#made the franchise and it's universe fun and interesting enough to keep up with for them to get their jobs in the first place

[marukrawler]

Bakugan it's one of the few franchises we're they didn't hesitate to show hate towards it's first main female lead (Runo)

The show never gives her the recognition she deserves minimizing her achivements and the same anime jokes about her body using Julie as a better example

And it's worse on season 2 were the joke still prevails and I think the anime treats her like if she isn't pretty like the other girls I think the anime never gives an indirect comment about her beauty like the other girls received.

Add to this, season 2 treated the og girls like jokes who can't defend themselves or even flandarized their true personalities (Runo and Alice) so they won't interfiere with the "real team"

And the cheery at the top, fandom treats her like a homewrecker in regards of dan/Shun or like the worst person on earth for being a teenage girl who tried to defend herself with what she knew and called out the bs of dan

The character deserved more respecto from the source...

Localization truly affected the perception the audience has on her...

Quite normal for any female lead...

Oh, Runo, Runo. My precious little summer child.

Runo is certainly one of the most underappreciated, misunderstood, and demonized characters in the show. Even I, a passionate Runo defender, had a preconceived notion that Runo was loud and abrasive before I had even watched the show properly (all thanks to my vague childhood memories.)

In universe, her brawling skills are looked down upon, her appearance is ridiculed, and she’s often made to feel as if she does more harm than good. In fandom spaces, she’s mischaracterized as being an unreasonable, stubborn, and argumentative loudmouth who’s always mean to Dan. Despite being one of the nicest and most considerate characters in the show, everyone, including the writers, seems to have it out for Runo in some way.

When it comes to Runo’s appearance, it’s hard not to feel as if the writers find some sort of twisted pleasure in constantly pointing out how Runo’s appeal as a girl falls short in comparison to her peers. The Misaki Café was all but deserted until Alice showed up and the customers (grown men, mind you) don’t hide how disappointed they are whenever Runo is left as the only waitress. This, of course, makes Runo feel inadequate since she’s the daughter of the owner and yet, she hasn’t contributed to the popularity of their restaurant.

Julie’s comments about Runo’s body can also be viewed as the writers further cementing that Runo is unappealing because of her physique and lack of traditional femininity. This is something that is proven repeatedly with every new waitress that’s more popular than Runo. Alice, Julie and Mira are all more physically developed and are shown to be desired by many boys, unlike Runo who constantly gets the short end of the stick and is made fun of.  

Hell, Runo can barely get a decent compliment from Dan on their first date! He’s made inappropriate comments about her weight on at least two occasions, and was checking out cute girls right in front of Runo, two episodes after she risked her life to see him. The show will never give her a fucking break.      

Also, the “Runo is a tomboy” thing just doesn’t make any sense. She wears skirt and dresses, her room is full of pink furniture, she owns a dollhouse, and she seems very interested in jewelry. And yet, the show (and the English dub more so) attempts to portray Runo as if she’s ‘not like the other girls’ when that’s the furthest from the truth.  

Now, on to the treatment of Runo, Alice, and Julie. It’s no secret that season 2 was horrendous when it came to those three, for the specific reason of convincing the audience that keeping the girls away from the plot was for the best. They were either not strong enough, not confident enough and/or they constantly screwed up somehow. Let’s see:

Alice was:

Tricked by Lync and inadvertently helped him get back to New Vestroia, thus enabling him to spy for and help out Spectra with his plans.

Scared of brawling even though her whole character arc in the previous season was about accepting that part of herself.

Made to feel weak for losing to Shadow and for allowing him to destroy her grandfather’s lab.

Julie was:

Written as overly flirty towards a boy that wasn’t her boyfriend, all to fuel a pointless one-episode love triangle. (Though, the repercussions of this episode’s writing on her character were immense.)

Made to feel guilty about how Billy inadvertently exposed the Brawlers’ location to the Vexos by visiting her.

Runo was:

Written as a lovesick fool who almost got herself trapped between dimensions trying to see Dan again. This had a ripple effect on the Resistance’s otherwise promising momentum, allowing the Vexos to go to Earth, the Resistance to get split up and captured and as mentioned previously, almost got Runo killed.

Willing to endanger herself again by leaving Marucho’s house so she could oblige Dan’s request of eating homemade curry, causing Mira to go after her and subsequently lose her Subterra energy to Mylene.

Runo lost all sense of reason whenever Dan was involved, Alice’s character development had seemingly regressed, and Julie immediately dropped the boyfriend that she had real feelings for. It’s frustrating to see this when they all had such great personal growth and meaningful storylines in the first season. Remember when Runo learned that she shouldn’t let the fear of losing her loved ones take control of her life? When Julie learned that she shouldn’t compare herself to others and that she doesn’t have to be great in order to matter? When Alice realized that she liked to battle and that it wasn’t something to feel ashamed of?

I understand that the narrative focus couldn't always be on Runo, Julie, and Alice. There are new characters introduced every season who deserve a chance to shine as individuals. But that doesn’t mean that our existing characters should get worse. Runo was more worried about not being near Dan 24/7 than she was about Tigress being captured! Masquerade was somehow still present inside Alice’s mind and telling her to fight despite previously disappearing to let Alice stand on her own two feet as a Darkus Battler! Julie is still used as a tool for instigating useless love triangle plots that accomplish nothing except for making it seem as if she jumps from guy to guy! This isn’t just limited to those three (Chan Lee, Elfin, Mira) and it’s just. infuriating as hell to see.

As for the fandom, Runo's character seems to garner mixed responses. Some hate her and some don't. She seems to be well liked on Tumblr but not as much on Reddit (go figure.) When it comes to Shundan fics, I skimmed through the majority listed on AO3 to see how they portrayed Runo. Here's what I found:

(I recommend clicking on the images for an easier reading experience)

Out of the 28 English-written Shundan fics listed on AO3, there were 5 fics that depicted Runo in a negative way, 10 fics where Runo was mentioned but her characterization didn't stand out in any particular way and the rest didn't mention Runo at all. There are Shundan fic writers who unfortunately portray Runo in a bad light to prop up Shun as "the better option" but it looks like they're in the minority.

I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if much of the hatred towards Runo stemmed from Dan fans being upset over how she constantly calls their golden boy out lol. Either that or because of the English dub, as you mentioned. I have previously talked about this and shown some examples here where Runo has completely different reactions to certain situations depending on the dub. It’s no wonder why we’re given the impression that Runo is unreasonable or mean or argumentative when this is how the English dub presents her to its western audience.

[master-thief-gray-shadow]

There have been a handful of shows that have come to me in my life at a time when I needed them most and saved me from myself. If you've been following me for a while you'll know that Revue Starlight is one of them.

So I'd like to talk about another one. In september of 2022, I sat down one morning and finally decided to watch Revolutionary Girl Utena. And I can say with full confidence that this was one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. Obviously because I got to watch Revolutionary Girl Utena, perhaps one of the greatest serialized animated shows ever made, so massively influential that you can see its DNA in almost any yuri series you can think of.

But also because a week after finishing RGU, feeling like a changed man who had seen the truth of the universe, this aired.

Now, I had been aware that this was going to be a thing for the few months preceding. I have a friend who was very excited for a mainline Gundam series to have a female protagonist for the first time (and when they explained this to me I was very shocked that it had never happened before. You mean to tell me that a franchise old enough to be some people's fathers has never had a female protagonist in its entire history?) I had sort of a passing interest in it. I was sort of on the tail end of my Arknights era, so that had been the fall 2022 show I was looking forward to the most. Hey, if it's good, I'll watch it, I reasoned.

Imagine how I felt opening twitter two years ago tonight to see my entire TL screaming "UTENA IN SPACE???!!!!"

Well, Utena is the greatest thing anyone has ever made. If this is like Utena, it's gotta be worth checking out, right?

I was floundering throughout 2022. I couldn't do the hobbies that I loved because of burnout, I was stuck at home most of the time because I couldn't drive and didn't have a means to leave otherwise, and everything I had planned out or started to look forward to ended up getting cancelled or delayed in some way, so I was robbed of the little exciting things that are supposed to keep me going. I was deeply unhappy and in need of a mental anchor of some kind. And Suletta Sundays proved to be just that.

I loved G-Witch. I've loved the other Gundam things I've seen, too. I'm happy that this show got me into Gundam, because that had been something I'd been meaning to do for a long time. Suletta and Miorine's relationship proved to be the thing that broke me out of the creative rut I'd found myself in, and since the beginning of last year when I started writing SuleMio fic I've measurably improved as a writer. I've made a lot of friends through our shared love (and frustration) with this show, and it's been a long time since I've been able to bond with people in a fandom space this tightly.

For years the bar for how much fun an anime was to watch while it aired had been Love Live Sunshine season 2. G-Witch surpassed that before its first season even finished.

Happy anniversary to Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury.

[surachibee]

if you’ve been following a lot of my recent stuff, you’ve probably noticed (or maybe you haven’t, idk!) that I’ve been tagging a few art posts as ‘pitverse’. You’ve also probably noticed that I’ve provided no context to these posts what-so-ever! and that sucks! So to explain a bit, I present:

”surachi what the heck is pitverse”

Okay, first. ‘Pitverse’ is a working title. Maybe. It’s cheesy, but I kinda like it because it’s cheesy.

Anyways, if you’ve been following me for a while, you may or may not remember this art where I designed a bunch of pits that were loosely based on the different ending to the original Kid Icarus on the NES. Some took influence from different places (eg. the solider ending heavily drawing inspiration from Kid Icarus: of Myths and Monsters) and some were completely made up (eg. the farm ending’s design). It was fun! And it pretty much started this whole idea to begin with.

I’d draw some stuff here and there for it, but other than that I never really did much with the idea other than ‘oh hey look designs’. That is until it came up again a couple years later when I started to get *really* into oMaM stuff, which led to me coming back to the idea of a weird multiverse thing.

Thanks to a few friends, we talked about it and eventually it became like a four-swords adventure multiverse labyrinth thing. Pandora’s Labyrinth times twelve. So as it is right now, it’s like a hypothetical game where some new *evil big bad* takes a handful of Pits from different universes/timelines and plops them into some pocket dimension of different levels and challenges, and together, they have to find out what the heck going on.

Right now, I think I’m gonna try to keep it to three Pits for simplicity sake. Obviously, Pit from Kid Icarus: Uprising has to be here, that’s our guy. He’s also the protagonist! He’s left relatively unchanged in this AU. This also takes place in a post-game setting, so he’s already fought Hades. This applies to the other guys as well, even if their hypothetical “games” and adventures aren’t actually real (Factor) or heavily rewritten (Myth) here.

Good news is that Uprising Pit can still communicate with Palutena! But he’s the only one out of the bunch that can. (Would’nt that have been nice? Imagine all the work you could get done with THREE Palutenas [haha reference]). In this AU’s logic, Uprising’s world in the pocket-dimension what-ch-ma-have-it space is closer to the one where this takes place, so (Uprising) Palutena is able to establish a decent enough connection to at least communicate, though it’s not the best. The other Pit’s worlds are further away, so communication with their respective realms are off the table. This also causes other problems like occasionally “bugging out” and forgetting stuff since they’re so far from their original worlds. So Uprising Pit got kinda lucky.

Speaking of other Pits, there’s other Pits! Both of them draw inspiration from things previously done/involved in the franchise so they’re not entirely made up, but they do stray pretty far from their source material. Anyway..first, we have Factor! He’s heavily inspired by Factor 5’s rendition of Pit from their “Icarus” project back in 2007-2008 that was turned down. Here, this AU’s interpretation of the idea is a little more in line with the franchise’s overall light-hearted and goofy nature. (In this AU the Pit’s are taken from different points in time, so he would’ve been plucked from the future. I did this so 1. They all could look visually distinct from each other, and 2. the thought of Factor going “oh he doesn’t know about [x] yet” or Uprising Pit insisting Myth to NOT go after the wish seed in the future was funny.)

Next…there’s Myth! He’s based on Kid Icarus: of Myths and Monsters, and besides a few plot points he’s pretty much just a modern take on the character. He was easier to pin down because while the concept of Factor’s story was interesting, being banished from the heavens for some unspecified crime, it’s pretty vague in comparison. With Myth, there’s an entire game with a plot to go off of, even if this AU strays a bit from it.

That’s pretty much the basics of this AU! Just a couple of Pits going on an adventure getting into other-worldly shenanigans. I’m having a ton of fun with it and hopefully I can develop the idea more as I go along. Thanks for reading! There’s some extra footnotes and miscellaneous doodles below.

• This AU follows the idea that oMaM takes place in a different timeline than Kid Icarus: Uprising, hence it not being referenced (at least not on purpose, I’m looking at you aurum track accidentally having the same intro motif) or mentioned. Plus y’know, Sakurai not knowing it existed so there’s that. Might as well rework it into a weird explanation. (coping)

• All of these worlds take place in different timelines, so Factor isn’t an older version of Uprising Pit, nor is Uprising an older version of Myth. They’re all still Pit, and all of them have fought Medusa, but it had different outcomes (somewhat based on the endings) and at that point they diverged from each other. • I’ll probably change the naming of the Pits at some point. While they’re good right now, I’m not sure if I wanna keep Factor named after a company. Might have their names based off the titles of their respective games, so instead of “Factor”, “Myth”, and “Uprising” it’d be “Icarus” (based on the project’s internal name), “Myth”, and “Uprising”.

[ursachaotic]

Ok this might be a little weird and I want to tell this to you anonymously because I don't want to make you feel pressured into answering ^^' (let it be known I am a mutual of yours & I know we don't talk but I think you're really cool <:) Your genuine love for Gravity Falls and you excitement about The Book of Bill is kind of. Helping me rekindle old love for the franchise. I stopped interacting with it more or less involuntarily (bad experience with bad people) and felt bad that I can't get into it but honestly your interest did help me rediscover it, or at least start to do so. Like I've picked up my old Journal 3 a couple times this week, I thought about re-watching the show, I bookmarked the cheapest "to be released" listings for TBOB in the online shops in my country, I have the thisisnotawebsitedotcom bookmarked too. I've been picking up my hand-made-from-a-towel Bill plush and just looking at him. Thinking about trying to find his hat and make him a new bow because I took them off when it was just too awful to perceive.

I hope this isn't weird. I genuinely don't mean to be weird or trigger your anxiety or anything, I mean it. Your love for this show and everything around it is helping me a bit to rediscover my own, which is great, because as someone with interest in folklore, the paranormal and cryptids, GF was an amazing thing to discover. I myself made a grown up version of Dipper, who's a full-on cryptid hunter and wrote a lot of stories about him, later turning that concept into my own thing because it was too painful to keep but I loved all of the creatures I made and the lore and stuff. So I just took my ideas and moved it into my own thing, which is currently my most developed universe with my most beloved ocs.

This is lengthy. Sorry. Again, I genuinely don't want to creep you out, just, I'm glad I found you and your art and your comic and that you're so excited about your interests. Please know that you are never bad or annoying for loving what you love, please continue being so passionate about things, because it's really cool. You're cool. I hope you know that ^^ and, well, if not, I'm telling you. You're cool and your work is amazing.

(If you would prefer me to pm you feel free to post about it here or your personal? blog, whichever you're cool with, I'll probably see it and can just pm you with like "haha yeah I'm the long rekindled-interest anon" or you can answer this or just read & delete, I really don't mind if you don't want to answer ^^. Just, wanted to say this. Again I hope this isn't weird ;w; I swear I'm just a little adhd guy who used to love GF a lot, and possibly might be okay enough to start interacting with it on his own. And your love for the franchise helped.)

Hi this made me tear up (iN A GOOD WAY I PROMISE AHSDOFISADH I CRY WHEN I'M HAPPY LOL), this is seriously so, so sweet. Thank you so much for sending me this!! 🥹 I'm really glad that all of my silly Gravity Falls stuff has helped you get back into the show, and I hope you enjoy it and enjoy the Book of Bill if you get it!

Also, this seriously means a lot to me, especially because I'm actually really self-conscious about my interests and passions haha. I'm terrified of being seen as annoying, and there's been a lot of times recently where I've shut down out of the fear of being annoying about my interests. But I'm starting to not give a shit about whether or not people find me annoying online?? I want to be super vocal about something I adore so damn much cause it makes me happy! I've also been burnt out on drawing for a WHILE, but reading this book has given me so much inspiration, and drawing feels really fun and exciting again for the first time in a while! I struggle with depression a lot too, but my love for Bill and excitement about what's to come for the series has helped me feel really happy and kept me going for the first time in a bit. So, while I'm still scared of being perceived as annoying, I'm really happy right now and I want to keep doing stuff that makes me happy, even if that's just drawing Bill antagonizing me / my sona lmao. Seriously, thank you so much for sending me this! It's incredibly sweet and I'm really grateful that you did ;w;

Also you can absolutely reach out over DMs!! I would love to talk, but I hope you're having a wonderful day!! 🥹❤️

[bciphergrl]

A List Of My Sam and Max AUs

It has been a long time, since I posted anything here. I originally was just gonna make only one AU. But, funny enough, I have way more than that now XD

I've made this list, if you're interested in any of the AUs and/or you have any questions about them. I'm more than happy to answer them.

Itty Bitty: During one of Sam and Max fights against a criminal at the toy factory, Max gets hit by a ray and disappears. It was supposed to teleport him somewhere far away. But nope! Max has been shrunken in size and fell into a toy box that was meant to be delivered to the next city over. Now, it's up to him and his new human friend, Jess, to help him reunite with Sam and get him back to his normal size, while also fighting crime together (and learning about Jess' past) along the way.

Error 305: Sam and Max try to escape their universe as it started to collapsed. But they didn't get out without getting physically and mentally damaged. Max really got the short end of the stick, while Sam is still sort of sane. Now, they live in a white void, while Sam tries to find a way to get both of them back to normal.

Trading Minds: It's basically 'what if Sam and Max switch minds?' The results? Max is a more level headed lagomorph, while Sam is a pretty chaotic dog.

The Monster I've Become: After the Events of the Devil's playhouse, Max somehow survived the explosion and became his normal self. But he doesn't look the same though. He looks partly like an eldritch horror monster and a lagomorph. He kept his identity hidden since then and has made an abandoned subway train station as his new home. Sam sadly has no idea that he's still alive.

The Beast Within The Sea: Sam is the captain of the pirate crew who is after a magical jewel on a mysterious island. He manages to get it successfully and was about to leave the island with it. But then, a huge sea creature emerges from the ocean and attacks the ship. It kills everyone except for Sam. Instead, it keeps him on island and refuses to let him leave. Now, he needs to find a way to escape the place without the beast ever finding out.

The Multiverse Traveling Thief: Nobody has seen face or learned the name of the person who steals the artifacts from different universes and destroys those said universes. He keeps his mask on, while out in public to keep his identity hidden. But this lagomorph is known as "The Multiverse Traveling Thief".

Doodle: Sam and Max are simplified doodles who are alive.

The Circus Of Astral Magic: Deep within the forest, there's a magical circus that lures people there. A small lagomorph finds himself there. He thought it was all fun and games. Until he starts to see the dark truth behind it. This isn't an ordinary circus. This one is ment to keep people there, once they enter it.

Shattered Realities: Darla is a fan of a video game franchise, Sam and Max. She really likes playing it's third and final season to the TellTale's game, Sam and Max: The Devil's Playhouse. However, one night, she deeply wished that she can change Max's fate during his 305, even though it was pointless because he's not real, right? Well, the next morning, she woke up in a bedroom that doesn't belong to her. She quickly scanned the room, which she doesn't recognize at all. She slowly gets out of bed and walks to a nearby phone. However, she froze in her tracks when saw her reflection. Max's reflection to be exact. She has no idea if this is some sort of dream or if it's actually real. But, one things for sure, she needs to change Max's fate before she loses her life in a 305.

Heartstrings: Max is a florist who is so madly in love with his 'soul mate' that he'll do literally anything to make them his. Even if it means to kill as many people as it takes and pull some strings behind the scenes to make that happen.

The Pursuit Of Blissfulness: The world was once full of color, before it faded away from the world. Everyone has long grown used to it being Monochrome since then. Now, a lonely lagomorph tries to figure out the mystery behind it. But will it be worth the price of losing the very person that he believes to hate?

System Override: Sam is a child who got dared by his group of friends to sneaking into an abandoned toy company and bringing back a toy. He was pretty scared. But he managed to find a dusty A.I robot which surprisingly looked like a rabbit. He has no idea how to carry it back home. But yet, it turned on by itself and scanned him for a moment, before happily greeting itself. It really did caught him off guard. It was almost as if it woke up. But that didn't stop him from being amazed by it and taking it out of the building. If he only knew the reason behind the toy company's downfall and the danger behind the robot.

An Elder God In Lagomorph's Clothing: The universe where Junior disguised itself as a Lagomorph named Max on Earth who pretends to be a silly and crazy person who is partners with Sam and they still work together as the freelance police. However, it has a much sinister agenda for the universe.

Human: A universe where Sam and Max are humans. Sam (who goes by Sebastian) works as a detective for the police. Max (who goes by Mathew) makes comics for a comic series 'Sam and Max: Freelance Police'. They're bffs in this universe and hang out together, whenever they're not busy with work.

Driven To Insanity: Sam lives in the world where alot of people were infected by a terrible unknown disease that causes the infected people to suddenly attacked non-infected people. They show signs of discoloration with purple patches on their body and make sounds that sounded like gibberish to any non-infected. Sam is one of many few who aren't sick and has been one his own for a decade now. He ran into Max, who has the disease but he claims to be strangely immune to it. Together, they survive in the zombie-like apocalyptic world.

The Hare And His Lapdog: Sam goes to a seemingly ordinary casino and he has a really good luck streak at poker. This catches the attention and interest of the owner of the building. So, they walk up to him and gives him a deal. If he can beat them at poker, he can walk away with a trillion dollars. However, if he loses, he'll lose all of the winnings and will have to work for them. Sam doesn't see it as much of a challenge and played a game against them. He ends up losing though and had to work for them. However, what he didn't realize that he didn't sign up for the casino. He signed up to work for the Mafia and the owner, who is revealed to be Max, is a the Mafia Boss. Now, Sam is on edge of life or death as he tries to find a way to escape from him.

Tiny Detectives: A universe where a tiny version of Sam and Max somehow ended up in the real world and found their way into my house. Now, I'm taking care of them, while trying to figure out how they ended up here.

I'll most likely update it, if I make more Sam and Max AUs.

[astrarobotica]

I've been playing a lot of MechWarrior 4/5: Mercenaries lately, and it really just makes me wish Bandai Namco would make like, an actually good, canonical Mobile Suit Gundam game.

It's really annoying that for the past decade or so, nearly all Gundam games have been PvP-focused mashup games that are basically just saying "Wouldn't it be cool if Amuro Ray could fight Domon Kasshu but also fight the guy from Gundam Seed at the same time?" Like yeah it would be cool! And honestly the Gundam Extreme Versus MaxiBoost Whatever the Fuck™ games look like the best games that have come out of the franchise recently. But then they were like "Okay what if we do that again, but rather than being a 2v2 arena fighter it's just fucking Overwatch? What if we make it so similar to Overwatch that we basically just copy the HUD almost exactly? What if we release this game TWO WEEKS before Overwatch 2 comes out?"

The thing that really bothers me about Gundam Evolution is it had a lot of potential to be a decent Just Another Hero Shooter if they had just put some thought into giving it an actual identity. The gameplay was actually pretty good, but they didn't do nearly enough to make it feel like a Gundam game. It was just Overwatch with a random assortment of mobile suits from 4-5 different universes. The fact that they went so far as to shut it down only a year after it came out is absurd. I'm not surprised that the game wasn't successful, but I'm confused at how they thought it would be, and then it was apparently so unsuccessful (meaning not enough people were buying the cosmetic shit for it to be profitable) that it wasn't even worth keeping the servers up and providing minimal support for people who did actually enjoy it.

Then there's Battle Operation 2, which feels more like what I think a Gundam game should be and is at least limited to UC content, but I just don't enjoy playing it. It's an overly-complicated free to play game that seems to reward players who play (or spend) a lot, which makes it difficult to get acclimated when you're just starting out. I haven't played it enough to feel like I can accuse it of being pay-to-win, but I've seen that argument made by other people, and it difficult not to feel that way a little bit considering how most of my matches have gone. And I'm sure a lot of that comes down to me just not playing the game enough to actually get good, but it just doesn't feel worth the frustration of trying to get there when the game seems average at best. I keep wanting to give it another chance, but I get frustrated every time I do. It certainly doesn't help that I've only been able to play on maybe three distinct maps, and specifically one of them away more than the other two.

Back to the point...

I've been playing MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries and MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries a lot over the past couple weeks. Neither of them are perfect games. They both have unique strengths and shortcomings. A lot of people would probably disagree with the things I like or dislike about them. But I think they're both a lot of fun, because they both make huge effort to make it feel like you're controlling a big bidepal machine loaded with weapons, and to make the combat engaging and satisfying.

The crazy thing about how much I enjoy these games is that I'm not even that interested in the greater BattleTech universe. I've played 20 hours or so of the turn-based video game from 2018 (although I need to go back to it because I don't really feel like I've experienced that much of it) but that's it. I know very little about the tabletop game. I've never read any of the books. I know the basic concepts in the lore and I know of the Houses and the Clans and all of that, but not much else. I know of some of the people but I don't know anyone's motives or ideals. I feel bad saying this, but I just don't care about the universe these games are set in. The plots of the games allude to much bigger events occurring in the background, but without context none of it means much to me. I don't think it's bad at all, but I think it's just not for me. It seems very dense and complicated, and I honestly think if I took the time to read some of it I would enjoy it. But I just don't have the desire to become engrossed within the world like I do with other fictional worlds. I think I'm just not that interested in the whole Feudalism, But in Space genre.

So it's just a bit of a shame that Mobile Suit Gundam games don't get that same level of treatment/production value. A game set in the UC timeline with a gameplay loop similar to MechWarrior: Mercenaries games would probably be my favorite game ever if it was actually any good. I just like good mech games. I loved Titanfall 2 even though I usually hate fast-paced multiplayer shooters. I really need to buy Armored Core 6 soon (speaking of, FromSoft made a Japan-only Gundam Unicorn game a while back, why not let them have another go?). There's so much potential to not only make good Gundam games that aren't PvP-focused, but also to make Gundam games that actually make sense canonically. Bandai Namco somehow felt confident enough to rip off Overwatch and thought that was a risk worth taking, but they don't want to make games that actually acknowledge there are stories and deep lore and a really good science fiction universe behind the big cool robots.

[gothmileena]

honestly lowkey surprised to see how many people reacting negatively to the trailer? ive been saying to friends that we don’t really know much of anything yet, other than this basically being a partial roster reveal and a confirmation of what we’ve all suspected since mk11 ended (fresh timeline) so that’s not really much of a surprise either. Imo the biggest thing here was a release date + preorder announcement. (Speaking of, I don’t believe Shang Tsung will end up being a preorder only bonus. Dlc? Oh yeah absolutely but I can’t see them restricting him like that. If anything it’ll just be a waiting period before the rest of us get our hands on him.) We don’t even know which Sub Zero that was lmao there’s still really not much story knowledge to be had.

We’ll definitely be getting more information the closer we get to the release date, whether via official channels or leaks, and with that I’ll form more of a solid anticipatory opinion on my expectations but right now it feels too early to go anywhere past ‘oh shit new game this year!’ because we really don’t. Have anything outside of that? Unless some of y’all have inside sources you aren’t sharing djfkfkf in which case, sharing is caring.

I’m excited to potentially see more of Edenia and I’m really curious about what Liu Kang’s version of events will look like. I’m also wondering if they end up pulling something similar to Dark Raiden with Human Raiden where it only lasts for like like half an hour and then he’s normal again, I think that’d be a bit funny. If they let me run around and explore I will be absolutely fucking Delighted. If they have some sort of create a fighter thing going on? (Liu Kang’s voiceover maybe might possibly have hinted it?? Could just be wishful thinking on my end) I would be even more thrilled if that were the case. The tag team thing from what I understand of it now does confuse me a bit, and if given the choice I’d prefer a larger roster over a tag in format, but like I said, I’ll hold off on any strong feelings about that until I see more of it.

Also I think I’m more relaxed about the announcements for this franchise because it’s not like a new timeline completely negates the old one. Normally time travel and its related tropes kill my interest on arrival, but with mk it always struck me as more exploratory than anything else. What I’m saying is you can still vibe with other timelines more than the new one and they’re all still equally canon since they exist separately. 30 years of canon would be an unholy mess to keep track of if they intended to have it all be continuous, from a storytelling perspective having multiple timelines was probably the best choice they could have made with the circumstances given.

Idk I’m just interested to see where this goes and excited to see more from this universe, and it feels like some people are just determined to find something to pick apart no matter what. There will be more than enough space for criticism once we get the final product, a two minute cinematic showing off a partial roster and what will almost definitely be some fatalities isn’t enough to go off of yet. I’ll definitely be finding something in the new game to latch onto in canon and have fun with & I’m looking forward to seeing what aspects of it end up resonating with me in the end

[minipisi-is-dumb]

Got any predictions for Sonic Prime before it comes out?

oh anon you have no idea what you just did

so i got a bit yeah wait

the trailer shows that nobody recognizes sonic in the other universes, sure, but it makes me think wether is because sonic never existed in that universe, or died and now this new sonic came and nobody knows what to do with it. even if personally i find the second one more interesting, the most likely to be is that sonic never existed in the first place-like that one chapter of sonic boom type of situation-

tbh i like the idea of sonic just dying in at least the dystopian au because i am starving for tails angst and seeing his design and animation that could've been a good opportunity

that counsel of eggmans looks a bit like it's all the eggmans from all dimensions and it makes me SO interested. if it is and it seems like it's the main threat it would make so much sense why the urgency of going between worlds to solve the problem of there being apparently no barrier between the universes. but also ! that would mean that a) original eggman traveled not only to an alternate dimension but time traveled too in order to create the counsel before sonic arrives b) the counsel of eggmans is an entity created way before the events of our main universe where every world where sonic isn't there has it's Eggman join

or maybe the many eggmans is just some cloning thing and im getting more excited than i should but MAN i can't help it

Oh oh can i can i talk about TAILS for a sec (shocked)

ive been thinking about how maybe his two biological tails are fine. but outside of his original form we don't see him flying. like call me crazy but what it tails cannot fly? at least in the dystopian au? sonc lore depending on the source has two main possible ways that tails learned to fly where in one when he gets excited he involuntarily moves his tails and that's how he know and the other one he learned because he wanted to be able to keep up with sonic's speed (sonic origins merges both of these ideas into one but it's still this two) so maybe he needs robotic tails bc of that idk

not a prediction more like a genuine curiosity on how multiverse works in prime. like look i adore the concept of multiverse as much as the next guy but ive never seen it done in a way that it really explores how much the existence of a multiverse can impact the characters, because the mcu and rick and morty showed me how easy it is to misuse it and make it feel boring and shows like final space where multiverse slowly wanted to be used with potential had no chance to shine enough for it to count as a multiverse story imo

so since the entire novelty of THIS piece of sonic media is that it has a multiverse concept it does make me very interested since it won't be an afterthought of a bigger story but the entire reason why the story exists. so yeah i cannot expect any deep psychological exploration on the cosmic horror of infinite versions of oneself or some deep shit bc that's not what SONIC is about

like if i would want super deep philosophy stuff i wouldn't be expecting it from this franchise and much less i would be a fan of it i just like funny mobians. but i JUST want a well written fun multiverse story where it feels like the multiverse as a concept is not there for decor and is actually made with sense and it's own rules n stuff. i just want my stories to make sense.

[firadessa]

No cause your so right on how it's one of Disney's best franchises but it doesn't get the recognision it deserves and I'm still made about it

Here's some things I don't like on how Disney treated the series

1. Removal of classic Flash games in 2013 from the Disney website like Lightball challenge, Tink's Fairy Tag, and Dragonfly Race leaving them lost/nearly impossible to find, or in a seemingly broken and unplayble state. Additionally, printouts and other downloadables that could have stayed were often removed after website updates. I hate when normal features of a website get removed, and Disney Fairies had this the most as someone who spent a lot of their time on the disney website as a kid

2. Having the audacity to make an html5 game called Pixie Party Couture with pixie hollow assets, like a year after the game shut down. Like literally Tabby of the Never Council was in the dress up game

3. It's mostly mismanagement, but cancelling the original draft for Tinker Bell and not updating the marketing material, even when it had been pushed back by a year. Especially on the 2007 website for the first year it was out.

5. Not crediting people enough? like for the original TB draft and the books authors being "Disney Storybook Art Team" even in the book, leading people to dig to find who worked on their damn books

6. Failing to capture an audience for Pixie Hollow, yet Toontown which had been somewhat slow on content iirc yet Pixie Hollow still never had a problem with new and original concepts, as well as fun events. Again, mismanagment, but it sometimes makes me sad knowing Pixie Hollow, while it was popular, had a signifigantly smaller audience then the others. And honestly, I don't think it's the fault of Pixie Hollow, but poor marketing. Which puts the stress on the employees for working on an "unpopular" game, which clearly had people playing it and a good retention of players. It was cancelled like 5/6 years in, when it could have at least lasted another few years because it was 2013.

7. Keeping Pixie Hollow's "beta" on internationally, and showcasing that they could have still kept the smaller more relaxed experience of creating a fairy and creating a page for the character. But since they wanted to transition to mobile apps in the US, most people who grew up with the site did not know of the international versions. Which closed around 2016/2017. Meaning if you were a hardcore Pixie Hollow fan or lived outside of the US, you got 3 more years of PH- just a more toned down version

8. Pages were found on the Disney website that misleading people that the game was going to come back, but they were just leaks/archived pages from the original website. These pages were easy for others to find, one person even found a login page confirming Disney still had the account data for Pixie Hollow.

9. Removing the book characters from the franchise almost entirely except as side characters or very specific instances like in Pixie Hollow. Even if those characters could still be recognizable or interesting, they never started pushing them as actual characters within the movie's shared universe until like 2014. The characters had 3 years to exist and existed for longer than that because they waited for the release of Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg to even debut the franchise.

10. Shortening down a full length movie Race through the Seasons, into Pixie Hollow games leaving the director to scramble into making it a 30 minute TV special, when that wasn't the assignment.

11. People made more ideas for Disney Fairies projects. And they just sat there and waited until they wanted to shut the studio (Disneytoon) down, barely producing anything!

12. Prioritzing another franchise so much that when people ordered a Disney Fairies magazine they sent out the other one when they pulled it instead of cancelling the orders. When there was a Youtube channel, it got replaced and the videos were unlisted with uh *this more popular*! franchise 👸😮‍💨 Only lead to confusion in both cases I assure you

13. Playing hot and cold with us because people didn't know they didn't cancel the entire thing, or if it was offically completely done. Which is understandable because of the whole Youtube rebrand as Disney Princess, and also poor marketing and releasing in the US

14. The first book was the first to release internationally, yet a lot of international translation ceased completely around the mid 2010s

15. They made another Iridessa book. And they only released in Japan and Australia. Written by a prominent Black author. Extremely rare. Leading to someone in 2017 having to scan it for people to read it. Iridessa and the Secret of the Never Mine

16. Not including Joel Mcneely's songs on the inspired by Tinker Bell soundtracks. Which again, mislead people because they are not the actual soundtracks

17. This is more on the Pixie Hollow team, but the lack of support from the closure is not something I liked. Like I get it if they weren't properly able to add a proper farewell celebration like Club Penguin's in 2017, but naming the closing event Pixie Hollow Farewell wasn't a good move. Like did they forget that's a fictional place that many kids are attached to and a game? Wish it was the "Fly with You Forever" party or something more creative. The closing announcement felt very out of character and was assigned one of the NPCs, which I remember recieving mixed announcements. Leading them to make a new post that came across as more sympathetic, and add free membership for the remaining period. But there was a lack of attention when it came to the games closure, probably due to the fact it was rushed and 4 games were planned to close on one day. And we deserved a proper goodbye and tribute to the characters of Pixie Hollow like the council and others, making the ending more bittersweet instead of just bitter. Oh, but they'd actually have to code that in the fairy game so they didn't bother.

You know what maybe I’m just tired and feeling the existential dread of growing up, but actually my small, petty hill to die on is that I don’t think I will ever forgive Disney for abandoning the fairies franchise. I cannot even properly express what those movies were to me as a kid. They very well may have been my first hyperfixation. But come on beyond the sentimental value, those movies:

Encouraged kids to take an interest in nature and be nice to plants and animals.

Depicted a (mostly female) friend group that spent virtually every scene they had together onscreen building each other up and supporting each other.

Featured a female lead who is essentially a mechanical engineer, and is not treated as any less magical or important for it than her friends who can magically make flowers grow or bend light (except for the first movie wherein her feeling less magical and important is the central conflict).

Gave said female lead a “love interest,” I say in quotations because while they are definitely implied to have romantic feelings for each other, he is never called anything other than her best friend and the two of them ending up together is never treated as an urgent priority. Their friendship is incredibly important to both of them, but no one acts like it’s a problem that they’re just friends for now.

Redeemed the mean girl pretty damn successfully (in my opinion), Vidia never apologizes for most of her actions onscreen, but she does realize when she’s gone too far and makes an effort to fix her mistakes, and from that point on she is integrated into the friend group who, as I mentioned before, spend 90% of their screen time uplifting each other.

In The Lost Treasure, let Tink’s temper have consequences, a good lesson for kids in not taking their friends for granted and treating them kindly, but also teaching respect for boundaries and personal space through Terrence’s end.

In Secret of the Wings, demonstrated that sometimes rules are there for safety reasons, but you can try to think of a creative solution to do what you want while still keeping things safe for everyone.

In Legend of the Neverbeast (admittedly not the greatest movie in the series), depicted the fairies having to say goodbye to an animal companion permanently, something most kids will probably experience at some point.

Inspired a banger of an online game and several banger songs.

And what has Disney done with this franchise they spent 7 years on (longer if you count the books)?

Allowed a massive decline in quality on the last movie made (Legend of the Neverbeast) and then acted shocked when it didn’t do as well as the previous ones.

Cancelled all fairy projects after that.

Shut down the game in 2013.

Made a bunch of the songs from the soundtracks seemingly disappear off the face of the earth.

I know it doesn’t make the top 100 shitty things Disney has done, probably not even the top 1000, but I am still extremely salty about it, even though it’s been almost 10 years.

[ardentblossomings]

Q E D and Z for the fandom ask. For Z, I would like you to talk about your oldest fandom you're still part of if that's okay!

P.S. I forgot how fun it is to send asks and spell things out, but I did try to keep a theme this time, heh.

(Previously on "ask games" . . . quod erat demonstrandum)

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?

While I answered this previously, something else did come to mind here... not that it fully counts, but I was temporarily "known" as the "cosplay granny" due to a post I made... "Dig a little deeper" as an audio post with the caption "cosplaying" (Reminder - it starts with "don't matter what you look like")

Oh, also vine compilations for fandoms

Q - A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

Ironically, it's also Harry Potter. In retrospect, it does have to be said that I mostly liked it due to social pressure (read: close friends liked it), but apparently I was knowledgeable enough about this franchise that I counted as a go-to-person for questions. Still, if you want a magic school, Little Witch Academia is definitely the better pic. Or even Winx Club. Probably also other franchises I cannot think about at the moment.

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.

Akemi and Akai, and Furuya and Azusa... they just have no flavour to me (and Furuya in particular just doesn't strike me as interested in women... not saying he has to be gay, just - not straight imo)

There are a few pairings I dislike without the "wish you liked" part... which makes this question a lot more difficult. But I suppose I could count Iron Bull x Dorian Pavus into this, as they DO have cute fanart and CAN be read as cute... I just dislike how they started off a lot (dubious consent).

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go! (Prompts optional but encouraged.)

Okay, here's the thing: I don't recall my first fandom. Detective Conan, Sailor Moon, Digimon, and Pokémon are all animes that I've watched when very young... Pokémon Red, Yellow, and Gold are games I additionally had played back then. I also watched Winx Club, read W.i.t.c.h., and a few other things, but those came later.

I'm still mostly a fan of DCMK, Digimon, and Pokémon - while I still enjoy Sailor Moon, it has since moved to the back of my mind... and well, Pokémon has lost me until the B&W remakes drop (even if I still like it conceptually - I only watch specials, and rarely play anything). Which leaves me with Detective Conan and Digimon, to keep it interesting.

For Z, I would like you to talk about your oldest fandom you're still part of, if that's okay!

I'll die on the hill that Detective Conan should get the Naruto Shippuuden treatment: Just bring Shinichi back. Call it "Detective Conan ~Kudou Shinichi's Return~" for all I care, but it's about time that we see him again. He probably should defeat the Organization, too, but I'd settle for just having him back and coming clean to his loved ones (Ran), who are in danger anyways.

As for Digimon... I've always been of the opinion that Digimon, unlike Pokémon, has a great thing going with its alternative universes. No straight evolution lines, no straight Digi-Destined or Tamers or what'cha-call-its. By making everything AU, you keep your possibilities endless.... now if only they'd make better use of it. Also, in spite of what I just said, I wish they'd just straight up remastered Adventures instead of remaking it/changing it.

[razglowe]

Fandom Recap! - Raglowe's 2022 Edition

OKAY, THIRD ATTEMPT AT WRITING THIS WITHOUT TUMBLR EATING IT, LET’S GO!!

I’ve been back for about a week or so and I’m settling in nicely. Genuinely enjoying being back so much! I'm using the queue more and having a lot more of a relaxed time here than when I was active last.

Thank you so much for sticking with me!

Since it's been awhile, I wanted to do a rundown on my interests. ! It’s also super fun to reflect on how things have changed in fandom over the past few years.

Let’s get to it!

OLD STUFF I AM/WAS INTO

---------

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

“Riiiiise of the--”

Ninja Turtles is so entwined with my DNA at this point, even if I can’t watch things on the regular any more. I’m still here though! Happily vibing away passively.

While I haven’t watched Rise of the TMNT series yet (tried the first ep, wasn’t my cup of tea, but I want to try again), I’ve managed to sit down and watch the movie.

D u d e.

RotTMNT, genuinely, has some of my favourite takes on the main cast. Changing things up while still keeping everyone true to character is such a hard needle to thread but I think the creative team stuck the landing. Especially with Leo being more chill and arrogant without the pressures of being a leader. I love it!

I’ve also been keeping up with IDW. If you’re a new turtle fan and want to get into more of the franchise, I can’t recommend it enough. It brings in some fresh takes on old characters while giving room to new characters as well.

Being a turtle fan is fantastic right now between Rise and Shredder's Revenge, and I do really feel we are in a new renaissance period. Keeping an eye out for Mutant Mayhem news next year!

Batman/DC Comics

“I am vengeance. I am the night. I am—“

I was originally writing this the day before word broke about Kevin Conroy. It’s… rough. And it really made me reflect on how I have been feeling about Batman recently.

These past few years saw me fall out of love a bit with Batman and DC Comics. I love these characters and this universe so much but I started to feel lost with it. From the movies through to the Nu52 comics, I just really wasn’t vibing with the darker tone I was seeing more of. But I always had that familiar, comforting thought that we had some of the old regular voices still reprising their roles.

That has certainly changed now.

Kevin Conroy was a man that I didn’t – and still don’t – know about in detail save for glimpses into his personality from interviews and his close friends sharing memories of him. He was kind. Empathetic. Talented and insightful. Full of love, passion, and genuine joy and admiration for his fans all over the world. And he was probably one of the few people who fully understood Batman dual nature on a fundamentally deep and personal level.

I want to revisit Batman again after hearing these stories about him. His joy and celebration of DC and Batman is truly infectious, especially after seeing his interviews.

I’m keen to give new things a go too! Batman 2022 in particular looks like a fun take on things, and I’ve been falling back in love after seeing The Suicide Squad (2022) and Peacemaker’s TV series. Genuinely, thank you James Gunn for reminding me how much I love DC, and thank you Kevin Conroy for reminding me how much I love Batman.

Especially Kevin Conroy. Thank you. So much.

Doctor Who

“Allons-y!”

Boy did I pick a time to come back to Doctor Who.

Around the end of 11’s run I was getting weary with Doctor Who. I really wasn’t liking Moffat’s writing style and wasn’t a fan of how I was being a wet blanket about it. Chipnal’s run wasn’t for me either. So, I took a step back. I checked out some of Capaldi and Whitaker’s episodes between then and now – I love their takes on the Doctor so much! I don't think most of the eps are for me, but I love the highlights I've seen!

But here we are now, with Russel T Davis back and David Tennant back (at least temporarily).

As much as I love Tennant’s Doctor, I’m honestly far more excited to see Ncuti Gatwa finally get his chance to show us his Doctor. I’ve heard nothing but praise for his acting and really excited to see what stories he will get to weave with Davis. (Though having Tennant back as the Doctor temporarily is a fun bonus too!)

I've otherwise been having a great time listening to Big Finish stories. Been a great way to experience the older Doctors and gaining a love and appreciation for all of Who these days. Really happy I did that!

Pokemon

“So, what? I'm lower than a Pokemon?! I already got self-esteem issues, man!”

While Scarlet/Violet have been buggy as all hell, I’m having a ton of fun with Pokemon! I haven’t missed a game still and I’m so excited to see what direction future games will head in. (Also please Game Freak, slow your mainline game rollout so people can fix the bugs more… please…)

Round up via generations! From most recent to least!

GEN 9 - Scarlet/Violet: About a third of the way through Scarlet right now. Really starting to like more of the new Pokemon designs. Grafaiai is a current frontline favourite for Gen 9 with me!

Legends of Arcus & Pokemon Snap: LoA was such a highlight for me. It was super fun and I’m still needing to get through end-game, but I’m having a ton of fun when I get the chance. And the new Pokemon Snap was a fun surprise to boot! So many fun ways to see Pokemon in the wild again.

GEN 8 - Sword/Shield: It was a fun time! I think this game does world building the best of all the games so far (yes, even over Scarlet/Violet). The gym leaders in them are probably some of my overall favourites so far! I wasn't as sold on the story, but man, seeing Pokemon as an actual competitive sport like soccer is still one of my favourite things to see

GEN 7 - Sun/Moon: Did you know that I was completely unaware that Guzma was a Tumblr Sexy Man until the Tumblr Sexy Man voting meme went viral? Hell yeah everyone good taste. On a serious note - loved these games a lot, and I think Team Skull became my favourite evil team after playing it. Love these knuckleheads.

Gen 3/4 Remakes: I played a lot of Alpha Sapphire when it came out! Really loved how they did shiny hunting with it. Wasn't so keen on Diamond/Pearl's remake, which is a shame since I really love those games. Still at the first gym with it... hopefully I can get time to play soon!

Hopefully we can see some bug fixes with Scarlet/Violet. I'm so keen to see what else is ahead in this game!

Warcraft/Overwatch

“The world could always use more heroes!”

This is… a rough one. I love Warcraft. I love Overwatch. I love both worlds. However, I’m not keen to be in those worlds much these days.

For Warcraft, I’m not a big fan of how the storytelling is going. And that’s fine! If it’s not my cup of tea, I’m happy to step back. Same with character direction in Overwatch. Again, nothing wrong with this. At times you and franchises you love grow into different things. The time together is none-the-less treasured.

There’s also external issues with Blizzard that have been well documented. I won’t be going into them, but they do not align with my morals (to say the least).

Always happy to reblog any Junkrat art or Warcraft silliness if I see them, but for now I'm done with both. They’ll always be a part of me! But I'm happily moving onto other games in the meantime.

Homestuck

“Dave: oh shit”

Yes, I know about the Epilogues and HS^2. Yes, I read them. No, they aren’t for me and that’s okay.

Other stuff

I’m still into a lot of things still! Still loving Lupin III, still happily reflecting on Mass Effect (haven’t played Andromeda still, just need time to play it!), and just having a grand old time living life.

If you want my thoughts on anything I’ve missed here, give a shout and I’ll reply!

Meanwhile, I’ve gotten into other things too!

NEW STUFF I’M INTO!

---------

FFXIV

“Remember us. Remember that we once lived.”

I’m not kidding when I say this – I genuinely think that FFXIV is going to be looked at as “video games as epic literature” one day in the far future. But with more big tiddy bun girls.

It’s such a wonderful winding tale where every character feels full of an important weight and value, ranging from minor characters through to major players. It is so wonderful to see and it’s such a contrast to what I’m used to with Warcraft!

I’ve been playing for about a year now, even though I originally picked up the game in about… 2018? 2016? It’s been awhile. But I needed a hook. So, I powered on through with friends and that was the hook I needed at the end of the day. Shadowbringer has been the peak of it all for me, but each expansion just keeps building up and up!

There have been so many character journeys that I’ve become attached to, and a lot of character growth that feels natural and earned. Won’t ramble too much here, but I have been enjoying everything immensely!

Splatoon

“Stay Fresh~”

I’ve always been interested in Splatoon but never quite really jumped on. I was a bit too late for the hype for Splatoon 2 (alas, never really experienced a proper Splatfest in there) but I really fell in love with the world. Hearing Splatoon 3 get announced got me excited and I’m so happy to see how much love it’s getting!

Also, no joke, the deep lore on this game is wild. I love it. Please read it one day if you get the chance. It’s hilarious and heartbreaking. Look, if we all wipe ourselves out, just know we’ve got squid kids to learn from our old memes at least.

(Also, Off the Hook is the best idol group, I’m sorry Deep Cut!)

Borderlands

“I just bought a pony made of diamonds! Because I'm rich.”

Tales From the Borderlands was running rings around me back when I was on Tumblr, but I just couldn't afford to play it back then (my computer was struggling to run smaller games ahahah;; ). I was curious but never enough to play it. So in my time away I eventually went “alright, show me what you’ve got”.

Yeah… yeah I regret not getting into this sooner.

Borderlands in general is such a fun world! I’m so glad I got to eventually experience it! I’ve played through the whole catalogue save for Pre-Sequel, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands and New Tales now. Original TFTB also has the honour of being “game that made me cry with laughter” so that’s a big tick in my book.

I’ve defs played through Borderlands 3 as well. Gameplay was great! Story was good but I was missing some of the dramatic meat, but it absolutely brought the heat with DLC.

And yes, can confirm, Handsome Jack is an absolute bastard, 10/10 fantastic horrible dude, deserves all the hate and love.

The lack of a presence on the Tumblr Sexyman list when he had such a chokehold over Tumblr back in the day is a travesty :(

Genshin Impact

“Hey Traveller! Over here!”

So, I’m not so much into Genshin right now but I’m slowly warming to it. More here for the vibes and fanart than anything else.

Not too sure what else to say really. The characters seem fun! And people seem to be having fun with them. I think that's neat!

[crystalelemental]

In anticipation of Scarlet and Violet, I think now’s a great time to update the overall opinions on games within the series.  So I made a tier list that, I imagine, no one is surprised about.  Though who knows, maybe some of you are surprised.  I was.  This is the worst bell curse my opinions have ever produced.

Overall, this is an assessment of personal enjoyment.  I want to call it quality too, and will talk about my perception of quality, but let’s be real: it’s personal enjoyment.  As such, some of the placements are more based around the questions “Would I intentionally pick this up again?” and “Would I enjoy playing it again?”  There are extra aspects that go into those questions, but I’ll address those as I bring up the games.

Speaking of, in the interest of avoiding just going in a logical order, I’m going to go by generation, because that’s the order I made the list in.  Which means initially, Gens 1 and 2 largely fell in C until opinions started happening and stuff got moved.  And I think it’s more interesting to talk that process of why.  Also note, I only put one of each game cluster up, choosing based on which game I tended to gravitate toward for the cluster.

GEN 1

Red/Blue (D2).  The games that started the franchise, and are universally beloved.  Except, notoriously, by me.  Listen, I get that there’s nostalgia, but that’s all there is anymore.  Red and Blue were great for their time, but the instant we stepped into Gen 2 it became apparent how much better we could have it.  Red and Blue are not games that I go back to...almost ever.  Very, very rarely do I think about just making a fun run through, and almost every time it’s because I went traveling somewhere and forgot to bring the physical carts for other games, but Red/Blue are downloaded on the 3DS.  It’s just not that much fun anymore.  Inventory space limitations beyond reason, the nightmares of Wrap/Rage, no rebattling any kind of trainer with fairly low level wild Pokemon that made catching up difficult, the lack of almost anything interesting going on because you had like five non-Normal attacks in the game.  It’s a fine start, but it’s the kind of start that legitimately should’ve been left in the past as something that started the series, but isn’t a major focus.

Yellow (D4).  Okay look.  I know it’s a generally accepted rule that the third game in the series is the better option, and that Yellow is included.  I do not like Yellow as much.  These are mostly petty reasons, but they bug me.  The most “legitimate” is lack of reasonable access to Missingno.  Sometimes, Red/Blue entices because of the raw clownshoes of Missingno’s presence.  Without that, Yellow doesn’t feel as ridiculous of a time, which is a drawback.  Second, I don’t love that I have to keep Pikachu around.  I like Raichu, but I never liked Pikachu.  It was so bad that, as a kid, I’d get my cousin’s Red and trade Pikachu to it, evolve it, and send it back.  I do not want Pikachu on my team, unless it’s waiting to be Raichu.  Which leads into the big, incredibly petty complaint: this game is just playing as Ash.  No, really, look at it.  The means of acquiring the three starters is like...the exact method the anime shows up.  Koga has Venomoth line only because that’s what he uses in the anime.  Yellow is PokeAni Season 1 The Game, and while I liked the show as a kid, I never liked Ash enough to ever want to play as him.  Not that the distinction ever sunk in as a kid, but it bothers me more over time.  I also have gone from “Oh cool, you get all the starters” to “that feels kinda cheap, and why are there still version exclusives if we’re getting rid of that requirement?”  I dunno.  I like Red/Blue better.

GEN 2

Silver/Gold (B2) - I feel like when quality is discussed, often people will defer to “Pokemon is a kid’s game, they made it for kids.”  Which is fair, but also, this came out when I was like ten, and even then I could feel the difference.  Everything that made Gen 1 clunky was gone, and Johto remains one of my favorite regions.  It’s a cool place!  Silver legitimately felt like a more exciting experience, with great new Pokemon and old faces alike.  Frankly, it’d be higher if it weren’t for Crystal and the remakes, which...kinda make these games far less enticing to pick up.  That said, I have to bring up the biggest issue of all things Johto.  Wild encounter levels are pitifully low, rebattling trainers still isn’t much of a thing, and levels scale really fast in some places.  In some ways, it has a legitimately worse version of Gen 1′s problem with this.  While completely subjective, I feel like the tradeoff was that Gen 2 felt bigger.  I mean...it honestly was because of the dual-region thing, but even just Johto felt bigger than just Kanto, with more side events like the Bug Catching Contest and trying to track the Legendary Beasts, or exploring optional caverns like Mt. Mortar.  Johto felt a bit more exploratory, and because of stat experience, you never actually fell too far behind despite staying lower level, making it feel a lot more like you’re the underdog trainer fighting stronger opponents and winning with your friends.  The exception’s the Red fight, which is bad, but Gen 2 never bothered me as much as Gen 1 despite having similar issues.

Crystal (A5) - My beloved.  Crystal was the first game I legitimately fell in love with.  I still have incredibly fond memories of the game.  Which is fascinating because I don’t actually think all that much changed between GS and C.  The biggest thing was honestly Pokemon placement.  Early access to Poliwag, Teddiursa, and Phanpy was neat, reminiscent of Yellow adding Mankey and the Nidorans before Brock.  I...really couldn’t tell you much else, though.  This is really more a situation where I don’t think it’s legitimately better in every way, I just like it better in every way, and always pick it up over Gold or Silver.  And sometimes over HGSS.

GEN 3

Ruby/Sapphire (C1) - When this game first came out, I...did not love it.  In a weird way, I think this game really indicated what the fallout of Dexit was going to be.  All my old Pokemon couldn’t be transferred, and I hated it.  I didn’t have any of my Eevees.  I couldn’t trade my Mewtwo.  So much was just gone in the generational shift.  While I’ve since gotten over this, and come to actually appreciate when games push their new dex, Gen 3 remains pretty mid-tier for me.  Well.  The originals, anyway.  Ruby and Sapphire never quite caught on with me, and Hoenn remains one of my less favorite regions on the whole.  I could not tell you why.  I have no especially negative opinions about it, it’s just hard for me to like Hoenn.  I do think part of it is the Eternal Surfing, and the fact that Magma and Aqua remain the dumbest teams.  Because otherwise...Hoenn has a great dex, some great gym leader designs and concepts, Steven Stone is there.  I shouldn’t be as lukewarm on it as I am.  But, here we are.  As for why C-tier, it’s because I have not ever thought about picking up Ruby or Sapphire.  The reason should be obvious.

Emerald (S2) - Until recently, I would’ve lumped Emerald in with Ruby and Sapphire.  It was actually a recent playthrough that really got me invested, to the point I think it has legitimate claim to being the best game in the series.  I argue this due to challenge.  When challenge is discussed in Pokemon, I feel like it’s pretty universally in terms of absurd, tedious challenge that is honestly just bad game design.  Think about things like how Gen 7 and BDSP addressed concerns around difficulty, and produced something that lacks any sense of fun.  “Challenge” is ill defined, subjective, and most problematic, not synonymous with good game design.  Sure, you can make foes with capped EVs, IVs, and positive natures, but is it fun for the player to have to stop, breed something with perfect IVs, and farm millions of dollars 20k at a time over days to catch up?  No.  No, that’s horrid.  There are other ways to go about this, and Emerald goes about it the right way. Emerald introduced Boosting moves in a big way, incorporating Bulk Up, Calm Mind, and Dragon Dance as the big names.  And as a result, they anticipated everyone would play around with them a bit, and built battles that aim to counter this strategic play.  Almost every fight offers counterplay to setup, be it Winona’s Perish Song on Swablu, Sidney’s Sand Attack on Intimidate Mightyena, Glacia’s Body Slam paralysis on Sealeo, Wallace’s Water Spout Wailord, all the way up to Steven Stone’s Toxic and Spikes on Skarmory.  The game introduced strategies that the player could try out, and intelligently built its battles around them, being able to demonstrate responses.  This is the kind of direction that I think the series needed to go, building challenges that were more strategic. Unfortunately, it didn’t go that way, because Emerald failed its mission by  proving the most effective way to win was just four coverage moves.  Just hit them and most of your opponent’s counterplay is irrelevant.  It’s why I can’t accept it as top dog, despite having some really fantastic concepts behind it.  I love this game, it’s not easily among the favorites, but if it had just gone a little further with its teambuilding it could’ve been perfect.

FRLG (A4) - I mentioned Gen 2 was my youthful realization of what quality of life improvement was?  FRLG was my realization of what graphical improvement was.  I kinda started console games around OoT, I missed the major jump.  But seeing the old beep boop Pokemon game in this kind of color, with this much improvement to the sprite work, honestly dazzled me.  It was such an improvement.  And if I’m going to get nostalgia about Kanto, this is where it happens.  This game exclusively.  FRLG has a lot that fixes the original Gen 1, to the point I consider it the only perfect remake.  Every mechanical issue is gone.  The Vs Seeker lets you battle trainers again, easing the issue of being massively under-leveled.  The Sevii Islands added a lot of meat to the game.  FRLG is fantastic.

GEN 4

Diamond/Pearl (C2) - I will be honest.  These are the only games I haven’t had access to a physical copy for.  My cousin stole my Diamond ages ago and I never got it back.  I uh.  I don’t remember much specific.  But I remember not liking them quite as much, and thus not liking Gen 4 quite as much, until...

Platinum (S1) - Platinum is still my pick for the best game in the series.  I will admit to serious flaws.  Despite Emerald’s strategic approach, Platinum goes in the exact opposite direction, locking entire strategies behind the BP shop for no reason other than removing boosting and Toxic/Paralysis from any equation.  This game wants you to hit each other with sticks and nothing more.  Jokes on them, because movepools are now big enough, and technical applications wide enough, that you can do some fun things with the game.  This is where I feel like things actually worked.  In Emerald, trying to Leech Seed stall usually gets you killed, because of how well your opponent can counter you.  But Platinum doesn’t have the same aggression toward setup leads.  This is a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, strategy is much more effective in Platinum.  On the other, so are setup sweepers, who can absolutely body most of the game.  Just about any kind of setup can turn Cynthia’s final battle into a pretty easy time.  I’ve absolutely 6-0′d her team because of how easy it is to set up on Spiritomb. What I think is nice about Platinum, though, is that it will showcase strategies through your opponents as well.  Emerald didn’t do a whole lot of cohesive strategy, so much as just having strong anti-leads.  Platinum is where you get team structures like Gardenia, who can set Reflect to block Bird Sweep, followed into Cherrim’s Leech Seed to obliterate Bronzor stall.  Or where you get Candice, whose Hail-based shenanigans means she can potentially win any matchup just by having RNG work in her favor a bit, and thus pushing players to use their own weather to respond.  The game isn’t quite perfect about it, but Platinum feels like another attempt to have legitimate team cohesion and strategy behind it, which makes it more engaging.  It’s also like...the only game where I’ve never been able to handle the final fight 15-20 levels below them.  I’m always within like 5-10 levels of Cynthia.  Part of this is difficulty, but part of it is what I talked about with Emerald: better game design.  Having to go from facing level 62 to level 88 is not a fun nor reasonable challenge.  The only solution is tedious grinding, or having gotten really good at counterpicking the final battle.  Cynthia always feels so close in level because the content of Platinum is so dense that being under-leveled is a choice.  There’s an extra thing to do constantly, and the introduction of open areas with an exploration partner who heals you was a brilliant way to allow players to farm a few levels without running back and forth to the Pokemon Center.  Even post-game, you have the entire island to explore.  Platinum is wonderfully content-rich, well-balanced, and by far my favorite in the series. 

HGSS (A2) - HGSS is an objective improvement over GS, but arguably C.  I say this on one technicality: all the cool early access Pokemon in Crystal aren’t there is HGSS.  I don’t agree with it.  But it’s hard to deny how much more HGSS has.  The Safari Zone offering access to the Kanto-exclusive new Pokemon was a delight, and added more territory to explore to help close level gaps.  Kanto itself felt a bit more full, so it wasn’t quite as empty a sandbox as it was in the original games.  They kept the Suicune subplot, which is great except the part where Suicune has to wait until after your first run of the league.  Speaking of, the improvement of the league in a rematch helps bridge the gap between Blue and Red’s fights.  You’re not as required to experience a 26 level jump in one go.  Though you’re still likely to be massively under-leveled.  There’s also the questionable choice of Voltorb Flip.  Personally...I liked it better.  I could never do slots, but I’m good at Voltorb Flip.  As another small addition, the Kimono Girls were given tremendous significance, which I loved, and we got a bit more of the lore of the region.  So with all this praise, why not S-tier? It still suffers from the same thing every Johto game does.  Progression is slow, grinding practically required, levels too low to gain meaningful experience, etc etc.  I’d argue it’s worse here, because stat experience was a free boost to everything that could legitimately close every statistical gap despite being 20 levels under.  Here, you get EVs, which are outright impossible to control for, and therefore can’t offer the same cushioning from being constantly under-leveled.  As a result, it can legitimately feel more stacked against you.  Some people like that.  They’re lunatics.

GEN 5

Black/White (S3) - Black and White has the best story in the series.  I don’t feel that’s controversial.  It also did the best thing ever by completely cutting off previous Pokemon, and making you operate only with the new stuff.  That one might be controversial, but I loved it.  Reusable TMs saved a ton of effort, but I will admit to sometimes missing the strategy of where to allocate those resources.  The league being interrupted by the villain team and N’s rise is way more interesting a shakeup to the Pokemon Formula than anything Gen 7 tried to do.  Gen 5 has some of the best stuff the series has done, and yes, that includes Garbodor.  So why below Emerald and Platinum? Black and White was a bit of a step back to me when it comes to strategy.  Nothing stands out like a Candice fight, and no one’s got a particularly strong anti-lead like Emerald to suggest serious planning went into it.  A lot of Gen 5 feels more like “We’re going to hit you with a big stick.”  It also has a little bit of a Gen 2 problem, thanks to scaled experience.  Levels are not intrinsically too low, but because experience is scaled lower when you’re above an opponent’s level, grinding is effectively impossible...unless you Audino farm, which is the single most tedious means of gaining EXP the series has ever produced.  Because of this, you’re constantly underleveled against opponents who are really strong, and now have nigh-endless coverage options by this point in the series, and all your best strategic responses like boosting moves are TM locked to post-game.  BW is legitimately just less fun to play than those games.  Even as fantastic as it is, Gen 5 is a generation that takes a little building up to.  I have trouble just picking up and playing without at least some level of “Yeah, this is what I want over Platinum/Emerald/HGSS.”  But when I want soemthing in Gen 5?  Man, this is the one.

Black/White2 (A3) - A rare case of the continuation being worse.  Not significantly worse, I think it does some interesting stuff in its approach to Team Plasma’s division between those who were in it for themselves, and those who earnestly believed in the mission.  But I also think...BW2 incorporating other regions’ Pokemon was for the worse?  I liked being left with just the new region.  They don’t do anything too interesting with the league this time around.  Iris is bizarrely absent most of the game, despite having the regional champion be a big deal in like...every other generation.  There’s an odd amount of backtracking at times as you navigate the region, making it feel a little more tedious.  And it also keeps a lot of the flaws of BW1, notably the EXP scaling and Audino thing.  To make matters worse, it also has Hugh, the worst rival.  Going from Bianca and Cheren, two of the best, to the worst in the series, is a rough transition.  I’m also going to concede, I never really liked Colress.  I could never get a read on him or what his deal was. Still, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t add some of the best side features of any game.  PokeStar Studios blew my mind the first time though, it was such a cool and creative idea.  Pokemon World Tournament bringing in nearly every face from the series was super cool, and having matchups against other gym leaders along their favored typing was everything my aspiring monotype heart could’ve asked for.  And nothing about the game was specifically bad, it just didn’t live up to BW1, in my book.

GEN 6

XY (B3) - I feel like this may be too generous, but I’m sticking with it.  XY is not great.  It is absolutely riddled with problems.  EXP All trivializes the game, and even without it, the game’s surprisingly easy.  Mega Evolutions were so cool, but then you don’t have access to almost anything until post-game.  The region is loaded with options, but this always gave me more choice paralysis than excitement about options.  I never know what to run, and get frustrated with the selection process by like...Parfum Palace.  There’s also just not much attention given to the characters, which feels incredibly odd after Gen 5′s fantastic emphasis on character and story.  Speaking of story, Team Flare is still one of the least coherent villain organizations, with Lysandre being so transparently the villain from the moment you meet him that no one has ever reported being fooled.  Diantha remains mysteriously absent throughout the game, much like Iris, resulting in her having almost no lasting impression.  So why is it B? In part, the fact that I keep picking it up.  XY isn’t great, but it’s kinda like the gaming equivalent of having a craving for McDonalds.  It’s not good for me, but sometimes it’s what the heart wants.  It’s a pretty simple game, with a lot of favorites to work with, and if I can just push through the early-game choice paralysis, it does tend to result in a fairly fun experience.  Not like the other generations.  But it’s at least something.  Which feels appropriate for B.  Something I’d intentionally pick up, but not be in the mood for generally.

ORAS (B1) - Speaking of which, the other Gen 6 introduction is also B-tier.  ORAS is inferior to Emerald, I don’t think that’s controversial.  But I will admit to still liking ORAS, in spite of things.  Delta Episode is fun.  Mauville is a nightmare in this state, I can’t find anything.  Aron can’t be caught until later.  But we get the first hints of no HMs with the Latis flying you around.  I actually like the designs a lot better.  Except Wallace, which is worse.  This is also the only one I think I’d be willing to argue one version is better, and it’s Alpha Sapphire.  Given their new presentation, there is something endlessly funny about frat boy Archie constantly outsmarting Hypernerd Maxie at every turn.

GEN 7

Sun/Moon (D3) - Sun and Moon is, similar to Gen 5, a generation where the first thing brought up is story.  And yes, SuMo has a great story.  For the Aether Family and literally no one else.  No one else in this game matters.  They get a quick introduction and are removed.  You don’t even battle the trial captains, just the totem Pokemon; they are completely removed from relevance.  Even characters you’d think would have a lot going on due to proximity, like Wicke, don’t.  SuMo just doesn’t feel like it matters much.  Though I will give props for the post-game with Anabel and Looker and Nanu.  I love that segment. What really bothers me about this generation is that it’s the worst to play by miles.  Totem Pokemon were awful as a decision.  Cool, your idea of “challenge” is making every fight 1v2 with my opponent having like doubled stats, fantastic.  Even random encounters and the Call for Help mechanic just endlessly keeping the battle going if you can’t take out both options in one hit is a nightmare.  And Rotom Phone.  Oooooh my god, with this thing.  I hate it.  Sun and Moon is the only game that is top of its generation that I cannot bring myself to replay.  Even when I pick it up, I put it down as soon as I leave the first city, every time.  I have not made it off the first island in like five years.  It’s just unpleasant.

Ultra Sun/Moon (F1) - And yet somehow, the sequel game is worse.  Imagine having everything bad about the first iteration, but then making the bad parts worse, and tanking the only positive you had.  Totem Pokemon were made infinitely worse, by forcing you to deal with even cheaper strategies like Thick Club Marowak with Protect so it guarantees its partner, or the nightmare of facing Ultra Necrozma’s doubled stats.  In a game where OHKOs aren’t a constant, the idea of a massively powerful foe like that could be interesting.  But this is a turn-based game where every attack that thing throws out kills you.  This isn’t fun, you’ve just developed a check to see if I have enough Revives or Rotom Powers, and the latter is still just waiting to get crit.  It’s wretched. But even more unforgivable is how badly is botches the Aether Family.  Turning Lusamine into just misunderstood parent and having all that trauma and abuse resolved off-screen in the ten minutes you’re gone is insulting.  Having a post-game where Lusamine is turned into a damsel in distress for you to save from Giovanni of all weenies is bad enough, but to then have Lusamine come to and laugh with the family in the room where all her Pokemon are still frozen?  The game is just tone deaf and does nothing to actually rectify the problems it kept.  All the while they introduce the worthless Ultra Recon Squad running around like “Oooh, technology can be so bad for us.”  No it can’t, moron, because that wasn’t your issue!  Your issue was capturing a living entity and torturing it for a power source, you clown!  What are any of you talking about?!  USUM was terrible, and despite originally stating it’s the worst in the series, somehow it would be outdone twice, and even once within its own generation.

Let’s Go (F2) - Talk about a game that’s borderline unplayable and has no redeeming qualities at all.  Do you like having to jerk your controller around the room to throw a Pokeball, only for it to go in a completely different direction than how you moved?  Do you like having no ability to realistically improve your odds of success, and have Pokemon just run away from you at random if you aren’t lucky?  How about all of that, but also there is no challenge to any battle at any point, because the levels are scaled lower and teams truncated to like one Pokemon instead of usual team sizes, so the idea of encountering a challenge is laughable?  No?  Don’t play this game.  I have nothing positive to say.  And it’s not even the worst one.

GEN 8

Sword/Shield (D1) - Having had three years to cool off from the original launch, I’m willing to say there are some positives to these games.  Some.  I think much like XY, there are occasions where it’s something I’ll think about as junk food, but it’s actually harder to get invested in SwSh than XY.  Mostly, it’s because of how often something stupid happens.  Usually it’s “What do you mean they took away Altaria’s natural Dragon Dance?”  Movepools got annihilated this run, and while your options still exist, they now exist through Watts, the super tedious currency of the boring Wild Area.  Wild Area should’ve been huge.  A place to find every Pokemon in the game right at the outset?  You can build any team early!  Finally, my dreams!  But instead, it’s boring space where a ton of areas can’t be accessed because of level constrictions, and the “every Pokemon” is either a lie because you have to find it during specific randomized weather (one of which is only found in post-game), or because they’re in dens, the worst idea of the generation.  Dens suck.  And they suck because of how hard the game insists on hard saves before every action, or locks events to the day on the system calendar, making it impossible to soft-reset for anything you want around the terrible appearance rates.  Despite having Pokemon visually on the field, they put some hidden in the grass at random for no reason, ruining one of the only pure positives the game could’ve had.  I can’t even say it has any good post-game, because all of that is now tied to the concept of DLC, which...is legitimately good and enhanced a ton of what base game felt like it was missing.  Most notably, any sense of exploration?  Wild Area sucked, and each route is a straight line with almost nothing in it.  This region is dead and empty.  But Isle of Armor actually feels more interconnected and like you’re exploring a location, and is what the game probably could’ve been all along.  So unlike XY, which got elevated to B, SwSh is staying down in D, because even though I’ll sometimes go to play it, it’s a legitimately tough sell.

BDSP (F3) - I...literally cannot believe this game is real.  I forget it exists sometimes, when my mind wanders and I can forget the cruelty of the world. BDSP is the worst designed Pokemon game by miles.  Even Let’s Go can be forgiven for just being a bad idea an executive made about tie-ins to mobile games.  BDSP has no such excuse.  It’s a full-price “”remake”“ of Gen 4′s Diamond and Pearl, except it is point for point exactly the same.  Only now with dozens of incredible bugs that snapped the game wide open for people, including being able to circumvent blocks and get their limited time event Pokemon months ahead of schedule.  But the real sin is the League, and rematches.  Every battle has max IVs, max EVs, and a beneficial nature.  This game is a fangame.  This isn’t a main series Pokemon game, it’s the kind of crap you see some moron shit into a fangame after spending too many years arbitrarily complaining about “Difficulty” in Pokemon.  This isn’t a well-designed challenge, because it robs Pokemon of everything it is.  You cannot match this.  You, the player, cannot have perfect IVs.  You cannot have perfect EVs without spending millions of dollars on stat boosters, which requires ungodly amounts of farming random trainer battles that would honestly put you over-leveled anyway.  You can’t get most of this without breeding Pokemon, which should not be a requirement for the base runthrough.  Oh, but I guess it’s not, all you need to do is massively powerlevel to avoid being steamrolled by Aaron’s Heracross.  It’s just another rendition of GSC Red.  Their solution to challenge is to spike the difficulty so sharply that you have no choice but to engage in the mind-numbing process of level-grinding.  But that’s not being challenging, that’s being tedious.  And removing the sensation of being an underdog goes against what Pokemon is.  Do you know why EVs are the way they are?  Why stat experience was a thing, and why none of it is ever mentioned?  Because you’re not supposed to know.  It’s meant to be a hidden mechanic that the player has access to, pushing your stats up to match higher level Pokemon, to facilitate the illusion that you are the newbie underdog overcoming significant challenge through friendship and teamwork.  When you take that away, the game loses all of the charm the series is supposed to work with.  This game isn’t just badly designed, it’s antithetical to the entire series’ function. No love or thought went into this.  I legitimately wish they hadn’t even tried, because they massacred my favorite region.

Legends (A1) - So thank god for Legends.  Legends Arceus is a wonder to me.  After two generations of having some really awful products, having Legends Arceus show up with a fascinating new approach to the series, that builds on the lore of Sinnoh and produces one of the most engaging experiences I’ve had with the series in over a decade, is miraculous.  Yet here we are.  I adore this game with all my heart.  The speed with which progression moves is honestly the biggest improvement.  Who knew that what held the series stagnant was how slow and tedious random encounters were, and how much better it was to just smack that Bidoof in the back of the skull with a Pokeball and call it a day?  Having little action sequences with the boss fights was also fantastic, making the game about more than just the Pokemon battles.  Simplification of mechanics also worked greatly in its favor, with things like Frostbite and Sleepy being infinitely better status conditions than Freeze and Sleep.  And the story.  By god, the story.  This is a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game in spirit, and I adore it for that.  It’s so good, both how it handles its characters and how much it does for the lore of the Sinnoh legends.  It’s all perfect.  There were points in playing this game that I outright squealed in delight with what was presented, it was so good. But, that’s not to say Legends does not have flaws.  There’s a reason it’s not S.  Legends has very little in the way of battling, and as a result, isn’t particularly engaging on that front.  Which is wasn’t specifically trying to be, I can forgive that, but it is an area where it’s lacking to a degree it hurts experience.  Having opposing Pokemon gang up on you, but being unable to use AoE moves, really makes the experience annoying when you’re sitting through like six opposing actions because you made the mistake of leading with Rhydon.  This is especially noticeable, I feel, around Crimson Mirelands, when you don’t have much grit but are focused on getting into those distortions.  Getting hit by multiple enemies is a death sentence without being caught up on grit, which can kinda feel like the original Rescue Team Mystery Dungeon games, when you’re going through an area that is littered with traps and have to just accept that this isn’t for you until you can get the IQ to turn those traps off.  Which isn’t great.  And Alabaster Icelands, despite being a cool location, was never a place I lingered too long, because at that point I’m just eager to blitz the story.  There are points where Legends can feel like a little bit of a drag.  But all of its positives massively outweigh the negatives.

Hopes for Gen 9 If this turns out to be a B-rank game, I will be happy.  Like, that is how much I have to hedge my bets after Gens 7 and 8.  If it can be as good as XY, a game already not that great, I will be satisfied.

I think the biggest hope I have is that they really did take a lot of inspiration from Legends Arceus in their approach this game.  All else aside, the mechanical changes in Legends really made that experience shine.  I’d also hope, though not expect, to see battles become a bit more of a big deal.  Very little in the last three generations ever truly felt threatening and fair at the same time.  XY and SwSh lack a sense of threat in most fights, while SuMo constructed challenges that were terribly designed.  I’d like to see things go back to Emerald/Platinum structures, but honestly if I can go through this fight and feel, legitimately, like thought was put into the team composition and actions of the AI, I’ll take it as a win.

[rusteddreamsstories]

But Have You Thought About...  Here was Matthew trying to harsh my buzz.  I knew that I was going to have a best-seller on my hands.   “We. Will. Finally. Have. Money.”  I iterated to him. “Me, your uncle, you... we’ll have so much fuck-off-money that we will not have to worry about our health care or bill collectors or unexpected expenses ever again!  We can get the food you want all the time!  I’ll be famous!  Not that I care about the fame, I just... want us to not have to WORRY about things anymore!  And with a bestseller... Oh, Matt, it’s going to be the ULTIMATE best-seller!”   I danced around, throwing out my arms. “It’s for us, too!  Have you ever read a book with a disappointing ending?  Or one where a character you loved died and it made no friggin’ sense?”   “Don’t you torture and kill your characters all the time?” Matt contended, “You brag about it!”   “Enough about me and my dark writer’s tastes and my love of drinking up salty reader-tears!” I shouted.  I’d pinned a towel to the shoulders of my tee-shirt like a superhero cape - or a villain-cape.  I felt like I needed a cape for this moment for some reason, and since capes were not exactly fashionable, a towel would have to do.  “Anyway... I kill off characters when it makes sense!   But, you know what? I’ll concede this.  Some readers may not think it makes sense.  They won’t have to say goodbye to their favorite characters anymore!  It’s perfect for everyone!”   “Do you know how much porn you just created?”   “I live on the Internet, of course I do.  This shores up one of my weaknesses!  You know my asexual, sex-repulsed ass cannot write good porn!  And I know from being in fanfiction circles that it’s what soooo many people want!  This book will read their thoughts and if they want it, they get it!  And I do not have to worry about my lack of skill!”   “Uh... you do remember that toy-commercial we just saw on Nostalgia Critic about the dancing unicorn-toddlers singing about poop, right?  You’re just going to unleash more of THAT into the world!”   I sighed.  “As long as it keeps people in their weird little corners. If a reader wants that, it will happen in their heads.  The book is not universal.”   “YOU JUST CREATED AN SCP!!!!”   “Um... It’s not designed to literally suck anyone into the story and give them a life that they never want to come back from.  The Story that Writes Itself will remain words on the page.”   “IT’S STILL AN SCP!”   “The SCP Foundation is not real.”   Matt sat down heavily in the gamer-chair in the living-room.  “What happens when someone wants to make a movie out of your book, Shads?  No one will agree on what movie to make!”   “I told you about tumblr and ‘Goncharav,” right?  It’ll be like that! It’ll be fun!”   “People will fight about it!  You’ve been in fandom!  You’ve been cyberbullied in fandom!  You know what fandom is like!  It’s crazy!”   I briefly contemplated the concept of “Misery.”  I’d never seen the film in whole, nor had I read the book, but I knew of the concept.  I mean, my book would be absolutely made to prevent such happenings by crazy fans because what happens to the characters are exactly what they want to happen, and perhaps, for a few readers, the story would be neverending.  You know, not like that movie I loved from my childhood that actually frickin’ ended and had the most horrific, low-budget sequels imaginable.  False advertising and the eventual ending of the franchise was a mercy.  Crazy-evil ladies with sledgehammers would be safely ensconced in reading my book, with no need to come after me or to engage in the crazy fandom behavior that characterizes most fandoms when they disagree on interpretations of characters and plots.   But Matt was right... A book that was different for every reader WOULD cause untold arguments and fandom-fights.   “What if people are so interested in reading it that they stop working?”   “Work sucks,” I said.  “You know I’m a socialist at heart.  Maybe my book will worm its way into the hearts of people who secretly feel the same way as i do and inspire them to overthrow the ruling class and create a more equitable society.”   “You’re crazy, Shads... well, crazier than usual.  Also, what if it doesn’t go that way?  If people read what they want? What if the book is about Donald Trump being a superhero for some of them?”  Oh shit.  Oh shit, oh, shit, oh shit!   I had been following a Let’s Read on Youtube in which the reader was subjecting himself to a book someone had written arguing that Donald Trump was the true Messiah.   Oh, no, no, no....  My book... indeed would belong in the halls of the SCP, if it existed.  I would inspire its fandom to tear each other apart!  It would keep people reading, reading, reading to the point where they’d forget to feed themselves!  They’d be trapped in their own ideas instead of being exposed to the fresh ideas of fresh authors!  It might deify horrible, horrible people because, let’s face it, many people in the world are horrible...  I couldn’t publish this book.  At least...not until I’d worked out the kinks!  

"Well, it just doesn't seem…ethical." Your friend slowly says to you. "Ethical?" You yell back at him. "Who cares about morals when I have created a masterpiece! A book that learns what the reader likes and changes its script accordingly. Imagine that, the perfect book!"

[absolutebl]

This Week In BL

April 2021 Part 5

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs.

Ongoing Series - Thai

Close Friend Ep 2 (JaFirst) - First is a cat. No actually a cat. It was WEIRD. Cute, but creeping towards beastiality. It reminded me of that strange series out of China (@heretherebedork says Youth in the Breeze). The most amusing thing to me was that the cat used Thai formal linguistic register when of course cats would use informal rude guu mueng with EVERYONE. No cat would use pom. Don’t be ridiculous, Thailand. 

Second Chance Ep 5 - still invested, things progressed for all 3 couples, in one direction or another. They cuties. I love them. Carry on. 

Y-Destiny Ep 5 - the “virgin scoreboard” is gonna make the seme real hard to redeem with this pairing. If they bother. This might be a life lesson episode. What does it remind me of? Oh yes. Kids. *SHUDDER* Point of interest: did you notice Team uses ha with Mon? What a pushy flirt. 

Lovely Writer Ep 10 - honestly I just love it when Poppy shows up in anything, why is he such a delightful screen presence? (Gene’s brother) Sorry, distracted. What happened in this one? Oh, ya know, stuff and things. Family drama. (It is just me or have they been giving us some long ass episodes lately?) Obligatory beach trip activated. (Result = dumb probability mathematics jokes.) Next week it looks like we have Keeping Actor’s Closeted 101. You know the Casting Couch? This is the Casting Closet. 

Fish Upon The Sky Ep 4 - early stage confession, how fun. It’s not unprecedented it just usually means we are in 4 act structure, not 3, which means Fish might go more serious than I thought. Honestly? I’m losing interest mostly because I’ve gone from mild annoyance to active dislike of Pi. Happened to me with Tine too. They better redeem this obtuse tsundere uke soon or he’s not tsundere at all he’s just a jackwit. 

Brothers Ep 13 fin - a kiss and the family finds out about the not-so-brotherly brothers, drama, graduation, THE END. My side-dish happy heart made thumps over Q + delivery boy, I’m sad they got so little screen time. My babies KhunKaow did get a tiny coming out sequence as such. I’m seriously considering doing myself a bootleg of just the KhunKaow plot, but that means I’d have to rewatch the whole darn series and I can’t STAND the idea. Which should give you insight into how not good this show it. Very NOT good. Must we get a season 2? Please stop now, Line. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

HIStory 4: Close To You (Taiwan) Ep 7 - Muren is the cutest peanut and anyone who says otherwise can fight me, although they probably have to go through Licheng first. I was NOT invested in these two at the beginning, but as a couple? They own my soul. The other storyline is still the dumpster fire that I can’t decide to roast marshmallows over (knowing they’ll get tinged with eu de trash) or flee from in horror clutching my pearls and my nose. H4 continues to provide the quality psyche torture I’ve come to expect from this franchise. *sarcastic thumbs up*  *** A word on seeing Boxiang show up (side dish from H3:MODC). It was an unexpected pleasure, I loved his pairing (May/December is a winner for me *glares at Method*) but I do think it was a bone from the franchise telling us that we are never getting that spin-off or reboot that people yearn for. However, how AWESOME that Licheng has someone to go to and ask about topping properly. Otherwise he’s sure to have screwed it up. (Pun intended.) 

Papa & Daddy (Tailwan) Ep 1-2 - this came out of nowhere and is ADORABLE. Applies a ton of BL tropes (cheek kiss, his closet, B&W stripes, drag baby around, boop) but what IS it? More slice of gay domesticity than romance. Like 2019′s Kinou Nani Tabeta? or currently airing Close Friend. I enjoy this style, very wholesome, but I’m not sure what to call it. (Bonus points for cutie lesbians.) A bit weird to have a kid with your partner and STILL not be out to your parents. I hope they aren’t going to throw in a break up for dramatic effect. 

My Lascivious Boss (Vietnam) Ep 4 - I’m really enjoying this series. It’s unabashedly queer, although there’s some problematic stuff lurking under the wig. How it ends is gonna dictate if they handled this stylishly. But hot damn the leads ZING on screen together and their crackling prank-flirting is a joy to watch. 

Word of Honor (China) Ep 31-33 - moving into the home stretch. Big rescue and the band is back together (presumably for the final slaughter). Then a death! *this is my shocked face* Did I tear up? Of course I did. 4 act structure is designed for maximum pathos during the final 1/4. Did we all faint from the symbolism of the love token hair stick being gently thrust into Ah Xu’s bun? Sure we did. All that and sill I’m flagging. This is a long-arse show. Save me, Korea, with your iItsy bitsy teenie weenie...

Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding (Korea) Ep 5-6 - I am getting such strong 12th Night vibes from this. Tae Hyung is now brigadier of BL’s historical himbo brigade. (To be deployed whenever you are in need of poetry or a cut sleeve.) This show is all ridiculous charm and I LOVE it. Although, five seconds of Lee Sang is not enough Lee Sang. I had to immediately rewatch Wish You. 

Gossip

Nitiman gave us an actor intro BTS teaser. 

Kang In Soo (AKA Kyang Insoo) posted a cute behind the photo shoot of Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding plus a silly interview with Jang Eui Soo on his YouTube channel (you should subscribe, it’s a fun channel, his fitness regime is both insane and inspiring). 

My Engineer 2 dropped a couch interview with the boys but it feels like one that was filmed a while ago (oh and no subs).  

STARTING SOON: Nitiman, Love Area, Top Secret Together, Be Loved in House, & I Promised You The Moon  

Nitiman (Thai) May 7, One 31. University set, moons, engineering students, enemies to lovers, adapted. - Looks to be a solid 2 Moons knock off, I’m in.

Love Area (Thai) May 8, AIS Play, 10 eps total. Restaurant set, stars Pak Chavitpong (the only good thing about Cupid Coach) and the OST is sung by Jeff Satur (Ingredients). - It’s boys in love revolving around food = my kryptonite, try to stop me from watching this probable trash. 

Top Secret Together (Thai) May 14, Line TV. 5 couples, one IRL (Newyear from I Am Your King), story arcs revolve around secrets.  - I’m getting fatigued by these multi-couple sampler pack dramas, but I’ll try it for Newyear’s sake.  

Be Loved in House: I Do (Taiwan YES!) May 20, Viki. Office set, relationships prohibited at work by a new boss, one of the employees is determined to figure out why. Grumpy/tsundere pairing so loads of drama. - I am so flipping excited for this one. A 4th BL series from Taiwan in less than a year? That’s unprecedented. GO BABY ISLAND GO! 

I Promised You the Moon (Thai) May 27, Line TV. Follow up to I Told Sunset About You with the boys now at university. - I won’t be watching this as I have yet to finish season 1. 

Possibly Gameboys season 2.  - Rumors are all over the place right now on this. 

Next Week Looks Like This: 

Some shows may be listed later than actual air date for International accessibility reasons. 

Upcoming 2021 BL master post here.

Links to watch are provided when possible, ask in a comment if I missed something.

[phoenixyfriend]

I’ve been trying to figure out the best obi wan ship. They all have one slightly problematic thing this way or that. I’ve landed on the idea of obi wan and an equal is pretty top tier. But then I saw a picture of Coran from voltron. Coran and Obiwan might be a disaster but also both are dad shaped, both are bad ass, both are ginger, both have an accent. I think it could work. But another part of me is like Coran is just obi and jarjar mashed together. At the very least they hooked up.

Hey I just had restaurant ramen and Starbucks and actually feel like a human being so let's do something unnecessary but funny. I'm taking this as a challenge, anon.

Also IMO Coran has more in common with C3P0 than with JarJar

So obviously, both of these happen in Big Space, but the difference appears to be density. We see about the same complexity of culture and species interactions, but Voltron covers more galaxies. It's vaguely implied that Earth, at least, is the only planet with sapient life in the Milky Way.

I think the way I want to play this out, culturally, is that the Voltron area of the universe covers a much wider, but much more sparsely populated area, while the SW-verse is just the one very densely populated (in part because apparently humans just went Literally Everywhere) galaxy, where they didn't necessarily bother with developing the tech to go to other galaxies (except Rishi, which only sort of counts) because they haven't really even charted out their own yet. It was never contacted by the Voltron side of things because [checks notecards full of excuses] it's really far away from Altea and all that, and the Force shielded the galaxy from Galra interests because Reasons.

All this to say that the two franchises didn't interact until after the Voltron plotline was already over. We'll say it went mostly canon, except Allura survived because uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh fuck that.

We'll say that this is mid-TCW, you know, before Obi-Wan is a bundle of repressed traumas and bad coping mechanisms that's lost almost everyone he's ever loved to the dark side through death or corruption. He's still (mostly) okay! Anakin's not dark (or at least, not as dark as he could be; Obi-Wan doesn't know about the Tuskens), and Ahsoka's still in good standing and most people are alive and--and okay the army is a massive ethical violation he hates with his very soul and he misses Qui-Gon and Anakin's keeping secrets and pulling away from him every day but He's Fine, Guys.

He's Fine.

In comes a ship from not Wild Space, but beyond that. Intergalactic visitors, from the direction of the deeply concerning Force bullshit they felt a few years ago. Translation tech is decent enough on both sides that they get to talking pretty quickly. The explorer is actually a member of the Blade of Marmora, who gets the absolute most basic info (approximately this many inhabited planets, approximately this many trillions of sapients in the recorded galaxy, basic structure of the government for the past however many years, most recent conflict, etc.)

BoM person is like "cool, okay so you guys are really well set-up so I'm just gonna head back and kick this up a few rungs of the coalition ladder because this is way above my paygrade, I'll make sure you get some diplomats who can maybe help out with the whole galactic civil war situation as neutral parties."

The Voltron Coalition does send a diplomat! They, uh, also send Coran, who isn't technically a diplomat, but he's high-level.

The thing is, okay, that Coran is mostly just... passably competent at things. He's a jack of all trades, master of none type. He knows a lot of things, actually, but his practical knowledge in high pressure situations tends to be up in the air. He knows how to fix the Castle Ship and various technologies, but all of that info is ten thousand years out of date. He was a competent fighter at one point but these days his back gives out. He's very knowledgeable regarding intergalactic politics but, again, that information is ten thousand years out of date. He's also a little prone to social gaffs in dicey situations (e.g. the inciting incident in the Voltron Show episode where he misses the single day with clear skies), but puts in so much goddamn effort to make things happen.

In this manner, he's like a warped mirror of what Obi-Wan is and could be.

THAT SAID

Coran is actually really good with teenagers, and specifically with training them.

And Obi-Wan... isn't.

Obi-Wan's snarky and snippy and sassy, and he's decent enough at teaching and he's great at being a jokey friend and all, but he's not necessarily very good at emotions. And unfortunately for Obi-Wan, the teenagers he spends the most time with are Really Full Of Emotions. He tries, bless him, but he's just... he doesn't respond well to emotional conversations at the best of times.

His son-figure saying "You're like a father to me" leads to a response of... radio silence. Guys. That's not the mark of a man who knows how to talk about his feelings with the people he cares about.

In swans Coran with the various other diplomatic envoys of the visiting extragalactic community. The entire situation is really leading to a lull in the war because nobody wants to risk pissing off this clearly well-funded, well-powered third party. As a result, many of the High Generals can interact with the envoys, even if they spend quite a bit of time eyeing the Separatist representatives on the other side of the room, because clearly Everyone Needs A Seat At This Table.

It's a very tense situation.

Obviously, Coran is exactly the weird uncle that goes around telling plausibly-exaggerated stories about Weblums and Yalmors and Balmeras. I'm going to say at least one former Paladin is there, maybe Hunk. Hunk's fun, and also very willing to help Coran make friends and seem Amicable instead of Distant by correcting some of the exaggerations. There's a nice, calm atmosphere in a bubble around Coran and his nonsense, and it's a weird situation but arguably just... you know. It's good. He's good at making people feel safe around him.

Cue the hissed argument between Skywalker and Kenobi. The actual cause of said argument isn't important, just the fact that, in a dark corner where they're less likely to cause a PR issue, Anakin and Obi-Wan are having it out. Anakin's maybe twenty, still a lanky ragebaby, all that fun stuff. Obi-Wan is a the endpoint of every too-young brotherdad. He's thirty-six but feels like he's sixty-three. He's tired, but trying so damn hard to still connect with Anakin and just--just--

Obi-Wan gives himself a few minutes to calm down before following Anakin. He doesn't even remember what they were arguing about, really, but he has to mend the bridge before it frays even more than it already has. If Anakin goes to Palpatine for advice again, he's going to... do something. Obi-Wan isn't sure what, but he just has to fix this.

What he finds is... well, Anakin did end up going to vent to a man of an earlier generation who acts like a slightly eccentric older relative, but it's not Palpatine for once.

The goofy, slightly abrasive but mostly charming, brightly-colored representative of the Voltron Coalition is standing in the little balcony that Anakin's made it to, listening as Obi-Wan's recently-knighted padawan vents. The man nods and makes noises at the appropriate times, and then asks questions that are... maybe a little too accurate.

"You said that you view him as a father, that he raised you after you left your mother."

"Well, yeah, but he doesn't think I'm ready, or--"

"No parent ever does."

"...my mom thought I was ready to become a Jedi."

"I can't speak for your mother," the representative says, "but the princess of my people, Allura... I half-raised that girl from the beginning, and after the destruction of Altea, we were all the other had left. I watched her lead battles and bring life to planets, trying to rebuild a universe out of the ashes of what we'd left behind... I saw the evidence with my own eyes, and I still, every time, I worried for her."

"Why?"

"I worried that she'd be hurt, that she wasn't ready, that she'd make a decision she regretted. Often, she did, and I had to help her back up, and while she's always come back, stronger than before... she is the closest thing I have ever had to a daughter, and I will always worry for her. Every parent does. Do you think, perhaps, that your own Jedi Master, that you consider a father, may worry because he looks at you like a son? That it's not that he doesn't trust you, but that he doesn't trust the world around you?"

Obi-Wan feels his heart in his throat.

The conversation continues in that vein. While Obi-Wan can't say he likes the fact that this stranger is putting words in his mouth, if only as hypotheticals, he can't deny that there's a part of him that relaxes as Anakin does, as every frustrated fresh-knight question gets a measured elderly-steward response that's angled to consider the interpretation that favors Anakin and Obi-Wan in equal measure. Every word encourages Anakin to talk things out and lay boundaries and express his frustrations to Obi-Wan in the plainest words possible.

There's a story in there, more than one. The representative tends to go off on tangents, ones that Anakin sometimes finds interesting and sometimes just resigns himself to. Mostly, though, it goes well, and Obi-Wan... well, he's always been 'a nosy little bastard,' according to quite a few people.

(In his defense, the terms they'd used about Quinlan's 'investigative personality' had been quite a bit stronger.)

He eavesdrops to the end, and Anakin doesn't notice at all. Obi-Wan's not sure if he should try to address Anakin's lack of awareness of the world around him. He's not technically Anakin's master anymore. The comment may be taken as a criticism of his worth and capability, rather than a sincere desire to see his padawan not die.

He approaches the representative instead. He intends to introduce himself. Instead, the first words that tumble out of his mouth are:

"How do you do it?"

The man--older than he looks from a distance, more wrinkles than the bright hair would suggest, but not quite elderly yet--turns and lifts a brow. "Hm?"

"I'm sorry, I'm--" Obi-Wan grimaces. "I'm Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. The young man you were just talking to is my former padawan, er, my former apprentice. I've been finding it harder and harder to speak with him over the past few years, and it seems that every interaction we have leads to an argument. How do you... manage that? I can't get him to listen to me at all."

"Ah, teenagers," the man sighs.

"He's twenty."

The representative pauses, and turns to him. "Are you the one he says raised him? The father?"

"Well... yes, I suppose that's one way to phrase it," Obi-Wan says, eyes darting to the side. He doesn't know how to explain the whole attachment situation to someone who barely knows what a Jedi is. He has even less of an idea of how to explain his own broken ability to speak of emotion, the parts of his mind that Bant clucks over and attributes to his own complicated relationship with Qui-Gon. "I had custody as his primary guardian from ages nine to nineteen and was the primary individual for handling his schooling, health, and general upbringing."

"That sounds to me like a very convoluted way of saying you were his father in all but name."

Obi-Wan grimaces. "I'm not exactly old enough to be his father, and I wasn't exactly the person he was supposed to learn from; I was the... back-up option."

"It seems he cares for you very much."

"He didn't have much of a choice," Obi-Wan says, with the kind of helpless smile and awkward shrug he's long gotten used to sharing with people when they ask. "And I assure you he'd have been happier with the man that was meant to teach him."

"I'd say that the 'would have' in this situation is much less important than what is," the representative says. Obi-Wan probably should have paid more attention to his name. "I wasn't in a position to define my relation to Allura or her father in the way that truly suited our situation, by... oh, tradition, social norms, public relations, take your pick. I was a very well-regarded official, of course, but I wasn't royalty, not even nobility, and I certainly wasn't wasn't legally or publicly part of the family. But for all the limitations there, I was still able to find ways to tell her and her family what they meant to me, and they in return. Your apprentice cares for you very much, and I'm sure you care back, but I'd hazard quite the guess that you've no idea how to tell him that."

"I... I shouldn't," Obi-Wan says. "I'm fond of him, of course, but I've no wish to smother him, and to simply say it would be undignified. I imagine he'd laugh in my face."

The representative raises one eyebrow and takes a sip of his drink.

"Master Kenobi," he says carefully. "Might I suggest you go find your young man, tell him you love him, and perhaps give him a hug?"

Obi-Wan's face flares red. It's been years since anyone short of Yoda has spoken to him like that.

"I'm not a child," he sniffs, trying to angle enough away that the blush isn't as noticeable. He's damnably prone to such things. "You're not that much older than me."

The man laughs, and Obi-Wan lifts his glass to his lips in a futile attempt to hid the embarrassment a little more. "Oh, not counting the stasis, I've well reached the age of six hundred and twenty-four, my boy!"

Obi-Wan chokes on his drink.

The man laughs a little more, but thumps him on the back until he's breathing normally again.

"Yes, most of the humans I've told have had quite the reaction!" the representative assures him. "But yes, even with the times adjusted to what any given local year is, I am significantly longer-lived than most species."

"No kidding," Obi-Wan manages. He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand and looks over at the representative. He takes in the wrinkles and bright eyes, and says, "Well, I must say you look very well for a near-human of such an age. I can only name one person in that category that has managed better, and I haven't seen her since I was a child."

"I shall take that as the compliment it's intended to be," the representative says, twisting the edge of his mustache and beaming.

The man is... well, goofy, really, and quite a bit older than Obi-Wan had thought, but he's quite the charmer. Obi-Wan faintly compares him to a few different people in the back of his mind, but nothing quite fits. For all that the man is quite the jokester and--going by some things he'd seen from the corner of his eye in the main party--a master of physical comedy, the representative is actually more competent than he looks, and for all his visible age, not bad to look at. He is also, seemingly, an expert in dealing with teenagers and young adults, something Obi-Wan himself is... decidedly not.

He really should go speak with Anakin.

And there's a war to fight.

He doesn't really have much time, even with the recent lull.

He's in no place to be looking at the clean-shaven jaw and wondering what it would feel like under his lips, or to let himself consider whether this man would be the kind to have an hours-long discussion as to the narrative forms common in other galaxies, and whether they have anything paralleled to those in Obi-Wan's own, or if this man would show the same enthusiasm over teas that he'd shown over the hors d'oeuvres inside.

He should... really go find Anakin.

"I suppose it's time to find my padawan," he says, more to fill the air than anything. "Er... thank you, both for speaking with him, and for speaking with me."

"Not a problem at all, Master Kenobi!" the representative says, and Obi-Wan realizes that there's one last thing he may have... forgotten.

"This is terribly embarrassing, but I don't believe I caught your name?" Obi-Wan says.

"Coran Hieronymus Wimbleton Smythe, at your service!" the man says, with a sweeping bow. "As you can imagine, most simply call me Coran."

"Then I insist you call me Obi-Wan," he says, and before he can stop himself, "Might I bother you with an invitation to a shared tea time? You seem a knowledgeable fellow, and I'd appreciate the chance to... eh, pick your brain, shall we say."

It's not the smoothest come on he's ever put out there, or the most easily interpreted, but... well. Perhaps it's for the best. He's rather often found his tastes going in irresponsible directions, and it'll be much easier to brush this off without diplomatic incident if there's room for Coran to politely ignore the less platonic options.

Obi-Wan hopes he doesn't.

It's very selfish of him, but a dalliance with an older gentleman... well. He does, perhaps, make such irresponsible decisions, even now.

"I do believe I'd enjoy such a thing!" Coran enthuses, grabbing Obi-Wan's hand and shaking it in large, effusive movements.

Oh, this is a terrible idea, Obi-Wan thinks, even as he exchanges comm numbers and says goodbye.

Still.

He likes the idea of having at least a little fun, sedate or less so, while they have some time to themselves.

[shihalyfie]

I’m a diehard 02 fan who does not want a reboot and never wanted a reboot, and here’s why

This is one of my few editorial-esque pieces, but this is something some friends and I have been discussing for a while, and given what’s going on right now, I feel like this needs to be said at some point.

Sometimes I feel like there’s a really massive gap between what 02 fans want (especially diehard ones) and what people think 02 fans want. I'm not saying that media should only be catering to hardcore fans, and if more casual fans of 02 or people who simply just happen to have a stake in the full franchise have their own opinions on what they wanted to see out of 02-related media, that’s perfectly fine, and they have a right to have those expectations. What I’m mainly writing this about is sentiments that talk about how Toei is apparently doing 02 a disservice or sweeping it under the bus by not rebooting it (which basically comes with an implication that giving it respect would mandate it being rebooted just because Adventure was), or talking about how doing a reboot would please 02 fans just by giving their favorite characters more rep. (Although, I suppose the simultaneous reveal of an actual 02-related movie kind of killed any grounds for claiming that the lack of a 02 reboot meant sidelining 02. You can’t really claim that they’re sidelining 02 when they’re making a whole movie, after all...)

Of course, I don’t claim to speak for every single 02 fan out there (so if you’re a 02 fan who doesn’t agree with anything I’m about to say, I apologize and hope I don’t sound presumptuous), and I highly doubt I represent the mainstream, but I felt I should input my perspective as a 02 fan who’s friends with a handful of other 02 fans, who have discussed this extensively and all have the same feelings on the topic, and why it’s kind of frustrating to keep hearing this kind of thing from people who assume that all fans of something should want to see more things that resemble them by default without any more nuance to it.

It won’t actually improve much that’s worth it

I’m going to be blunt about it: I think more people who supposedly want this 02 reboot are people who hate or dislike 02 than people who actually are fans of the series, because they’re doing this under the sentiment that “this was a bad series, so a redo would improve it.” You can especially tell because a lot of people acting like a reboot is in 02′s best interest are the same people being scathingly critical of the current Adventure: reboot right now, so you can see that this kind of mentality comes from people who clearly understand that a reboot won’t necessarily be something everyone likes all that much, and thus believe 02 is so unsalvageably bad that you couldn’t possibly make it worse. So you can probably understand why I’m not exactly patient with this kind of take.

If we are to be charitable, though -- if this sentiment comes out of a genuine feeling that 02 had missed potential that could be addressed by the reboot -- I want to ask everyone if they really believe that this theoretical reboot would be a net improvement, especially one that’s worth all the time and effort involved, and even more especially given the writing style that the current Adventure: reboot is employing. You don’t have to claim it’s a perfect series or anything to understand the sentiment that it held up enough by itself to not necessitate a whole anime series being made to do another take on it.

Something I would like to remind people who love to claim that 02 is such a despised series is that it made around 89% of Adventure’s revenue at the time it aired, and despite those who despise 02 being very vocal on the Internet, the actual mainstream tends to be very positive about it, especially in terms of anything to do with Ken (whom most reasonable people will agree had a character arc that deserves acclaim). So in other words, if you want to do a reboot, most likely you would want to do it without offending the base that likes the series already, right? (Especially since, you know, recent events have proven that upsetting the real-life 02 fanbase is actually a pretty inadvisable idea...)

Here’s the thing: Once you filter out most of the “scapegoat” reasons people tend to criticize 02, the one that’s generally the most agreed upon is how disorganized the plot gets in the second half. So this so-called ideal situation reboot would supposedly iron out all of the messy plot writing and make use of the “wasted potential” the series had -- but 02 was way more than just a narrative storyline with characters walking around in it, and when it comes to the reasons people were so drawn to it, they’re tied to the series themes about regrets and making up for the past, and about the unreasonable pressures that society places on children. That, and also the most important one, the central theme of human relationships, and the charismatic and well-developed (yes, really) characters. The so-called “messier” second half of 02 was full of payoff for a lot of what was set up in the first half in regards to its themes, and a lot of its subplots or character flairs are packed in really small nuances that are easy to miss on the first watch.

What this means is that 02 is a series that works off of a lot of delicate balances. Adventure could be “rebooted” because everything was very clear-cut and straightforward, which meant that you could change almost everything about the plot and still relatively adhere to the primary points of “kids gain self-awareness through a journey in another world”. (Like, I really hate to break it to those who put Adventure on a pedestal, but this is mainly possible because Adventure doesn’t really have much of a plot besides “defeat enemy” followed by “defeat bigger enemy”...) In the case of 02, everything regarding the story is, for better or for worse, much more deeply tied to the plot, the narrative behind the Kaiser and the traces of psychological horror laced into everything, and the second-half evolution mechanic, Jogress, has a lot to do with the developments related to the human relationships narrative. Moreover, a lot of the reasons that people call it “bad” for are deeply tied to the exact same reasons a lot of people like it -- that its takes on certain topics were heavily nuanced and unconventional, meaning it could cover ground that most media wouldn’t go anywhere near -- and so the series loses too much of its identity if those aspects are removed, even if it ostensibly seems like “streamlining” it.

So if you mess with one thing, a lot of it falls apart -- and in fact, considering the writing style that the Adventure: reboot is using right now, it’s hard to imagine that applying it to 02 would make it any better. Actually, it seems like it wouldn’t address any of the grievances anyone has with it to any substantial degree, and it’d be more likely to axe all of the stuff that were integral to 02′s identity, like the social commentary, or the heavy focus on human relationships, or the unusual sort of character nuance it employed, and...basically, we go back to the same question: is this actually worth it?

02 itself was about not having this kind of sentiment

The main reason most 02 fans get upset about the 02 characters not being included in Adventure canon-related things that should rightfully include them is that, quite simply, they’re part of the canon! In fact, most 02 fans like Adventure too, so they like the way 02 built on Adventure’s worldbuilding, and moreover they’re attached to the web of relationships between the Adventure and 02 groups -- 02′s additions to Adventure’s worldbuilding and the nature of what it established around the neighborhoods of Odaiba and Tamachi were not only added on but also deeply entangled with what was established before, so you can’t just act like none of it exists!

So this also means that once we’re talking about a completely different universe, absolutely none of this applies and there’s no expectations to adhere to any of this. The 02 quartet doesn’t exist in this universe? Cool.

Funny thing about 02: one of the biggest themes the story revolved around was “not getting caught up in the past, and moving forward with what you have instead,” so it’s probably pretty understandable that a lot of people who like 02 would be the type who wouldn’t be fond of rehashing stuff too much (and even more so it involves 02 itself), especially since being okay with 02 as a sequel likely means being okay with change in general. To make something really new out of it, you might as well...actually make something new out of it, or cover some truly new territory, instead of bothering with this whole reboot business, you know?

One thing you might notice about a lot of 02 fans is that they’re not actually all that fond of the idea of canon putting the group through more massive suffering or emotional ordeals after 02 compared to most. I mean, I think it’s pretty normal to enjoy your favorite characters going through emotional trouble, but the aversion to it often tends to be much stronger than usual, regardless of what country’s fanbase we’re talking, and even the official staff for Kizuna seems to have somewhat recognized that the 02 group is most in its element when in the context of fun and silliness. All things considered, this probably isn’t particularly surprising when you take into account the fact that “just being able to hang out with each other as casual friends at all” was considered such a blessing, and such a difficult goal to reach, that there’s a natural aversion to seeing them go through more emotional suffering again. The new trailer for the upcoming movie seems to have Daisuke in a relatively good mood (and even then, “please don’t make it too emotionally vicious for them” is a pretty common plea).

So if you want to talk about rehashing all of their old problems, seeing it all over again is just not very fun. It’s like holding Ken’s sins over his head again, even if it’s in a different universe; it just doesn’t feel right when the series itself endorsed the best possible outcome for these kids to be “to live happily and at peace with themselves, no matter what happened beforehand”. They worked so hard to get out of it, so to decide we have to do this entire rodeo again for the sake of doing it again, instead of trying something new is...well, it’s not that appealing of an idea, I have to say.

The real-life impact would be intolerable

It’s no secret that the 02 hatedom is a bit uncomfortably vocal about it, but what tends to be really frustrating about it is how many of them love to dunk on the series based on misremembering it. It’s fair that, if you don’t like a series, you probably wouldn’t want to watch it again, but as someone who’s spent a lot of years unpacking all the little details in the series and noticing that it’s much deeper than it initially seems on the surface, it’s honestly annoying to see “criticism” of the series that’s actually just dunking on it based on details that are genuinely factually incorrect (it’d be one thing if it were a question of subjectivity, but no, so many of the insults 02 often gets are based on things that legitimately did not happen in the series).

In the end, I admit that 02′s penchant for ridiculous subtlety probably worked against it a bit too much, and I’ve already covered its impact on how the series gets misread a lot. Thing is, this kind of subtlety was a thing in Adventure too, and it all leads to the unfortunate effect that a lot of people tend to forget what actually happened in Adventure if they haven’t seen it for more than a few years. With the current reboot right now, you’ll see people saying that certain characters are the same as they were in the original series, even though in most respects they’re actually the opposite -- because a lot of said people only remember them by the surface characteristics that seem to be similar.

So when you look at 02, and consider the fact that even official media -- including the official American English dub and V-Tamer -- has been a bit too prone to not handling Daisuke’s character tastefully and reducing him to traits that make him easy to dislike, you might realize that handling these characters improperly runs an extremely high risk of actually turning them into the flat, unlikeable characters that people tend to accuse them of being -- imagine Daisuke where his entire character is about fixating over Hikari and being impulsive, or Miyako being nothing but self-centered and selfish, or Iori being genuinely stoic and missing the nuances of constantly holding his emotions back. And making it worse is that this would basically solidify these negative perceptions of the characters even further -- because people, especially those inclined to hate the series, would take it as further evidence that the characters have always been like this, reflect it back on the original, and everything would really just become a miserable experience. (Those who are particularly inclined to be malicious against 02 would probably even claim a reboot to be “better than the original” no matter whatever it is, because of the belief that 02 is so incredibly terrible that literally anything would be better than it.)

It’s not my business to dictate other people’s opinions, but it’s already been a frustrating twenty years of dealing with this kind of thing, so of course I’m not going to be enthusiastic about the idea of putting up with more of it...