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lola-andheruniverse · 1 year ago

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I'm not on-board with anyone's behavior. I'm trying to do my own thing here, which is recommend fics and reblog gifs and metas about the characters and shows I love. That's it. I'm free to agree with people's opinions while not endorsing their chosen behaviors.

For example, when things blow up, I signed up to twitter because I wanted to participate on actions that were taking place. I think I was there for twelve hours LOL I saw carylers declaring their love for Carol and Melissa and it was great! I also saw people getting into fights with richonne and donnie shippers and being racist on their attacks. I saw older carylers being completely ignored or blocked when they pointed the fact that NR was the only one being benefitted by the changes even if they were being respectful on their critics. I also saw people openly attacking him and his family. I saw people trying to control what should be posted or what feelings should be exposed. I saw antis just stirring the shit and having a blast for seeing us suffering. I saw people forming friendships. It was a complete mess and I didn't want to participate in any of it, nor the good or the bad.

Do I think the majority of carylers that were there (including the ones who tried to organize everything) had bad intentions? No, I honestly don't. Did I agree on how things were being managed? Also no. So I stepped out even before I made a single tweet. I remember thinking "let's stay on tumblr, it's calm there".

Here's what I believe. I do believe Melissa was kicked out of her own show. I believe it because of AMC's history on mistreating their female actors since S2. I believe it because Laurie Holden tweeted a photo of herself and Melissa's right after the announcement of the caryl-turned-daryl spinoff with no caption. I believe it because of how Alycia Debnam-Carey left FTWD and how Lauren Cohan left and came back to TWD. I believe it because of what Khary Payton said on TD. I do believe making noise on SM helped to get her back. I'm very grateful she did. I'm again on board of the caryl positivity ship. I believe our fandom deserves more love so I started the rec fic project and I'm very happy to know people are enjoying it too.

I understand your worry on people being purposely misled so you're trying to alert them to not trust everything they read. I really do. But people can make up their own minds. We're all (or should be) adults here. I don't believe anyone's here is actively trying to deceive or manipulate anyone like they're some type of super villain. I may be wrong? Of course, I'm only human and I'm not privy to anyone's true intentions. But I'll pity them for spending so much time and energy trying to convince me of something when I can think on my own. Anyway, we're all hidden behind nicknames and icons, aren't we? Why should I trust what you're saying about someone else's? Why should you trust me on anything I say?

What I don't understand and definitely don't agree with is the need to create a blog with the apparent sole purpose of talking badly about another member of the fandom. You can say whatever you want about them, and some critics are valid, but I never saw them doing what you're doing. At least not here on Tumblr, I can't say anything about Twitter because I'm not there. Understand what I mean with two wrongs don't make a right?

Fandom should be a place to escape a little bit and enjoy ourselves, not to constantly engage in discourse or witness attacks. The caryl fandom have had issues like these over and over again. What I observed on this fandom over the years - first as a lurker, than with my blog - is that internal fights always existed. People are fighting each other here for a long ass time, so much that lots of devoted carylers have being bullied and pushed out. Sadly this is nothing new and not a single individual is entirely responsible for it. It's a collective problem and we should treat it like a collective problem.

What I believe we should do to have a better fandom is to respect everyone's right to say whatever they want, positive or negative, as long as they're not being openly harmful or full of prejudice. I've got to respect what anyone's saying or feeling even if I don't agree with them. I can choose to voice my disagreements in a respectful manner, but I'm not obligated to do it if I don't want to engage on discourse. And, if I do agree with someone, it's not the same to agree with everything they say or follow everything they do. I don't appreciate any contrary insinuations.

Okay, I'm really done now. I hope I was not disrespectful to you in any way as it was not my intention. Back to recommend fics! Caryl on!

To: caryl fandom

From: caryl fandom

#caryl #caryl fandom #fandom discourse

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belliesandburps · 3 years ago

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10 Reasons Why I Love Batman: Arkham City

Yesterday marked the 10-year anniversary of one of my all time favorite video games, Arkham City. I recently replayed the “Return to Arkham” remaster on the PS4, and as someone who greatly adores this game which, in many ways, revitalized the entire superhero beat-em-up genre, I decided to take a page outta @twistedtummies2 book and post a lil non-kink tribute to something I just really, really love.

So, without further delay, here are the ten reasons I love Batman: Arkham City!

10) The Voice Acting

Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill go without saying, but this was also the game that would lead to many iconic performances that would become synonymous with the character. It was Tara Strong’s debut as Harley Quinn, which has since become the defacto voice that immediately comes to mind for many people when they think of Harley, myself included. Nolan North had a thing where he was pretty much in EVERY damn video game for a while, but he OWNED that cockney bugger, Penguin, by the end of this game. Troy Baker knocked it outta the park as Two Face, really selling that duality of noble and deranged for poor Harv. Corey Burton was spectacular as the eternally unnerving Professor Hugo Strange. Khary Payton sounds so unbelievably enigmatic and badass as Azrael. Wally Wingert is the DEFINITIVE voice of Riddler now, whenever I think f the character. And Maurice LaMarche gave, quite easily, my all time favorite take on Mr. Freeze.

It’s this great blend of newcomers and icons all colliding and creating a new world that feels distinct yet every bit as familiar and beloved as we’ve all come to expect. Every single actor knocks it outta the park. Even the actors whose takes I find generally “not distinct enough from their general body of work” still give great performances. Steve Blum is not one of favorite takes on Croc, simply because it just sounds like every other monster he’s played, but damn if he doesn’t do a great job playing that monster. Fred Tatasciore kind of has one default zombie monster voice, but like Blum, it’s a damn good one and DOES suit Solomon Grundy. And I’d much rather see a middle eastern actor playing Ra’s Al Ghul, but Dee Bradley Baker still captures that deadly charisma like a master.

It’s even better having grown up with Conroy and Hamill as Batsy and Joker respectively, because by the end, it really does feel like the end of an era between those two. And a perfect send off to the Clown Prince of Crime.

The end result is a game where the audio works, in every sense of the word, to pull you into this world, and the actors all do a wonderful job of making it feel both lived in and Batman-y.

(Also, James Horan as Jack Ryder is kind of hilarious for me, seeing this wimpy reporter go on to become the dreaded Skull Face four years later. ‘XD)

9) The Soundtrack

Arkham City’s soundtrack is as iconic as it is goddamn captivating. The orchestral tune to Arkham City masterfully captures the gothic setting of Arkham, this sense of decay and abandonment as you venture through Gotham’s underworld into places long forgotten and buried. The score knows when to pick up and complement the wonders and ominous dread around you, and when to go dead and let the environment set the atmosphere itself. And the music in combat is downright beautiful.

Seriously, show me a single combat theme that more perfectly captures the essence of all that is Batman than “You Should Have Listened To My Warning.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bWqgqcaQVs

Or a track that captures the mythical wonders and unknown dangers of the Wonder City music below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWoZx-q8aAM

Everything just sounds beautiful in this game, which is not an easy feat whilst also simultaneously sounding both haunting and badass at the same time.

I’d rank the music higher, except there’s also one fundamental flaw with the music. While it perfectly captures the world of Batman and Batman’s journey himself, it never seems to really characterize any of the villains. All the Gotham Rogues themes and boss themes sound great, and yet, not a single one sounds like it brings the character to mind.

Tell me honestly, which of these two truly makes you think Mr. Freeze when you hear it. His Arkham City boss theme?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Afg2JvxgXk

Or his Arkham Origins boss theme?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrLJXfXum3w

I rest my case.

BUT! That said, even with that flaw, the soundtrack is still iconic, deeply memorable, and just a joy to listen to every time.

8) Riddler's Challenges & Trophies

Arkham City kind of set the bar for how to do open world sandbox collectibles the right way, something many video games of today struggle with. And what made it work in Arkham City so well was the pacing of collectible unlocks and the rewards that came with ‘em. See, Riddler’s Trophies weren’t just collectibles scattered throughout for the sake of completionist stuff. Obtaining enough unlocked all manner of things, from concept art, character models, and Strange’s patient interviews with all of the rogues. What’s more is, with enough trophies unlocked and riddles solved, you would get to confront Riddler’s death trap challenges, each one an elaborate environmental setpiece that required using your gear in all the right ways to navigate through the obstacles and eventually rescue Riddler’s hostages.

The ultimate reward for all the trophies, however? Actually getting to take down Riddler himself in one last puzzle that sees you eventually ripping Riddler from his control room and putting the evil nerd on his own fake death march, much to his humiliation and your amusement.

I love this because it gives you in-game incentive to wanna seek out the trophies. It isn’t just for a number or some stupid “Playstation Trophy,” but rather, challenges that emerge and test your skills in difficult yet fun ways. These rooms are as close to an actual Riddler boss fight as the series gets (because god knows that stupid mech fight in Knight doesn’t cut it). And I wish more open world games would do this; have collectibles but also have them lead to something like Riddler’s confrontations instead of just static bonus stuff you can look at but not engage with.

7) Arkham City Itself

I’ve often struggled to determine which was my favorite Arkham game; City or Origins. I think Origins does a lot MUCH better than City, but one thing City has over the entire series is, well, Arkham City itself. This mega-prison is an absolute joy to fly and run around in. It’s a ruined city rich with atmosphere, where every sector feels like it perfectly fits the villain in charge, and has such an under-appreciate “world of yesteryear” quality to it. In many respects, Arkham City almost has much of the same feel as a failed utopia. Lots of beautiful, vibrant structures that are appealing to grapple onto and fly off of, perverted by the villains running rampant across the city.

Everything feels cold, desolate, almost post-apocalyptic. And the underground itself is designed to feel like there’s an entire other world down there, abandoned by time.

It’s something far too many open world games struggle with; yeah, you have tons of space to do stuff and explore, but what good is any of it if your vast surroundings are so damn generic? Arkham City doesn’t have that problem. Nothing about this sandbox feels generic. It feels gothic, overbearing, and rich with character and atmosphere in a way that masks so many of the rinsed and repeated assets.

(Looking at you, every Assassin’s Creed game after Unity...)

6) The Boss Fights

Okay, so this is...a tricky subject in the Arkham series. Boss fights are the part of every game I look forward to the most, ESPECIALLY with comic book games. And yet, one thing Rocksteady could never quite get right were its boss encounters. Their combat was tailored for massive brawls with gangs of thugs, and yet, they couldn’t make it work for mano-y-mano showdowns. As a result, in Arkham Asylum, every boss was against a giant monster, and in almost every instance that wasn’t Poison Ivy, they didn’t work. Bane’s fight was too dull to be fun. Croc’s fight felt like the first stage of a larger boss fight that never happens. Scarecrow’s also felt like it should’ve concluded with a proper showdown at the end of the obstacle course. And Titan Joker’s fight was garbage.

But Arkham City is an example of taking everything that worked about the last game and improving it in every way...and learning from the things that DIDN’T work. And nowhere was that more apparent than the boss fights because they’re some of the best parts of the entire campaign. You have giant monsters, but unlike Bane, Croc and Titan Joker, each one has a wide array of different attack patterns that makes it increasingly harder to land hits.

Solomon Grundy goes through multiple phases, and timing becomes ever more crucial to do damage against the big zed. Clayface is one of the most mechanically elaborate bosses in the whole series, with tons of attacks, and a lot of freedom in terms of how you face off against him, particularly his second half. Ra’s Al Ghul is a perfect blend of brawl fighting against a bunch of ninjas at once, and more classic pattern remembrance as he pops up in his giant sand monster, slashing with his massive sword.

Combat’s best suited for giant brawls? Screw it, give Joker a giant brawl where Joker himself may be little more than an NPC with a machete who has a giant healthbar, but match Joker’s psychosis by making the arena absolutely crazy with incoming train rides that run you or anyone nearby over, giant Titans who pop in along with Mr. Hammer, and make the act of fighting Joker and his gang just one giant madhouse. They even bring in proper predator stealth with Two Face / Harley’s DLC fight, having an enemy with a grenade launcher that does tons of damage, whom you have to constantly sneak up on to take on. It’s not nearly as spectacular as the other fights, but it DOES work for more stealthy encounters.

And speaking of stealthy encounters, NONE surpass one of my all time favorite stealth action fights in all of gaming, Mr. Freeze. This boss fight is one of the gold standards of how Arkham fights should be tailored. Here’s an intensely dangerous enemy you’re trapped with. Use your environment and every single gadget in your arsenal to land hits on him. And each time you do, he evolves and forces you to use new strategies. This truly is a perfect boss battle, and easily my favorite part of the entire campaign.

I’d rank bosses higher, except for as great as they are, there’s only four REAL boss fights in this game:

- Solomon Grundy

- Ra’s Al Ghul

- Mr. Freeze

- Clayface

Those are the only four with proper life bars and a whole host of unique attacks and mechanics to be mindful of. Harvey and Harley are pretty good fights, but they basically involve doing the same thing multiple times before the boss goes down. Joker’s fight, while it works and suits Joker feel, IS still just a brawl which, if you removed Joker from the equation, wouldn’t even feel any different. Penguin’s could’ve been great, except it’s basically just the prelude to Grundy, and a single beatdown (a damn satisfying one to boot). Mad Hatter gets a side boss fight where he’s constantly popping up in a brawl and you have to hit him multiple times to end the madness, but he only has one attack he barely uses, and the fight still mostly feels like most brawls in the game. And all the side villains get one button takedowns as opposed to proper confrontations.

Arkham City’s campaign is as long as it needs to be, but it desperately could’ve used more bosses peppered in between to make for a truly perfect Arkham experience.

5) Combat

Arkham essentially re-invigorated the brawler genre. After Asylum, you started seeing a lot of games pull off the one vs a bunch brawler mechanics with the same counter and beatdown chain combos as Arkham, but in my opinion, none did combat as well as Arkham City (least not til Spider-Man came out).

Arkham City took everything that worked about Asylum’s combat and improved on it in every way. You had more gadgets to use in-battle, all of which flowed much more seamlessly with the melee attacks than in Asylum. There was better responsiveness, which made picking up massive combos that much easier without making it feel any less rewarding. You also had way more combos and takedowns to use when you built momentum up. City also had more variety in the enemies you combat than Asylum, introducing armored foes, enemies with shields, freakin’ ninjas, even robots.

It’s a system that always managed to get better and better with each game, but City got the most out of it, especially with it having the best challenge rooms of the whole series.

4) Side Quests

Remember a time when open world games didn’t completely oversaturate the ‘AAA’ market? Where every single game wasn’t loaded to the brim with bullshit side quests that were just doing the same generic tasks over and over again? I remember that time. And what I remember most about side quests was how much better Arkham City’s quests felt than any other game I’d played by that point.

Each side essentially felt like a mini-episode. A villain is running amuck, and you have to steadily uncover their plot and eventually take them down. They were simple yet interesting yarns, often building genuine intrigue and mystery.

My favorite was easily “Shot in the Dark.” Deadshot’s been dropped into Arkham Asylum by Hugo Strange, disguised as an inmate, with a secret drop for him to get all his gear and pick off political prisoners Strange wants silenced. And he has to target both Batman AND Bruce Wayne, with Strange’s gambit being that if Deadshot manages to kill one, he’ll be trapped in Arkham City and likely killed in Protocol 10 when he fails to realize Bruce and Batsy are one in the same. And your goal is to use his track record to prevent his next assassination and take him down. It’s intriguing, uses Arkham City’s new investigative tools well, making it genuinely challenging to track Deadshot’s movements, and ends with a timed race to save Jack Ryder and sneak up on Deadshot.

I wish it had ended with a proper boss battle, but at least the takedown itself can feel satisfying to pull off, and not a gimme like how it would be handled in the later entry. But that’s the neat thing about the quests, there’s a story thread to follow, and an environmental puzzle that leads to a takedown. I’ll take it. More than that, this gives you tons of mileage to milk after you beat the main campaign, because there’s still more story to resolve that isn’t just completionist crap or storyless, repetitive trite.

Arkham City set the gold standard on how to do side quests correctly in video games (even if it had room to grow), and I always looked forward to jumping into them almost as much as I did the main campaign itself! Speaking of which...

3) A Near-Perfect Campaign

I’ve often struggled to decide if Marvel’s Spider-Man or Arkham City was the best comic book game ever made. Because Spider-Man one-ups Arkham City in almost every way. The combat was FAR more involving and got great use of the environment for added strategy, with WAY more variety in the enemies. Minus Mr. Freeze, Spider-Man had infinitely better boss battles than Arkham City and three times as many, clocking in at twelve bosses in the main campaign, and five within the DLC’s. Some of it’s villain-driven side quests also concluded in boss fights and not just takedowns, all of which were some of the best bosses in the game.

And yet, I can barely bring myself to replay Spider-Man, whereas I’ve replayed Arkham City a good few dozen times now. And the reason, I’ve concluded, is simple. There’s far less bullshit in City’s campaign, and it does just enough of everything to keep it from feeling stale. Arkham City is an example of a campaign that gives you almost everything you WANT from an Arkham game. It has just the right amount of combat, predator stealth, environmental and obstacle navigation in a vast sandbox and puzzle solving. Nothing ever feels like it drags on or grinds the pacing of the game to a halt. It’s a very tightly crafted, sweet-n-to-the-point campaign that moves at a steady pace, cycling new, interesting locations with differing gangs and villains, without ever making one element feel mindnumbing the way games like Marvel’s Avengers did.

If it’s all brawling nonstop, it gets repetitive and dull. If it’s all predator stealth, same as above. If there are too many puzzles, you become eager for combat. And if it’s JUST navigation, it gets dull because eventually, you will see all the game has to show you. City was just paced better than any Arkham game in the series, and any comic book game to date. It also doesn’t overstay its welcome, giving you a complete and deeply gratifying campaign you can knock out in three or four days.

And it’s made better with the New Game + that lets you keep all your upgrades so you never stop feeling like a beast once you do everything in the post campaign and wanna relive that great Batman experience. More games could use Arkham City’s brevity. It’s an open world sandbox game with plenty of meat to its campaign, tons of quality side content, and loads of bonus modes to enjoy. And because the campaign isn’t super long, but varied enough, it becomes infinitely more replayable than any other game in the genre and almost any open world game that isn’t MGSV or Deus Ex.

2) Challenge Rooms

Beyond the campaign are all the arcade-style Challenge Modes that are tailored made for people desperate to beat their top scores. These modes are a bundle of fun because they let you play as multiple characters to clear out rooms as fast and efficiently as possible, while also doing various tasks in the midst of wiping out the bad guys. There’s loads of really ones here, one of the best being the Side Scrolling adventures of Nightwing, where you gotta race through a moving train, pummeling goons left and right until you reach Black Mask and Mr. Hammer in a pseudo boss fight. I say pseudo because sadly, Black Mask is, like Joker, just an NPC with slightly more health. But the ride up is a lotta fun.

Truly though, Joker’s Madhouse is the one I spent HOURS replaying. It’s an endless brawl where your goal is just to build momentum and keep it for as long as humanly possible. Guards keep jumping in, all the while, Joker is taunting you from the crowd, until he eventually jumps in and joins the fight. Others like Mr. Hammer drop in, the madness keeps coming and coming. And there’s truly nothing in Arkham more satisfying than getting the highest momentum combo you can as you start knocking out goons with single punches, leaping and punching nonstop until that one asshole eventually hits you and ruins the entire thing.

In a game that is ultimately a brawler, no mode more perfectly embraces that crazy goodness like this. And ten years on, I can still jump into this one mode and lose it for minutes on end, having a blast every step of the way.

But for as excellent as this is, there’s one thing Arkham City that has that virtually no other game I’ve ever played within this genre has.

1) Exploration

What TRULY made Arkham City a near-masterpiece, and why I rank it above Arkham Origins is simple; it’s the only game in the series where I’m tripping over secrets to find. All throughout Arkham City, there’s not only atmosphere galore, but hundreds of Easter Eggs, calling back to other Batman characters and properties, hidden secrets hinting at the game to come (and disappoint), even secret exchanges with villains like Croc, who you can only find and have a brief cutscene with if you get a trophy in the sewers at a very specific point in the campaign.

You WANT to go looking around Arkham City because you genuinely never know what you’re gonna find next. Even the secrets without material rewards like trophies or character models still have fun appeal as a Batman fan like myself. Arkham City is an example of a sandbox with craftsmanship to it. Things don’t just feel big for the sake of spacing everything out. Everything feels precise; condensed enough to where it doesn’t take ages to get from A to B, but big enough that there’s always tons of secrets to find.

Who else remembers getting completely freaked out by the totally unprompted and out of nowhere Scarecrow tease on the boat, where you find a single boat with a data lock you can pick, and go inside for the one FPV sequence that makes you feel like Scarecrow can pop out at any moment? I kinda wish he DID, but just the presence of it with those eerie numbers and decoding what they meant just sent chills down my spine the first time I found it.

It’s truly the city itself, and everything you have to find within it that makes this game such a joy to revisit and come back to long after you’ve beaten it. For as great Marvel’s Spider-Man is, and for as AMAZING as the webslinging across rooftops is, I never felt compelled to actually explore New York, because it doesn’t have that sense of mystery and craftsmanship the way Arkham City does, and much of it does feel like the obligatory “checklist” crap we’ve come to expect from open world games.

City was the example of doing all that right, and letting the player naturally explore and find new things without leaving things too vague, since you could always interrogate Riddler’s goons to get hints of other secrets to find on your map.

#general ramblings #non kink #arkham city #appreciation post #top 10 list #batman #also the killer croc model #i'm VERY thankful for that ;)

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