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seattlesea · 3 years

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✨My (maybe) Unpopular Heroes of Olympus Opinions✨

(maybe part one??? idk)

-I don’t really ship any of the main canon ships in HoO. None of them had any chemistry and most of them are either pedophilic, forced and rushed, or toxic in some way

-Most of the characters that were shoved into relationships (Leo, Nico, and Hazel especially) really did not need a love interest to complete their character arcs and their relationships ended up boring and flat cause Riordan just wanted everyone to have a love interest and it never went deeper than the skin

-Piper took advantage over Jason’s amnesiac state and manipulated him. She really went ‘But what if he has a girlfriend he can’t remember 👉👈 it would be wrong to start a relationship with him while he still has amnesia 👉👈 and cause it was based off lies and fake memories 👉👈 lmao imma just jump all over him and make him fall for me while he’s still amnesiac 🤪’ as if that’s not taking advantage over someone’s mental state

-And then she blamed her relationship being forced on Aphrodite and Hera saying they ‘forced her into a relationship’ and ‘arranged their relationship’ even though Aphrodite never said anything about or did anything to them and Hera gave Piper fake memories of them being a couple but it was Piper’s conscious choice to act out on those memories she knew were fake and her relationship was in no way influenced by anyone (especially Hera and Aphrodite) other than herself

-Shelper and Solangelo were way too rushed and forced (inside and outside of the books) and were only added for publicity, plus it seems like most of the fandom only like them cause they’re LGBTQ+ ships

-I hate Pipeyna and Pipabeth. My girls (especially Reyna) deserve better than some manipulative little girl who went ‘we were friends? no weren’t ❤️’

-The fandom portrays the characters really inaccurately (tweaking them a bit for humor is fine, but changing their entire personality is a different thing)

-The movies actually aren’t that bad when not compared to the books (I mean, you gotta admit- it’s pretty good effects for 2010)

-And speaking of the movies, they did a better job at portraying Thalia and Annabeth’s relationship in one movie than Riordan did in 5+ books

-Speaking of which, Riordan wrote pretty much every platonic friendship that weren’t Thalia/Nico and Reyna horribly and most of them shouldn’t have been friends and wasted all the potential for the good friendships

-Calypso should’ve joined the Hunters, not Reyna

-Annabeth and Piper are horrible friends lmao (separately and together)

-Silena is a hero and deserves redemption, but Luke doesn’t despite most of the fandom agreeing he does (he was a pedophile y’all)

-The fandom over-exaggerated the Tartarus fall, it wasn’t really that bad tbh

-Reyna is stronger and a better leader than Annabeth

-Annabeth’s intelligence is more tell than show (and quite a few characters including Leo, Reyna, and Octavian have shown more intelligence than her)

-Riordan over-glorifies and overpowers Percy way too much. Just cause he’s the main character doesn’t mean he has to be the best of the best after barely 8 months of training (four years at CHB only in the summers is 8 months total)

-Speaking of which, Jason can beat Percy (8 months versus Jason’s twelve years) and so can Annabeth, Reyna, Thalia, Hylla, Luke, Hazel and maybe Frank and Nico. Percy’s skill is overrated and unrealistic

-And I feel like most of the fandom knows that Jason can beat Percy but just doesn’t want to admit it cause they like Percy more

-Same thing with the Greeks and Romans- the majority know the Romans are stronger and can easily beat the Greeks but they don’t want to believe it cause they favor the Greeks more

-Percy and Annabeth shouldn’t have been part of the Seven, they already had their chance to shine. Riordan should’ve brought minor characters into light instead

-And Piper shouldn’t have been part of the Seven either. Riordan really expects me to believe that she’s stronger, more powerful, and a greater/better hero and deserved to be part of the Seven more than Reyna, Nico, Clarisse, Thalia, etc.?

-Riordan’s women line-up of Reyna, Annabeth, Hazel, and Piper was really cheap and boring (Avengers: Endgame women line-up who?)

-Percy (in HoO) and Piper are easily some of the worst, most underdeveloped characters Riordan has ever written

-Annabeth got really bland and weak in HoO and couldn’t do shit for herself without others (especially newbies) having to help and/or save her. She pretty much became exclusively Percy fangirl

-As much as I like them, Frank and Hazel don’t have what it takes to be Praetors and Reyna and Jason should’ve stayed as them

-Jason’s whole ‘am I more Greek or Roman’ arc was dumb af

-Riordan’s bias towards the Romans is also dumb af (the Romans could beat the Greeks in an instant)

-Jeyna is and always will be 1000x better than Jiper

-Hazel is the most powerful demigod (way more than Percy and even Jason)

-My hot take on who should’ve been the Seven: Reyna, Nico, Thalia, Frank, Hazel, Leo, and Clovis (son of the god of sleep puts Gaea back to sleep who?)

-Riordan confirming Piper bi was a cheap move to make her more likable. It didn’t even make any sense. A character is confirmed LGBT only after they become a minor character despite being a main character before and kisses some random unnamed girl only three months after her ex-boyfriend whom she still loved dies??? girl what??? Kinda obvious it was just for publicity. Like- Riordan, honey, the LGBTQ+ community is not a circus you can plop your characters into to make them more entertaining❤️

-The PJ series as a whole isn’t that creative. It’s legit just a copy of exactly what past mythological figures have already done and a bunch of character tropes and clichés shoved into one book

-And in general it’s not even that well-written (like HP, it’s over-exaggerated a lot)

-All of the romantic relationships and platonic friendships are extremely unrealistic. Like they never argue/fight, disagree, etc. (then grow stronger from those fights) at all??? Even if they’re complete opposites???

-Reyna is the best-written character in the whole series and a queen she deserved better and y’all sit on her too much

-Theyna is ✨amazing✨ their dynamic and chemistry was just *mwah Pansexual Muslim blessings to you* and people are allowed to ship them even though they’re Hunters and swore off love

-Rachel doesn’t deserve all the hate she gets. Y’all hate on her cause she crushed on Percy when half of you are doing the same thing and then y’all go and ship Percy with Nico, Jason, Artemis, Athena, etc.

-If y’all want to hate on Jason for ‘not having a personality’ you’d also have to hate on most of the main HoO characters except Reyna, Nico, and Leo (and maybe Hazel) for the same reason cause they have the exact same problem tbh

-Zoë and Bianca’s deaths weren’t actually that sad. We didn’t get to see them enough nor did they have enough development for their deaths to have a real impact. The only sad thing about them was Zoë’s last words and Nico’s reaction

-Thalia needed more time in the books

-Reyna was the only main female character in HoO that wasn’t a boring, bland Mary Sue that all the other characters automatically loved. She was the only one with real flaws and distinct personality traits she’s my queen

-Piper, Annabeth, and Calypso did have flaws but the fact that they weren’t called out by other characters or even noticed are what makes them Mary Sues. It doesn’t matter how many flaws a character has, if they’re not called out by other characters (more specifically, other protagonists who actually like them) they don’t count as real character flaws

-Riordan can’t write female characters for shit

-Clarisse, Drew, and Octavian deserved better than being completely antagonized for no explained reason other than to make the protagonists seem better and to make the readers root for them. Those three had more potential than most of the Seven combined

-The whole ‘Aphrodite kids don’t train’ thing is bs. It’s specifically stated that all the demigods follow a strict schedule and have to follow it or they’ll be on stable duty or smth and the Aphrodite kids shouldn’t (and can’t) be excused from that

-Therefore, Drew should be way more powerful and skilled than Piper, at least enough to not back down automatically from a duel by a newbie who hasn’t even learned how to fight (Drew can control an entire cabin of people at once and Piper can barely control one person at a time, who’s more powerful again??)

-Also I have no idea why Riordan portrays all the Aphrodite kids as weak and girly in the first place. ‘Femininity’ and ‘weakness’ are not synonymous and ‘love’ and ‘beauty’ don’t equal ‘feminine’

-Speaking of which, love is actually really powerful but Piper doesn’t stand for love or ‘inner beauty’ and all her ‘thoughtful/insightful’ quotes in ToA/TBM about love were complete bs

-Riordan using the LGBTQ+ community for the sole purpose of making Piper seem more likable and ‘special’ was disgusting and proves he thinks that straight is the default- “...Or Hera’s ideas of what a perfect couple looked like. Piper finding her own way, not the one people expected of her” my ass. In other words, he’s saying ‘The expectations for love and the idea of a perfect couple are a heterosexual relationship, and anyone who 'finds their own way instead of the ones people expect’ are different’. ‘Different’ and ‘default’ are antonyms, so if you think LGBT people are different, then you think that straight is the default. Aphrodite is the goddess of love not heteronormative bullshit. Like Riordan, honey, you’re the one who thinks that the expectations for love and the idea of a perfect couple are heterosexual couples, not fictional gods from a fictional mythology. Remember kiddos- an author writes their own beliefs

If you don’t agree with some of these that’s fine sis it doesn’t matter if you have different opinions than me❤️

#heroes of olympus #opinion #unpopular opinions #percy jackson #annabeth chase #jason grace #frank zhang #hazel levesque #leo valdez #reyna ramirez arellano #reyna avila ramirez arellano #thalia grace #nico di angelo #zoe nightshade #bianca di angelo #will solace #clarisse la rue #octavian #ships

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bltngames · 3 years

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Review: Hotshot Racing

(For this review, Hotshot Racing was played on the Nintendo Switch and the Personal Computer)

If you were to ask me what the most important features of a racing game are, somewhere near the top of the list would be artificial intelligence. Racing games are one of those genres, like fighting games or shooters, where simulating how real human people play the game is vital to the experience. They are inherently multiplayer concepts, even if you’re playing by yourself.

Focus on multiplayer artificial intelligence has waned over the last 15 years. With the rise of the premium multiplayer subscription, it’s more important than ever before to drive players to play matches with flesh-and-blood human beings online. Thus, advancements in “bot” (simulated human player) development hasn’t just slowed down, but in some cases actively regressed. Epic Games, once home to some of the smartest, most robust first person shooter bots in Unreal Tournament, now features bots in their popular Fortnite Battle Royale that fumble around the map with low attention spans and aim like they're blindfolded.

Humans are hard to simulate. The basic functions of a player are easy to emulate -- navigation, aiming, and so on, but it’s the organic logic underneath that proves to be the primary challenge. Humans have lapses in judgement. Humans make mistakes. Mistakes compound on other mistakes. A person wins or loses a given game because of a constantly cascading sequence of decisions, all feeding in to and out of themselves. Whether they realize it or not, every individual person is their own infinite web of chaos. For a computer, which operates in a binary of either perfect success or total failure, no amount of processing power can make for an accurate duplication.

As such, artificial intelligence has to “cheat.” Flaws are introduced into the simulation in order to throw the player a bone. Intelligence almost doesn’t even enter the equation; instead, it’s more about developing a bot that the player simply believes is human, like some kind of a magic trick. It’s a tight balancing act -- if the bot is too good, it looks like an unfeeling terminator. On the opposite, well… compare my Fortnite example up above. There’s a sweet spot that must be hit: smart, but not too smart. Dumb, but not too dumb. It’s easier said than done.

Racing games are a special category here. On top of simulating a human, they must also simulate an automobile, with all of its physical interactions. Tire friction, suspension bounce, weight distribution, and horsepower efficiency just to start. I’d argue that this lends to a much greater tendency for natural mistakes to occur, as the two different simulations (vehicle and player) interact and bounce off of each other. This has led to racing games relying on a handicap known as “rubberbanding.” Essentially, if the player is doing a little too well, the game will start giving tiny advantages to the computer-controlled racer. A boost to top speed, a reduction in weight to improve handling, whatever it takes to ensure the player does not remain unchallenged for very long.

Which finally, at long last, brings us to Hotshot Racing. Developed by Lucky Mountain Games, with assistance by Sumo Digital, it attempts to capitalize on the growing faux-retro-3D trend. It promises visuals to remind you of Sega’s Virtua Racing or Namco’s Ridge Racer, but with decidedly modern vehicle physics and a bit more content than any of those old games could muster.

It honestly makes for a weird first impression. This is a retro-looking game that does not feel like any retro racing game I’ve ever played. Some would undoubtedly argue that’s for the better; like with most sports games, there’s this sense that more simulation is always better. Even modern “arcade” racers like Need for Speed or Wreckfest run pretty robust physics simulations under their hoods, even if they do not necessarily adhere to the rules of reality. But I’ve honestly never seen a problem with this -- I will readily go back to something like Daytona USA or even Stunt Race FX on the Super Nintendo, and never feel especially bothered by their primitive simulations. To me, racing is often more about the sense of speed, how well the controls respond, and the track design than any notion of feeling “realistic.”

That’s not to say it’s really a negative that cars in Hotshot Racing have some vague facsimile of modern weight and “realism” applied to their driving physics, I guess. It’s just something that takes a little bit of getting used to, because seeing these cars drift and sway like the racing games of today is a little anachronistic to the era being called back to. If you still burn a candle for the eventual release of the long-lost Kickstarter darling “90’s Arcade Racer,” know that this isn’t that game. I think it’s fair to say it’s trying to scratch a similar itch, but it’s doing so in a very different way.

One of the more important things Hotshot Racing brings to the table is a roster of personalities to race as and against. When you think of characters in a racing game, your mind probably more naturally gravitates towards something like Mario Kart or some other similarly kid-friendly cartoon racing franchise. For most "serious" racing games, your opponents are unknowable, faceless competitors, but Hotshot gives them voices and identities. Every character in the game has a garage of four cars unique to them, in addition to having their own story to tell. It’s nothing especially deep; most plot manifests in a single cutscene played at the end of a given grand prix, sort of like what you'd get for finishing arcade mode in a game like Street Fighter 2. It’s just a snippet, a taste of what motivated these people and what they’re going to do after winning, but it’s enough.

It goes back to what I said earlier, and how it’s important for the player to believe the artificial intelligence is more than just a computer. Making the racers into characters, with identifiable personalities, faces, and dialog goes a long way to fleshing things out and makes you connect with what’s going on just a little bit better. Or at least, that’s how things would work in theory.

The problem is… well, none of that matters. Put simply, the actual artificial intelligence you race against kind of sucks. In fact, it’s hard to even call them competitors, because your opponents seem to be running a different race where you straight up don’t exist. During any given event, your rival computer drivers seem to be totally blind to your presence, as they will spend the entire race trying to drive straight through you. I don’t know how else to explain it. This isn’t a simple case where the computer drivers are a little aggressive, because they usually aren’t racing to be destructive. They never seem to specifically go out of their way to attack, they just don’t seem to be able to see where you are, and make no effort to react to your presence. You happen to be in their way, so they plow through from behind, ram from the side, and generally just knock you around as if you were invisible.

A side effect to this is something I’ve started noticing in games that bear the Sumo Digital name: computer drivers can hit you way harder than you can hit them back. Whether rubbing against a rival car or engaging in a full-on collision, computer drivers always seem to be able to overpower player vehicles no matter what. In Hotshot Racing, I’ve encountered multiple scenarios where a computer driver shoves me around with little effort, but any attempts to return the favor and my car may as well be made out of styrofoam for how little impact there is. I know Sumo Digital only assisted Lucky Mountain Games on the back half of developing Hotshot Racing, but this has been a consistent element I’ve noticed in Sumo’s Sonic Racing games, too. The computer can be as aggressive (or as blind) as they want, but human players are never allowed to retaliate in a way that feels meaningful.

The worst, by far, is what I mentioned earlier: rubberbanding. “First place” in Hotshot Racing is an often endless war of attrition, where no matter how fast you drive, there are always cars nipping at your heels. Hotshot Racing has a boost system, wherein by drifting or drafting you charge up a segmented meter. Once a segment is full, you can burn it for a burst of speed. I’ve spent 2, 3, even 4 consecutive boosts in a row and the same three opponents were still right behind me, aiming to blindly smash my car out of the way. Hard, medium, or easy mode, it doesn’t matter. They are always there, just a few feet from your rear bumper, magically closing the distance to constantly steal your lead.

From a game design perspective, I understand why rubberbanding exists. It’s to keep the player feeling challenged and engaged. Spending too long in first place going unopposed can start to feel boring. Some game designers view that as a turn off. Races are meant to be battles. At the same time, being able to totally shut out my opponents and gain huge leads makes me feel good. Hotshot Racing robs you of that sense of total domination because of some artificial rule of competitiveness. It’s not that the computer-controlled racers are better than you; they don’t seem to race with any sort of great care or skill. Instead, they catch up and pass you strictly because the Hand of God bends the rules to accommodate them. That doesn’t feel very challenging and it certainly doesn’t feel fair.

That being said, the pseudo-realistic physics mentioned earlier do have their own downside: I found it a little too easy to lose control of my vehicle and spin out. If you brush against a wall wrong or get bumped by a rival during a drift, you often find yourself in a tailspin and unable to recover. Combined with the blind artificial intelligence and the rubberbanding, you have a recipe for getting frustrated. I want to feel confident in my losses, not because I couldn’t predict what Mr. Magoo was going to do next. To add insult to injury, the rubberbanding only gets more prominent as you move up in difficulty, so expect to get spun out more and more as you progress through the game.

There also isn’t a lot to do with your vehicles, either. For many, tuning is an important aspect of racing games, going all the way back to 1989’s “Super Off Road” in the arcades. No upgrade path is available for any of the vehicles in Hotshot Racing, with a basic unlock system geared towards limited cosmetic tweaks. There's tons of tracks to race on, and you constantly earn currency for winning races, but I never cared about spending any of it, because there wasn't much worth buying. Arguably the specific mid-90′s era that Hotshot Racing is aiming at wasn’t really heavy on upgrading or modifying around vehicle stats, but neither were they focused on visual customization either, so it does feel a little arbitrary what they chose to modernize about this experience and what is intended to be a retro tribute.

Beyond standard racing, Hotshot does offer a few alternative modes, but none of them are spotlight features. “Barrel Barrage” has you earning an explosive barrel to drop behind you at every checkpoint until the track becomes a minefield. “Drive or Explode” takes the concept of 1994’s “Speed” and straps a bomb to your car that will explode if you slow down for too long. Finally, “Cops & Robbers” is a confusing push-and-pull where you must steal money as a robber and alternatively wreck other racers as a police officer. Of the three modes, “Drive or Explode” is the clear winner, as it most easily fits into the standard three-lap structure the game centers around. “Barrel Barrage” is merely okay, and benefits more from an increased number of laps, as things slowly get more and more dangerous as you progress. These modes would also benefit if I didn’t get thrown back to the menu after every race; they really needed some kind of Grand-Prix-style playlist.

“Cops & Robbers” deserves its own entire paragraph for what a weird idea it is. It’s less about stealing and arresting and has more in common with the “zombie” modes seen in other games, where everyone gets converted to a specific team until there are no more players left. The idea is that you start with a pot of money that slowly depletes, and you have to race to the next checkpoint to cash out. The faster you get there and the higher amounts you cash out with, the more the cops specifically will target you. Once they wreck your car, you become one of the cops, and it’s your job to wreck the remaining robbers until they all become part of the cop team. Once all the robbers become cops, winners are tallied based on who stole the most money. On paper, this works, because it plays into the game’s slap-happy nature, but in practice I would find myself miles ahead of my fellow robbers and once I finally switched over to a cop, I had to slam on my brakes and wait for everyone else to catch up. By then, the computer-controlled cops had usually done most of my work for me and I lost for... being a better robber than a cop, somehow? It left a lot to be desired.

All of these modes can be played online, where presumably human players would make them more balanced and fun, but finding random pick-up games proved difficult in the time I spent with Hotshot Racing. Now, to be fair, I didn’t try especially hard -- racing games have always been a single player experience for me, as should be obvious by my spiel on artificial intelligence. But I did spend a couple nights trying to match into an online “Quick Race” on the Switch, where I universally came up empty handed. On the PC version of Hotshot Racing (which I received as part of a Humble Bundle), the application completely froze upon trying to start a “Quick Race” lobby, forcing me to ALT+F4 to close the game. For what it’s worth, the Switch version does also include a “local multiplayer” option for playing wirelessly with friends in the same room, and all versions support traditional split-screen.

Despite all of these shortcomings, I just can’t bring myself to hate Hotshot Racing, and it’s hard to pinpoint why. I’m definitely in love with this aesthetic -- the retro visuals, the upbeat music, the blue, blue skies (that I see), it all appeals to a certain part of my brain that likes razor-sharp, ultra-clean polygons. The introduction of named racers with backstories and character-specific “endings” is a really smart, fun idea. I just wish it was more fun to actually, like… run a race in this game. I understand the necessity behind concepts like rubberbanding, but it feels like the artificial intelligence cheats just a little too much, and as a player I don’t feel like I can do a lot to fight back. Running a good race isn’t always good enough.

Some games deliberately incite a feeling of disempowerment in their players, and that can be a totally valid design decision. But should that really be the goal of this kind of racing game? I guess I don’t have an answer for that, but I do know that I probably won’t be going back to Hotshot Racing very often.

#writing #review #hotshot racing #lucky mountain games #sumo digital #artificial intelligence #racing apex

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transgamerthoughts · 4 years

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Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Thoughts and Ramblings

Surprised to dust this off but I want to collect my thoughts quickly now that credits are rolling on Remake:

In general, I enjoyed it quite a lot. As one of many players with a unique relationship to the original (I first “played” it watching a childhood friend over the course of several sleepovers before playing on my own and occasionally returning to it) I was skeptical. I’ve express some of that skepticism at Kotaku , a website I write at. Remakes and remasters sometimes fall short or deviate in strange ways. Remake forges its own path and I’m grateful for it.

SPOILERS AHEAD KIDDOS

So! Here’s some scattered thoughts. Maybe they end up on Kotaku, maybe not. And while I’m loathe to immediately rush to create content on a Sunday night, this game has my mind spinning. Here we go.

The characterizations in this game are very strong, perhaps stronger than the original’s Midgar section. Some of that is owed to a very bad localization in ‘97 (you can get insight into that from my former colleague Tim Rogers’ series here) but Remake takes a lot of effort to allow the cast to breathe. That can come from the ways in which Cloud alters his way of taking with Tifa, and it can come in the moment where Barrett is more explicitly an ideologue. It’s quite good even if the script has a flaw that we’ll talk about in a second.

That flaw is, frankly, that if you’ve not played the original then Remake is going to end up impenetrable in the final hours. This is particularly true once characters like Zack are brought into the fold and the visuals begin to mirror the original. (See: the hard cuts before Sephiroth and Clouds final duel mirroring the Omnislash moment from ‘97.) I don’t think that diminishes the character work here but I think that the more interesting meta-narrative stuff *so* damn crucial to this game that I can’t imagine what a newcomer will think.

Connected to this, I’ve seen folks disappointed that this is not a perfect remake but in this instance, I think that sentiment is misplaced. Valid, but shortsighted? You can’t make Final Fantasy VII today. Not in the way it existed in ‘97. Which isn’t to say the visuals or script but the context cannot be reproduced. New hardware, FMVs taking a forefront, an advertising campaign that positioned the game in competition with movies, and a cultural splash that the series hasn’t ever quite replicated. Because the weight of expectation hovers over Remake—folks have been obsessed with a new version since the PS3 tech demo stirred imagination at E3 2020—the game *needs* to be about that. To be a game about this moment, the moment gamers have waited decades for, Remake needs to be about itself in a very explicit way.

I can’t not see the Whispers and Arbiters of Fate as anything other than stand-ins for gamers, fans, and the culture as a whole. That’s an obvious reading but an undeniable one. The core question of Remake doesn’t really have much to do with the fictional stakes. It’s this: who owns Final Fantasy VII, and who owns the Remake? Is it the story tellers or the players? I have a cheat answer: it belongs to the characters. In unbinding themselves from player expectation, they claim ownership over the narrative now.

Aeris just flat out knows she’s in a sequel/alt-timeline thing. Her final line is about missing the surety of something as presumably ever present at the metal sky of Midgar’s plates.

I like the combat here more than FFXV, which isn’t saying a lot but worth saying. There’s more participation from the player. That’s it. I don’t think *more* active choice inherently makes a combat system better but it is the key reason this works better than XV.

Character swapping breaks things somewhat since enemy aggro is (save for using the provoke materia) focused on the player. Wish the combat design took this into consideration a bit more. It’s the one glaring flaw in the system.

Tifa is the most fun to play as in this game. It’s not even a contest. Starshower is overpowered as hell and Chi Trap rules. Love using her to increase the potency of the stagger meter when the time comes.

Fights do get occasionally Too Busy. Airbuster is a big culprit here. Too many phases for what was essentially a jobber of a boss in the original game.

Train Graveyard section is an atrocious pace killer as well. Again: “too many notes.”

I never found the Nail Bat and that was a bit of a bummer.

I tweeted out a quote from Barrett this weekend and it made the rounds. In general, for this game, Barrett works best in this revolutionary mode even if certain scenes (Shinra middle manager for instance) deploy visual language that’s dated. Of any character, he has the highest highs and lowest lows. Not surprising.

re: that tweet some folks kinda lost their shit about it(?) but I think the quote still holds. Remake does a good job of showing *individuals* within Shinra but Barrett does rightly note they are complicit to an extent in Shinra’s crimes. You can disagree with what Barrett does about it but that’s 100% true. Sorry, not sorry. (The discourse today was just a hassle frankly. Multiple things can be true at once, but I don’t think Twitter is a place where that’s ever acknowledged.) Whatever eventual regrets he might feel about methodology in ‘97′s script, he’s not wrong on this individual point. I’m interested to see where he goes as a character when it comes to all this.

Kinda related to the above, Remake arguably does a better job than ‘97 showing the alternative to Shinra. It’s the communal nature of the individual sectors. It’s the Neighborhood Watch and local leaders in Sector 7, the trio in Wall Market. Remake rejects Shinra’s autocracy and favors the various slums communes. This is made ever more clear by how little of Reeve we see in this script. Who are the leaders shaping life into a passable experience in Midgar? It’s not the Urban Planning guy with the cat robot.

Also: hey, is that Cait Sith in the plate drop cutscene? Yep! Hope you played the original or there’s just this sad cat that shows up for 4 four seconds.

Is he a Chad? Well, he’s Chad-ley...

Not sure what to think of the Wutai stuff being more explicit but it feels right for 2020 for a variety of reasons. I’ve never been too interested in FF7′s realpolitik tho. It’s not really much of an expansion so much as a background element but one that’s deployed a bit lazily.

Roche owns in a way I was not expecting. He’s a balls to the wall anime motherfucker and I kinda love him? I’m really, really surprised that (as far as I could tell) he didn’t even come back for the final bike sequence tho.

I don’t really have the energy to litigate or talk about Wall Market much. I think it’s better than the original but pandering in the sense that it’s a very safe and commodified version of queerness. I appreciate that Nomura and folks looked at the original and were like “well, we can’t do *that*” but it doesn’t quite land for me.

That said: “yes, I know, nailed it,” is a fantastic line with a fantastic read from Cloud’s English VA.

Hell House announcers rule. Hell House fight? Kinda terrible actually.

Nice shout out to Kunsel in Shinra Tower. Crisis Core is a messy game but I like Tabata’s work a lot. Even the messy stuff, which is most of it. That game’s story is bonkers but I like Zack and I actually like the idea of the Digital Mind Wave as a mechanic. If nothing else, Squeenix lost a pretty exciting designer when he left.

Less nice? This game’s tendency to pad out dungeons. The whole approach to the Sector 5 reactor comes to mind. Train fight then tunnels then sun lamps then reactor. It’s a lot. Also: all of the extra Hojo stuff. I know we’re padding out like 5 hours but some of the sections could have been abbreviated. Probably would have made the game better.

Even less nice? Zack’s English voice actor. Maybe the only voice actor I didn’t like. Really miss Rick Gomez on this one.

Conversely, Red XIII? They nailed it. 11/10. Nanaki, I love you so much.

Counterstance is an amazing move and I can’t want to carry that over into Hard Mode.

The Jenova fight fuckin’ ripped. I was a bit huffy when I learned through leaks that there was a Jenova fight (since the first fight in the original is on the boat to Costa Del Sol) but this was a great set piece. One of the moments where everything worked.

Also good: Rufus fight. Bad: losing Rufus’ speech to the party.

Not a ton more thoughts right now? Sephiroth fight was good although for all his presence in the story I think we suffer without the full Nibelheim flashback to round things out. In all really liked it. Want to play again pretty much immediately. Will write something more cogent for the site I guess? Got a few ideas. But yeah! entered as skeptic and left mostly a believer on this one.

#final fantasy vii remake #spoilers

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deltaengineering · 5 years

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Fall Anime 2019 Part 1: Real Isekai Hours

Shinchou Yuusha

What: 💩 wait we’re not doing that anymore. So hey, welcome to a new season of isekai! Now with fewer listicle stylings but a turd is still a turd. Dude gets summonend by goddess to another etc., you’ve heard this one before. The unique selling point here is that it’s actually a parody comedy, so if you tolerated Konosuba you’ll probably tolerate this too. It’s just that “The hero is overpowered but overly cautious” has exactly one joke up its sleeve, and it is that the hero is overpowered but overly cautious. It’s a kneeslapper exactly once, and that is when you read the title. Of course, the overly cautious hero is paired with a goddess who can get constantly exasperated at how overly cautious he is. The humor in this is just the fucking pits and it’s really a huge credit to the technical execution that it’s fairly watchable for half an episode or so. Yes, this show looks good; cartoony, expressive and well-timed, in short like a midcard Trigger production. But those looks can’t even keep actual Trigger productions afloat, nevermind this generic manzai tripe on top of generic isekai detritus.

Ahiru no Sora

Speaking of generic, would you like some sports shounen? Ahiru no Sora is about basketball, and the main guy is very gutsy but overly short. People compare him to a duck for... reasons, including but not limited to terribly on the nose “soaring the sky upon your mighty wings” metaphors. Well, they tried. Really not much to say here, it’s pretty decent looking, not particularly annoying and very by the book, so if you’re looking for Haikyuu methadone or just can’t stand volleyball but love basketball, this is your jam right there. I’d sooner just watch Haikyuu or any number of other sports shows exactly like this instead. Or laugh my ass off at Try Knights.

Ore wo Suki nano wa Omae dake ka yo

Now here we have a romantic comedy where the twist is that the nice guy protagonist doesn’t get none and he gets friendzoned by every girl in favor of his hunky sportsballer classmate. Oh, and it turns out he’s just pretending to be a nice guy and is secretly a seething incel. And it’s not every girl, he also has a creepy, supposedly homely stalker who definitely won’t turn out to be stunning once she takes off her glasses and lets her hair down. Now, unlike some I’m not opposed to flawed protagonists, but a fluffy romantic comedy between two deeply unlikeable sociopaths is still asking a bit much. I’m not saying that this couldn’t work in theory, but there’s still a very unpleasant air about this show and it hasn’t got much besides that.

Urashimasakatasen no Nichijou

This is a short about a “male vocal unit” going to school and and uh. It probably is more appealing if you already love these guys? Apart from that the only memorable thing is that the saturation and brightness is so cranked up that it seems like a bad HDR conversion job and was intended to be played on a cinema projector or something. Yeah, that’s what I’m going with.

Hataage! Kemono Michi

Another isekai and this is also a semi-parody, just in case it wasn’t already clear that ironical isekai is default isekai now: A wrestler with an animal gimmick gets isekai’d to a world full of furries, much to his delight. Now, this doesn’t have the snappy production and delightfully cartoony look of Hero is OP, but makes up for it by being actually reasonably funny; Not-Tiger Mask disregarding wolf ears to go for the entire furry got a chuckle out of me, and so did wolfgirl Shigure clowning on the isekai slave trope. More spicy than the average take, I suppose. I’m not about to pledge my allegiance to this show because the last time I thought this, it was Yo Mama Online and that didn’t turn out well. It’s still notable when some isekai nonsense makes me consider watching a second episode though.

Honzuki no Gekokujou

Isekai the third, and this isn’t a parody attempt. In fact I’d say that it is as far removed from a parody as it could possibly be because if anything, it’s too serious. Honzuki no Gekojou is about a librarian who gets reborn as a sickly child into a world where books are a rarity. What’s notable here is that she most definitely doesn’t impress everyone with her skillz, starts building a harem right away or muses how much like a dumb light novel this is - given how rare that is, I’d say it barely registers as isekai at all. So that’s all pretty heartening, but on the other hand, it just isn’t very good, at least not right away. It’s pretty simplistic, the pacing is very slow (the first episode is basically just world and character introductions, something I managed to accomplish 80% of in the one sentence above) and further dragged down by tons of voiceover, and the animation looks just... weird. It’s choppy, as if there were inbetween frames missing, and I can’t see why that would be on purpose. Still, because it’s so slow not much of import happens in the first episode, and that makes me at least consider watching a couple more episodes to see where this is going.

Houkago Saikoro Club

Since we’re definitely not reinventing anime this season, here’s another classic: the “cute girls getting dragged into doing a niche thing by other cute girls” anime. The thing in question is euro-style board games, which is a none-too-common subject if nothing else, and which already pegs the tone at more slice-of-life than riotous comedy. Everything else is fairly predictable from there, and generally it’s as agreeable and unexciting as these tend to be. There’s a few niggles in the details; the main girl is a sadblob that acts like she’s never even heard of the word “fun” before, which may be more than a little tryhard. And the games themselves don’t really get much attention mechanically, which makes them seem interchangeable and namedroppy, though I’d say I still prefer this to full on tutorial mode. Overall, it’s an easy watch for now, and I’ll keep an eye on it until it starts to annoy me.

#anime #impressions #fall2019 #Shinchou Yuusha #Ahiru no Sora #Ore wo Suki nano wa Omae dake ka yo #Urashimasakatasen no Nichijou #Hataage! Kemono Michi #Honzuki no Gekokujou #Houkago Saikoro Club

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a-cai-jpg · 4 years

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frailty, thy name is woman! (HAH)

So the other day, I was ambushed by a group of tiny puppies.

I was in the park, breathing some fresh air and sunshine for the first time in a long, long time. I sat on a grassy hill--notebook just recently closed and resting in my lap--staring blankly at the amphitheater beneath me and suddenly, I hear barking to my right and felt something nudge my thigh.

Not gonna lie, I almost screamed and whacked the puppy in the face.

They were three beagles(?), bounding around the hill because, according to their owners who respectfully stood 6 feet away from me, they hadn't left the house in a week.

(same.)

Anyways, before they came to say hi, I was listening to a sad, acoustic playlist and writing down notes about women.

(it's not weird if u don't make it weird)

That morning, I had woken up thinking about women's issues.

Sexism is not exactly the social issue I'm most preoccupied by. It's prominent in every aspect of life, but because I've been fortunate enough to be sheltered from most of it, the sexism I experience is very subtle and difficult to pinpoint. I grew up in a primarily female household with a lot of strong personalities, and only recently did I begin to take note of the almost indiscernible power dynamic between the men and the women.

So, most of my life, I've just been kind of cruising along, with this vaguely gender-less persona that only started to shift some time in university.

A friend once asked, "How do you know that you're a woman?"

I think this was during the same time I was taking a philosophy course about theories of sexual differences, and so all my thoughts were kind of meta and hypothetical. My initial thought was, uh what do you mean like of course I know I'm a woman that's what I've checked on all the forms. But then I thought about it and I was like. Bruh.

Bruh.

The reply I gave her, I feel like, was unsatisfactory and very personal. I didn't want to fall back onto gender norms, because that was so obviously a cop-out. Furthermore, I feel like I didn't experience a lot of the stereotypical "what it means to be a woman." AND, the definition of "adult human being" was too inadequate.

So, how do I know that I'm a woman?

At the time, I gave her a pretty sloppy answer about internalized misogyny, and I'm not going to pretend I have a better answer now, but I think I've broken it down to two main points.

Number one: I know I'm a woman because I'm constantly in competition with other women. I view women as my primary competitors. Very rarely do I see masculine-presenting individuals as competition, even though technically, all of us are competing for resources, prestige, or whatever it is we seek. Sure, you can play a probability game and say it's all statistics, but I think there's an aspect of misogyny as well.

Number two, I know I'm a woman because I feel anger and indignation on behalf of other women, internalizing it as a personal offense, even when I myself have not undergone the same struggle.

It's the same criteria I think of when I ask myself how I know I'm Asian American. But, in the racial aspect, there's a third criteria, which is the reflexive self. I feel that other people see me as Asian American, and therefore, I am Asian American. For some bizarre reason, I didn't experience the same reflexive self when I thought about my gender.

I think it was this lack of a reflexive self and vaguely gender-less upbringing that pushed me to declare, very loudly, in the middle of a science classroom in highschool that, "I am not a feminist."

(I could self-psychoanalyze and come up with a million reasons why my upbringing was gender-less. It could have to do with the fact that my primary caretakers were women, so there was no other for me to reference, and thereby, no juxtaposition between women and men. It could have to do with early, internalized misogyny that caused me to push away things that identified me specifically as a "girl." It could also be that I'm incredibly not self-aware.)

(I stand by the statement that contrast is necessary for identification, though.)

Anyways.

I remember when I said those words, my best friend looked at me with exasperation and a classmate looked at me with disgust. For good reason.

At the time, the word "feminist," to me, had a lot of negative connotations. I equated it with the "feminazi." I didn't buy into sexist ideals, but neither did I understand the angry, seemingly unnecessary reversal of gender roles that "feminazis" were proclaiming.

And my friend patiently explained to me that no, you don't have to be a feminazi to be a feminist.

But see, even that in itself is anti-feminist, isn't it?

We were, again, drawing lines for what it means to be an acceptable woman--an acceptable feminist--and what it means to be an unacceptable woman.

Why is there a negative connotation to the term "feminazi"? Why is there a negative connotation to the term "feminist"? Isn't the term "feminazi" in itself misogynistic?

I think it has to do with the fact that the general culture is uncomfortable with women stepping beyond what their gender roles have prescribed them. The culture has moved in a direction where it is acceptable and almost expected for women to be feminists, but being a "feminazi" is still frowned up.

This might seem very obvious to some, but I actually haven't thought about the term "feminazi" in a long while. So, to make sure I actually knew what a "feminazi" was, I pulled up the Wikipedia article. Here are a few words used to describe a feminazi:

a committed feminist or a strong-willed woman

radical feminists

see as many abortions as possible

militants

quest for power

belief that men aren't necessary

well-intentioned but misguided people who call themselves feminists

the term came to be widely used for feminism as a whole

marginalize any feminist as a hardline, uncompromising manhater

hate men

dogmatic, inflexible, and intolerant

an extremist, power-hungry minority

I've never met anyone who fits that description, though [Limbaugh] lavishes it on me among many others

bossy, hating men and femininity

hyper-vigilant to perceived sexism

vindictive

puritanical

The term was apparently, popularized by a dude named Rush Limbaugh, and I'll be damned if I let a man determine what kind of feminist I am.

Maybe I am biased because a militant women's group seeking to overpower the patriarchy sounds pretty lit and like good material for a new Netflix show, but like.

Tell me again why it's not okay to be a feminazi.

(my primary reactions to the list above are: "i wonder why," "sounds ok to me lol," and "who the fuck are you to say")

ANYWAYS.

"Feminazis," according to Mr. Limbaugh (who even is this guy) is an unacceptable way to be a feminist.

He is a man governing what it means to be a feminist (again, who the fuck are you), but let's be real, there are many women out there who draw similar lines, maybe for others, maybe for themselves. The popular "Am I not a good feminist if I __________" questions in themselves are anti-feminist. Once again, it is a show of how women are policing themselves and each other.

I'm not big on philosophy because I can't understand most of it, but Foucault made the assertion that policing and discipline in a modern society lies with the self, or an invisible, anonymous power embedded in society.

(Ok, I'm going to be honest, I didn't want to read through 30 pages of feminist theory and I barely understood the four pages that I did read, so if I'm wrong, don't hate me.)

In other words, men and women become the gender police for themselves. Even as women gain more rights and freedom, they continue to police themselves in a new way, like asking themselves what it means to be a good feminist.

(Bartky introduces the argument that there needs to be an upheaval of social norms to end the policing.)

(And okay, so, the more I read Bartky's Foucault, Femininity, and Patriarchal Power, the more excited I get, so I'm gOiNg To StOp mYsElf hERe.)

I ask myself this question often too.

Am I not a good feminist if I express vague disapproval at someone who switches boyfriends every other day?

Am I not a good feminist if I am grateful for men opening doors for me or offering to grab my suitcase for me on the plane? (I'm 5'2 okay, I have to stand on the seat sometimes, it's embarrassing.)

See, I appreciate chivalry and I don't think chivalry is dead because what does that even mean, but I also recognize that chivalry isn't the same thing as gender equality or liberation for women (or dare I say, liberation of gender?). But, gender equality doesn't mean that women and men do all of the same things and are assumed to be able to do all of the same things. Because we, as humans, have varying abilities, don't we?

The question of what the fuck is gender equality plagued me for an entire semester and bothers me even now but I just kind of stomp on it and make it go away. The easy answer to it, for me, is a fair division of labor agreed upon by both parties, ensuring there is no abuse of power within the relationship.

But that statement in itself is problematic because it introduces a possibility of stasis, of complacency that might revert to a new abuse of power.

(It's also not one that every feminist agrees on.)

But let's return to the question of what it means to be a woman.

I wrote that contrast is necessary for identification, but I fear the statement implies that women are defined in opposition to men, which is false. Like, non-men = women. And, since gender is a spectrum, that obviously is not true. But, since gender is a spectrum, is it necessary for us to identify ourselves?

At the end of my notes, I scribbled a series of questions.

Why does it matter to me what gender people are?

Why does it matter to me what gender I am?

Is there a correlation between sexuality and gender? Especially since we are all on a spectrum for both? Are we socialized to choose? Is this or is this not evolutionarily favorable?

(I see now that the flaw in me writing blog posts is that I can't actually have a conversation about this and that's frustrating.)

(Also, I recognize that I live in an immense amount of privilege to be asking these questions and not, I don't know, fearing for my life.)

I briefly entertained the idea that women are essentially the oppressed party in the larger narrative of gender. But there are two problems with this statement. One, women are definitely not the only oppressed party. Two, everyone ultimately suffers when there is an accepted narrative.

But, the undeniable fact is that there is a common reality that people who identify as women live. It has nothing to do with anatomy, organs, chromosomes, hormone levels, brain structure, or sexuality. It is an experience that is placed upon us by the patriarchal society, regardless of whether or not we recognize it, based on how we present ourselves.

This is how the reflexive self began to develop, in Calc B, freshman year of college.

I try to talk about gender as removed from sex as possible, because I get terribly confused when I talk about them in conjunction with each other, but also because I do think there is a difference between the feminine experience and the female experience. I just don’t really understand it.

I wrote in my notes somewhere: Gender is a spectrum. You are your own individual, gender be damned.

I don't proclaim myself an expert on this matter. These are words that chased their own tails in my mind as I tried to understand how to function in an infuriating society that constantly made me angry.

The other day, I saw a Facebook post from a stranger who was talking about how their boyfriend didn't believe women were being oppressed because even though women get paid less, men pay for dates. And this led me to think about the wage disparity and how people always tell me, well, no, it doesn't exist. It's the woman's fault for not asking for a higher wage.

And I’m just kind of like, ???

A student of mine came to me one morning, a little disappointed and a little annoyed, because he had been shut down by a fellow classmate when he made a comment about the wage gap not being an actual thing.

(the thing about talking to students is that it's a lot easier to forgive ignorance and to actually have a conversation without getting angry.)

He said that he wished the classmate, a girl, wouldn't just be all angry about it and call him dumb.

I didn't know how to respond to that then, aside from agreeing that it is necessary to have actual dialogue around important issues and asking a few questions so he could critically think about gender issues in the U.S.

But, I thought about it the morning before I got ambushed by the dogs, and I wish I asked him to think about why people get so angry talking about these matters.

I think the reason why it's so difficult to have these conversations is because--

God, imagine the privilege of not having to have these conversations and not feeling angry and humiliated because you are pulling out this vulnerable bit of you that's been attacked by Society and trying to make someone who is implicitly attacking you understand.

That's not a comfortable feeling, and adults can't even manage it so how is a teenager expected to?

The same feeling rises within myself when I talk about race and when I talk about gender. Some of it is internalized racism and misogyny, but a whole lot of it is not wanting to be vulnerable, and that in itself is a little fucked up (and maybe, misogynistic?).

See, when I feel very strongly about a matter, I expect strong, rigorous, academic debate. I want to break down the logic in every sentence and refute facts and opinions with Better Facts and Opinions, complete with citations, and I don’t want to fall back on anecdotes even though I end up resorting to it anyways.

(I am also the annoying person who would do the Hamilton thing and be like i have the honor to be your obedient servant, A DOT CAI.)

But, so often, we don't have the luxury to do that. And also, very often, we are utterly consumed by the larger narrative that facts end up not meaning very much to us.

We are all part of an accepted narrative, and that, along with the social norms that come with it, is the enemy.

Men are not the enemy in feminism, which is why men need to calm the fuck down and get behind the feminist movement. Men are also suffering from this accepted narrative and gender policing that lauds toxic masculinity.

I'm not saying there's a right way to be a feminist, but I strongly believe there's a wrong way to be a feminist. I think being a feminist means you support gender equality, regardless of what gender someone identifies as. I think being a feminist means you want everyone to embrace their true selves. I think being a feminist means you stand with every individual, and so I think being a feminist should be the default for a human being.

But if a person identifies as a feminist and draws rules and regulations for how to be one, then that is anti-feminist.

(Come at me, feminist philosophers, I'm very zen and I'm willing to listen to you tell me about how society needs to see an utter deconstruction of feminism and masculinity.)

Be you, my friend. Be you and let other people be themselves. It's not like they're hurting you by being trans or gay or bi.

Like jeez, why is that so hard.

(stop hating on Irene 'cause she's a feminist, she's fucking beautiful and i will fight you.)

I don't know, I love women. They are inspiring and beautiful, and the term "woman," as much as I've broken it down, actually matters because society has forced it to matter. And weirdly enough, as difficult as it is for me to truly identify with woman at times, I like being one and I'm proud to be a feminist.

But it's also a little scary to be a woman. There are the general things a woman has to worry about, like walking around at night or traveling alone or going to a bar alone or doing anything alone to be completely honest. But there are also the other concerns, like what does a family dynamic look like with my personality and my ideals? How do I navigate a patriarchal society in terms of work and relationships? Which values do I give up to make sure I can actually go somewhere? When do I tell a friend to shut the fuck up because he’s mansplaining? How do I respond to defensiveness without getting defensive myself? How do I ensure that my daughter lives in a safer, more equitable world? How do I ensure that my son doesn't turn out to be a misogynist? Like? Help?

(sos i drank too my caffeine and now my hands are shaking)

Feminist theory, crudely put, falls into two categories (fuck i’m literally dragging things out of my ass, i don’t actually know if this is true lol), with one firmly asserting that a feminist revolution is rejecting the societal definition of femininity and the other embracing femininity.

(idk if there are only two camps, but these two perspectives definitely exist in feminist theory ok)

I definitely fall in the latter, because I can’t wrap my head around the rejection of femininity. Like, is that not misogynistic? Camosy’s Behind the Abortion Wars uses a similar argument to proclaim abortion as inherently sexist. It strips females of what has traditionally given them power, rendering them...males. Or some version of a male.

(i’m sold on camosy’s argument. don’t misunderstand, i’m definitely pro-choice, but i have thoughts.)

See, all of this is very complicated. Sometimes I see quotes about feminist theory and it’s so intellectually exhilarating that I just have to file it away and think about it on a day where I’m wired on caffeine. But even on those days, I feel like my brain falls short on trying to understand this very meta gender theory thing.

So, obviously, I don’t hope to convince you to believe in my ideal, because I don’t know what I’m talking about. But, if you have read this far, I leave you with the same thing I said a number of paragraphs back.

BE YOU AND LET OTHER PEOPLE BE THEMSELVES.

Recognize when you are causing harm, explicitly or not.

Recognize when other people are causing harm, explicitly or not, and engage them in conversation.

(these are actually goals and guidelines for me because i have no backbone and generally just fume in silence.)

(between me brainstorming this and me actually writing this, a number of different things have come to my attention)

(one of them is the erasure of non-masculine stories in history) (and yes that's obvious, but i also watched a bunch of TedEd videos about women so it's just very salient in my mind right now)

(another is the nth room south korea scandal, and i don't even know where to begin with that)

(Disclaimer: I don’t actually know what I’m talking about but I welcome counterarguments. I also realize putting a disclaimer at the end is really dumb, but I don’t want to interrupt my non-existent narrative flow. I feel like my take on gender is too simple and not nuanced enough, but honestly, I just don’t really get gender at times? So I really shouldn’t be talking about gender theory. Yet. Here we are.)

I LOVE WOMEN.

So here is a song from a woman that I recently found and fell in love with:

陳粒 - 无所求必满载而归它让你受折磨觉得痛觉得渴 [life] makes you suffer, makes you hurt, makes you thirsty 觉得无路走无处躲 makes you feel like there's nowhere to go, nowhere tohide 无所求也求不得 even if you want nothing, you can't even have that 当我昏昏欲睡摇摇欲坠 but when i'm about to sleep, about to fall 却学会放下错与对是与非 i learned to put down right and wrong, yes and no 无所求必满载而归 if i want nothing, then i'll receive everything

(on a side note, i've done nothing but read a chinese, boys love light novel. i have read three chinese novels in my life, and all three were boys love. this doesn't seem right.)

(but also, my chinese literacy is basically at that of a fifth grader, if even, so i think it's fitting that i read some trash novels.)

(but this one talks about the psychology of sexuality and gender, and i'm all for genre novels spreading ideas about bEiNg YoUrSeLf.)

(GAH.)

#this is both senseless and aimless #but it's nice to just blergh sometimes #u feel?#skrrt skrrt

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nerdsideofthemedia · 5 years

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Should the term “Mary Sue” be retired?

The original.

I didn’t have any intention of posting my non-RWBY, non-MHA blog posts here, but here’s this one seems to be becoming important with the rise of the claims that Arya Stark is a Mary Sue. So here it goes:

In my walks through Dan Olson’s twitter, I came across this:

Which got me thinking: is the term “Mary Sue” completely pointless?

Before I wonder about this question, let’s take a quick journey through time. In the 70s, Paula Smith noticed a character pattern among the Star Trek fanfic and created a parody to point this out, “A Trekkies’s Tale”, whose protagonist was called Mary Sue. During the following years, the “Mary Sue” wasn’t necessarily considered as something bad, instead it was considered as a phase every writer will go through as it was intimately associated with self-inserts and was only applied to fan-fictions1;2.

In recent years, the term has left the fanfic and began being applied to original fiction too, losing its meaning along the way and gaining a pretty negative connotation. In fact, nowadays, “Mary Sue” is such an extremely subjective term that even TV Tropes admits:

“TV Tropes doesn’t get to set what the term means, the best we can do is capture the way it is used.” 1

Hell, I’ve even come across with this subjectivity, as once I called Orihime from Bleach a Mary Sue, on youtube, and one person defended my use of it by explaining she was liked by everyone, which wasn’t the reason I considered a Mary Sue to begin with and consider that justification to be pretty dumb.

Why is being liked by everyone not a good parameter?

Have you ever read/watched a shonen? Most of the good guys are on good terms. Even when there is some animosity between a main character and another one, it’s usually because of the other, like Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z, who dislikes Goku because he’s better than him, not because of anything egregious the latter did. In “My Hero Academia”, Bakugo hated Midoriya mostly because of pride and arrogance (they are now on good terms). Yes, the Avengers may have not loved each other from the get-go, but, by the end of the film, they were ready to live happily ever after. And when the sequels even stop (they never will), they will end up being on good terms.

Another definition of what is a “Mary Sue” is it’s a character that is overpowered/great set of skills + tragic backstory, (sometimes even without the latter). So let’s take a look at:

Superman: an alien whose planet was destroyed, adopted by 2 humans, and has a set of skills that would make Goku turn… Well, he would probably just find it cool, but Vegeta’s head would explode for sure as he threw a temper tantrum. His powers include flying, super speed and strength (to the point of almost completely invulnerability), X-ray and heat vision.

Bruce Wayne: a poor (not literally) orphan who was raised by his butler and whose riches go beyond Taylor Swift’s wildest dreams, let alone poor (far more literal) little us. Thanks to it, he has access to technology that has little to no limitations, yet his money never ends.

Goku: an alien whose planet was destroyed, adopted by an old man who was killed by him in giant monkey-form. Not only he can fly, he is particularly powerful even for his people even though he’s a low-level specimen according to the planet’s hierarchic structure.

Ichigo: a guy who turns out to be part-Hollow, part-Shinigami, part-Vizard, part-who-the-hell-even-cares-anymore, even though some of them are pretty rare.

Harry Potter: an orphan raised by his aunt and her family, who all treat him badly, finds out he’s a wizard and finds out his parents have left him a mountain of gold (literally). Everyone either admires him or feels jealous as he is famous for “defeating” a particularly powerful wizard as a baby, without any damages besides a scar. He’s also part of a prophecy.

What about those self-inserts?

I guess we could still use the term as just a self-insert, but considering that most of the time we don’t know the writers, then we can only know their self-insertion if they tell us.

It also doesn’t justify its negative connotation. Writers are people, I presume, which means they have flaws. So why is a character based on oneself bad? Provided the writers are realistic and self-aware, those should be some of the most realistic characters. Now, I know there’s a trap in here, which is the tendency of favoring ourselves and make us just a bit (or a lot) more special than we actually are, but 1) this doesn’t necessarily happen to every self-insert; 2) that can happen whenever writers begin to favor a character for whatever reason, even if it wasn’t a self-insert, leading it to become more and more special or less flawed.

They’re the personification of perfection.

OK, except perfection seems to be kind of subjective, since what I like isn’t the same as everyone else’s. I mean I may like active characters and some may like passive characters. You may think perfection is pizza without pineapple, while I say “you are objectively wrong”.

Jokes asides, being different human beings, usually we end up writing “perfect” characters with our definition of it, which may not correspond to someone else’s.

For example, Bella Swan is called “Mary Sue” a lot for being perfect, but she’s deeply flawed. She’s co-dependent and suicidal. Edward Cullen is the one “Gary Stu” that actually stuck, yet he’s manipulative and a stalker. Yet, there is truth to the claim they are perfect, not to me, but to Stephanie Meyers as they are both idealizations to her, regardless of our opinions of them.

I suppose a character can be drop dead gorgeous, have all sorts of skills and being loved by everyone, but, eventually, he/she will make something that many will consider to be wrong. If that doesn’t happen, then there’s probability not a good conflict, which reveals that, maybe, the problem is in the story itself, not necessarily in the character.

Speaking of subjectivity in flaws and virtues…

“So why did you used to call Orihime a Mary Sue?”

Well, because I thought her flaws were inconsequential with Bleach begging me to sympathize with her for awful reasons and smart characters being really stupid, meaning causing unnecessary plot-hole or plot-contrivance for her. The few most glaring examples I recall (and I’ve read/watched Bleach at least half a century ago, so it’s possible there are a few lapses in my memory) being:

Her almost kissing Ichigo while he was unconscious. That scene is framed as if I am supposed to sympathize with her, instead of what it actually is: creepy as hell and also falls under almost sexual assault in many countries.

Her having an obsession for Ichigo to the point of only thanking him for coming for her in her mind, even though Rukia, Chad, Uryu and Renji were also there to save her. This again is framed as I’m supposed to empathize with her, instead of thinking she’s being narrow-minded and has an unhealthy obsession with Ichigo.

About others acting stupid: Uryu takes her to where Ichigo and Ulquiorra are fighting even though where they were before, Ichigo was losing cause he was holding back to avoid hurting her. Yes, the other place was bigger, but their powers were huge and Uryu taking Orihime should have been a stupid idea (and he’s supposed to be smart).

Not to mention, of course, she resurrects Ichigo by crying and yelling his name which was also major bullshit.

And yes, it’s time to talk about the gender-thing and to admit to my own prejudices despite being a woman, because Orihime isn’t the only character I know who has her flaws not being acknowledged or being perceived as good. Many male characters have all of those yet, I still don’t call them “Gary Stu” or any other male equivalent.

Sun Wukong from RWBY has pretty much all the same problems as Orihime: he stalks Blake for months yet faces no actual consequences. And his actions were framed in the show as “needed”, even though they weren’t since the entire Menagerie arc could be written without him with only minor changes. Creepy actions being framed as right and sympathetic – check.

He also abandons his team several times, which, again, was inconsequential (even if he confesses to being an awful leader in V6) and no way in hell a combat school would interrupt classes for an entire year. He’s completely oblivious of the Faunus struggle, though he’s a Faunus and goes to school in one of the most racist territories. And Blake goes from super paranoid to so relaxed she doesn’t even believe him when he says he saw a WF member wearing a mask for no apparent reason. If I had to guess it’s because if she kept being super paranoid, it would stand to reason she would be the one noticing Ilia spying all by herself, rendering him almost useless and without interrupting her talk to Ghira, which would have made Sun completely pointless. At some point, Orihime became all about Ichigo, Sun was always all about Blake (until V6).

Like I said, I have criticized Sun for being badly written, unnecessary and the contrivances his presence demanded, but I have never ever called a “Gary Stu”. Looking back, I think it’s a combination of a few reason:

I know “Mary Sue” is a term too subjective to be used without an explanation afterwards;

We just don’t tend to hold the same standards for male characters;

Even when we use them for male characters, it almost never sticks.

And I know I’m not the only one doing this.

Once, I came across an article that accused several characters of being a “Mary Sue”, including Orihime, but because she’s too perfect (are you sure about that?) and Sailor Moon, yet claimed Goku wasn’t one. It’s particularly funny, because Sailor Moon is written to be more flawed than Goku (even if I much higher tolerance for Dragon Ball and DBZ to Sailor Moon).

Goku is an absent father and husband, yet his family never really holds that against him. His wife may complain about it a few times during the anime, but there’s no real strife between them and Gohan never holds it against him either. He gives Cell a senzu bean so that he and Gohan can have a fair fight, even though the entire world is at stake. It still is mostly inconsequential, until Gohan’s arrogance gets in the way.

Meanwhile, Sailor Moon is stupid, coward and petty many times, and it’s clear the writers knew it because they acknowledge those flaws within the show. She is mocked because of them, and her lack of resilience even leads to the death of one of the Sailors in a season finale, if I remember correctly (admittedly, I watched it 5 centuries ago, so I might be wrong). Yes, I know they come back from the death.

This is not an argument that Goku should be called a “Mary Sue/Gary Stu”, rather that the term is heavily gendered. It’s much more applied to female characters and even when used for a male one, it almost never sticks. Even in the example I gave, Edward Cullen, which was successfully labeled as “Gary Stu”, still feels like it was gendered-motivated. Not because of his own, obviously, but for the target audience’s: the majority girls and women. So there we notice another double-standard: the sex of the target audience also affects the claims to “Sueness”.

Ultimately, I have to agree with Dan, with the term “Mary Sue” being too subjective to actually have any validity and is deeply rooted in sexism. Explaining why a character doesn’t work for us and why we think they’re badly written is far more productive. Let’s keep in mind, we aren’t supposed to like every character writers make, even the ones who are meant to be likable and relatable.

Note: Yes, I watched Overly Sarcastic Productions’ video on the subject. While I like Red’s take, I’d say almost no character in original fiction fits the mold. That in itself wouldn’t be the problem, but the fact that it will remain extremely subjective, I still find the term to be counter-productive, heavily gendered and it needs to die.

1 – https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue

2 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

#mary sue #stop calling female characters mary sue #female character #misogyny #writing #writing female characters #sexism #fandom #twilight #sailor moon

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emeraldspiral · 5 years

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Real talk, the only reason Anakin had to go to Jedi school to git gud is because he needed to be a kid when he left his mom and an adult when he began his romance with Padme. If the plot had called for it, he would’ve been a Master Jedi in a week because the needs of the story outweigh the need for “realism”.

Just look at Luke. His training lasted maybe a couple of days or weeks at most because it just wouldn’t make sense for Luke to stay out of the fight for years and years. He could only train for as long as it took Han and Leia to get captured by Vader, but he also needed to not instantly lose to Vader when they fought. Therefore, the amount of time it took for Han and Leia’s storyline to play out was the exact amount of time Luke needed to get good enough to face Vader.

Afterward, in RotJ, supposedly there’s a timeskip of a year, but you’d be forgiven if you thought, as I did, that only a few days or weeks passed, since there’s 0 mention of a timeskip in the film and no reason to think it would take that long to get to Tatooine or plan Han’s rescue. In fact, it seems out of character for a dedicated Rebel like Leia to take that much time off for one person, no matter how she felt about him. But I digress. Regardless of whether it was really a year or only a few days, the fact remains that Luke didn’t have any additional training during that timeskip. He only returned to Dagobah after rescuing Han, and upon arrival Yoda was on his deathbed telling Luke he was already ready, no additional Force training or lightsaber combat instruction required.

In any event, however much training he received, it was definitely significantly under ten years and, from what we saw, didn’t even cover lightsaber fencing, at least not nearly as much as lifting rocks and reading minds and other Force skills. Yet, he still managed to overpower Vader, the strongest Jedi/Sith to ever live. Because the story required him to be that powerful at that point so that he could complete his arc by rejecting the opportunity to slay Vader.

Now, let’s consider Rey’s skills, abilities, and accomplishments, starting with the dumbest of the dumbshit things people complain about when trying to use the “she’s too good at too many things/gets too good too fast” argument for why she’s a Mary-Sue.

First of all:

Why does Rey speak droid and Wookie (as if that’s a particularly uncommon skill)? Because she needs to befriend BB-8, so BB-8 can bring her together with Finn and because someone’s got to be able to understand Chewie once Han’s gone and that someone should probably be the one who’s going to be spending a lot of time alone with him co-piloting the Falcon when they go to find Luke. The better question to ask is why anyone cares about shit like that? Like, is that on some Mary-Sue litmus test somewhere? “Is bilingual in a world where most people are?” If you’re going to complain about something that stupid I have to assume you think character writing should work like Pokemon where you have to drop traits in order to stay under a certain limit, even if half the stuff filling up the quota is stuff like “can ride a bicycle” or “doesn’t burn the house down when they cook”.

Second:

Why is she an ace pilot (as if half the characters in Star Wars, both Force sensitive and non-Force sensitive aren’t also Ace Pilots, and also as if Rey has more than ONE SINGLE flying scene or had any trouble handing over the spotlight to any of the other THREE ACE PILOTS JUST IN THE SEQUEL TRILOGY)? Because she has to be a pilot because Finn can’t be, because he had to need Poe so that he could get his jacket, in order to catch BB-8′s attention, so that BB-8 could bring him and Rey together. Also, because it emphasizes Rey’s major character flaw; that she is the architect of her own misery. She has the means to leave Jakku but doesn’t, something directly acknowledged immediately after her one and only flying scene.

Third:

Why does she show Han up on knowledge of his own ship? Well, for one thing, she fucking doesn’t. She only knows about one thing installed in the ship after it left his custody. But even if you wanted to make the claim that this was supposed to demonstrate that she was some kind of Superstar Mechanic (as if mechanics are something rare and special in Star Wars) and that the reason for her being a Superstar Mechanic is just to get Han to like her, even that has a story-related justification that isn’t just about wish-fulfillment or using a cool character to shill for her. Having Han take a liking to her creates another opportunity for her to demonstrate her character flaw when she rejects his job offer in favor of returning to Jakku to wait forever for parents that don’t love her when there’s a man she already thinks of as the father she never had right in front of her. Also, having her bond with him makes his death at Kylo’s hands more personal for her, thereby creating a greater hurdle for her to overcome in order to come to have compassion for Kylo, making it more satisfying when she does.

Fourth:

Why does she have the Force when she’s already a pilot, mechanic, and proficient stick-fighter (as if any of those things are unique or special. Or more importantly, ever used at the expense of letting other characters shine)? Couldn’t she have been a Badass Normal? If this were just about beating bad guys and winning the war maybe. But it’s clearly not. This is about the old heroes passing the torch to the next generation. The main character was always going to be Force sensitive, always going to become a Jedi, and always going to replace Luke no matter what gender they were, who they were related to, whether they were a scavenger or a stormtrooper or secret royalty or Born of the Force or who, if anyone, they were going to be romantically partnered with. Rey needs to be Force sensitive because, as the main character, her ultimate purpose is to define what it means to be a Jedi for a new generation.

Fifth:

Why can she do things with the Force without training? Well, the only reason Luke needed a training montage was because the Force was a brand new concept for him and he was limited by his own ideas about his capabilities, and because the audience was going in blind as well and needed to hear the Force 101 lectures just as much as he did. Rey meanwhile, has no reason to think lifting rocks or picking up a lightsaber hilt is hard when she’s grown up hearing stories about Luke doing much crazier things. Between that, having Kylo demonstrate all those abilities to her beforehand, and also being able to access his training through the Force Bond there is 0 reason for her to need a training montage in-universe. But more importantly, because the audience has already gotten a crash course on standard Force abilities from the previous movies, a training montage would be redundant. We don’t need the same exposition given to us again anymore than we need to see Rey repeat the same character journey as Luke. The Force Bond and Rey’s preexisting fighting capabilities may be a convenient workaround to explain why Rey doesn’t need a training montage, but they exist because a training montage would be dead weight that adds nothing to the story. And that’s just the Force Bond’s ancillary purpose. Its much more important function is getting Rey and Kylo to stop fighting and start talking.

Sixth:

Why couldn’t Rey and Kylo at least fight to a draw or better yet, have her forced to retreat in their first battle? Why did she have to beat him at the very beginning of her journey? Doesn’t that make her too powerful with no room for advancement and him too weak, leaving no tension for future confrontations?

Because Kylo’s defeat isn’t about Rey at all. It’s not about making her look good. Kylo’s supposed to be at his lowest point going into TLJ. He’s supposed to look weak, not because the screenwriters think it’ll make Rey look stronger in comparison. They know damn well that the way to write a villain is to present them as an impossible obstacle to overcome. To hide any semblance of vulnerability in order to keep you in suspense as to how the hero could ever prevail against them. But that’s not Rey and Kylo’s dynamic. That’s Kylo and Snoke’s dynamic. Kylo isn’t the villain, he’s the “other half of the protagonist”. He doesn’t exist for Rey to be afraid of him. She’s meant to sympathize with him, which means he needs to appear vulnerable and human in front of her. They couldn’t build the romantic (or even platonic) connection the film clearly intended for them if Kylo actually did come across as threatening as people wanted him to be. The appearance of physical or emotional invincibility would be antithetical to the entire story they’re trying to tell.

Also, Rey isn’t even that good with a lightsaber. Kylo had been shot with a bowcaster, injured further and tired out by Finn, and handicapped himself by not aiming to kill or maim since he wanted to recruit Rey to his side and Rey still spent 98% of that fight running and only won because Kylo chose not to kill her when he had the chance.

Believe it or not, some dumbasses have actually heard all this and still tried to argue that Rey shouldn’t be in any fighting shape after hitting a tree hard enough to lose consciousness and that should nullify all the advantages she was given. If you make this argument, you’re being an anal contrarian fuck and you know it. Getting hit in the head is NEVER portrayed realistically in fiction. It is completely standard and in no way exceptional for a fictional character to awake from unconsciousness with no impairments. It has fuck all to do with trying to make characters look cool. It never has been and never will be a Mary-Sue trope.

In conclusion:

None of Rey’s abilities or feats are just there to make her look good. They’re either there to move the story along, or to add to her characterization and character journey, or to add to Kylo’s. Furthermore, they’re nothing special in the context of Star Wars, the stuff she learns quickly has in-universe justifications and it’s not even unprecedented for characters to git gud enough to match someone more experienced in a very short amount of time with no in-universe justification.

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cloudchaserandflitterexplain · 7 years

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Cloudchaser and Flitter Explain: High Magic + Marks in Time Manes

Yeah, well, I’ve just got that itch, you know?

Well, do you have a topic?

Sure do! We have Manes we can talk about!

We kind of forgot to cover High Magic’s Manes, and we’ve got Marks in Time’s to do too!

We can even do them both at once since there’s only 7 total across both sets!

Hrm, yeah, we never did get to High Magic, did we?

What the hay, I’m down if you are.

Hi everypony, we’re back! Did you miss us? Today we’ll be talking about High Magic’s and Marks in Time’s Mane Characters!

And just like last time, we’ll be talking about them in the context of both Harmony and block formats!

Let’s start from the top with High Magic’s Blue Mane: Princess Luna: Dream Warrior!

A fantastic Mane! She got me 4th place last year at nationals!

First off, she has an incredibly easy flip condition of just needing to play a friend to her problem. So unless you have an incredibly bad hand, this basically means you’ll be flipping her turn 2 every game.

But that’s only the beginning. Her true power comes from her boosted ability. Namely being able to move for free whenever you play a friend to a problem. That’s 2 AT worth of value for free. Every time you use her.

And with hasty friends, this means you can even move her outside of the main phase. It is pretty common to see ponies use her to confront one problem, then play a Hasty friend like Night Glider: She’s On it to another problem during the score phase, which causes her to dart to that problem and confront it to start a DFO.

Her one problem is she relies on friends being played. So tokens and banishing then putting friends back into play won’t help you out. And if you run out of friends in hand, or don’t have anything sufficiently cheap, you’ll have to rely on actually moving her manually.

A well built deck can get around these problems most of the time, of course, but they are something to be aware of and will crop up even in the best decks from time to time. But it’s certainly not enough to dissuade ponies from using her.

In short, she’s very efficient, and very easy to use. There’s a reason so many ponies use Bluna nowadays.

Cici!

Yeah, yeah. She’s a princess and you don’t like it when I don’t use princess’s proper titles.

Well, tough. Everypony calls her “Bluna”, even me. So you’ll just have to deal with it.

Well, don’t come complaining to me when you get banished to the moon twice for disrespect!

How would I be banished twice?

Um, I mean I really think you’re overestimating how much the princesses care about being referred to by proper titles when talking about a card game… It’s not like we’re in a courtroom, you know.

Hmph.

Anyway, maybe we should just move on.

Yes. Let’s finish talking about Princess Luna: Dream Warrior, shall we?

Dream Warrior prefers aggressive decks. Almost to the exclusion of anything else. She is all about speed.

And who can blame her? Her ability basically screams “use me to confront problems over and over!”

Like Cici said before, you’ll want to fill your deck with cheap friends and hasty friends. Stuff like Prince Rutherford, and Filthy Rich can help you optimize how you use her!

And since you’re already in Blue trying to win lots of faceoffs, cards that help you win faceoffs like Oh YEAH! or cards that get you extra points for winning faceoffs like Rainbow Dash: Back in Black can really help out.

Or my personal favourite: Night Glider: Overpowering.

As for problems, you’re going to want problems that are easy to confront, no more than 6 total power is a good guideline. And high bonuses are good since you’re trying to win faceoffs!

The strategy for building around her in block is basically the same. Most of the cards that play well with her are already block cards, so chances are you won’t be needing to make very many modifications.

Really, it’s not hard to make a Bluna deck. Just toss together all your cheap blue friends with good effects, some way to score extra points, and maybe some Thunderlane: Unsung Heroes and you’ll do fine.

Next up is Trixie: Tricks of the Trade. High Magic’s Purple Mane!

So Trixie isn’t exactly a bad Mane, but…

Well, she’s expensive to flip first off. And that can really set you back in the early game. 2 AT in addition to an event can be steep. Especially since most of the good events you’re likely to play have a high req. So chances are good that you won’t be flipping her until turn 3 or 4 at the earliest. And that’s assuming you have an event you even want to play.

That being said, there’s a reasonable chance you’ll be able to make your investment back in upcoming turns, due to her boosted ability. Having cheaper events is no joke. And playing 1 cost events for 0 is huge as the opponent will never be 100% certain if you have a Napcakes or not.

Of course, you only get those cheaper events when the opponent starts a faceoff. If they don’t start faceoffs, due to, say, only confronting one problem a turn or using point gain mechanisms like Photo Finish: Say “Käse”, well, she’s not going to do anything for you. Which is a huge flaw in her game plan.

So she’s pretty good against some matchups, but close to worthless in others. In general, I say stick with Princess Twilight: Ambassador of Friendship as your Purple Mane. Free AT every turn almost without fail will generally pay off better than Trixie ever could. And in more matchups.

Trixie prefers control, though she could probably see play In midrange decks as well.

You’ll want to fill your deck with lots of cheap events, like Star Swirl Research, to make flipping her easier. And events that help you out during faceoffs help a lot too, like Through the Ages. You’ll want a fair bit of them to best make usage of Trixie’s ability.

And you’ll want to use a lot of troublemakers too. Preferably ones that the opponent just has to deal with If they want to get anything done, so they’ll try and start lots of faceoffs so you can use Trixie’s ability to stop them!

Your problems should also help you with faceoffs. Dark Magic Surge can reduce your event’s costs even further. And On the Case gives you AT for when your opponent starts a faceoff there. Perfect for your strategy!

Like Bluna, you build Trixie basically the same way in block as you would in Harmony. Nothing about the different card pools really changes your strategy there.

Basically all of the events you’d use are from Equestrian Odysseys block anyway…

Let’s move on to our last High Magic Mane: Discord: Mostly Harmless.

More like Mostly Worthless…

Cici!

He’s got a meh flip condition and an ability that barely affects the opponent, if it does at all. A lot of decks don’t even run Troublemakers.

It wouldn’t be bad on a Friend. That way you could play the friend in some matchups and save the AT elsewhere. But as a Mane? You want something that’s going to impact the game more than just occasionally.

Manes that require the opponent to be playing a specific way just aren’t good. Especially when the payoff is so minor. There’s no strategy to build around, no huge impact once he’s flipped, nothing.

What about Trixie? She’s a mane that requires the opponent to do specific things, and you said she wasn’t bad.

Okay, that’s true, but almost every deck is willing to start a faceoff at some point. Even control decks will challenge Troublemakers to try and get rid of them if they’re hazardous to their game plan. So you’re likely to get some benefit against almost all opponents, with a few exceptions.

But Discord? If the opponent isn't playing TMs, he does nothing for you. Even Mover and Shaker is better since almost everyone plays events!

Just don’t use this Mane. Stick to one of the Fluttershy Manes. They’re all considerably better, and the only place to be if you want to play Yellow.

Well, Cloudchaser is right about one thing. Discord’s not really a Mane you can build around. So he doesn’t really favor any particular strategy.

So go nuts! Include whatever you want! There’s no wrong way to build a Mostly Harmless deck!

Talk about truth in advertising…

Just make sure to include a few TMs so you can flip him yourself without relying on the opponent to do so for you!

Well, enough about him. Let’s move on to—

Aren’t you forgetting something?

Sure, fine. Build Discord in Block by not building him at all.

Anyway, on to Marks in Time and—

Cloudchaser!

Gah!

Look, he’s just bad. It doesn’t matter if it’s block or not. Why waste more time talking about him?

Cloudchaser…

Fine…

You build Discord the same way in block as you do in Harmony. Just like all the other HM Manes. There’s really not much difference since you can’t build around him.

Happy?

Much better!

Still don’t see the point…

Let’s move on to Marks in Time, shall we? And starting from the top, we’ve got Scootaloo: Cutie Mark Crusader! The first of three Manes with that subtitle

It’s been so long since they could get Manes of their own. I’m so proud of all three of them!

Heh, yeah. Nice of the devs to give them cards once they got their cutie marks, isn’t it? Pretty big moment in any foal’s life to be sure.

Absolutely!

But that’s enough being proud, even if they do deserve it! We’ve got cards to talk about!

Fair enough!

So if you thought Bluna was value, you definitely want to check out Scootaloo since she’s double that value. Two free moves every single turn, so long as you have characters at home. That’s 4 AT worth of movement for absolutely free!

Some ponies might think that’s a pretty good deal, yes.

Of course, moving those friends at the end of the turn means they aren’t going to help you this turn, just in the future, while Bluna can move before score phase, which is handy.

And Scootaloo does have a harder flip condition to meet, the same one that all Marks in Time Manes have, actually. Which frequently means she gets online later than Bluna does.

But despite being slower to start, she’s quicker in the mid to late game. And that can sometimes make up the difference! Nothing quite like winning a faceoff only to move two friends right back.

Both are good choices. Which is better is up to you.

Scootaloo favours aggro, but can actually be used in control situations as well. Friends like Svengallop or Pinkie Pie: Distracting Cheerer are good choices if going for control, since their abilities only work at problems. And with Scootaloo, it’s easy to ensure they’re at problems.

But if you’re going for the aggro route, you’re probably going to want cards similar to what you’d use for Dream Warrior. Probably with less emphasis on Hasty and more emphasis on winning faceoffs. Cards that trigger on being moved, like Holly Dash are great choices, though!

Though Rarity: Truly Outrageous is pretty good too, since you move her home to score points, then move her right back at end of turn to score again next turn!

Your problems are going to be pretty similar to Dream Warrior’s too, focusing on being quick and high bonuses. As for your starting problem, you’re going to want something easy to confront. Something like Cloudbursting or Under Lock and Tree.

For block, you’re probably going to want to focus solely on speed, and not go the control element. While it might still function, it’s going to be less effective than it would be without Premiere Block cards.

You also won’t have access to Cloudbursting, so you’ll have to make sure and choose a starting problem you can confront as quickly as possible. Under Lock and Tree plus an Aloe: Magic Touch can get you that turn 2 flip, for example.

Other than that… yeah, more or less the same. Focus on winning faceoffs and scoring points and you’ll be fine.

Next is our first Orange Mane for the day, the leader of the gang, Apple Bloom: Cutie Mark Crusader!

Yeah, uh… why don’t you handle this one, Flitter?

Huh? Why?

Because I don’t want you to hit me again when I say that she’s even worse than Mostly Harmless…

I mean, to be fair, it’s been a long, long time since we’ve had a bad Orange Mane. So it’s about time. But, well… she’s really, really bad.

Sigh, Cloudchaser…

You really don’t want to talk about her?

Not really… I mean, sure, she’s not the worst Mane… but I kind of have nothing good to say about her.

Her ability is just so… next to useless! At least Discord does something to some ponies.

Well, I don’t know about that! She helps you secure a faceoff win!

Admittedly, the opponent needs to have characters at problems, which doesn’t always happen.

But when they do, you increase your chances of winning nicely!

Yeah, but the pony starting the faceoffs usually wins anyway. It’s overkill.

Yeah, well...

Not to mention Orange is already super good at winning faceoffs and has other Manes that are just better for accomplishing that effect simply due to already having lots of power.

Well, sure, but…

Not to mention, Maud and Applejack are just easier to flip and more versatile. And if you don’t want to use them, you’ve got Spike and even Muffin Mare who are almost certainly going to do more for you than—

I thought you weren’t going to talk about the card.

Huh? I’m not. You are.

If you say so…

Anyway, Apple Bloom, like Scootaloo, prefers an aggro strategy. She wants to get to problems and confront them all the time to make most use out of her ability. And win those faceoffs!

Diligent friends and other cards that benefit from winning faceoffs are going to be pretty great here. Events that help win faceoffs will help too! And obviously you’ll want problems that revolve around winning faceoffs.

One friend especially to keep in mind is Bessie, since she’ll keep the friends you exhaust with Apple Bloom still exhausted assuming you don’t actually start a faceoff.

And like Scootaloo, you’re going to want an easy problem to confront early on.

Playing block, uh, you’re uh...

You know, just go with Flitter’s strategy of diligent friends. Probably your best bet. I really don’t know what else you can do with her.

Well, maybe it’s best to just move on.

To Purple, and Starlight Glimmer: Time of Her Life!

Now this is an interesting Mane. Unlike almost every other Mane in the game, you’re rewarded the longer it takes you to flip her as you get more benefit from her.

When you flip her, you get another ready phase. Which means drawing a card, collecting AT, and readying all your cards. So the more points ponies have scored, the more AT you’ll get when flipping her. And the more friends you’ve played that exhaust, the more you’ll be able to ready.

This can do some interesting things. You can exhaust all your friends, then have them ready for a faceoff you’re expecting the opponent to start. Or, maybe, you just want to use that Applejack: Factory Organizer an extra time.

Unfortunately, there aren’t very many friends with Immediate abilities that you can exhaust for benefit. Only 7 before Defenders of Equestria, actually, and only three of them are Purple. And all three of those are multi-coloured cards, no two of which are the same colour combination.

So it’s kind of difficult to use that aspect of her ability all that well yet…

But hey, who knows, maybe Defenders will make her more useful? I’d certainly like that. She’s certainly unique. But for now, she’s kind of only mediocre, and I’d recommend other Purple Manes for the time being.

Starlight doesn’t particularly favor any strategy, though farming is more or less out. Whether you’re using her boosted ability for a few extra action tokens to help you close the game a turn sooner, or using it to ready your friends with immediate abilities is entirely up to you!

Like cici said, pairing her with friends that exhaust at immediate speed is a good idea, like Moondancer: Detail-Oriented. You’ll probably also want a lot of low requirement Purple friends in case you don’t decide to flip Starlight until mid to late game.

But other than that, you more or less have free reign! Figure out how you best want to use her, then pick cards that help with that strategy. There’s no real wrong way to build a Starlight deck!

Except for farming.

Right, except for farming.

Your problems should be easy to confront, since you’ll want to get Starlight in there as soon as possible when you’re ready to flip her. You may also want to consider problems like Entrance Exam, which will let Starlight do something while she’s unboosted since you’re unlikely to use her to help confront problems until the time is right.

Let your creativity go nuts!

Like Flitter said, you can build her basically however you want, so there’s not going to be much difference between harmony and block formats. And most of the cards that synergize with her are block cards anyway.

But that being said, since Block format is naturally slower than Harmony, you have more time to let Starlight sit on the sidelines until you’re ready to flip her. So keep that in mind when building around her.

A well timed Starlight flip can be almost like an entire extra turn, so make sure you pick the best possible moment!

And now we’re moving on to our last Mane for the day: Sweetie Belle: Cutie Mark Crusader.

Another interesting one. Sweetie’s got some interesting build around potential.

There are some pretty powerful resources out there, and the ability to fetch them out of your yard every turn for free is pretty good. It’s not quite as good as, say, a free extra card or a free AT like Vinyl or Ambassador of Friendship, but it’s still a free card every turn.

...Provided you have a resource in your discard to get, anyway. Which is the hard part.

Now the good news is that there are plenty of resources worth retrieving from your discard. DIlemmas come to mind immediately for example, and you’ll be able to throw those into your discard pile pretty easily. Just start a face off with them! Then play them again the next turn.

The problem is to make her useful enough you have to be running enough resources in your deck to ensure you see some. And then on top of that, they have to be getting put in the discard at a pretty high rate to be getting enough usage out of her to justify using her over certain other manes I’ve mentioned. Which is hard.

Though, admittedly, she’s still probably the second best White Mane we’ve got. After—

Rarity: Dressmaker?

I was going to say Octavia.

Are you feeling okay, Cici? You didn’t freak out when I mentioned my hat deck.

Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure that’s what you wanted me to do…

So I didn’t.

Hehe, you’re learning!

Anyway, the point is that if you can find a good way to utilize her turn after turn, she’s probably worth building around. The problem is you’re frequently not going to be able to, which makes her a vanilla Mane half the time. Which just isn’t good enough.

Maybe Defenders will help? One to keep an eye on, to be sure.

Like Scootaloo, Sweetie can be used in both aggro and control decks!

Though unlike Scootaloo, she tends to prefer control. So they’re the same, but opposite, hehe.

Now if you’re going for speed, you’re going to want resources that help with that. Dilemmas with a low requirement are a good choice, as are resources that can provide you with AT, like Heart’s Desire or Two Bits. You’ll be able to go super fast recurring resources like those!

But if you’re going the control option, you’re going to prefer resources that have a debilitating effect. Vexing resources like Local Fashion will be good here, as will resources that can remove friends like Assault Pie or Oozeccessorized. Oh, and you can’t forget Wake Up Call!

Oh, and if you want to team her up with one of her PFFs, there’s the Applebloom: Re-Markable trick too! Just discard a resource to Apple Bloom each turn and get it back with Sweetie Belle! It’s like a free AT each turn!

Yeah, well, you might as well be using Ambassador of Friendship at that point…

But it’s a cute trick, sure.

As for problems, well, obviously you’re going to want something easy to confront for your starting problem, and from there, well, there are a number of problems that affect resources. Might want to start there!

Otherwise just go for standard problems for your strategy. You’ll be fine!

In block, you’ve got your work cut out for you. A lot of the best aggro resources are from previous sets, so you’re probably going to have to play control.

But the good news there is that the naturally slower format will let you use Sweetie Belle’s ability more times, so you’ll probably want to be playing control anyway. She can pack a wallop with the right resource toolkit. Probably worth trying out.

It won’t be the most competitive deck ever…

But I bet you’d win some games with it.

Okay, we’re done. Phew, been awhile.

Yup! Have fun?

Definitely.

Then we’ll have to try and make an effort to do this more frequently in the near future, won’t we?

Bye everypony! We’ll see you soon.

For sure.

Especially with Defenders right around the corner! I can’t wait to shake up my existing decks with new cards! I’m going to try and make a new Blue deck, no wait, a new Purple deck, and then I’ll—

Slow down, Cici!

Howsabout we go down to Sugar Cube Corner and speculate about the new cards for a while?

Deal! Let’s go!

#cloudchaser and flitter explain #cloudchaser #flitter #mlp:ccg #MLP:FiM #mlp ccg #MLP

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