which works pretty well: a punch/kick attack (mapped to the same button as jump) and a slide which also attacks briefly. As with the previous games, there’s a bunch of unlockable characters... only, my final total was just five, including the two that are given by progressing normally. How exactly am I supposed to get 50 dummies when there are only 30 levels (times two) and less than half of them have one? I don’t really care to keep playing and find out, and most of the unlocks have some other stringent requirement that I will never even attempt, so boo. Also, none of them are guest characters from other games that lent the previous games such a collegial spirit of indie collaboration.

It feels strange to say it, but this Meat Boy game has a much more involved plot. This is fleshed out with some really quite lovely animated cutscenes, showing the protagnists’ attempt to rescue their adorable baby Nugget from the returning Dr. Fetus. It’s still just silly fluff, ultimately, but there’s some really nice visuals along the way. The game itself looks great too, like a playable cartoon in motion, although it’s had to sacrifice that grungy Edmund McMillen outlineless style to get there.

I’m bummed that I didn’t get the big awesome sequel to Meat Boy and Super Meat Boy I was hoping for. The new formula just doesn’t work, and trying to make Meat Boy stuff fit in with it doesn’t work either. Even the level replays showing your complete run don’t play as well in this new paradigm. Autorunning feels bad in a console game, and randomly assembled levels means you’re not getting a curated game package and can never share or compare your experience (or do a speedrun for that matter). Although there’s undeniably scads of talent and artistry involved here, there’s fundamental problems that make Forever inherently unsatisfying. And that’s a damn shame.