#probably because i think it was made by western devs | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

imustbenuts · 7 months

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personal thoughts about playing JP games in JP vs EN, a lot of weird thoughts that probably won't make sense to many

not a dig at localization or translation or anything, just a word vomit on how im perceiving things.

theres 2 main categories in my head when i play games made by japanese devs. Western Themed, and Eastern Themed.

for Western Theme, games like final fantasy (all of it), some/few entries of fire emblems, no more heroes, and elden ring all fall into this category.

for Eastern Theme, it's games like persona, shin megami tensei, sekiro, sengoku basara, tales of series and RGG games

in my head, games in the Western Themed box are games i find far more enjoyable in english localization or dub, and actually find some of the japanese script to be kind of off putting. the Eastern Theme would be the opposite, games that are far more enjoyable in full JP than EN.

learning japanese has done quite a bit to my brain and the more i learn the more i think, "@_@ oh god im in a weird place where people won't understand me help"

because see, if i try to explain, it becomes weird and very subjective. and one of the main factor is that language is kind of intrinsically tied to culture in my head, which, :v

trying to type it down to explain anyway:

as an example, calling people by titles such as "Lord", "Sir", "Madame", "Knight", works far better for a Western themed game than an Eastern one. like, yes, that makes sense if i think about it, historically and even right now, those terms instantly spring up the images of a medieval knight and societal system in stone castles. cool beans.

but we don't use the word knight for Samurais. this is a whole other thing referring to the Japanese class of people wandering around with swords serving their feudal lords.

and in JP, it works the same. Kishi is used for Knights rather than the word samurai. for Lords, 卿(kyou) is used for English lords, and 殿(tono) is used for JP lords. but the japanese pronouns are still there, with some of the roots just reminding me of how a stereotype in JP media would speak. the -sama suffix is the same, and other words like -chan or anime/japanese rooted verbal tics can totally get in there, pulling me out of the immersion.

its like running face first into "Tis but a flesh wound" in the script - you know that specific root is in monty python, a fully ENGLISH bit. a good example of JP would be running into a cat who says "wagahai wa neko de aru", refering to nastume soseki's book I Am A Cat.

especially in the case of Final Fantasy. with very few exceptions like 7, a lot of them fit better wtih an EN script bc of how much western themed theatrics and setting is packed in there.

as an example, i think i prefer seifer in ff8 for example going "One of these days, I'm gonna tell ya 'bout my ROMANTIC dream!" like a dumbass jock over "itsuka kikasete yarusa! ore no ro~~~~~mantikku na yume wo na!" like a dumbass JP highscooler (which he kind of is, but still not a dipshit jock)

so its really the little things like that. subs not dubs doesnt work for me anymore, im in a very strange place, kupo.

another thing is really, just... the tropes. the deep disconnect between how people behave irl and how anime thinks people behave irl. kind of like how Hayao Miyazaki puts it in 2014,

so, learning Japanese has actually done a weird bit where it's caused me to actually fully understand the JP, meaning when i pick up on the script getting off putting, it gets off-putting.

when people usually go "subs not dubs", its voiced from a sense that the JP voice is better than EN. but as the years go by this isn't really true anymore, some dubs can have serious quality that's unthinkable back in 2010 ffs. i think this is largely bc anglo-speaking audience do not understand JP, and so builds an imagination between the sub and the tone of the voice acting to carry the work.

but just like old ps1 horror games, that imagination is doing a good bulk of elbow greasing.

to explain:

there are times when JP writers puts in an objectively anime trope or thing. especially in the case of FE, where sometimes that it becomes 'ew' to people who aren't hardcore anime nerds. im talking things like the whole big booba onee-chan Camilla and the kawaii imouto/otouto Sakura and Takumi tropes thats kinda there in FE Fates. and the JP version of Anna's S support in Engage and the weird undertones thats going there.

masking it with subs can cause the audience to kind of brush it off as "aaah those silly japanese" or "ok this is just an anime trope". i mean, hell, check some discourse from people who yell about how this is censorship essentially defending it from what is effectively lolicon tropes and it's just. :v

and thats the thing. once that localization or sub barrier is removed, once im hearing actual JP and past any subconscious filter, i fully see the scene in its original form. i would then have a reaction exactly like hayao miyazaki.

having that ignorance kind of protects an audience from just how deep the writers ouroborous'd themselves into the nerd sphere. i kind of wish i had that sometimes. the creep vibes in some original JP scripts makes me want to crawl out of my skin, and there is no way i can explain this to an audience without first sounding like im disparaging the original work, shitting on the writers, and bringing in my personal bias into the conversation.

which, yeah i guess it kind of is. but man. if elden ring can commit to their bit with anime tropes used in a good/interesting/subtle way, then so can every one else.

when i started learning JP to play JP games never to see the light of localization, this was not the experience i expected, tbh.

so in summary, im totally disillusioned to the idea of Original = Best, Localization = Censorship at this point. that rose colored glasses are hanging on by a thread now. kind of wondering what other stuff i'll run into but it's been a real interesting journey that i totally get if people wont understand.

loneliness and language learning goes hand in hand lol

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silver-wield · 10 months

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i find the whole tifa "SHOULD" be buff on twitter really sad. Some people are really taking the white Knighting complex and missing out why some are saying factual stuff about her. If the OP didn't try to force their way that she's a pugilist (which she is not, she's a monk but they're probably referring to ff14 pugilist -> monk system which didn't exist in FF7 yet.....but they really do no want to be corrected and would rather tantrum instead ... seriously so "mature" goddamn it, that's why I blocked them off) and that she should be buff otherwise you're kissing SE's/Nomura's ass. It's sad, really sad.

Do they even really love tifa just as she is? Then why ask to change her? Almost even removing most of her chest which is a part of her whether they like it her not? One could have a preference surely....but they shouldn't shove it down people's throat and call them names if they don't agree. If they don't want people to comment, then why post it on public then? It's the internet? I really don't like OP, they're being too defensive and insecure with their own work.... Just because people liked it, doesn't mean the majority will accept it, twitter is not the world. That isn't tifa, that's somebody cosplaying as tifa instead. Seriously..... If OP didn't say shit that she "should", this wouldn't escalate at all. there have been plentiful buff < - > ultra buff tifa fanarts made all throughout the years before but don't need to assert a stupid stance like this, acting like it's a fact when it's not. They should stop forcing tifa to be their poster mascular body type character in FF series and demand SE to create a new one instead. They should leave tifa alone and stop forcing their ideals on her, Tbh her best design for me will always be dissidia tifa.

Personally, I think remake tifa could use a bit off current Rose Namajunas' body type to balance with her huge chest and add more strength to her *design shape....but what OP drew was no offense, "not effective" at all in the grand scale of things. Completely deflated her chest and muscle size like compared to cloud lol would look like a sore thumb with the rest of the cast too. Perhaps they wanted a Reika Saiki....instead? But this muscle idol, unlike their redesign is still able to keep her feminine vibes though??? Hmm

Anyway, I don't appreciate op being too defensive and aggressive I think it was them who ultimately made it worse and those who sincerely do have muscle fetish too (in the guise of pro muscular women), Im sure cleriths are taking advantage of this moment. There are indeed bad takes from clotis as well but most of them are only there because OP brought up what should and shouldn't be, no different from people who assert her breast should be larger than it already is. I clearly see no difference and "both are still objectifying tifa", it's just that their taste are different from the other. They don't even realize their hypocrisy smh. Tifa.... When will they ever stop talking about your body. You trully are the most realistic character I've ever laid eyes on 😢.

This was long but also silver, I may not always agree with you but I wish I could be more Idgaf in my life when it comes to shit like these, how the hell do you do it? It's incredible.

forgot to add srry! Not making tifa cute is like a no go especially in japan. Her youthful, feminine, cute design is like that for her (specially her), for a reason, especially when her looks are supposed to be reminiscent of general japanese Beauty standards and not western ones.

Op has zero respect for the devs or fans by being all idgaf about canon and my interpretation should be what the devs do because that's what I want.

I literally do not give a fuck if people draw Tifa different from canon. I also draw Tifa different from canon. The point I made from the start, and have stuck by is that op is body shaming women who aren't overly muscular like women can't be slender and athletic. They're disrespecting the devs creative process and acting arrogant af because they got a description from fucking Google that doesn't even match Tifa's job. She's a monk, not a pugilist. Op acting like they're being bullied when they were the one antagonising people with what they said is so much garbage I can't even.

You'll notice it's never any other character being demeaned this way. Cloud lugs an 80lb sword around but nobody says he should be more muscular.

Op even thought they had some gotcha by saying they'll draw Aerith overweight, but unless she also says this should be canon then she's just being a fucking body shaming moron. They're not doing it to celebrate bigger women, they're doing it to piss people off, and at the same time implying Aerith's canon appearance isn't adequate either. Women look like Aerith. She has a straight up and down frame. When people warp that by making her look like Tifa and then try and claim she has curves that also pisses me off because she doesn't. It's not so much the art, although I also don't like it, but typically ignore it, it's the mindset of the people making and commenting on it like their opinions should be taken up by the devs and the game changed to suit them.

And comparing a body type to a haircut is ridiculous. Anybody can get a haircut. Tifa does get a haircut in AC. Hair is not body type.

Tifa's design is canonically cute and adorable. She's yamato nadeshiko

People can draw Tifa how they want, but this is how Nomura canonically designed her. She emulates the delicate beauty, so screaming that should be changed is just a disrespect to Nomura and ffvii.

If y'all are fans then why you being assholes to the creators?

#ship war #for our girl

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beardedmrbean · 1 month

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Oh hey, sorry let me explain what I meant

I understand the Americanization of saying the main cast of ATLA because the cartoons was a Y7 NICKTOON that hade to be compatible enough to bye syndicated with SpongeBob when needed

Nothing against the og show, just you can pick up the obvious westernization when you get into more Asian fantasy stories

But what I’m talking about is the lack of cultural exchanges despite the access of African kingdoms being for more accessible than before

Also what those things that assassin creed milk the living FUCK out of to explain why we can go to the crusades to Italian renaissance to the North America

And recent to the Viking era to a prequel that take place in 9th century Baghdad?

(Also teasing that India will probably be used in future games)

Oh yeah

TRADE ROUTES, TRADE ROUTES, TRADE ROUTES, ESTABLISHED A WHOLE LOT OF FUCKING TRADES IN YOUR FANTASY WORLD PEOPLE

Sorry, but I remember Dave pointed out the issues of modern fantasy stories is that they are written by metropolitan people who can’t comprehend life outside of their cities

Vs me who you know grew up in various places ie a college town for a bit.

Also under thing, if your ass can barely comprehend modern farmer lives

Your shit out of luck when writing proper world building

It like the issues with Yasuke for ac red, the thing is that story leaks revealed that Yasuke outsider status will be acknowledged

Hopefully it was a team idea not sbi suggestion

But as you know the assassins value free will, so when research and learning that Yasuke was kicked out of Japan by Mitshundie who refer to Yasuke as animal. I can see the devs desires saying the assassins saved him and Yasuke slowly agrees to help unify Japan to ensure the country won’t be at the mercy of Templars

Also I mention before because I did my own research and theorize that assassins Yasuke will die in Southeast Asia given the East African population there

Oh your other friend who the lawyer with the Cookie Monster icon pointed out that in rings of power made Gaderial a burnout millenial…ugh writers I understand you were told to write what you know

But you need to be VERY conscious especially if it a pre industrial setting

Yeah this is an issues, established. Fucking. Trade. Routes.

Make African kingdoms based off the Mali, the Yoruba, the Moors

Say in your fantasy world a group of refugees and immigrants decide to leave their ancestral homeland and move to the European kingdoms, now in reality most would be in trading ports and such

But say a second gen of them already assimilated into the surrounding area wanted to be a knight, of course it would have a lot of discrimination and such. But it make sense for that one character

Sorry, I was thinking about the Latin Americans and how they acknowledge they are mixed. Now yes Anglophones had a lot of separatism….but I think what huge root cause between black Americans and Africans is that my community don’t realize we’re like the Latinos-wait wait most of them have their native roots so nvm.

Because we grew up in an extremely different culture from them. Yes we can now interacted with native Africans due to globalism

But black activists, if the French and British were at each other throats for centuries. What the hell you guys think we are to Africans when we only started to have casual relations in the 60’s?

Sorry for these essay long anons, but I was thinking what wrong with modern fantasy beyond the woke shit…it’s because these fucks had very limited life experience or understanding of pre colonial times

Nothing against the og show, just you can pick up the obvious westernization when you get into more Asian fantasy stories. But what I’m talking about is the lack of cultural exchanges despite the access of African kingdoms being for more accessible than before

It's that money thing again, managed a great story still tho,

and ya have to wonder about the difficulty of gathering up a collection of "folk tales" from various indigenous groups around the globe, Africa being a massive untapped resource for that,

Not sure how many would lend themselves to movies, but anthology type tv series like twilight zone style with no set cast other than Rod Sterling as the announcer that does a new one every week, I could actually see that working

Your shit out of luck when writing proper world building

All this stuff feels pretty spot on

Also I mention before because I did my own research and theorize that assassins Yasuke will die in Southeast Asia given the East African population there

AC people seem to do a very good job, to the point that folks were thinking the one game could be used to help rebuild Notre Dame, that didn't pan out, but they still gave the game away free on Steam so people could visit if they wanted.

Say in your fantasy world a group of refugees and immigrants decide to leave their ancestral homeland and move to the European kingdoms, now in reality most would be in trading ports and such But say a second gen of them already assimilated into the surrounding area wanted to be a knight, of course it would have a lot of discrimination and such. But it make sense for that one character

Look up the Jewish diaspora that formed after the last time they thought it would be a good idea to piss off Rome. Not for integration so much as routes taken and areas settled

Funny you mention them, that thing that nobody ever expects resulted in large numbers of, once again, Jewish diaspora who not only settled in North Africa they also went to Latin America, weird little pockets of Jewish people dotting places in various countries in the Caribbean and South America, couple that are widely disavowed by 99.9% of the Jewish population that knows they exist.

Might be less useful since they've managed to hold on to their Jewishness and not assimilate

-wait wait most of them have their native roots so nvm.

Number of Mexicans I've known that think they're descended from the Mayans I'm not so sure about that, but you're not actually wrong either.

But black activists, if the French and British were at each other throats for centuries. What the hell you guys think we are to Africans when we only started to have casual relations in the 60’s?

yay technology, it really has made some things better, other things worse but eh equivalent exchange as the Alric brothers say (my animu reference for the year)

No worries, sorry bout the time it took to get this out got things pulling left and right and I want to be able to get a good answer out to you so we can call it even, lol.

#zoomer huey anon

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doubleddenden · 1 year

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I know people are probably tired of me wishing for another venture in the Pokemon Colosseum universe, but I still want something like it.

Just think about it. Colosseum, apparently, were made by devs that had never even played the normal games before. The world and characters were designed by someone that had actually worked on a Star Wars manga. The result is something I'd see as a weird blend between Pokemon and Trigun. Weird, but cool. It doesn't necessarily do anything new, it just re-frames existing mechanics.

So why not just... try that again? To get as many weird results as possible.

Have another studio that's NEVER touched Pokemon before take the existing mechanics and just do what they want with it. Only thing they have to worry about is keeping it E rated and keeping the battle mechanics.

Maybe a Colosseum 3 would be neat. But I'd also be really thrilled to see something like... Pokemon but if it were in Lord of the Rings. Pokemon but if it were in Cowboy Bebop or Star Wars. Pokemon but in Cyber Space- well I guess that's Digimon Cyber Sleuth but still.

Hell, just loan it out to other studios outside of Japan in general. Not to replace the main game, but as a side game like Colosseum did and just to really experiment. I wanna see how a Spanish speaking studio would do with the franchise, because the fan games from the Spanish side are always so wild. Maybe an American studio could finally make that North Western US region that people would love to have.

#pokemon #pokemon colosseum

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nohmercy · 6 months

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some concepts I had for tf2 psychonauts au in 2018 that I still remember:

i addressed it 100% as a game concept and not a fanon thing and tried to approach it as I thought a game dev would

the main character was scout, and the plot involved him learning that he had a psychic father who disappeared and he had to hunt him down to kick his ass for abandoning Ma, but finding a ton of interesting characters and uncovering a rapidly unraveling wacky plot about two rich brothers that were experimenting on people in the desert

the first character we meet is Medic, and he was the last person anyone knew that saw Spy. he's a red herring in multiple ways, because you think he's menacing and weird enough to be responsible for Spy's disappearance, and later on, he fits very well into the role of the guy making people into psychic atrocities. but he's innocent both times, he just does normal atrocities. usually involving baboon organs. you come back later to see inside his head and it's a spiralling, confusing obstacle course utilizing ur only 2 current abilities (super jump + blast). it ends when he realizes you're in there and throws you into a giant birdcage dangling over an abyss and tries to give you a medical exam. you fight his second opinion-esque internal self and help him with his fear of death and loneliness

the second is heavy, who tries to knock your block off for messing around in medics head. but you tell him about medics thing for him and he softens up. he lets you in his brain to help him remember what happened to spy. it's a Siberian themed level with a wild animal theme, but with nods to heavy's intellectual side and love for his family. the boss fight is his idealized version of his father, who, upon defeat, tells him that he doesn't always have to be strong for others. you also get enough hints about spy to move on to Engineer

engineers level is a cyber western themed level that utilizes telekinesis, and you learn to lasso things to swing and pull enemies towards you. the boss is a nod to psn1 with a mechanical bullfight, and littered throughout is references to his daunting patrilineal history. he's definitely from a long line of psychonauts

pyros next, with a pyroland themed inner mind singed at the edges. I haven't thought much in this one but it's definitely where you learn pyrokinesis right? maybe some nods to gender nonconformity and identity but you probably get tugged out before a grand discovery

at this point you've learned enough to know it's the Mann Brothers, and Grey Mann has made his appearance and convinced you of how to stop them. he teaches you the mind reading ability probably. id like to think he's the loboto ish figure instead of medic and hes played more sympathetically

demo is probably the prettiest but saddest level. with a theme based on cryptids and mythos and being a psionic warrior. it's also very silly I think but the man has serious mom issues. this whole game is parent problems 101. but! he knows where spy is!

sniper is a hard guy to find and even harder to figure out. you don't get to be in his mind for very long before he kicks you out, but it looked rather lonely and a bit paranoid. he seems pissed off that you only came to find spy, who he's sure betrayed everyone and took off somewhere. last he saw....

soldiers mind is a mess. enigmatic and paranoid, with cartoonish ideas of patriotism and the military. a bit like oleanders, but more wacky. he doesn't remember who he is, and only knows how to follow orders. and he was told to not talk about the Mann Brothers... I think this lvl is about reconnecting him w his past + identity, and ensuring him that he's not alone in his war

when you find spy, you discover he's been irreversibly experimented on and struggles to control his illusory abilities. he mourns having missed your life due to his fear of commitment, knowing it's too late and that he's too far gone to return to normal society. he teaches you invisibility, and you take on the Manns and their army of psychic thralls to avenge him and end up inside his mind

his mind is a nod to noir films, with a jazzy mysterious soundtrack and an intense art style shift. you hunt down a criminal to save a woman, only to discover it's spy himself. the theme is based around self, love, and the fear of your job ruining your life. he fights you as an invisible-man style villain, and upon defeat, he helps you detain the Mann Brothers and reveals that he is a psychonaut spy.

I have more ideas probably but it's way less fun to read then than see them

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amorgansgal · 2 years

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There probably wouldn't be heated height discussions if the devs would release a height chart w the characters. I noticed that in a lot of western media the creators don't bother with the details. I recently played a japanese visual novel and every character (there are around 18-ish) had full-on profiles with their info, including their heights, likes, dislikes, birthdays etc. And I wish western media did this too, it just adds more personality to them, even if it's something trivial like their favorite food or smell. It's the little things. On the other hand, I get they wanted to keep the semi-roleplaying aspect of Arthur. But even the protag of that VN had a profile and a personality. Which was surprising because VN protags are usually blank slates, but it made me appreciate him more and I enjoyed his snarky personality. Anyway, sorry for rambling got a little carried away with this lol

I think... in fairness R* made a huge open world that has so much in it that can be explored and a complex, beautiful story that has flaws but otherwise is still an incredible achievement. And as a writer, I quite like they didn't include a lot of details and fucked up the time line, because I have the flexibility to decide on those details themselves without them being somewhere on the internet and proving me wrong XD I think I can forgive R* for not including all the details!

#rockstar #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2

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justmenoworries · 3 years

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Not Up For Interpretation - An Essay On Nonbinary - Erasure

(Trigger Warning: Misgendering, Transphobia, Nonbinary-phobia)

If you’ve been following me for a while, you probably know this was a long time coming. I’ve made several posts about my frustrations concerning this topic and how much it hurt me just how socially accepted erasing an entire identity still is. While representation marches on and things have become better for nonbinary people as a whole, we still battle with a lot of prejudice - both intentional and unintentional.

In this essay, I want to discuss just how our identities are being erased almost daily, why that is harmful and hurtful and what we all can do to change that.

Chapters:

What does Non-binary mean?

Nonbinary- representation in media

So what’s the problem?

How do we fix it?

1. What Does Non-binary Mean?

Non-binary is actually an umbrella term. It includes pretty much every gender-identity that’s neither one or the other so to speak, for example, agender.

Agender means feeling detachment from the gender spectrum in general. If you’re agender, you most likely feel a distance to the concept of gender as a whole, that it doesn’t define you as a person.

There are many identities that classify under non-binary: There’s gender-fluid (you feel you have a gender, but it’s not one gender specifically and can change), demi-gender (identifying as a gender partially, but not completely) and many others.

Sometimes, multiple non-binary identities can mix and match.

Most non-binary people use they/them pronouns, but like with so many things, it varies.

Some nonbinary-people (like me) go by two pairs of pronouns. I go by both she/her and they/them, because it’s what feels most comfortable at the moment. But who knows, maybe in the future I’ll switch to they/them exclusively or expand to he/him.

There is no one defining non-binary experience. Nb-people are just as varied and different as binary people, who go by one specific gender.

There are non-binary people who choose to go solely by she/her or he/him and that’s okay too. It doesn’t make them any more or less non-binary and their identity is still valid.

If your head’s buzzing a bit by now: That’s okay. It’s a complicated topic and no one expects you to understand all of it in one chapter of one essay.

Just know this: If a person identifies as non-binary, you should respect their decision and use the pronouns they go with.

It’s extremely hurtful to refer to someone who already told you that they use they/them pronouns with she/her or he/him, or use they/them to refer to a person who uses she/her.

Think about it like using a trans-person’s deadname: It’s rude, it’s harmful and it shows complete disrespect for the person.

Non-binary people have existed for a very long time. The concept isn’t new. The idea that there are only two genders, with every other identity being an aberration to the norm, is largely a western idea, spread through colonialism.

The Native American people use “Two-Spirit” to describe someone who identifies neither as a man nor a woman. The term itself is relatively new, but the concept of a third gender is deeply rooted in many Native American cultures.

(Author’s Note: If you are not Native American, please do not use it. That’s cultural appropriation.)

In India, the existence of a third gender has always been acknowledged and there are many terms specifically for people who don’t identify with the gender that was assigned to them at birth.

If you’re interested in learning more about non-binary history and non-binary identities around the world, I’d recommend visiting these websites:

https://nonbinary.wiki/wiki/History_of_nonbinary_gender

https://nonbinary.wiki/wiki/Gender-variant_identities_worldwide

https://thetempest.co/2020/02/01/history/the-history-of-nonbinary-genders-is-longer-than-you-think/

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/gender-variance-around-the-world

Also, maybe consider giving this book a try:

Nonbinary Gender Identities: History, Culture, Resources by Charlie Mcnabb

2. Non-binary Representation In Media

The representation of non-binary people in mainstream media hasn’t been... great, to put it mildly.

Representation, as we all know, is important.

Not only does it give minorities a chance to see themselves in media and feel heard and acknowledged. It also normalizes them.

For example, seeing a black Disney-princess was a huge deal for many black little girls, because they could finally say there was someone there who looked like them. They could see that being white wasn’t a necessity to be a Disney princess.

Seeing a canonically LGBT+ character in a children’s show teaches kids that love is love, no matter what gender you’re attracted to. At the same time, older LGBT+ viewers will see themselves validated and heard in a movie that features on-screen LGBT+ heroes.

There’s been some huge steps in the right direction in the last few years representation-wise.

Not only do we have more LGBT+ protagonists and characters in general, we’ve also begun to question and call out harmful or bigoted portrayals of the community in media, such as “Bury Your Gays” or the “Depraved Homosexual”.

With that being said: Let’s take a look at how Non-binary representation holds up in comparison, shall we?

This is Double Trouble, from the children’s show “She-Ra And The Princesses Of Power”.

They identify as non-binary and use they/them pronouns. They’re also a slimy, duplicitous lizard-person who can change their shape at will.

Um, yeah.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Did I mention they’re also the only non-binary character in the entire show? And that they’re working with a genocidal dictator in most of the episodes they’re in?

Yikes.

Let’s look at another example.

These three (in order of appearance) are Stevonnie, Smoky Quartz and Shep. Three characters appearing in the kid’s show “Steven Universe” and it’s epilogue series “Steven Universe: Future”.

All of them identify as non-binary and use they/them as pronouns.

Stevonnie and Smoky Quartz are the result of a boy and a girl being fused together through weird alien magic.

Shep is a regular human, but they only appeared in one episode. In an epilogue series that only hardcore fans actually watched.

Well, I mean...

One out of three isn’t that bad, right?

Maybe we should pick an example from a series for older viewers.

Say hello to Doppelganger, a non-binary superhuman who goes by they/them, from the Amazon-series “The Boys”.

They’re working for a corrupt superhero-agency and use their power of shape-shifting to trick people who pose a threat to said agency into having sex with them. And then blackmail those people with footage of said sex.

....

Do I even need to say it?

If you’ve paid attention during the listing of these examples, you might have noticed a theme.

Namely that characters canonically identifying as non-binary are either

supernatural in some way, shape or form,

barely have a presence in the piece of media they’re in,

both.

Blink-and-you-miss-it-manner of representation aside, the majority of these characters fall squarely under what we call “Othering”.

“Othering” describes the practice of portraying minorities as supernatural creatures or otherwise inhuman. Or to say it bluntly: As “The Other”.

“Othering” is a pretty heinous method. Not only does it portray minorities as inherently abnormal and “different in a bad way”. It also goes directly against what representation is actually for: Normalizing.

As a general rule of thumb: If your piece of media has humans in it, but the only representation of non-white, non-straight people are explicitly inhuman... yeah, that’s bad.

So is there absolutely no positive representation for us out there?

Not quite.

As rare as human non-binary characters in media are to find, they do exist.

Here we have Bloodhound! A non-binary human hunter who uses they/them pronouns, from the game “Apex Legends”.

It’s been confirmed by the devs and the voice actress that they’re non-binary.

Nice!

These are Frisk (bottom) and Chara (top) from the game “Undertale”. While their exact gender identity hasn’t been disclosed, they both canonically use they/them pronouns, so it’s somewhere on the non-binary spectrum.

Two human children who act as the protagonist (Frisk) and antagonist (Chara), depending on how you play the game. (Interpretations vary on the antagonist/protagonist-thing, to say the least.)

Cool!

......

And, yep, that’s it.

As my little demonstration here showed, non-binary representation in media is rare. Good non-binary representation is even rarer.

Which is why those small examples of genuinely good representation are so important to the Non-binary community!

It’s hard enough to have to prove you exist. It’s even harder to prove your existence is not abnormal or unnatural.

If you’d like to further educate yourself on representation, it’s impact on society and why it matters, perhaps take a second to read through these articles:

https://www.criticalhit.net/opinion/representation-media-matters/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/why-on-screen-representation-matters-according-to-these-teens

https://jperkel.github.io/sciwridiversity2020/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2019/05/22/why-is-equal-representation-in-media-important/?sh=25f2ccc92a84

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/why-representation-the-media-matters

3. So What’s The Problem?

The problem, as is the case with so many things in the world, is prejudice.

Actually, that’s not true.

There’s not a problem, there are multiple problems. And their names are prejudice, ignorance and bigotry.

Remember how I said human non-binary representation is rare?

Yeah, very often media-fans don’t help.

Let’s take for example, the aforementioned Frisk and Chara from “Undertale”.

Despite the game explicitly using they/them to refer to both characters multiple times, the majority of players somehow got it into their heads that Frisk’s and Chara’s gender was “up for interpretation”.

There is a huge amount of fan art straight-up misgendering both characters and portraying them as binary and using only he/him or she/her pronouns.

The most egregious examples are two massively popular fan-animated web shows: “Glitchtale”, by Camila Cuevas and “Underverse” by Jael Peñaloza.

Both series are very beloved by the Undertale-fanbase and even outside of it. Meaning for many people, those two shows might be their first introduction to “Undertale” and it’s two non-binary human characters.

Take a wild guess what both Camila and Jael did with Frisk and Chara.

Underverse, X-Tale IV:

(Transcript: “Frisk lied to me in the worst possible way... I... I will never forgive him.”)

Underverse, X-Tale V:

(Transcript: “I-It’s Chara... and it’s a BOY.”)

Glitchtale, My Promise:

(Transcript: (Referring to Frisk) “I’m not scared of an angry boy anymore.”)

Glitchtale, Game Over Part 1:

(Transcript: (Referring to Chara) “It’s ok little boy.”)

This... this isn’t okay.

Not only do both of these pieces of fan-art misgender two non-binary characters, the creators knew beforehand that Frisk and Chara use they/them-pronouns, but made the conscious choice to ignore that.

To be fair, in a video discussing “Underverse”, Jael said that only X-Tale Frisk and Chara, the characters you see in the Underverse-examples above, are male, while the characters Frisk and Chara from the main game remained non-binary and used they/them (time-stamp 10:34).

Still, that doesn’t erase the fact that Jael made up alternate versions of two non-binary characters specifically to turn them male. Or that, while addressing the issue, Jael was incredibly dismissive and even mocked the people who felt hurt by her turning two non-binary characters male. Jael also went on to make a fairly non-binary-phobic joke in the video, in which she equated gender identities beyond male and female to identifying as an object.

Jael (translated): “I don’t care if people say the original Frisk and Chara are male, female, helicopters, chairs, dogs or cats, buildings, clouds...”

That’s actually a very common joke among transphobes, if not to say the transphobe-joke:

“Oh, you identify as X? Well then I identify as an attack helicopter!”

If you’re trans, chances are you’ve heard this one, or a variation of it, a million times before.

I certainly have.

I didn’t laugh then and I’m not laughing now.

(Author’s note: I might be angry at both of them for what they did, but I do not, under any circumstances, support the harassment of creators. If you’re thinking about sending either Jael or Camila hate-mail - don’t. It won’t help.)

Jael’s reaction is sadly common in the Undertale fandom. Anyone speaking up against Chara’s and Frisk’s identity being erased is immediately bludgeoned with the “up for interpretation”-argument, despite that not once being the case in the game.

And even with people who do it right and portray Frisk and Chara as they/them, you’ll have dozens of commenters swarming the work with sentences among the lines of “Oh but I think Frisk is a boy/girl! And Chara is a girl/boy!”

By the way, this kind of thing only happens to Frisk and Chara.

Every other character in “Undertale” is referred to and portrayed with their proper pronouns of she/her or he/him.

But not the characters who go by they/them.

Their gender is “up for interpretation”.

Because obviously, their identity couldn’t possibly be canonically non-binary.

Sadly, Frisk and Chara are not alone in this.

Remember Bloodhound?

And how I said they’d been confirmed as non-binary and using they/them pronouns by both the creators and the voice actress?

It seems for many players, that too translated to “up for interpretation”.

(Transcript: “does it matter what they call him? He, her, it, they toaster oven, it doesn’t matter”)

(Transcript: “I’m like 90 % sure Bloodhound is a dude because he could just sound like a girl and by their age that I’m assuming looks around 10-12 because I’ve known many males who have sounded like a female when they were younger”)

(Transcript: “I don’t care it will always be a He. F*ck that non-binary bullsh*t.”)

(Transcript: “Bloodhound is clearly female.”)

(Transcript: “I’m not calling a video game character they/them”)

(Transcript: “exactly. The face was never fully shown neither was the gender so I’d say it means that the player is Bloodhound. So it’s your gender and you refer to “him” as yourself. It’s like a self insertion in my eyes.”)

So, let me get this straight:

If a character, even a player character, uses she/her or he/him, you can accept it, no questions asked.

But when a character uses they/them, suddenly their identity and gender are “up for interpretation”?

This attitude is also widely prevalent in real life.

Many languages only include pronouns for men and women, with no third option available. Non-binary people are often forced to make up their own terms, because their language doesn’t provide one.

Non-binary people often don’t fit within other people’s ideas of gender, so they get excluded altogether. Worse, non-binary people are often the victims of misgendering, denial of their identity or even straight-up violence when coming out.

People will often tell us that we look like a certain gender, so we should only use one set of gendered pronouns. Never mind that that’s not what we want. Never mind that that’s not who we are.

Non-binary people are also largely omitted from legal documentation and studies. We cannot identify as non-binary at our workplace, because using they/them pronouns is considered “unprofessional”. We don’t have our own bathrooms like men and women do. Our gender is seen as less valid than male and female, so even that basic thing is denied to us. I’ve had to use the women’s restroom my entire life, because if I go into a male restroom, I’ll be yelled at or made fun off or simply get told I took the wrong door. It’s extremely uncomfortable for me and I wish I didn’t have to do it.

And since non-binary people aren’t seen as “real transgender-people”, we often don’t receive the medical care we need. This often renders us unable to feel good within our bodies, because the treatment and help we get is wildly inadequate.

It’s especially horrible for intersex people (people who are born with sex characteristics that don’t fit solely into the male/female category) who are often forced to change their bodies to fit within the male/female gender binary.

And you better believe each of those problems is increased ten-fold for non-binary people of color.

We are ignored and dismissed as “confused”, because of who we are.

Representation is a way for Non-binary people to show the world they exist, that they’re here and that they too have stories to tell.

But how can we, when every character that represents us is either othered, barely there or gets taken away from us?

We are not “up for interpretation”.

Neither are the characters in media who share our identity.

And it’s time to stop pretending we ever were.

For more information about Non-Binary Erasure and how harmful it is, you can check out these articles:

https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/08/common-non-binary-erasure/

https://www.dailydot.com/irl/nonbinary-people-racism/

https://nonbinary.wiki/wiki/Nonbinary_erasure

https://traj.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/traj.422/

https://medium.com/an-injustice/everyday-acts-of-non-binary-erasure-49ee970654fb

https://medium.com/national-center-for-institutional-diversity/the-invisible-labor-of-liberating-non-binary-identities-in-higher-education-3f75315870ec

https://musingsofanacademicasexual.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/dear-sirmadam-a-commentary-on-non-binary-erasure/

4. How Do We Fix It?

Well, first things first: Stop acting like we don’t exist.

And kindly stop other people from doing it too.

We are a part of the LGBT+ community and we deserve to be acknowledged, no matter what our pronouns are.

Address non-binary people with the right pronouns. Don’t argue with them about their identity, don’t comment on how much you think they look like a boy or a girl. Just accept them and be respectful.

If a non-binary person tells you they have two sets of pronouns, for example he/him and they/them, don’t just use one set of pronouns. That can come off as disingenuous. Alternate between the pronouns, don’t leave one or the other out. It’ll probably be hard at first, but if you keep it up, you’ll get used to it pretty quickly.

If you’re witnessing someone harass a non-binary person over their identity, step in and help them.

And please, don’t partake in non-binary erasure in media fandoms.

Don’t misgender non-binary characters, don’t “speculate” on what you think their gender might be. You already know their gender and it’s non-binary. It costs exactly 0 $ to be a decent human being and accept that.

Support Non-Binary people by educating yourself about them and helping to normalize and integrate their identity.

In fact, here’s a list of petitions, organizations and articles who will help you do just that:

https://www.change.org/p/collegeboard-let-students-use-their-preferred-name-on-collegeboard-9abad81a-0fdf-435c-8fca-fe24a5df6cc7?source_location=topic_page

6 Ways to Support Your Non-Binary Child

7 Non-Negotiables for Supporting Trans & Non-Binary Students in Your Classroom

If Your Partner Just Came Out As Non-Binary, Here’s How To Support Them

How to Support Your Non-Binary Employees, Colleagues and Friends

Ko-fi page for the Nonbinary Wiki

The Sylvia Rivera Project, an organization who aims to give low-income and non-white transgender, intersex and non-binary people a voice

The Anti Violence Project “empowers lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and HIV-affected communities and allies to end all forms of violence through organizing and education, and supports survivors through counseling and advocacy."

The Trans Lifeline, a hotline for transgender people by transgender people

Tl:DR: Non-Binary representation is important. Non-Binary people still suffer from society at large not acknowledging our existence and forcing us to conform. Don’t be part of that problem by taking away what little representation we have. Educate yourself and do better instead. We deserve to be seen and heard.

#non-binary #agender #demigender #gender identity #essay #erasure #lgbt representation #misgendering #undertale #she ra spop #apex bloodhound #doppelganger #steven universe

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kagrenacs · 3 years

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Explaining the Iceberg #4

I covered most things in this, but not everything. Every previous post I’ve made describing the tes iceberg I found on google image search can be found here x

Lorkhan’s purposeful failure: Lorkhan was the first spirit to go beyond the universe to see the tower, but didn’t achieve CHIM. He likely did this on purpose to show others how not to do it, and to demonstrate that it was difficult for et’ada to achieve this state because they simply don’t have the boundaries (such as death) that mortals do.

The World-Egg: The universe and the 12 previous Kalpas, everything within existence

The Khajiit Tower: this reddit thread https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/3oh7wf/the_khajiit_tower/ for everyone’s sake i’ll spare you the details of Jungian psychology, TL;DR the khajiit are a ‘tower’ made to hold up the universe and aspects of this

The Grabbers: Mentioned in the 36 lessons, a race of people in Lyg who are said to ‘have never built a city of their own’ there are theories that these are in fact Magne-Ge, due to their connection to Lyg by Mehrunes Dagon

AE: ‘is’ in ehlnofex, can be interpreted as a state of being

Shezzar became Akatosh: The only solid reference i could find was this thread, that immediately discusses how this is probably incorrect http://www.gamesas.com/could-lorkhan-have-jyggalag-t74581-25.html

The Monkey-Truth: Markuth’s teachings, also a website of tes fanfiction writers and roleplayers

Red Moment: The potential Dragon Break at Red Mountain

The Provisional House: Mentioned in the 36 Lessons, called ‘a space that is not a space’ that Vivec observes the events of Nirn from. It may possibly protect Vivec from dangers associated with this.

Alandro Sul: The Shield-Companion to Nerevar. Sometimes called ‘the immortal-son of Azura’. After being blinded by Wulfharth, he went to live with the Ashlanders of Vvardenfell and is credited with spreading the idea that the Tribunal killed Nerevar

CHIM: To put simply, the process and state where a person realizes their place within the universe and is able to manipulate the laws of the universe as they see fit. Often associated with the concept of ‘Love’

Skaal Secrets: Discussed in the Dragonborn DLC, it’s unknown what their secrets are, but the Skaal report that they’ve kept them a secret from Hermaeus Mora for generations

The World’s Teeth: Mentioned in the 36 lessons of Vivec, sermon 17. Vivec takes Nerevar to the edge of the world, where they see ‘the bottom row of the world’s teeth’ as Vivec states. This may possibly reference a glitch in Redguard. (as a side note: The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, a game that’s confirmed to have taken inspiration from the Elder Scrolls, has an area on the map, near the edge of the world with a row of spikes similar to what’s described here. This might be just coincidence, but I sure enjoy it)

Dagoth Ur’s Endgame: Speculation on what Dagoth Ur’s final plans actually are. He speaks of his desire to remove the Empire from Morrowind, and unite the Dunmer under the 6th House, but beyond that there’s little to go off of. Ultimately this is just speculation and theories, mostly on what he plans to do with the Anumidium, and how that could possibly have adverse affects on reality.

Pelinal Cyborg from the Future: Another bit of obscure MK lore that’s not implemented in-game. This derives from the description of Pelinal having a ‘left hand made of a killing light’ ‘PELIN-EL [which is] "The Star-Made Knight" [and he] was arrayed in armor [from the future time].’ and his survival of being decapitated. While the text directly states he is from the future, there’s no ingame canon text stating he is a cyborg.

Reymon Ebonarm is Reman: The thought that Ebonarm, a God of War is the same person as Reman, emperor of Cyrodiil. There’s several theories dedicated to this, with different variants on the specifics.

The Enantiomorph: Directly tied to the concept of mantling and the Fourth Walking Way. Put simply, there are three participants in this. Two combatants who are very much alike and trying to become the ‘Ruling King’ and an observer who determines who wins, this observer usually becomes maimed as a result of this.

The Third Moon: Two different things, a metaphorical or literal secret moon important to the Khajiit that only appears when Masser and Secunda are aligned, preceding the birth of a Mane. The second option is the Necromancer’s Moon, the godly form of Mannimarco.

The Walkabout: A concept in Yokudan religion. The process of spirits surviving one Kalpa to the next, facilitated by Tall Papa

White-Gold Doomsday device: I remember reading this theory a few years back, unfortunately I cannot find the exact page for the life of me. The Tl;DR on this is the White-Gold Tower is a weapon of mass destruction, either literally or in metaphysical terms (being connected to Akatosh and it’s status as a Tower). The closest thing I can find to it is this thread which describes the motives of Umbra in the novels, and how it could potentially take over Tamriel using the White-Gold Tower http://www.gamesas.com/doomsday-scenario-t69430.html

Jiub was the Nerevarine: Self explanatory, headcanon that Jiub was the Nerevarine, similar to a headcanon on tumblr that stated Teldryn Sero was the Nerevarine

House Dwemer: Mentioned as a House within The War of the First Council (which is written by an Imperial for Western Scholars) and The Lost Prophecy (written by a Dunmer) This could be interpreted in a couple different ways. A) The first book was certainly written for western readers, while there is no evidence for this being the case for the latter, it can’t be ruled out. ‘House’ is used as a simplification B) The Dwemer were considered a house, but perhaps not in the way we would initially think (being on the Great House Council) They were grouped into a singular entity, rather than distinct clans within a cultural group (either during the First Council or posthumously)

When Dead Gods Dream: https://www.imperial-library.info/content/when-dead-gods-dream referencing this thread. Discusses the mechanisms of Dagoth Ur’s godhood, the thread explains it better than I can here, TL;DR Dagoth Ur is not alive, but he is within the realms of gods and therefor is able to ‘project’ himself onto Tamriel and the minds of his followers.

Khajiit ended the Metheric Era: Nothing found for this

Parabolic Kalpa: A parabola is a symmetrical U-shaped curve. This theory essentially tries to explain why Skyrim is so low magic, compared to it’s history or even ESO. The thought is that as time goes on, the world becomes less connected to Divinity. Towers are destroyed and the gods are gone, but eventually things will begin to kick off again, and there will be a rise in magic, technology and the connection to these beings. Essentially tries to explain why C0da and Loveletter from the 5th era are more high magic compared to the actual games.

Sithis: Secret Lesson from Vivec: Connects the both Sithis with the 36 lessons by terminology (The Sharmat, false dreamer ect.) and proposes Vivec may have written the book

Bendu Olo: Colovian King, may have been related to Olaj Olo, nordic demigod of mead. Also used as a placeholder name for the player character in Oblivion and the name of the dev’s test character in Skyrim

Trinimac still lives: An ESO lorebook states the Ashpit, realm of Malacath, extends into Aetherius. Some orcs also believe Malacath is nothing more than a demon presenting himself as the remnants of Trinimac. A r/teslore theory states that Malacath wears two faces. While I assume this is the Iceberg author’s sole reference, I propose this could (should) refer to another theory. (Another theory is similar to this on teslore, proposed around the same time, but this one connects the dots) https://boethiah.tumblr.com/post/621058598373588993/tsun-is-the-shield-brother-of-shor-and-trinimac

The Aedra are Dead: Seemingly a common topic on teslore. A basic concept in tes, the Aedra gave most of their powers to Mundus to stabilize it. Their bodies remain as planets, and they can only have limited interactions with Nirn.

Divayth Fyr was the Hero of Battlespire: An old theory that looks at artifacts in Divayth Fyr’s possession and ties them back to the tes spinoff Battlespire. There are holes in this theory (Divayth Fyr was a seasoned mage at the time the hero was an apprentice)

Three Talin’s: The default name given to the Eternal Champion is Talin, a character creation scenario proposes that their father was also named Talin, and finally Uriel Septim VII’s general was named Talin Warhaft.

Pelagius I was killed by the Underking: The Arcturian Heresy states that the Underking appeared as an advisor to Pelagius I, who was assassinated by the Dark Brotherhood. This theory is a possibility considering the amminosity between Tiber Septim and both components of the Underking.

Tsaesci Goa’uld: Goa’uld are a species from Stargate that are parasites towards humans. This theory proposes that the Tsaesci are similar, explaining the inconsistencies of their appearance within the lore.

Lunar currency: The thought that the Aedra and Daedra use mortal souls like currency

Historic Star Inconsistencies: Possibly referring to the variations of the number of days within the year in Arena, not sure about this one

Mnemoli/Star Orphans:Mnemoli is either a specific Magne-Ge (spirits that fled the creation of Mundus after Magnus), or a group of them that only appears during a Dragon Break (often nicknamed the ‘Blue Star’) MK states that they’re the writers and distributors of the physical Elder Scrolls (however this contradicts ingame books, so take it with a grain of salt). Star Orphans may or may not refer to Magne-Ge as a whole. Vehk’s book of hours state's them as a ‘group or tribe’ regardless, Mnemoli falls under this secondary classification (along with Merid-Nuda and Xero-Lyg, I have my own thoughts on this which would be better explained in another post)

Bosmer Hircine worship: Seemingly referring to a thread on 4pleb, I will not be summarizing this theory here because I’m smart and not going onto 4pleb of all places. But from canon content, Bosmer do not worship Hircine, and consider him a force that goes against Y’ffre and wants to return everything to it’s original state of chaos before the earthbones (Y’ffre being among them) stabilized things

Septimus Signus Zero Sum: The theory that the aforementioned zero-summed at the end of Discerning the Transmundane in Skyrim. Essentially Septimus is in a fragile state, delving into the secrets of the universe and is being pushed by Hermaeus Mora, who may see him as a lab rat, into discovering things he isn’t meant to handle as a mortal, and consequently Zero-Sums. There’s holes in this, namely Zero-Summing supposedly removes all trace of existence.

The Soft Doctrines of Magnus Invisible: A very obscure text by Douglas Goodall, discusses the binding of various gods

Abnegaurbic creed: An overly fancy word basically meaning religious beliefs, seen in Nu-Hattia Exerpt

Dunmereth: A Nordic term for the area of Morrowind, during their occupation of it

Fifteen-and-One Golden Tones: A Dwemer term, possibly referring to the spheres of the Daedra, counting Sheo/Jyggalag as a singular entity. Also, the Dwemer swear by these

Ideal Masters are God of Worms remnants: As Mannimarco is often said to be the first Lich, the existence of the ideal masters seems to contradict this (similar story with Azidal) this tries to rectify this by proposing that the Soul Carin is the Necromancer’s Moon, and the ideal masters are remnants of Mannimarco. This theory doesn’t hold up when examined, but is cool nonetheless.

Sermon 37: Found in ESO, an extra sermon to the 36 lessons, ties in concepts present in c0da like amaranth. (interestingly on this list Sermon Zero is never mentioned, despite it being older and more interesting imo, but to discuss that would require lots of work)

Flying Whales: Mentioned in Aldudagga. A now extinct species. The bone bridge of Sovngarde could potentially be a reference to this.

Joy-Snow: It’s cocaine

Mankar=Tharn: A theory that Mankar Cameron is Jagar Tharn, doesn’t hold much weight and relies mostly on the connection of Mehrunes Dagon

Sharmat: A term used to describe Dagoth Ur, an opposite to the Hortator, a force uniting people for evil. Implied to mean or be associated with ‘the False Dreamer’ a person whose view of the universe is similar to someone whose achieved CHIM, but sees themself as the center of it all, rather than a droplet in the ocean of the universe.

Pankratosword: A forbidden Yokudan sword technique that could ‘cut atoms’ similar to our modern day Nuclear Fission. A bit of etymology here, ‘Pankrato’ seems to refer to the word ‘Pankrator’ meaning all-powerful or almighty.

Landfall: A concept from MK, a future event where Nirn is destroyed by the Numidium, and the people remaining relocate to the moons.

Cylarne: The oldest ruin in the Shivering Isles, rumored to be the original capital. Home to the Cold Flame of Agnon

#long post #tes iceberg #that picture of vivec is how i'm feeling after 12 hours of studying for my final and writing this

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prettycottonmouthlamia · 2 years

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Okay I want to make a post about this because it particularly bothers me but Youtubers are not journalists. As much as there are really good Youtubers who take their videos seriously and put a lot of effort and research into them, I have seen so many Youtubers over the years repeat rumors, debunked theories, and outright lies. Often Youtubers are motivated by the passion they have for something but more often that not that passion can also be blinding.

When I talk about this in terms of Pokemon, what I mean here is there's not really been a lot of hard evidence of anything particularly bad out of Gamefreak. There has been a lot of rumor and a lot of outright lies though. I think back to the time the anti-Dexit subreddit said they had a dev talking to them but then didn't allow reporters any information. This subreddit also had spread lies before (such as there being no music during the legend cutscenes, despite there literally being a key item that was well-known about that could disable the music) and misinformation (there was a lot of misinformation about crashing with the game; I'm still not convinced the crash that resulted in someone's files all being set to 66.6 MB was actually real), so it's very likely that dev was just whole sale made up. There was also some unconfirmable exit reports from Japanese websites that might have been made up as well since they dated from after the knowledge of Dexit broke.

This isn't to say that Gamefreak is blameless, but that suspicion alone is not an quantifier, especially given how Japanese work culture can be compared to Western work culture. Crunch, in particular, was a term coined to describe the practices of American development studios. So you have a particular cocktail of problems going on to describe this.

When we talk about crunch, we need to be clear here, crunch is not bad because it makes bad games. This is wrong, and creates another problem. Red Dead Redemption 2 was particularly notable because Rockstar bragged about the hours the devs were putting into the game before launch, about 100 hours a week. The game was, and still seems to be, really good and most people stopped caring about the crunch that went into the game. Even if Pokemon games are good (and PLA was good imo) it doesn't excuse any potential crunch behind them. Crunch is bad because it endangers the health and well-being of the developers. The effect is has on the end result and on the consumer is irrelevant.

I would personally guess that Gamefreak probably has a harsher work environment that requires more hours overall than a Western game development studio. In part due to the general zeitgeist of Japan's work culture (to be clear, not all corporations are bad in this regard but it is a documented phenomenon) and in part because it's likely you need to put a lot of man hours to make videos games that quickly. Crunch on the other hand isn't a guarantee and I've not seen any evidence to suggest it happens. I don't know if Gamefreak is putting works through periods of 80+ hour workweeks to get stuff done, but I imagine its more common and/or standard to put in 55/60 work weeks normally.

If you don't like it, you can choose not to buy their games, but keep in mind Pokemon makes a ton in sales and most of the consumer market is not in on these conversations. Until genuine proof comes in and it hits a bigger scale of reach like a news article, the Pokemon community on tumblr isn't going to make a meaningful difference in the bottom line. And as Sword/Shield sales have shown, people still bought it.

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dreaminpeaches · 3 years

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New Paracosm AU: Big Hero Beau

@decaykid yes, kind of...

Okay, like I said in my last post this idea came to me after listening to Fist Pump and Viva Namida on loop with pacing.

So you know like how the original Humble Pie paracosm is very western horror kind of drama, yeah? well, this paracosm is just full on ANIME BBY!!! I'm talking Space Dandy, I'm talkin' Gurren Lagann, I'm talkin maybe a little bit of Trigun, and also takes alot from action rpgs like Bayonetta, Devil May Cry, Persona, Viewitful Joe, and Wonderful 101 (but its like only two people), and takes alot from Sonic the hedgehog (mostly Sonic Underground, Sonic Adventure 2, and Sonic Forces), and little bit from Fancy Pants ( that's not an anime or a "real" video game, its just an old flash game I used to hyperfixate on).

This paracosm is completely different which is why I gave it, it's own name instead of just adjective then "!"

This version of Beau takes a lot of inspiration from Dandy ( Space Dandy), Vash The Stampede (Trigun), Sonic The Hedgehog (Sonic The Hedgehog), and Kamina (Gurren Langann)

In this paracosm, both of Beau's parents perished in a tragic accident, Beau takes his siblings to an abandoned shack and they hide out and live out there. the tragedy this motivative Beau to become stronger and a hero, not only to keep his siblings safe but others too. The last thing his mom told him was that his smile could save a thousand lives, so because of that he always keeps an upbeat, go get 'em attitude, and he doesn't want to bum his younger siblings out. His mom also gave Beau her heart shape locket before she passed on, so Beau has worn it ever since that day.

The locket is very precious to him, he doesn't let anyone touch it (other than his siblings), and if he loses it he'll go into a panic attack and can't do anything else until he finds it again.

Dev, Beau's little brother, also wants to be strong and a hero, he tries to train like his brother but he can't keep up. Beau tells Dev that he has to be strong in his own way, so Dev decides to put his tech skills to good use and make his older brother cool weapons for him to use. I forgot to mention in this paracosm some people are born with superpowers and such, and Beau's superpowers are super strength and speed, while Dev's superpower is super intelligence.

Dev can't keep up with his brother on foot, so he made himself a jetpack to keep up, and makes science weapons for himself to use.

In this paracosm, there are evil robots, pirates, bandits, ninjas, demons, fallen angels, giant spiders, bad guys who kidnap pretty people, any enemy you would find in a video game or anime yeah it's probably here. So, there's always something for Beau and Dev to fight or someone to save from something.

Beau and Dev don't have secret identities since superpowered people are common but they get to have a pretty rad transformation scene activate when they fist bump each other.

Beau fighting style is similar to that of a hack and slack fighting game, Beau mostly use his fists to fight and his speed, he'll also use guns too, but he'll only use swords if he thinks he can pull off a cool move, since not really experience using them that much. Dev made Beau special gloves and boots that make the attack range of his hit larger so its easier to take out hoards of stuff like robots (which happens lot) and big enemies like giant monsters.

His boots are also guns so its like....

Oh, and Beau also makes sure that he always looks cool when fighting just in case someone takes a pic (which happens alot). Unlike Bayonetta, Beau is more playful with his posing rather than sexy.

Dev's wits come in handy when the two come across puzzles, riddles, or finding a way out of traps on their adventures since Beau didn't complete school once his parents passed and mostly focus on raising his siblings and hero training.

Much like Sonic, Beau is very snarky and witty while fighting his enemies (or at least tries to be), he always tries to make a snarky comment or a really cool zinger before finishing off his enemy. Due to his kind of being not the sharpest tool in the shed, it can take a while for him to come up with a good zinger, so it kind of stalls fights, and sometimes it gets to the point where the enemy is just like "Oh my GOD! just KILL ME!", this also annoys and embarrasses Dev too at times.

Beau makes money from bounties and doing odd jobs around, he makes enough for his siblings to live comfortably, but there are times where he'll go hungry because he only has enough for Dev and Carrie to eat. Beau is still a kind of a lower-level hero compare to the other well know ones around.

Dev has also made a rocket ship so they can fight intergalactically on other planets

Carrie in this paracosm is still 4 years old, she has yet to show any signs of having powers, which is pretty normal for her age since people in this world don't show powers until they hit their pre-teen years.

Beau will take Carrie on their adventures if it's safe enough, but if the mission is too dangerous Beau will take her to the nearest daycare or the nearest trustworthy femme person. Beau will try to make the mission or fight end quickly as possible if he left Carrie with a stranger, there's a sigh of relief once he finds her safe, if not (which doesn't happen a lot thankfully), well somebody gonna die and Beau tries to make it up to her by spending the next few days with her, just him and Carrie.

Beau tries to put being a good guardian/older brother before being a hero and tries his best to spend as much time with Carrie and Dev as possible on chiller/lower stakes days.

Beau had never had time to really process the feeling of losing his parents, there are days where he feels down but he never lets it show around his siblings or have it affect his hero work. There are nights where those memories keep him up, sometimes he'll cry but still try to smile thru the tears.

Beau likes to give peps talks to himself in the mirror, and pep talks to Dev, when he's feeling discouraged, although most of the time those pep talks don't really make any sense Dev still appreciate his brother's kind words.

Since Beau saves people, he interacts a lot with damsels in distress, he flirts with them, but usually gets rejected for coming across as too cheesy or cocky. He doesn't really mind it tho, he actually finds it funny, but when a lady actually flirts back he gets really flustered and has to leave immediately. Despite this Beau still tries to give Dev advice on talking to girls.

Beau still smokes and drinks because the stress of having to raise young siblings, dealing with trauma, and being a hero can be alot, but he still makes sure his siblings don't see him and he doesn't get too wasted.

Other than hero stuff, Hero! Beau enjoys reading comics, parkour, skateboarding, break dancing (which he incorporates in his fighting for some really cool finishers), practicing cool poses and phrases, playing video games with his little brother, and watching barbie movies with his little sisters (since Barbie reminds him of his mom).

Oof, I think that's all I got for now....

TL;DL Basically if this version of Beau is Sonic the original Beau is more like Shadow if that makes any sense.

#paraportal #new paracosm #paracosm #paracosm: big hero beau #para: hero! beau #I still have yet to figure out how Bonnie fits into this paracosm #their dynamic is gonna be more of a 'two stupid dorks' kind of dynamic #I dont think this paracosm could get anymore anime than this #maybe I'll make bonnie a magical girl #idk would that be too much

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chistrike · 3 years

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TIFA’S WALL MARKET DRESSES & WHY THEY’RE BAD.

i’ve talked about this a few times across my blogs for tifa and have discussed this issue privately but it’s time to finally make a proper post about it. i have a few things to point out about tifa’s dresses and while i understand that square enix probably only considered visuals when designing her dresses and didn’t spend a single braincell on analysis of the implications they were promoting, i’m not going to let it slide.

THE CONTEXT: after finishing all the side quests in sector 7 with tifa, she will lead cloud back to stargazer heights for a break and the two would catch up in her room, prompting her in asking cloud for a fun night out where they’d get dressed up. She asks what the player think would suit her and you’re given three options: something mature, something sporty, and something exotic. I think we already know by now that describing ethnic women as exotic isn’t a compliment and further otherizes them while making woc susceptible to dehumanization, hypersexualization, misogyny, and violence. it’s 2021, woc have said over and over again how uncomfortable it is to be seen as exotic, it’s disgusting that we’re still waiting for people to hear us.

THE DRESSES: square enix’s choice to have tifa wear sexualized versions of east asian traditional clothes for a date is honestly really insulting and makes these traditional dresses feel like costumes for the male gaze. tifa’s character has always been ambiguously eastern to contrasted with aerith’s western design. because of this we get both a kimono and a qipao dress option. this is where i feel like the dresses feel more like a costume than anything else because square has never gone into detail over tifa’s character, the devs justify their choices in making hypersexualized versions of both chinese and japanese traditional clothing. the cultural connection doesn’t matter since tifa is ‘vaguely asian’. the kimono being labeled as exotic and the unnecessary infamous boob window and high slits of the qipao is honestly so tiring to see as an asian woman. it’s further dehumanizing when you realize that the plot turns and tifa doesn’t end up wearing whatever dress you decide on a happy night out with an old friend, but instead for a disgusting white man who view women as objects and holds auditions when he chooses a wife.

the fandom likes to remain purposely ignorant to wall market as a whole because of the overdramatic presentation of the characters there, but aerith clearly states that it’s a dangerous place that feeds off of the less fortunate. if you consider the long history of sexual violence against asian women by white men, you’d understand that tifa being dressed in these hypersexualized depictions of traditional asian clothing for the attention of a white man in a place of power... is quite disgusting and humiliating.

i don’t have much to say on the mature dress other than the fact that its quite sad that the only dress that might be okay, remains the most revealing dress that any of the characters wear. i will reiterate that i personally love the dress and as long as someone is comfortable and happy that’s fine. however, its hard to be happy with it when you can see the stark contrasts between tifa and aerith. aerith’s dresses are beautiful without sexualizing her, while the only dress i’m comfortable choosing for tifa has concept art that reveals it was originally drawn to be see through to the point we can see her underwear. this has made me and other woc so disheartened.

HEADCANON DRESS: so, after this whole ramble about why i don’t like any of the dress options we are given for tifa for the wall market section of the game... i’ve decided to give her a complete new one on my own. I’ve decided to use the dress lee yukyung wears in elris’ jackpot photoshoot: a velvet like, black dress with soft ruffles and simple pearl detailing on the cuffs. White fishnets to make the outfit more modern. Similar pearl / mother of pearl and silver accessories to go along with the accents of the dress. And shimmery, pastel statement heels to tie the outfit together. This is much more in line with what I think Tifa would have worn on a date night out and therefore what she would have to wear when going to interrogate Don Corneo. So, whenever I talk about the Wall Market section to the game, I will always be referencing to this outfit and none of the canon dresses from the game.

TLDR: i may occasionally post gifsets of tifa’s mature dress since it’s usually the one i default towards as its the one that offends me the least. however, i’ll never post anything here regarding the other dresses and in writing i will never reference any 3 of the dresses-- as i will stick to my headcanons. if after all of this, you feel i’m blowing things out of proportion, this blog isn’t for you.

#⭐ ㅤ ㅤ ( ㅤ NARRATIVELY SPEAKING ﹐ ㅤ ) ㅤ ㅤ — ㅤ ㅤ headcanon ㅤ .#this took way longer than i wanted it to LMAO

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iaintyourbro · 4 years

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What I consider a bad writing when it comes to the devs is Aerith fell in love with Cloud??? What did she fell in love with in a short period of time exactly!! Cloud wasn't himself ?? And he wasn't in a position to play at romance with her .Like just because Cloud is the protagonist she fell for him ?? I just don't get it she loved Zack deeply and a guy who she knows nothing about in just a short time she fell for him 🙄 like wow this is what a call a bad writing THIS and the LTD ugh

Hey Anon.

I don’t think it was bad writing on the devs part. Also a lot of things that show up online are players saying it, not the devs. The Aerith not loving Zack and loving Cloud thing is one of those things that gets spread around the internet. There are non-canon sources that are used for a lot of these things too.

I think they purposely made things vague. I don’t think Aerith fell madly in love with Cloud, either, but I think she developed feelings for him initially because he reminded her of Zack and then as they journeyed she realized he wasn’t “him” and wanted to get to know him since she started to like him. Love is a word thrown around that I think is too strong here. Interest, attraction, infatuation may be more appropriate.

And in Aerith’s case, she was in denial about Zack. So that’s why she acts like she does in the OG park scene. Like oh well, it wasn’t serious, haha I totally don’t miss him and worry he may have died or something. It’s easier to think he ran off with another woman than he’s dead. Which is permanent.. And then it’s option to find out later that she actually was in love with him. They just get that out right away in Remake and it’s not optional to find out.

In game, Aerith never comes out and says she’s in love with Cloud. She says she wants to get to know the real him (in a vague way). There are other post-game materials that make it seem like she loved Cloud, but I believe when she’s thinking of it, Zack actually materializes and she realizes that she actually does love Zack, and her thought of loving Cloud was because he was acting like Zack. Most of the lines and things she does during Chapter 8 are call backs to Crisis Core and things Zack said. She’s messing with him - and it’s hilarious at times.

The whole love triangle was there to push the illusion aspect of the first part of the game where Cloud is assuming a false persona. They wanted the player to also get attached to Aerith, so they tried to get this to work. Personally I never saw a romantic connection between Cloud and Aerith, but I know many did, so that’s fine. It doesn’t really change the story much either way, since it ends the same either way.

It wasn’t meant to be obvious - they wanted the player to think about it. Okay, so we have a guy who we find out isn’t himself, they want you to think back about everything that happened before he gets his true self back and wonder what implications that has. How do people deal with death? Also the fact that death is permanent. You can’t revive people (like really dead people, not KO’d people).

Except most of the people who played FFVII when it first came out were young teens... who had no real good concept of life in general (though we all thought we did, because that’s what 13 year olds do). So we got stuck on certain concepts and assumed we were still supposed to make the choices.

You notice that there’s a lot of player choice early on while Cloud isn’t really Cloud. Then it stops when he’s back. Part of the illusion - you are SOLDIER Cloud. You are the one making decisions for him. Once you go through the Lifestream (and even before that, really) that’s done. You no longer can make choices for him that are story impacting. Choices on who to bring in battle don’t count for this... So who goes where in the final dungeon isn’t Cloud choosing who he’s in love with.

Cloud tells us who he’s in love with. If you think about it, the writing is actually genius, especially if it works that you think you love Aerith. They completely shatters the illusion on you and it starts in the Northern Crater before Cloud gives Sephiroth the Black Materia.

And you start going down the WTF IS GOING ON RIGHT NOW! path. I know I did. Not because of romance, but because you’re playing as a guy who you think is just a little goofy and has weird flashbacks, but he’s the protagonist so cool, but then they’re like “Yeah, he’s not really him btw, oh and he’s gonna cause Meteor to be summoned.”

THE MAIN CHARACTER! THE HERO! THE PROTAGONIST! is the one being controlled to help ruin the world.

Then you think he’s dead. And you’re left in a daze, much like Tifa is when she first wakes up. You find out more about what happened when Tifa ran in to him in Sector 7 at first. You find out she has a hard time dealing with confrontation and dealing with how to handle many situations. She wakes up after a few days and you’re faced with execution and you’re still like W T F IS GOING ON!?

THEN the Lifestream happens. It’s a wild ride. You’re like okay, so he is actually in love with the girl he made the promise to. If you’re not familiar with the childhood friend romance trope (I wasn’t), then this may or may not surprise you.

I think the best reveal in the game is when you find out Cloud was the Shinra grunt that was with you during the flashback. That blew my mind the first time and I think I went back in to my daze of WTF IS GOING ON again. I still get chills when he takes his helmet off and the Main Theme plays. Ugh. So good.

So I think it’s genius. However, I think the audience was too young and not used to this type of story where they make you believe it’s up to you, but TWIST it’s not. They never get over the first part. They miss the point of her death, they miss the point of the persona illusion shattering. And by not used to, I mainly speak for western audiences.

I do think that things early on feel forced with trying to get you the like Aerith - but they don’t have much time. Also, many things are left out in these games, especially around this time. Xenogears suffered majorly for this in the second part of the game. They removed a lot of playable time and instead you read story. I enjoyed it - it really does make the story feel more filled out BUT it’s a video game, not a book, so a lot of people were mad about it.

They cut, change, and do things to get these games released on time or to fix ratings problems. The localization of FFVII was awful - it’s one of the big topic on how badly the game was translated and there are ones that directly helped to start the LTD. I don’t think that’s a thing anymore as much as it was back then. They took their time on FFVII Remake and it shows. They really fleshed things out for me, especially with Avalanche, Tifa and Aerith’s friendship, and how Cloud really is with Tifa - something that was very hard to convey in the OG since most of his stuff is shown through facial expressions and how he says things (voice acting).

Like the above screenshot is probably what made most people start going down the Horny Jail - Cloti Wing path. That scene was intense. They would have never been able to get that across in OG.

Unless they had a text box pop up that said “Cloud and Tifa roll off the train together and look at each other longingly for a moment and you totally could show this picture to somebody who’s never played this game and they’d think they about to get down.”

#ff7 #final fantasy 7 #cloti #cloud strife #ff7 story #the illusion of cloud strife #ff7r #final fantasy 7 spoilers #ff7 spoilers #ff7r spoilers

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cynicaldesire · 3 years

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So what are your thoughts on season 4? Lay them on me!

My husband and I binged the entire Season 4 over the course of the weekend. We watched 6 episodes, then the last 4. We had a lot of feelings on it for a lot of reasons, mostly because I’m a writer, my husband is an artist, and we’re both critics because we have created work in the past.

My husband’s final rating was 6/10, wouldn’t watch it again but he wanted to give credit to the animators and staff that worked on it. I said I would give it a 4/10. It was so... disappointing. I’m gonna go on a bunch of rants about why I was displeased, so if you want to maintain your positive experience, you don’t have to continue.

So, before I get into the writing, I just want to point out that the sound design, music, and voice acting were all either poorly mixed because of COVID in-home booths or just shitty. The music didn’t pop off with any homages to actual game music and I couldn’t hear it most of the time. The voice acting of most of the cast was pretty great, but I hate Alucard’s voice. The murmuring breathy whispers of most of the cast is just annoying to me, but that’s a personal preference, I know. But a lot of other things didn’t have proper weight or punch to match what was happening.

The animation was also wildly inconsistent. My husband pointed out, again, COVID, so the animators were all probably working from home on deadlines and the Art Director, the guy meant to keep all the art on-model and consistent, probably wasn’t available to check work and send it back to the animators for changes. Or, there wasn’t sufficient time between when the animators sent there work in for changes to be requested. Don’t get me wrong, like with the voice cast, some of the animation was fucking sick, but it was just weighed down by all the poorly masked 3D shortcuts or off-model art.

(One of the things I kept thinking of when gore would happen was the Mortal Kombat devs that got PTSD from having to look at images of gore for the Fatalities. And I was like this isn’t worth all that. Fuck.)

Greta was fine, but she seemed flat. I’ve made her character before and been disappointed in how cool and nonchalant she is. She seems to be too good and relaxed at everything going on. That might’ve been the voice actor, but honestly? She fell flat for me. I didn’t not like her, she just didn’t feel very... well written? Like I said, she reminded me very much of a character I would make at first pass. And while I don’t mind or disagree with the choice to make her a love interest or even a close friend of Alucard, there was not enough buildup for it. Probably because she felt so flat to me.

Overall, on the writing front, I will say that it felt very... first draft. Like no one had an opportunity to look it over and say “Maybe don’t give Saint Germain’s whole motivation and backstory in episode 3?” Or not telegraphing the Death inclusion, or like... There’s so much that was just so poorly handled to me. There’s so many ways I personally would have done it differently or how it could’ve been handled better. There were so many characters that just stated their motivations and repeated them over and over again.

Isaac: ends last season hating humanity and having no reason to challenge that belief. Hates Hector for betraying Dracula. Full of hate and rage. This season: Opens with all his Night Creatures repairing a city, earing berries, and completely at peace with his past and his life. Flyseyes is there for ONE scene and never heard from again. And Isaac literally goes from that to invading Carmilla’s castle to DISAPPEARING. WHY?

The sequence with Isaac invading Carmilla’s castle was hilarious, too. Who the fuck is the hot demon? Some demon from the Wiki. Whomst were the fuckin human blokes with crossbows? Literally just human blokes with crossbows that they hired from a town somewhere else because apparently they didn’t have enough forces??????? The ring Hector ends up cutting off is never actually shown to force him to do something against his will? The fucking slave ring is also openly displayed in a bunch of other places and never utilized. It’s a useless McGuffin.

Carmilla descended into madness, or progressed through her logical steps violently due to solitude? And then when Lenore asks her what her motivations are, Carmilla tries to be coy and not answer the question so they end up having the same dialogue like 4 times? Lenore is somehow SURPRISED? Like, all of these people were human at some point, and that shit is never addressed, or if it is, it’s not remembered.

Hector was also here. He made a night creature, helped Isaac kill Carmilla - why did she explode so violently? - and then chilled in the castle the rest of the time. Like, nothing bad happened to him other than his finger. Which, show his hand every time he’s on screen, remind the audience of his injury. Isn’t it cool and edgy and shocking?

Saint Germain being just a shitty carnal entity was boring. He had a girlfriend he wanted to save so he could get laid, SNORE. When they showed her, she looked like Maria from Symphony of the Night, which has an ending that heavily implies her and Alucard hook up, so I was irritated that they coopted her appearance for this woman with no speaking lines that led Saint Germain to the Infinite Corridor.

Like, everything around Saint Germain’s story was pretty cool. If they hadn’t shown up literally in episode 3 through a sudden flashback his story and his motivations and also he’s the villain, the mystery of what he was doing was interesting. And for it to all just be told to us upfront? And then he just fucking died?

I had no fucks to give for Varney/Death. Death is not mentioned at any point before this season, he shows up seemingly randomly at the end as the Big Bad, and he’s just a big skeleton asshole. Ratko was at least a little interesting, but also wtf was he there for?

I also didn’t much care for Zamfir. I felt like there should’ve been two characters in her place. If one of them was crazy and the other was following their orders without knowing they were crazy? Cool. If she was crazy and didn’t ACKNOWLEDGE she was crazy? Better than what we got. The knights and the Underground Court and all the shit with Targoviste? Boring. Because, specifically, it demands a lot of suspension of disbelief that I didn’t have at that point.

Who the fuck was Dragan? What were all the monsters attacking the castle? Awful convenient for Alucard to have a shield now. He also had a bunch of skill from the SotN game, like the wolf form and the winged cape. Why did that one vampire have big bat wings and never again? Why did Varney call like literally everybody on the mirror phones? Why did he know to do that? Why did Saint Germain know him? WHERE DID TREVOR GET THE OTHER WHIP?

Trevor and Sypha were honestly probably the best handled. Sypha was herself but bigger and stressed. Trevor was also very tired and still a monster hunter. My husband was very happy with the “We’re just two sides of the same coin” philosophy Trevor had with Death, like Geralt feeling like a monster because he’s a Witcher. The idea that they aren’t exactly human and cause so much death but to the monsters. He wanted that explored. I was too busy being frustrated at the huge flashy animation fight to even remember that Trevor had said anything like that.

The magical weapons in Targoviste were cool plot devices. Much like with Varney and the mirrors and so many other things, it felt like they were there because the plot demanded it, not because there was some natural story for it outside of when Trevor and Sypha showed up.

But the single most disappointing thing was Vlad and Lisa living at the end. They didn’t want to see Alucard, absolute shit move regardless of their reasoning. The fact that they still went by Vlad and Lisa Tepes was bound to get back to Alucard somehow. And I... Being in Japan and engaging with a lot of Japanese media, I understand the way they use God is similar to the way they use Spirits, or Kami or something. God being used by a Western author makes it so wildly different. But I’m also... pretty against the idea of God in general, so the whole idea that “God” said Dracula and Lisa deserved a second chance is boring. Like, there’s so much wrong with this ending. It was only there for the shippers, probably.

Anyway. 4/10, wouldn’t watch again.

#arandomshotinthedark

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lemonadeflashbang · 3 years

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Katana Zero Thoughts/Review

Almost two weeks ago I had the pleasure of playing through Katana Zero while conked out on my second shot. I waited before writing this post to fully digest what I actually thought of the game. It’s definitely a stylish game, and fits in quite well with other games published by Devolver, but I think it was likely held back a bit by its’ own ambition. For those who don’t know, Katana Zero is an action game where you play as a time controlling samurai who has to kill every enemy in an area before proceeding to the next room. Enemies die in one hit, but so do. The gameplay is twitchy and the concept is kind of anime as fuck, and when it works it works. There’s also a cool cyberpunk story, and for an indie it’s actually pretty well written. There’s a narrative system that allows you to pursue different dialogue paths, but you can also “get to the point” by spam pressing all the initial “rude” prompts. You can also choose to wait out a timer and reply with silence. Generally speaking though, even though I liked the story I felt like its’ focus was ultimately a detriment to the final game. The whole game is only a few hours long, and you probably spend at least half of that time navigating through dialogue. Tons of resources went into the writing and the cutscenes, many of which are lovingly animated, that I think might have been better served by being poured into the core gameplay loop. There’s a bit of a myth in gaming that games are the sum of their parts. For example, if you clone a game but improve the story, the game is objectively better. I believe that to be false. Take a Mario game, for example. Taking the quick “princess is kidnapped” story and replacing it with something epic- maybe from a JRPG or from something more western like Horizon Zero Dawn, wouldn’t result in a better game. And the reason is simple- the core gameplay of a Mario game is about the platforming. That’s the most fun part of the game. Even if you improve the story, so long as that story takes up more time you’ll find that your players will be having less fun on average simply because the story isn’t as good as the platforming segment, and now you’ve blown it out and made it more important. There’s a reason why these Nintendo games have such basic stories. Nintendo has no problems writing funny Mario RPG’s as any fan of Mario & Luigi or Paper Mario will tell you. They’re choosing not to so they can focus their energy on the most fun part of the game. Narrative and RPG games have a lot more room to play with long story segments, because story is part of the core value proposition for these genres. But that’s not true of all game types. So let’s loop back to Katana Zero. There are now half of your game sections that are about the narrative... but the narrative is short, raises more questions than answers, incomplete, and doesn’t give you time to get attached to most of the characters. And let me be clear- this isn’t because I think the devs did a bad job. But indie games are stretched thin, so creating content, especially cutscene and effects heavy narrative content that can’t be reused, is super time consuming. And at some point you just have to ask- are we going to be able to tell a story that’s as gripping and exciting as our gameplay? Does the story enhance the gameplay, like in a narrative or RPG game? Is the enhancement worth the time? I’d argue that it isn’t. Not that there isn’t a good story there, but that the story is way too big to fit comfortably in an indie package and get really attached to. Not without a genre shift, resource injection, or cutscene de-escelation. There’s a reason most RPG cutscenes look so donkus, even today. So in the end, you have a game where you spend half your playtime as a kickass time bending samurai, and the other half navigating dialogue trees that don’t result in alternate endings or secret levels or anything all that gameplay related, but tell the prologue to a story that may never have an ending. There’s a mismatch between your most fun thing, and the rest of the game, and the gap is big. Not because the story sucks, because the core gameplay is fun. Let’s talk more about the core gameplay though. Story isn’t the only place where I feel that ambition may have caused some problems. There’s a point in the game where you can play a single stage as a second character. Just the one. Why implement a character just for one stage? Why not bring them into more of the game? As an unlockable character choice to increase replayability, perhaps? There could be some level design constraints around that, but I don’t think it’d have been an issue with the alternate character that existed as it was. Finally, I feel like the level design starts to break down in the last third of the game or so.As you approach the last act, you lose freedom to express yourself in your approach and become more constrained by enemy reaction times and numbers. This isn’t necessarily a huge issue, but it also starts to force you to rub against the bits of randomness in the game. You might kick open a door only to get immediately shotgunned by the police officer across the hall, unable to deflect the bullets because the spread is random and two of them are too far apart to hit in one swing but close enough together to kill you during your attack’s cooldown. Maybe it’s not one shotgun blast but three or four pistol rounds, shot by enemies without friendly fire. Maybe they’re guarding a laser cannon with that will blast you unless you descend precisely from above. Maybe you retry a prior tactic, but it doesn’t work because when a level resets it doesn’t move enemies to a fixed position- and their different placements results in different AI behavior even when executing the exact same moves. Whatever the case, the game becomes significantly more punishing and less predictable. You may have to idle and wait for enemies to move into a good position again before retrying a tactic simply because it just won’t work in the current spawn position, which slows down the pacing of an otherwise fast game. Most importantly, the games difficulty increase has nothing to do with mechanics being harder- it’s just repeating the prior challenges but generally less forgiving. Increased mastery is good to aim for, however there’s a couple things you want to avoid. The first is shrinking the play space too much. If your increased mastery comes at the price of player freedom and flexibility, what will happen is levels devolve into rote memorization and the game loses replayability. It also starts to feel like farming, or a chore, even if it’s the first time you’re playing it. The second is you want to make sure that you maintain predictability- which is lost with the shotgun shell randomness and the variation in enemy starting placements. The game ends up feeling stale towards the end of its runtime, which is odd given how short it is. I think an extra mechanic or two to play with for the core gameplay could have taken it farther and let it keep its’ shine. The game was good, and is definitely a fun ride for an afternoon or so, but I can’t see myself wanting to go back to it- even with a DLC update. Generally speaking, I recommend it- but maybe on sale.

#katana zero #game review

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transgamerthoughts · 4 years

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Idle Thoughts On Games During Pandemic Times

I’m in an interesting position as I write this. Since I’ve written here I have moved out of journalism and towards the dev side of games. Good news! I’m happier! Bad news! It can feel weird to have public opinions. That said, I miss writing and I’ve had some thoughts about games I’ve played (mostly major titles) that I want to share. I’m keeping them loose and I hope folks will allow me the indulgence. Here we are!

Ghost of Tsushima

I’ve been surprised by how playable Ghost of Tsushima is. Which is to say that the world is very enjoyable to explore. There’s something about ambling between marker to marker, or stumbling upon a few hidden items, that fundamentally works. I’ve seen some folks imply that this is simply the result of overproduced open-world design philosophies. A sort of focus-tested gaming drug-world that it’s easy to slide into. There’s probably some truth to that, and there’s a discussion to be had about the dangers of pastoralism, but I think that the open-world itself is designed well. Sure, there’s collectables and outposts to conquer and all the things you would expect but those are not the appeal. In fact, in many cases, engaging with those things feels worse than wandering. In the early game particularly, combat is not enjoyable. But there’s a sensibility to the world, a sort of stubborn antiquatedness that calls back to an open-world structure—one where space existed for its own sake—that we don’t see in as many games now. That’s curious to me because Tsushima has been criticized for feeling old-fashioned but I think this approach to world design isn’t so far removed from Breath of the Wild. It is certain littered with more *stuff* that you can stumble on but despite the fact that I can set markers or unlock bonuses that make these things easier to find, I don’t feel an overwhelming push to engage with them.

That good because combat is a decidedly mixed affair. I’m not eager to slide into difficulty discussions but if Tsushima’s closest cousin is Assassin’s Creed, it’s no surprise that I’ve instantly found the game more playable at a lower difficulty setting. If the goal is to emulate film—and there can be discussion about how well that’s actually done; black and white filters don’t suffice to make something comparable to Kurosawa—then Tsushima’s normally cluttered and gamey combat rubs against that impulse. It’s a game with sub-weapons, ninja-like tools, multiple stances for breaking the guards of certain enemies, and a wealth of skill trees. The beauty of the action (which you can frame at the push of a button thanks to a respectable photo mode) can get lost in the shuffle. Lowering the difficulty has led to speedier and more dramatic encounters where a few sword strokes can slay a handful of men. It’s a curious thing, as I tend to play games on higher difficulties, but this is one of the few times where I felt it might have served a game better to streamline combat down to the most basic of interactions. Tsushima’s combat can get very busy and I did not enjoy tackling challenges or outpost conquest until I progressed to unlock more abilities while also lowering the difficulty. Even then, those are the moments I care for the least.

I feel unable to comment on critical discussions about Tsushima’s story and politics but as an observer to the input of Japanese-American writers and Japanese devs/players, one thing that’s struck me is how the broader gamer culture has reacted to the dialogue. There have been moments where gamers have minimized the voices of some critics with the exultations of certain Japanese writers, which eliminates valid concerns from people who have every right to look close at a game connected to their heritage. The lens through which Tsushima was made was at the end of the day a Western one and that’s worth discussing. I am grateful for the writing of critics like Kazuma Hashimoto at Polygon that dig into these tensions. I will say that I feel like Tsushima sometimes wants to do the proper thematic thing where it will say that entrenched nobility and cultural notions of honor can be inherently damaging but because that’s mostly expressed, at least in the main plot, as “the outside invaders are besting us because of our traditions” it falls flat. Tsushima works best in side quests where the stakes are smaller. It’s thematic aspirations are best when things are personal and on a more humble scale. I like the version of Tsushima I get to play in those moments more than I like the grand gestures towards honor or combat challenges. Which is to say I mostly want Way of the Samurai with multiple zones and a more connective tissue. Tsushima teases that possibility without ever really getting there. In those teasing moment, the game makes a lot more sense to me.

I’ve enjoyed myself and intend to finish soon. That enjoyment comes with a lingering question: what other game could this have been? It’s inspired an image in my mind of a different sort of open-world ronin game where there is a smatter of villages with sub-stories and perhaps the smallest A-plot. A game with Mongol invaders, dramatic family conflict, or shogunate decrees. Tsushima has capture my attention but I do wonder more about what might have been that what is right in front of my eyes.

The Last of Us: Part II

I have struggled with this game in ways I did not know were possible. When I play it, I find myself taken in by the raw skill of the actors. There’s a mood and tone I enjoy, a somber twinge to the infected escapades that lingers from the first game. I like The Last of Us. I think there’s small moments of character interaction that express core things about the cast’s shifting relationships. James Howell embarked on a video essay series about this very thing and while it will remain unfinished perhaps forever, I suggest engaging with it. Suffice it to say, the changing language of Joel and Ellie’s mechanical interactions does a lot to underscore the narrative. I think players often think of the The Last of Us in terms of pure narrative but these smaller considerations reveal a game with a very natural approach to story telling. The Last of Us 2 has these moments and often hides them within combat. When multiple factions of humans and infected interact, their clash and the behavior of the AI tells something fundamental about the game world.

The Last of Us: Part II is a cynical game with an unflattering view of humanity, a view that (in spite of Joel’s selfishness in the first game’s climax) feels somewhat at odds with what came before. It is, in fact, possibly the most cynical game I’ve ever played. That’s hard to talk about but it’s best expressed in the various dying barks of enemies or moments where the player is forced into violent, dehumanizing slaughter. In the former case, it feels like a magic trick. The first time you hear someone cry out their dog’s name, it can be tragic. The next five times you hear it, it feels forced. Like any trick, it’s never as powerful as the first time. You might argue that’s the point: that as you follow Ellie’s journey, the player also stripes enemies of their humanity and agency but the player’s culpability is secondary to the writer’s in some ways.

Players did not contrive to have Ellie rob Nora, one of the game’s major black characters, of her fundamental dignity before murdering her. Nor are players the ones who shove a knife into Mel’s pregnant stomach. Those are scenarios crafted by designers and writers, and much like how retroactively guilting the player for killing a doctor in the first game (An unavoidable action, mind you! Joel will do this regardless of what the player wants.) feels manipulative, calling a player’s culpability into question as Ellie fails to act like any sort of reasonable human being also rings hollow. There is a perpetual push and pull between players and controllable actors, best expressed in the verbs that we are allowed to perform. It is telling the more often than not, Ellie’s most egregious acts of violence happen outside of the player’s control.

And yet there are moments where I buy deeply into the story. Notably, it happens when Abby is on screen more than Ellie. (Tangent: Abby has more interesting gameplay scenarios that lean closer to horror game vibes like what you’d find in The Evil Within. TLOU is way more interesting working in that mode than HUMAN vs. HUMAN drama.) Abby is also allowed more growth and agency than the script ever gives Ellie. At the core of this is Abby’s relationship with Lev. It is here that I’ve had my largest struggle with the game.

Discussion about Lev has often bowled over transgender commentators. For many people, Lev resonates regardless of anything the plot says about his gender. Lev captures people’s attention because Lev is eminently likable. That’s a testament to Naughty Dog’s writing. Still, there is a sense that Lev’s wider resonance has left some folks (particularly queer folks) without as much space to talk among themselves and hash out sentiments without the discussion getting overpowered. This is complicated by an environment where creators seem more empowered to directly speak to criticisms.

Which is to say that as a trans critic (perhaps ex-critic) watching from the sidelines, I was very hurt and dismayed to watch people who do not share in the transgender experience comment quickly about Lev. And while the discussions about Lev are varied—the trans community, like any community, is not a monolith—it’s sometimes felt like trans voices were made the quietest when talking about this character.

Many things are true about art at the same time. Lev can act, as is the case for some players, as a token figure whose struggles are appropriated and turned into spice adding flavor to the apocalypse. Spice that allows us to be seen as we are usually seen: in pain and defined by that pain, and which displays that pain voyueristically for cis players. Lev can also be a kind-hearted and respectable hero, and ray of light within a dark story. Neither feeling is in competition. Some will find strength and inspiration in the character, others will see the machinations of corporate powers and award-chasing writers. Both can be true.

Enthusiastic fans and players are quick—not in a malicious sense; merely in their excitement—to defend the things they enjoy. If they found a thing good it stands to reason the thing must be good. They empathized and that is taken as proof that a thing is good irrespective of other concerns. This is a kind impulse but one that robs people of their concerns, or at the very least close off conversations quickly. I cannot properly diagnose this except to suggest that there’s a growing force of cultural positivism that’s encircled games of a certain scale. One which shuts down a lot of valuable engagement. The bigness of the moment, of the object, demands the moment be the Best Possible Moment For Games regardless of the qualities of the object itself. That’s worrisome to me.

The Last of Us: Part II has become nearly impossible to talk about even now because we are dealing with an object so large as to have a gravity that weighs everything down. A game with sublime moments that intoxicate deeply but one where voices of critique or caution are buried away largely because of the potency of that intoxication. I deeply wish that wasn’t the case because the breadth of discussions that might’ve happened would have been really valuable.

Aim Lab

I’ve gotten really into Valorant. It’s scratched an itch for a type of multiplayer shooter that I haven’t had scratched in a long time. My experience with the game itself has been good but the surrounding experience has been decidedly mixed. Suffice it to say I’m mostly living the solo-queue life and it’s a miserable existence even with the occasional highs. Yet, there’s a mechanical crunchiness to Valorant that deeply compels me and I’ve enough competitive drive that (in spite of the fact that the most of beloved social aspects of the game seem generally out of reach for me) I’ve really devoted myself to improving as player. Enter Aim Lab. It’s a totally free aim trainer that anyone can download off Steam. It has a variety of drills and exercises that can be used to improve a variety of first-person shooter skills. In one case, you might be flicking from target to target with the express goal of training your aiming speed. In another you might need to look at a group of colored balls, which will then disappear with one of them changed. You’ll then need to shoot at the different one as quickly as possible. You earn a score for each drill, which is tracked and compared to global records and folded into a ranking system. I’ve placed in the “Ruby” range for my rank, which is mostly in the middle of the road. (It’s a weird rank above gold but I think before Plat?) Mechanically sound with sloppy spots. I’m able to identify these thanks to Aim Labs. For instance, I know that I am fast and relatively accurate but that tracking moving targets is a difficulty for me. I know that I am quicker at things on the right side of my screen but also that I’m thankfully able to read changes in the environment quickly. This might sounds like a dry and rote way to approach video games but Aim Labs’ suite of repeatable and trackable challenges means that it is very easy to trace gradual improvements.

As a result, what might have been dull work becomes something akin to going to the gym. I can feel the ways in which my control over a mouse have changed. I understand which muscles need more flexing. Importantly, for all my weakness I also know strengths. Playing Aim Labs—and yes, this is play—becomes a semi-automatic and meditative experience like swinging at a batting cage.

As a player (again, I hesitate to use the word critic anymore) who tends to engage with games on thematic levels even when it comes to mechanics, it’s been surprisingly gratifying. Part personal ritual, part labor. Bubblegum for the brain. Chew chew chew. Shoot shoot shoot. Take some notes and chew some more. Not much more to say except Aim Labs has surprised me with how enjoyable and relaxing it can be.

Necrobarista

Necrobarista was not what I expected. That’s because I started playing it with what felt like a safe-assumption: it would be comparable to some of my favorite indie “drink” games like Va-11 Hall-A or Coffee Talk. It’s hard for me to break down those games and how their structure—insightful conversations punctuated by drink-mixing and the occasional memory puzzle or story choice—works for me. I know folks who have played those games and bounced off for entirely understandable reasons but I love them. They call to mind some of the personal experience I had as both someone who worked at a bar and coffee shop. In spite of their fantasy settings, they evoke a highly specific and idiosyncratic part of my brain. Necrobarista doesn’t quite do that because it is strictly a visual novel. Repetitive work such as drink making is entirely absence. As a result, I initially found Necrobarista harder to engage with. It lacked the percussive but comfortable rhythm I was craving in quarantine.

That highly specific preferential quirk/personal need might place the game lower on my list then the other two (the game’s certainly in conversation with them to a degree; it’s got plenty of shout-outs and references that make it clear the designers know the ballpark they’re playing in) but it doesn’t mean it is a “lesser” game in terms of the world it is presenting or the character you’re watching. Necrobarista has, if nothing else, some of the most naturally flowing dialog I’ve experienced in a while. That is partly because I’ve been sampling so much AAA stuff, where the writing tends to eschew the evocative for clean, crisp (and corporate!) staccato, but even in comparison to other VNs or drink games, it finds some more integrated and interesting ways to handle lore dumps. That’s helped by the core conceit. The lead character Maddy Xiāo runs a coffee shop alongside her wise former boss Chay that just so happens to serve drinks to the recent deceased. That makes it really easy to introduce a character, as the plot soon does, fresh off the mortal coil and eager to learn about life after death. It’s a common writer’s trick to place a clueless character in a plot so world-building can happen but because the stakes are high—the freshly-deceased have only 24 hours before they pass into the afterlife—there’s an urgency in the explanations that feels warranted. I could probably spend a lot of time breaking down the ways in which Necrobarista successful builds the world around the player. From a well-framed scenario and properly placed characters (an inquisitive child-genius, for instance) to the ability to click highlighted words for snarky but never crass footnotes, you never want for necessary knowledge but also never feel like your hand is being held. You’re not digging for meaning or piecing together arcane lore concepts. You know what you need to know, it feels fun to learn it, and the characters all make sense. They’re also incredibly likable. Necrobarista’s largest strength isn’t that the details are handled well; it’s that the core cast is deeply relatable. That’s important because the story moves from coffee to magic and death within a clipped 4 hour playtime. Relationships are clear, motivations clearer, and while some of the standout story-telling pieces are in optionally readable side-chapters, the main story lifted up by how eminently fun it is to eavesdrop of these character’s lives. The only glaring exception is a Greek chorus of robots that seem out of place and overly-chatty. Necrobarista sometimes feels eager to impress structurally, and that’s no more clearer than when these fellas are on screen. The difficult thing about Necrobarista’s literary approach is that the pandemic’s completely shot my attention span. It took my two weeks of on and off play to finish what is a very short game. That said, given the enormity of some world events I found it edifying and cathartic to engage with a piece of media explicitly concerned with death and dying. It wasn’t what I thought and I kinda wish it had a bit more happening mechanically but I’m really happy for the time I spent with this one.

Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers

Shadowbringers and Final Fantasy XIV in general is a difficult thing talk about. Not because of the accumulated history of a long-running game and storyline but because my feelings are ultimately swayed by a host of personal and specific emotions. I am a social player on a social server. I’ve spent just as much time coming up with roleplaying plotline and casually taking in taverns as I have tackling difficult bosses. I have made dear friends through FFXIV and even more than that. Those relationships, their energy and gravity, mixed into everything like an errand paint drop. You can hardly see it in the mixture but it’s unavoidably there. For many, this is a game of heroes and anime plots. For me, it has been a doorway to some of the most fruitful, edifying, and occasional painful experiences of my life. I say this because I want it understood that in spite of this sentiment, Final Fantasy XIV is a good game and Shadowbringers is easily one of the most confident pieces of video-game storytelling that I’ve ever experienced. Which isn’t to say it’s not sometimes trite or predictable. It’s not to suggest there is something groundbreaking here. For all of the craftsmanship, Shadowbringers often succeeds by embracing the conventional. It sticks to more well-worn plot structures, it simplified job gameplay and streamlined a variety of features whose strange and un-sanded bumps brought charm to the game. Yet, in the streamlining comes something more refined. Like running a soup through a fine mesh sieve to create something creamier and more rich. When you look at Shadowbringers high level plot: travel to the corners of the world to fight monsters, all while unraveling cosmic secrets.. it’s familiar. Even as the patches following the launch experience did, as all FFXIV patches do, focus on the fallout of the main story’s event, it kept to a strict content release pattern. If you’re digging for a revolutionary experience, Shadowbringers cannot offer it by virtue of structure. But what has been releases is foundational. The writing is of such quality and battle scenarios increasingly playful that everyone should be taking notes. A core component of Shadowbringers success is how deeply the story is concerned with genuinely exploring the richness of the scenario. It would be easy to craft a story about evil mages destroying the world. FFXIV’s done the more straightforward version of that at launch and it proved stiff. Instead, Shadowbringers’ has a deep concern with motivations and takes unprecedented time to explore the interior of the cast. This allows old characters to grow into bright new versions of themselves, and it has (two for two now!) turned villains into more than just monsters. The writing exhibits a delicious empathy for the world, and it takes time to give everyone a perspective. In MMOs, this is not always afforded. Characters act as quest-barkers and clumsy plot chess pieces. Shadowbringers strength rests in avoiding this in favor of clear stakes both personal and cosmic. There’s plenty to be said for other aspects. Masayoshi Soken’s music remains an incredibly powerful trump card, and the latest patch (which concludes the Shadowbringers story and sets up for next expansion) shows an increased willingness to employ fight mechanics that trick and test players in new ways. The content is challenging and full of tiny subversive moments that actually rob players of power they’ve taken for granted over the course of hundreds of hours. In finding its stride, Final Fantasy XIV doesn’t just craft sweeping narrative moments, it better integrates those stakes into individual boss encounters. There’s a cohesiveness, an interlocking of parts where each piece (music, narrative, gameplay, et all) are in clear conversation with the other and often in conversation with not only other expansions but other games within the franchise.

Recently, a piece dropped on Polygon with the title “Games need to return to black-and-white morality.” It was, if I can be honest, a poor title for the article and one which left a freelancer unduly exposed to harsh feedback. But there is a core kernel to the article. To quote the writer: “Watching our heroes stick to their convictions, even against insurmountable odds, ratchets up drama, rather than destroying it. The concept that good can ultimately triumph over evil is a timeless one, and stories that rally around this trope — around unadulterated hope — can help guide us through the year’s ceaseless onslaught of calamities.“ Shadowbringers’s conclusion brought this piece of writing to mind. I’m ironing pretty much all of that piece’s argumentation but the notion that games about heroes have great efficacy in times of uncertainty shouldn’t be a controversial one. The crux of my favorite game, Skies of Arcadia, is that heroism is hardly a choice at all. It is a compulsion, it is a duty that we all must accept when the moment comes. Shadowbringers is not quite as simple but it is ultimately a story about hero defeating the baddies, and I would be lying deeply to say that there wasn’t something incredibly, nearly word-defyingly beautiful about the feeling of hope I felt in its concluding moments. The sweeping power of epic fantasy and heroism holds true and, like a genuine panacea, held a curative power for my soul that was not just enjoyable once consumed but frankly necessary for my well-being. I’ve no clean conclusion here (and I don’t have to! ha!) other than to say that Shadowbringers has consistently proven a delight in a sea of rocky games media. It is affirming, exciting, and empathetic in ways that I was not expecting. That, along with the friendships I’ve made while playing, have secured its place as one of my favorite video game experiences ever. From start to finish, it really was a delight.

------------------ And that’s that! I was gonna write about Blaseball but I need to let my Blaseball feelings settle before even trying that. Anyway, if you read this.. uh thanks!

#FFXIV #Final Fantasy XIV #Shadowbringers #The Last of Us Part II #Necrobarista #Ghost of Tsushima #aim lab

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