#i know heroic origins is controversial to some but i think it's cool how everyone is connected

[troynabed]

first / last

[bloomingundertheshadows]

Grey’s Anatomy and the Trials of Long Running Television

Today I want to discuss Grey’s Anatomy’s struggle to contain itself within its own story structure. By this I mean: As Greys Anatomy approaches it’s eighteenth season, it’s becoming clear that the show wants to break free of the mold and story architecture it’s followed since 2007. It continues to create more and more elaborate storylines because they want to be bigger and better and more exciting and groundbreaking, just like the first few seasons. However, this has created a situations where characters and plotpoints are increasing illogical and the writers are struggling to maintain the core of what made Grey’s anatomy special. I started writing this before the Deluca disaster, but this storyline solidifies my point. 

First, I have to talk about the original format of Grey’s Anatomy so we can have a reference. Grey’s Anatomy, for most of it’s run, has almost excessively been set inside of a hospital or another small setting. The conflicts have ranged from small scale surgeries to the more horrible disasters like the plane crash or the shooting. My point is here that the hospital is where all events are focused. 

I know what you might be thinking. What about the plane crash? That didn’t happen at the hospital. That is true. However, the crash happened because a bunch of doctors were traveling to assist in a surgery; the crash happened because they were being good doctors. 

I’m going to come out and just say it. The Deluca storyline should not have happened. Period. There is no reason a show focused on medical professionals, and in particular a show that has always centered around a hospital, should have a doctor playing detective and trying to chase down human traffickers. This was a story that was meant for Station 19 - but because we are living in the Grey’s Anatomy Extended Universe, they did. We actually saw kidnapping stories in early Grey’s Anatomy - remember the girl who bonded to Meredith after being missing for like 10 years? That’s how Deluca’s storyline should have happened - keeping it in the hospital. 

The difference is that S17 Grey’s knows that story is no longer big enough - it’s not exciting or groundbreaking anymore for doctors to treat human trafficking victims. The doctors have to be superhumans who also rush out to tackle these huge issues and then die heroically trying to stop them. Grey’s want to continue to be groundbreaking and shocking, but they’re starting to run out of material. Can you imagine if when Meredith met that girl from 10 years ago, she and Cristina got in the car and drove around the mountainside trying to hunt down the guy who kidnapped her? No. You cannot. Because in a show that focused so hard on medicine, it wouldn’t have made any sense. And it still doesn’t. 

I’m going to make the controversial opinion that Deluca is not the first causality of this and he won’t be the last. I actually started writing this because of the Meredith insurance trial. I know that I might be the only one who feels like this, but I felt very strongly this storyline happened because the writers ran out of groundbreaking things for Meredith to do. She’s the top of her field, medical extrodinare, mother of three, etc. Her professional accomplishments are no longer a storyline for the writers to milk. So what do they do? Look beyond purely medicine and ask themselves, what would make Meredith more groundbreaking? What current and popular topic in medicine can we use Meredith Grey to talk about? Oh! Let’s go for broad discussions on the healthcare system. 

I’d like to say that I’m not shitting on the writers for trying to tackle issues within the US healthcare system. I’m really not. I am saying that the way they went about it doesn’t make sense for the show. Multiple episodes where Meredith is in jail, away from the hospital, dealing with much broader and larger scale issues than the show is frankly equipped to deal with. And I think it shows: while we have this arc about the healthcare system it gets completely dropped afterwards because Grey’s cannot sustain such large discussions while keeping everyone inside the hospital walls. Grey’s is still fundamentally a medical drama and if the writers try to branch too far away from that, they’ll lose their core audience. The issue here is that Grey’s wants to go nuts and become a spy/detective/political thriller because they’ve more or less exhausted every other possible storyline. They are honestly somewhat out of “groundbreaking” things to do. But the show is too scared to completely jump ship because that would be way too risky; and right now in TV, risks are really not something shows take - especially more traditional TV shows on cable. 

I honestly feel like I’m watching a show having growing pains, literally almost like a teenager. It wants to remain loyal to the style which made it famous, but like a Disney child star, they want to be edgy and cool/break away from the mold. Yet, they can’t. So every once in while they act out by killing a character in some completely weird and illogical fashion, but then retreat back to their comfort bubble of a medical drama. It’s a tiring cycle, and that’s to say nothing about my feelings on the general writing and storyline quality. 

If you read the TVLINE interview with Krista Vernoff, she basically says that for a moment she wanted to save Deluca, but the writers disagreed and told her how powerful this story was and how it needed to be told. And I call BS. BS, Krista. Absolutely nobody writing a medical soap opera thought to themselves “This is missing one of our doctors getting murdered after acting like an FBI agent trying to singlehandedly rescue kidnapped women.” I honestly think they’ve gotten so caught up in Grey’s Anatomy’s reputation of shocking and heartbreaking moments, that they were like “OMG ya’ll. We haven’t killed anyone in years. I need a really dramatic and sweeping death to keep up our rep as a shocking drama.” 

This isn’t going to be the last time they do something like this. The longer the show goes on, the more they need to do something crazy to keep people interested. So, beware all characters. 

[random-imagines-blog]

Animal {Avengers Cast x Male Reader}

Requested by: @gameloversblog Wordcount: 1715 Summary: You play a Marvel antihero who has a pretty bad pottymouth. You finally get your own standalone film and invite your castmates over to watch. Warnings: Foul language.

To say that you brought a new life to the controversial character that you were playing was an understatement. Ever since you were young, you wanted to play a comic book superhero, or perhaps more aptly, an anti-hero because you were always a bit naughtier than the characters you grew up with. You swore an almost unprofessional amount, but your charm and skill was enough for you to keep the roles that you had, you requested to do a lot of your own stunts for the thrill of it, and, well, you were a bit of a flirt with everyone that you came across. So when there was a role opening up in the MCU as an anti-hero with a bit of a potty-mouth, you called your manager and told her that she would receive a big bonus if she managed to get you that audition. Needless to say, she got that bonus, and when you got the role, you bought her a brand new car, complete with a big bow on top, and a cut out of yourself for the backseat so she wouldn’t get lonely.

Unfortunately, these were meant to be family movies, and you didn’t get to swear as much as you had initially hoped. You did continue with your language when you messed up, which would never be in the bloopers unless they wanted to get an R rating on their own, and it became a bit of a joke with your castmates. In one scene that you filmed with Chris Evans and Scarlett Johanson, you actually shocked Evans so hard with your language that you missed a fighting cue and genuinely got struck in the head. He didn’t let up about that for a good month, but it was all light-hearted.

The movie was incredibly successful, as you had hoped that it would be. The critics loved it, and there was even praise on the way that you accurately portrayed your character - but there was one complaint. It wasn’t completely true to the character as you hadn’t been able to swear as much as they did. You brought in a couple of ‘hell’, ‘goddamn’ and ‘what the f-’ before you were cut off, but that was the extent that Marvel would let you do. It was literally signed into your contract that you could not improvise.

But now you were all smiles to the press, though your publicist was always on hand to give you a stern look, or clear your throat if your language started to go downhill. “It was fucking amazing!” was something that you couldn’t help but say when journalists asked about your experience. During one particularly memorable interview, you spewed out, “It was so fucking cool, like have you seen this shit? There’s like explosions all the goddamn time, and those are real, they don’t just put that shit in during editing, it’s right there, like holyyy mother of God, there was a time when I was scared I was going to be actually on fire, because of how close it was. Fucking burning up hot like Rhianna’s newest cd, you know?”

That interview showed on TV and had more bleeps than an episode of COPS. And you know that to be true because Robert Downey Jr called and told you that he had compared them as something fun to do. That interview also ended up on some videos of ‘Most cringy interviews’ which you didn’t completely understand. You had a blast, you were being yourself - it was the show hosts who looked baffled.

Out to celebrate the success of the movie making millions in the box office, you and co-star Jeremy Renner decided to hang out at his house with a couple of beers. Now that most of the press was over, and you didn’t have to go to any more premieres, it was so nice to be able to just hang out with friends. You were lounging in his living room, bottle in hand, telling a story about a scene that you did when you were in an action-comedy movie with some other famous actors. “So Mark Wahlberg has that expression on his face, you knew the one, where he looks all confused, like he needs to take a shit and doesn’t know how to get it out?” You laughed, and Jeremy nodded, knowing what you were talking about. “So I took the chance man, I had to take it, I just blew into my elbow and it made the biggest fucking fart sound, I’m talking about camera breaking loud man.”

Between laughs you heard your phone ringing. When you saw your manager’s name, you were expecting her to come down on you hard for swearing in the interviews. You had no idea that your life and your career were about to make a huge turn for the better. “Yo and hello,” You said, smiling at your cheesy line.

“I’m not calling to bitch at you, believe it or not,” Your manager sounded excited about something, which peaked your interest.

“I would never use the word bitch - I’d more say it’s complaining mixed with nagging,” You started. “All of which I know that I deserve. So what’s up, buttercup?”

“You managed to get a starring role, and I mean, big time starring role.”

“Oh, is someone trying to get a big Christmas bonus? What a coincidence that this is happening around the oh so busy clusterfuck of a holiday. You know - I don’t even remember auditioning for anything lately. What is it, what is it?”

Your manager said the name of the character that you had just played, who was originally just supposed to be a one-off character. “You were recieved really well, so they want to give you your own film. With at least a Mature rating so you can use those words you love so much.”

“I can finally say shit, dick, asshole, fuckfest?” You said, growing happy. You legitimately got up from Jeremy’s couch and started to do a happy dance.

“To a degree,” Your manager warned. “We’re still in talks about who is going to do the script, so you might be able to have some say in it...”

“Thank fuck for that. Do you know how hard it was to say darn with a straight face? Who says darn anymore? I wasn’t playing Cap!” Jeremy snickered behind you and you shot him a wide grin. “I’ll even write the script myself if they can’t find the perfect person. I practically am my character, you know.”

“Yes, I know. Everybody knows.” Your manager sighed. “I’ll put in a good word for you, you know that. Just hang tight. They’ll be sending you an announcement soon enough.”

-

Just over a year later, you were sitting in the living room of your spacious home with your best friends and castmates all around you. You managed to get a copy of the film before the premiere, and managed to talk everyone into coming over and watching it. And you, being a devious little thing, created a drinking game.

“Alright, so here’s the rules,” You said, standing in front of the TV before the film started. Your friends stopped talking amongst themselves and looked at you. You grinned like a maniac. Some of the biggest names in Hollywood were hanging out in your house right now. Suck on that critics who thought you’d never make it this far. You were one of them now. “I don’t have enough alcohol in the house to make you all take a shot at every swear-”

You were interrupted by a couple of laughs, so you gave a wink to Paul Rudd who had been the source of a couple of them. “-So how about you guys just have to take a swig of your beer? And a double if you’re referenced in the film.”

“I guess that sounds fair,” Jeremy said, settling into your second-favorite armchair.

“Why do you want us to get so drunk?” Scarlett Johansson asked, raising one of her perfect eyebrows in your direction. You shrugged before taking your seat, the best seat in the house, your favorite overstuffed chair.

“Instagam, snapchat, facebook, tumblr,” You listed off the various social media sites that you could put their drunken pictures up on.

“I think my publicist would actually kill you,” Elizabeth Olsen chimed in, cracking open her own beer.

“Great! Think of the publicity that would generate for the film!” You joked with that same grin. “Marvel Superstar murdered by publicist of Elizabeth Olsen! The tragic story of a drinking game gone wrong! More details inside if you want to play along...”

“Alright, alright, we’ll play along but no cameras, okay?” Chris Evans said, opening a beer of his own. You couldn’t stop smiling. You absolutely loved when you got your way.

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen, are you ready for the best Marvel film in the world? Now presenting - me!” You pressed play and the movie started.

Almost immediately, your friends had to start taking drinks because of how often there were curse words. Nothing too bad, but just the usuals. Fuck, shit, damn. Not the overly offensive ones.

Your favorite part was slowly coming up. You kept shooting glances over at Chris Evans, which the others noticed, but said  nothing about. Chris was oblivious, paying more attention to the film rather than to the people around him.

“Darn,” A character in the movie said, albeit a young one.

“Language!” The camera whipped to your character, who was standing there in a heroic pose. Weapon in one hand, charming smile, looking good for the victim whom you just saved. “In this movie, we say fuck.”

The scene had the right effect. Everyone started to laugh, and Anthony Mackie was nudging Chris, encouraging him to take double the drinks.

“You know, I wasn’t in charge of writing that line, but I keep getting the flack from it.” He grudgingly picked up his beer and finished it off while the rest of the group cheered.

[pure-bakusass]

My adult kiribaku headcanons! 💥💪

Warning, this is a long ass post where I decided to write some of my favourite headcanons down. Mostly Bakugou but Kirishima is involved more or less. I love my adult pro hero husbands. I hope you enjoy!

1. The hero agency!

The formidable duo of Pro Heroes Ground Zero and Red Riot is known by public to be happily married and leading their own hero agency together. Their agency has quite a reputation and is one of the best in Japan. Being offered an internship there is considered quite a big deal. Your career as a future hero might really blossom there, if only you can handle the well known explosive temper of Ground Zero. But despite Ground Zero's lack of any actual patience for work with kids and often ending up scaring them, Red Riot does his best calming Bakugou down if needed and being the most warm and understanding teacher you could possibly have. Red Riot is just great with kids and with his husband. I'd say with people in general. His gentle approach softens the impact of Bakugou's behavior to the point people often end up forgiving and forgetting Bakugou's flaws.

2. Bakugou's tattoos!

Bakugou has some piercings and tattoo sleeves, not only because they look dope and he has always wanted them, but also to make a clear stand against the harmful cultural taboo there is in Japan. Tattoos, being strongly associated with criminal underworld, especially the gangsters, are now all over a pro hero's skin whether the public likes it or not. Bakugou himself takes pride in inspiring people not to give a single fuck about the opinion of others and encouraging them to do whatever makes them feel happy.

Ground Zero's tattoos were actually a very controvertial issue for some time on the media around the whole country, practically resulting in a revolution in that matter and causing a lot of discussions, mostly about whether it is appropriate for a pro hero to have tattoos or not. Specifically tattoos holding a vulgar or violent meaning like "shit happens", "sex bomb", "die", "fuck you" and so on. Ground Zero himself refused to take interviews and cut himself off the whole issue with making a public statement that he "doesn't give a fuck".

Without any interest from the subject of the issue himself, it wasn't long till the topic was worn off and the controversy faded away eventually. Still, it is pretty common for comments of strong disagreement to occur, for example:

"He looks more like a villain than a hero."

"Tattoos are not heroic, he should be ashamed of himself."

"He's clearly doing it for the controversy around himself so that he's in the spotlight. What a shallow attention seeker."

"Pro heroes should set a good example for our children, and so called Ground Zero is the exact opposite of what a pro hero should represent."

"Someone who wants to look like a criminal shouldn't be given a hero license because there is clearly something wrong going on inside his mind."

Bakugou, however, snaps back at those comments with more or less the same words.

"You want to know what's heroic? Minding your own fucking business."

Kirishima tried to persuade Bakugou into being a little more subtle with the public, however Bakugou said that "he didn't carry the bitch out of the collapsing building with those fucking hands so that she could disrecpect him like this" and he stands by it with every fiber of his tattooed being.

3. Bakugou and kids!

Despite Bakugou claiming he strongly dislikes children and can't handle them, Ground Zero is voted the most popular pro hero among teenagers. It's probably because of his rebellious, fierce attitude and his will to say and do anything he wants no matter what might others think, which is by teens considered very cool and brave, but by the parents of those teens - rude and inappropriate. A lot of adults don't think that Ground Zero is the best role model for their children, however nobody can deny his dedication, courage, skills and all the good he does for the society in general.

Once when a group of teens heard Bakugou throwing a sharp, savage comeback at someone who got on his nerves nearby, they high fived and yelled "Fucking roasted! Nobody messes with Ground Zero! He's the best!" Bakugou snapped at them to mind their fucking businesses. He wouldn't ever admit it but he was flattered and happy to hear them say it.

Despite saying it's useless and stupid over and over again, Bakugou never refuses to give autographs to any kid that asks. He knows what it feels like to admire someone to an extreme level, after all.

Once when he was asked for an autograph by this visibly shy and intimidated boy, he asked him what the fuck would he even need it for and got an answer: 

"You see, I'm being bullied in my school, so I thought maybe if I let them know I met someone as awesome as Ground Zero, like, in person, they'd leave me alone. But without an autograph nobody will believe me."

Bakugou smirked in response.

"You think that's gonna work? Pathetic. Like anyone would pay any respect to a piece of shitty paper. Tell you what, I'll pay a little visit to your school myself and make the bastards shit their pants, how about that?"

Needless to say the kid wouldn't belive what he had just heard and looked at Bakugou in pure bliss. Long story short, Bakugou stormed the school and yelled at everyone. Not just the bullies but the teachers who ignored the case too, calling them out as "fucking idiots doing shitty job" and threatening the whole school community in general. The media basically ate him alive because of that incident but it's not like he cares anyway. Ground Zero the chaotic good hero regrets nothing.

I think he may be willing to go this extra in the matter of bullying as a pro hero because of what he used to do in the past himself (to Izuku) and feeling ashamed of this whenether it gets back to him.

4. Kirishima's looks! (aka krbk being adorably domestic)

At some point of their adult life together Kirishima decided to grow a beard. Bakugou said that he didn't think anything could look more shitty on Kirishima than his dumb hair, and yet there goes his husband proving him wrong. Despite having a new topic for many mean jokes Bakugou doesn't really mind the beard, just like he doesn't really mind Kirishima's unbreakable crocs he wears around the house (and occasionally not only the house) pretty much all the time. He just can't really do anything about that and it's not like he cares enough to try.

What Bakugou likes especially about Kirishima's new pro hero look is his hair he decided to grow to quite an impressive lenght. It somehow resembles a lion's mane and looks intimidating and very manly, but still being soft and nice to touch and run fingers through.

Bakugou's morning routine includes helping Kirishima with brushing his hair. He complains about it every time but there wasn’t a single day he didn’t do it. He still stubbornly calls the hair shitty and will rather die than say he adores it out loud. Kirishima knows.

Bonus:

Kirishima buys all kinds of Ground Zero merchandise there is because he thinks it's cute. Bakugou gets mad at him for spending money on that useless bullshit when he has the original Ground Zero in his presence pretty much whenether he wants. Kirishima likes to remind Bakugou every single day that he's his biggest fan and he loves him very much. He usually gets an irritated but equally adorable “I love you too you damn nerd” back.

***

For those of you who were determined enough to reach the very end, thank you sincerely for spending your time reading this. I was meaning to include an art piece for each one of the headcanons but I was too lazy to do art AND the post is already long enough I guess. You can expect my adult krbk artwork to appear in other posts though! They most certainly will appear.

[scarletwitching]

Who/what ruined the Ultimates/Ultimate Universe?

Wanda ruined the Ultimate Universe!! Sort of.

Some backstory: The Ultimate Universe was created back when Marvel had zero money and everyone thought the company was going to be shut down. Despite some good books being published during this time, there was a feeling that the convoluted and strange stories of the 90′s (Wasp was an actual wasp!!) had left 616 inaccessible and quite possibly irredeemably broken.

The idea behind the Ultimate Universe was to do a reboot that started from the beginning, so that new fans could jump on at issue #1 without needing any prior knowledge. These were then-modern reinventions done by up and coming talent, and they were very much of their time. Decompressed wide screen comics where every woman was wearing a crop top.

At the time, there was speculation that the Ultimate Universe was going to eventually replace 616, and a lot of people liked that idea. They preferred these takes on the characters. That stance wasn’t without detractors (616 loyalists are a dedicated bunch), but it wasn’t uncommon to see someone say it. Both the passage of time and the popularity of the much nicer versions from the movies have killed that sentiment, but it had its day.

What ruined the whole endeavor was the revitalization of 616 and the Ultimate Universe subsequently falling into disrepair. 616 was re-energized, in terms of sales, in the mid to late 2000′s by the explosion of big blockbuster events that sold huge numbers and caused a lot of fandom discussion (read: arguments on the internet). And who started this trend? It was Wanda!

But wait, there’s more! With so much renewed interest in 616, the Ultimate Universe felt superfluous. The old universe that had once felt stale was now going through huge, controversial changes. Even if you didn’t like what they were doing, you were engaged. You were worked up about it. And the Ultimate Universe, which had been so fresh and new, was accumulating continuity and a bit of dust. Its original appeal had been that it was a jumping on point, but that was less true several years in. Characters started to be 616-ized as later creative teams didn’t care about what previous ones had done. Writers and artists couldn’t remember what characters’ backgrounds were supposed to be. Two different versions of Wasp suddenly became white people out of nowhere. How did that happen twice? I don’t know.

...and then Ultimatum happened. Ultimatum killed off nearly three dozen characters, and everyone hated it. The Ultimate Universe had started to lose some of its luster with Ultimates 3, but this was much worse. It seemed like they were trying to kill the entire line without actually committing to doing so. They still put out books, Ultimate Spider-man kept chugging along, but the energy in the fandom was gone. The big event style storylines that made people interested in 616 again* had backfired on the Ultimate U.

Oh, and what set the plot of Ultimatum in motion? Wanda dying. #WandaKilledTheUltimateUniverse #ConspiracyTheory

Back to Ultimates 3 for a second, I think, in a pre-Game of Thrones world, the incest reveal had a lot to do with people turning on the Ultimate Universe. Millar’s Ultimates was embarrassingly “edgy” by 2019 standards, but even he had the sense to not make the incest text. And to not have a heroic character announce that everyone is cool with siblings falling in love now that it’s the 21st century. I see that reveal cited often by people as the point the Ultimate U jumped the shark, so again, #WandaKilledTheUltimateUniverse.

As for what killed Ultimates itself, most people would say Jeph Loeb (or barring that, the incest specifically), but I never liked that book so I’ll say Mark Millar trying too hard.

*In a predictable twist, they relied too heavily on events and did them too frequently, which has led to diminishing returns. Nowadays, 616 is plagued by event fatigue and Marvel promising not to do any more events only to immediately announce more events. #WandaKilled616

[ciathyzareposts]

Game 353: The Legend of Zelda (1986)

Yes, I’m as surprised as you to see this screen on my blog.

            The Legend of Zelda

Japan Nintendo (developer and publisher)

Released 1986 for NES in Japan; western release in 1987.

Date Started: 14 January 2020

Date Ended: 25 January 2020

Total Hours: 15

Difficulty: Hard (4/5)

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

A number years ago, I participated in a Reddit thread. The original entry was just a funny comic, but at some point the discussion evolved into “generation gap” complaints–about things that people didn’t understand about the younger generation. One commenter opined that he didn’t understand Pokémon. I replied to agree:

           Glad I’m not the only one. They look . . . cute. Since when is “cute” “cool”? Aren’t things like dragons and ninjas cool? When I was a kid, I played with robots that changed into trucks. These kids play with . . . little yellow mice or something.

               Well, that sparked a furor. More than one respondent wrote to tell me that Pokémon does feature dragons and ninjas. One of them slammed down three image links with the comment “looks pretty cool to me,” then left the forum as if he’d dropped the mic. These were the images:            

         I was so flabbergasted that I couldn’t begin to think of a response. Fortunately, another commenter came along to say what was in my head: “They look like toys . . . baby toys.” The idea that someone thought these three pictures countered my “cute” argument says as much about the gap as anything could.

I’m not convinced that the gap is strictly about age. After all, I was 14 when The Legend of Zelda was released in the west–not exactly out of the target age range for the title. But I didn’t own a Nintendo console and never did, and I guess for that reason never learned to value heroic archetypes different from the traditional western conception. As I put in my “10 most controversial opinions” entry:             

If I’m going to play a racing game, I want to race race cars, not goofy little go-karts piloted by mustachioed plumbers. If I’m going to pit monsters against each other in gladiatorial matches, I want them to look like monsters, not characters from the Island of Misfit Toys. And if I’m going to play an action-adventure, I want to play a classic hero, not an effete little elf with bare legs and a pointy hat.

               I’m sucking up these prejudices to give The Legend of Zelda a try. Yes, we agreed several times that it’s not an RPG. But it’s RPG-ish, and its own sequel is an RPG, and had an influence on RPGs. I’ve always seen that influence as an infantilization–infantilization in character, in complexity, and in controls. But if I’m going to hold such an opinion, it ought to at least be an opinion informed by actual gameplay. At the worst, perhaps it will habituate me a bit, so if I ever deign to play your precious Chrono Trigger–which from videos looks to me like a bunch of children scurrying around–perhaps I’ll be inoculated to some of its conventions.           

Neither the complexity of controls nor the depiction of the “hero” fill me with interest to play this game.

          While I didn’t own a Nintendo, I had friends that did, and I remember at least watching them play a little Zelda even if I didn’t handle the controls myself. I remember being astonished that the console was capable of saving the game–something that until then I thought was confined to computers–and I wondered without satisfaction how that was accomplished. I now know that there was a battery within the cartridge itself that kept the save files, which is admittedly one thing that would have impressed me in 1987.           

I’m beginning to worry that it’s not really eight.

              As everyone but me knows until now, the Zelda games are set in a kingdom called Hyrule, ruled by Princess Zelda (reportedly named after F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife). Magic in this realm concentrates in golden triangles known as “triforces.” As the first game opens, a Prince of Darkness named Gannon has sacked Hyrule and pilfered the Triforce of Power. Zelda also had the Triforce of Wisdom, but she broke it into eight pieces and hid them around the realm to prevent its theft. Meanwhile, Zelda’s “nursemaid,” Impa, fled the castle to find someone to help. (The fact that the heroine of the title is young enough to still have a nursemaid is another strike against it.) She was rescued from Gannon’s soldiers by a “young lad” named Link, who vowed to assemble the Triforce of Wisdom and destroy Gannon.

(I gather that the name “Link” is meant to be taken somewhat literally, as in the character is the “link” between the player and the game world. As such, it’s not much different than “avatar,” although that was a title rather than a name.)            

The manual provides a map of most of the overworld, which helps greatly.

           Hyrule takes up 16 x 8 screens, with the character starting along the south edge in the center. On 9 of those screens are entrances to dungeons, numbered 1 to 9 in rough order of difficulty. The first eight have pieces of the Triforce, and the ninth has the confrontation with Gannon. There are also numerous entrances to caves where old men and women give hints, offer gems, and sell items. Many of these entrances (including the final dungeon entrance) are hidden and require bombs or other mechanisms to reveal.           

An old man in a dungeon gives me a hint.

            On just about every screen is a collection of various enemies, the creators did an admirable job giving each enemy has its own strengths, weaknesses, and movement and attack patterns. We saw something of this in Deadly Towers, but Zelda carries it to an apex. So you have “ropes” (I had to look up the official names in the manual since they appear nowhere in the game), which are snakes who move around randomly until they get to your column or row, at which they make a sudden and swift attack directly at your character. There are “darknuts,” knight-like characters whose shields make them immune from forward attacks. “Peahats” look like chickens, and they can’t be damaged while flying; you have to wait for them to land. “Dodongos” are immune to just about everything except that they’ll eat any bombs that you leave in their path. There are at least a few dozen enemy types, and you have to learn each one.

Helping you out are a variety of inventory items that Link can find and buy, starting with a wooden sword, found in the cave on the starting screen. Failure swiftly followed any player who didn’t go into that cave first. Later, you find a “white sword” and then a magical sword. Once you equip a sword, it is always activated by the “A” button, but the “B” button can cycle through a variety of other things that you can acquire, including boomerangs (regular and magic), bombs, candles, and bows and arrows. There are also artifact items used to solve particular puzzles. For instance, you need a whistle to defeat a particular enemy, a ladder to cross one-square water, and keys to open doors. Shields and rings reduce damage done to the character and potions heal it.            

Link gets a magic sword. Note that he has three keys, eight bombs, and eight gems.

              Life force is represented by “hearts,” of which you have a maximum of three at the beginning. As you explore, you find more “max health” hearts. I suspect there are 13 in the game (plus the original three), but I only ever found 12. Regular hearts, which heal, are dropped randomly by slain enemies, which puts Zelda in that odd genre of games in which when your health gets low, you need to head out and find something to fight.

The game does an interesting thing where when your health is at its maximum, you can fling your sword across the screen like a missile weapon–a weird idea that we seem to find in a lot of Japanese titles–but if you take any advantage, you can only swing at the square in front of you. Thus, you have a lot of incentive to keep Link at his maximum. This is pretty hard.         

Link’s inventory screen about halfway through.

           In fact, I was surprised at how hard the game was in general. I had originally thought to explore the world in some kind of systematic order, but that went out the window within the first few minutes, as I got my ass handed to me by enemies only two screens from the starting screen. (I particularly hate “zolas,” which live in the water and pop up every few seconds from a random location to spit a missile at you with unerring accuracy. There is no time in the game in which these things aren’t a menace.) I tend not to be good at games that require a lot of fast reaction anyway, and Zelda really put me through my paces. Earlier, I had a line that said something like, “If it’s a child’s game in content, it certainly isn’t in difficulty,” but on reflection, I suspect children are better equipped to handle the swift reactions that the game requires. It made me feel old.

Balancing the difficulty is a somewhat charitable approach to reloading. When Link “dies,” the player need only “Continue” from the starting square of the wilderness or dungeon that he’s in, with no loss of items. (In fact, saving requires you to die, then choose the “Save” option.) I “continued” to more du dungeon entrances than I cared to count. I deliberately died a lot in the outdoors just to make navigation easier, as most of the shops are more convenient to the starting area than the far-flung dungeon locations.         

Confronting the first dungeon boss.

          Some commenters have questioned what RPG credentials Zelda lacks, but only a few hours with the game illustrates it perfectly. The character never really gets any better, excepting increases in maximum health. But even that only prolongs death. No matter how many hearts you possess, you have to try to avoid damage as much as possible. Upgrades in weapons and armor make killing enemies faster but don’t fundamentally change the tactics that the player has to employ. Winning the game becomes possible when the player improves, not the character.             

One of the game’s “stores.”

           No amount of time killing low-level mooks puts Link in a better position to take on the dungeon bosses. Even “grinding” for money to buy things like potions is mostly a hopeless undertaking, since enemies drop money so slowly and rarely. I probably only bought and used five potions in the entire game. Oh, and some action games would allow the player to advance ever-so-slowly by focusing on one enemy at a time, a worthless tactic here since screens respawn.          

A bow is the artifact in the first dungeon.

           Another aspect of difficulty is found in simple navigation. Each dungeon is a fairly large labyrinth. Eventually, you find a compass, which shows the location of the piece of the Triforce on a little mini-map. Then you find the dungeon map, which fills in the mini-map with rooms. At some point, you find that dungeon’s artifact item–I think each one has one–and the whole thing is capped with the dungeon boss and then the piece of the Triforce. Picking up the Triforce piece restores all your health and warps you out of the dungeon.

But getting through all of the dungeon rooms is a huge pain. If you don’t find keys in the right order, you could end up facing a locked door with no way through it. Some navigation requires planting bombs against the walls and blowing open secret holes. (You can only carry a maximum of eight bombs at a time, and these go fast, so I was constantly running around, in and out of the dungeons, looking for enemies that dropped bombs.) Other times, you have to push blocks on the floor to reveal secret stairways. Sometimes, you have to kill every enemy in a room before a door will open or a key will drop.           

Typical dungeon room swarming with various enemies. One I kill them all, I’ll have to push the west block out of the way to reach the stairway.

             In the outdoors, it’s almost as bad. You also need bombs there to explore caves, but they’re much more sensitive to specific locations, and you can easily miss the secret entrance if you’re a pixel off. Basically, you have to bomb every inch of cliff face to make sure you’re not missing anything. Trees disguise other entrances, but they can’t be bombed. You have to toss a candle on them–a process that works only once per screen until you find the “red candle” late in the game. So to make sure you haven’t missed anything, you have to run on and off the screen multiple times, testing the candle on each tree. Some screens have dozens of trees.        

Blowing up a wall to find a secret cave.

           To be fair, there are hints in the manual and throughout the game that help with this process, but I never found any hint that would have led me to the secret entrance to Death Mountain, the final dungeon, nor to many of the in-dungeon secret areas, and especially not to the dungeon entrance where I had to blow a whistle to drain a lake. Then again, I don’t think Zelda was meant to be a 12-hour game. I think it was meant to be a 120-hour game in which the player was meant to explore every inch of every screen, to become so familiar with the landscape that he could have thrown away the map that came with the game, and to trade findings with friends. There are RPGs that require such investments of time, too, but at least you’re earning levels and experience points in those.

If you sort it all out, you make it through the final dungeon and confront Gannon in a room where unkillable things in the corner shoot fireballs at you. He turns invisible after the first hit, but you can kind of figure out where he is from where his missiles are coming from. You keep running around, attacking, throwing bombs, whatever, until he turns brown, at which point you have to shoot him with a silver arrow (there’s a hint to this somewhere), at which point he explodes and drops the Triforce of Power. The final screens show Link presenting the Triforce to Princess Zelda, and the two kids present their respective Triforces while a text screen talks about peace returning to Hyrule.                

Gannon is apparently some kind of ape with a Mercedes hood ornament for a belt buckle.

              And then something terrifying happens. The screen says: “Another quest will start from here.” You’re dumped back onto the game map with three hearts, no equipment, and apparently a second mandate to find the pieces of the Triforce and to defeat Gannon, only with the maps changed and items in different locations. I trust a player doesn’t have to complete both quests to have “won” the game.             

No! What kind of reward is this?!

           In any event, I was less interested in “winning” Zelda than experiencing and documenting it. I have to confess to some cheating. Nestopia is about the easiest emulator in the world for save states, requiring you to only hit SHIFT and a number to save, and then just the number to reload. I used these gingerly at first, much more liberally towards the end. I particularly remember one room with three dodongos in which I had six bombs–exactly enough to kill them if none was wasted. I saved after every successful bomb. I also looked up locations of secret areas when I got stuck. The final battle with Gannon took me so many tries that I was motivated to look up an invincibility cheat code, and found one, but I couldn’t get it to work, so I defeated him with just regular save-state cheating.

Nonetheless, I got the experience I was looking for, which was mostly negative. I admit there is a natural addictive property with just about every action game. If RPGs pull you along for “just one more screen” with the promise of the next upgrade, action games have a way of propelling you from screen to screen with sheer momentum.

I also like the idea of the occasional “boss enemy” who fights by his own rules and requires the player to discern patterns and test tactics to defeat him. These are common even in RPGs today, but in the 1980s and early 1990s, developers were too concerned with consistency and following an established monster manual. You never meet a formidable warrior with 200 hit points in a Gold Box game who shoots lighting from his swords because there are rules about “hit dice” and there are no Swords of Lightning.           

A dragon with multiple heads serves as a dungeon boss.

             But overall, Zelda still represents to me a malevolent influence on RPGs: reduction of tactics to a couple of buttons, the kawaii character style, character development via found items rather than earned ones, limited inventories and economies, and ridiculous swarms of floating, flying, spitting, belching enemies on every screen. I’d be more upset about it, but it’s not like people stopped making more traditional RPGs. Heck, even if I limited my list to games that I actively wanted to play, I doubt I’d be much further than 1996 by now. The point is, there are plenty of games for everyone’s tastes.               

This doesn’t come anywhere close to ending the story.

            And Zelda was clearly to a lot of players’ tastes. As with Final Fantasy, I’m not sure it’s possible to pin an actual number on the titles in the series, what with all the sequels, spinoffs, expansions, and remakes. The series doesn’t show any signs of ending, even in 35 years later. There have been cartoons, comics, albums, a television series . . . a freaking cereal. Why doesn’t The Witcher have a cereal?

I remain mystified. In their best depictions, Princess Zelda and Link look like pre-teens, and their best games (I based this on reading descriptions of the major sequels), they approach the level of complexity that you find a good RPG. I don’t quite understand what motivates people, let alone full-grown adults, to want to play these titles.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-353-the-legend-of-zelda-1986/

[fiddyshadej]

5 Things I Want Out of the New Terminator

I haven’t written a blog post in forever but this has been on my mind for a while now so I thought I’d fire up the keyboard get to writing!

Ok, so... If you know me then you probably know that “The Terminator” and “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” are among my favorite films ever. With that being said, I hate this franchise! Or more accurately what it became. The first two Terminator films are very, very close to being perfect watches. What came after those two films, however, are some of the worst films I have ever seen. I don’t think this is a controversial statement as most people (save for a few psychopaths) agree with this sentiment.

So why am I writing this? Well it has been announced recently that James Cameron is producing yet another reboot of the franchise and so I’ve been thinking a lot about what I would like to see out of that film. Now, chances are I most likely won’t get what I want because my views, more often than not, don’t align with the mainstream. It’s very likely we’ll get yet another Schwarzenegger lead Terminator 2 knockoff; but in the off chance we don’t, here are 5 things I want out of a potential Terminator reboot!

1. Return to Your Roots: I hate this phrase. Everyone says it. Everyone promises it. But studios hardly ever deliver on this promise. And it’s a tricky promise to keep! Because it requires one to sit down and think for a change instead of just funneling out explosions, catchphrases, and muscle men. Take a moment, examine why and how the franchise took off. What made it work? Now remember, Terminator 2 would not be here had it not been for Terminator 1. Do not misunderstand me. Terminator 2 is fantastic. It is brilliant. It is one of the best films ever made. But future installments keep trying to replicate its success to their detriment. They cannot make a better Terminator 2 styled film than Terminator 2. It’s that simple. So I suggest going back to Terminator 1. Now, I’m not saying to copy that film. No, no. I’m saying to look at why that first film worked; what made it iconic? Two things stand out to me about the first one that I feel the second did not deliver on. One, a beautiful neo-noir aesthetic. Two, simplicity. The first Terminator film had a simple plot. The characters are trying not to die. There it is. That’s all you need.

2. Move On!

Now I know I just said I wanted the series to return to its roots but for the love of God can we leave the Connors and time travel out of this! What made the original work so well is that it was fresh! We didn’t know how time travel worked, we didn’t know why the Connors were so important! But at this point both elements have been expanded upon to the point where I don’t care anymore! Time travel’s been overly complicated and I’m sick of hearing about John Connor! Let’s return to making it feel fresh! Let’s explore the future (and yes, I know Salvation did that but they still kept the focus on what we knew about the future i.e John Connor is cool dude)! And as sad as it is to say, I kind of don’t want Arnold back. Yeah, sorry. Nothing against him but people tend to think you need him to have a successful Terminator film but he’s successful because of Terminator. Not vice versa. He’s old. Let him and his catchphrases rest.

3. A Tight Budget/Scale:

Terminator movies have gotten complicated. Let’s dial it back a bit by changing perspectives; John Connor and Skynet are big and bloated at this point! Give me a smaller and more intimate story; maybe from a random resistance fighter whose stranded in an isolated location with a terminator and has to survive with limited resources. You can name drop John Connor but don’t put the focus on him or his family. Keep him as this faceless messiah figure we hear about but never meet. This goes hand in hand with returning to the roots since Terminator 1 was a smaller and more intimate film than its successors.

4. No Hero Terminator/Keep Him Evil: This helps to keep it simple and avoid copying T2 again. It also lets out new protagonist(s) fight their own battles and make it a genuine struggle while making the original model scary again. Also, if you have a heroic Terminator you have to make what he’s up against bigger and badder. They’ve tried that three times already with the T-1000, the T-X, and whatever the hell was in Genysis; with the only the T-1000 being memorable. Hell, you can keep Arnold in just make him the bad guy again and I’ll be happy. No fancy upgrades just a big tough to kill dude who won’t stop coming after you. Keep it simple.

5. Make it Good.

You can ignore everything on this list but if it’s a genuinely good movie then that’s all that matters to me.