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curious-menace · 3 years

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Hey can I get a headcanon of any riddler of your fancy finding his partners hidden treasure trove of sex toy goodies after stooping around their home, probably while they're out and how they'd react?

oh ho! any riddler?! this is a blank check for mayhem!

i have naughty hands and no self control so ima do all my riddlers hahahah

this is only a lil ns fw so no below the cut this time

Arkham riddler

oh.

OH.

First response is he goes BRIGHT RED. H-He was looking for something else, like an allen key or a pack of batteries or something! He didn't mean to snoop! He’ll throw all the toys back in the drawer or box and hurry away like nothing happened. he did find batteries but was to embarrassed to use them.

his face is going to be bright red for hours, you’ll easily be able to tell something is up but he wont tell you what.

but that being said, hes not going to be able to stop thinking about them. he feels a little naughty for doing it but hes imagining you using them, on him, on yourself. the idea is filthy to him but very intriguing.

Don't expect him to EVER mention it again but if YOU brought up the idea or told him you had some toys to play with, he’d have a hard time hiding his excitement. He hasn't stopped thinking about them since and he has some IDEAS.

Blacklight Riddler

oh ho! rubbing his little fingerless gloved hands in glee. treasure trove is the right word to use, all his christmases have come at once when he finds this gold mine.

He knew you were kinky but he had no idea you were THIS kinky, why would you keep this from him???

hes like a child in a candy store. what does this one do??? ohh this one vibrates! ooh a purple and green one, did you get this specially for him?

Don't be surprised if you come home and find him elbow deep in your drawer or box still rummaging and exploring, possibly with condoms scattered around him like confetti and bondage rope around his neck like a scarf.

He’s going to ask right away to play with some of these. he might even sneak off to use them by himself but he will GLADLY let you do the hard work.

He’s going to want to go to the sex toy shop with you. can you get some couples toys? will you peg him?? OH! what about some of those cool remote control toys??? he can make some custom ones for you both to use if you want! Man is going to be bouncing off the walls, you're going to need to get him to calm down before you can do anything. he’s enthusiastic to say the least.

BTAS Riddler

oh? what on earth is th-AGH! *flings a wobbly pink dick across the room in a panic*. Que overdramatics . lots of “my eyes are SOILED! MY HANDS WILL NEVER BE CLEAN AGAIN!”

Will probably screech “WHY DO YOU EVEN HAVE THIS?!” into an empty house.

i think its the shock more than anything. he’s a germaphobe and he wasn't wearing his gloves while he was rummaging and he wasn't expecting to touch something so...intimate with his bare hands. this has ABSOLUTELY been inside you and it feels...off for him to touch it. He hopes to god you are as particular about cleaning these as you are about the rest of your cleaning.

once the initial fright wears off, he probably feels a bit guilty for nosing about. He wasn't looking for your intimates specifically, he was just being inquisitive, maybe looking for birthday or christmas presents. I think like arkham riddler, he’d probably be unable to get the image out of his head. he'd probably have to go back for another look.

he has to work up the courage to talk about it. he’s probably expecting to get yelled at, he shouldn't have been rummaging through your things in the first place.he doesn't REALLY need to confront you about this. but he’s insecure as all hell and he needs to know, is he not good enough? is he not satisfying you? why do you need these toys if you have him? please be gentle in explaining, whatever your answer is.

Original riddler

so freaking blase about the whole thing. you could leave them in the fridge or something and he’d be like “hmm, cheese, ham, dildo....hey y/n we’re nearly out of milk!”

he doesn't exactly want dicks or fleshlights left out around his apartment but he’s not so insecure about you having them. he knows he cant be there for you 24/7. maybe your schedules are conflicting, maybe you just want some quite alone time, he’s not judging, he does it too.

might tease you a little about your taste in toys. like if you have massive dicks he’s going to call you a size queen, regardless of your gender. or if you like weird ones like that windmill oral thing he’s going to call you a kinky lil freak .

i don't think he has any of his own but he’d be quite happy to use yours on you if you wanted.

unlike the others, he probably respects your privacy enough to not go looking for them or even rummaging through your things. but he is childish as all hell. if you left them out in a shared space he’s going to mess around with them, like pretending to give you a neck massage only to bust out a hitachi wand or something.

despite his bravado and not really minding that you have them, his mouth will go a little dry if you bring up the idea of domming him by using them on him . that's....an intriguing idea.

Telltale riddler

well. hes not THRILLED about this discovery. But given how often he’s gone, either for work or running from the law, he cant exactly blame you. you have needs he’s clearly not meeting.

he’s pretty tempted to take your batteries away from you for badness.

he gets a devious idea looking at your toys. He’s offended! how could you replace him with plastic and silicone?! he’s much better than any toy. guess he’ll just have to prove it to you.

he’ll probably confront you as soon as you get home. something like “been keeping secrets from me?” but like. in a sexy voice, not an angry one.

He’s obviously a little ticked off but tries to keep it playful. you can definitely expect him to spend the day making it up to you. he’s going to tease you, hes going to ask if you think of him while you use them , maybe even use some of them on you himself but pulling away at the last moment as punishment . if you want relief you’ll have to ask him nicely.

he’d be absolutely speechless if you flipped the script on him. listen he might be 60 but suddenly he’s a teenager again, embarrassed and unable to form coherent sentences in the face of your exuberant confidence. once he gets his footing back however you two are going to be playing hella games. he’s going to want to sext while he’s gone, send you naughty photos and get some back. maybe the toys aren't such a bad thing after all?

Zero year riddler

you’ll for sure know if this riddler has found your stash. you’ll come home and he’ll be drinking out of a dick shaped straw, wearing those dumb penis glasses you see at bachelorette parties. he’ll have decorated with rope or feather boas , taken polaroid photos of him posing with your toys and stuck them to the walls. he’ll have a smug look on his face but play totally innocent like “something you wanna tell me, y/n?” Shame is not an emotion this riddler is capable of.

he was looking through your things on purpose because he’s a nosy shit. He likes knowing your secrets to mess with you later. He wished he had a camera to record his reaction upon finding THIS secret.sheer unfiltered joy .He’s for sure recording your reaction to him putting you on blast so you two can laugh about it later.

he might feel a LITTLE guilty depending on your reaction. if you react badly or really embarrassed he might feel bad for crossing a line and apologise . He’s still a little shit about it but he’s an apologetic little shit.

all of these riddlers pretend they're the most confident person in the room but , like the others, if you turn your charm and confidence on him, he’ll crumble like a dry sandcastle.

He doesn't want to admit he has NO clue what any of these toys do. like why is this one shaped like an egg?...it goes WHERE?!

rare moment of nervousness from him if you ask him to use them on you/ on him. again, he doesn't know what the heck he’s doing with toys but he’ll be damned if he admits that. feel free to mess with him as payback. this is what he gets for running his mouth and poking his nose into other peoples business

there you go nonnie! i actually got this one out pretty quickly, i wasnt expecting to do it that fast hah. i like doing asks like this, that are a little nsfw but not so much i have to hide them under a read more.

that being said, full nsfw asks are my jam XD

Got something you wana ask me? feel free to send me an ask or a dm! im always game to talk about our favorite curious menace 💚💜

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levisprincess6669 · 4 years

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Good Enough

Hi can I request #7 and #65 for Levi from AOT please?🙂 thank you so much 🤗

I am so sorry this took so long! I hope you enjoy reading it though ^^

I was new to the Scouts, only ever completed one expedition where many of my comrades died but I wasn't going to back down. I was assigned to Captain Levi's squad through, which was surprising as he only ever hand picked his comrades.

Training was definitely tough, and the cleaning regime which somehow only seemed to apply to our squad was a real pain. Levi was strict and seemed to always call me out on even the most minimalist mistakes.

"Alright! I want everyone to partner up for hand to hand combat!" Shouted our captain, and I instantly headed for Petra, my best friend and usual training partner.

We stood opposite each other, waiting for everyone to get enough space as to not interrupt anyone else's fights. "He's really not going easy on us today." Petra laughed silently, making sure Levi didn't hear her.

"Agreed." I giggled under my breath, watching the short man shout at Gelgar, a member of Captain Mike's squad. But apparently my amusement was not as silent as originally thought as his eyes shot to me with an intense glare.

"What was that brat?" Levi asked, turning everyone's attention to me. "Do you find this funny? Or just too easy?" There was an undertone of something in his icy voice... Hatred? Disgust? I couldn't tell but it wasnt pleasant. It made me want to crawl into a deep cave never to be seen again.

"N-no sir!" I stuttered the words out, going into a salute but because of my nerves placed my left hand over the right side of my chest mistakenly. I went to fix it, embarrassment taking over my being as I closed my eyes, hoping he wouldn't pick up on this but my luck has never been good.

"I know you're new but that doesn't give you excuses to not know a proper salute." He judged, face as close as it could be to me. "Now, since you think you're superior to everyone else here, prove it." He said loud enough for everyone to hear, shrugging his jacket off and standing opposite me in a fighting position.

"S-sir I... I didn’t mean any disrespect!" I got out frantically, not wanting to fight my squad captain in front of everyone. Petra had long since backed away from me, and stood with everyone who surround this fight. Levi was unbeatable in hand to hand combat, even if someone had trained all their life.

"This is an order. Fight me." He uttered, not breaking his posture. I nodded reluctantly, getting into a stance and waited for him to throw the first hit, which he did after realising I wouldn't attack him first.

He threw a punch, which I easily blocked, until i realised it was just a diversion and felt the knee colliding with my stomach. I jumped back quickly, getting into an even more defensive stance if that was possible. He wouldn't let me walk away so I did as told, waiting for him to attack again before grabbing his incoming elbow. This left him open and I used the momentum to jump up and kick him in the head.

He blocked with ease, grabbing my leg and twisting out of my grip just to effortlessly throw me onto the ground. I coughed from the impact, beginning to get up again.

"Just stop." Levi said simply, walking over to my hurt body and glaring down. "You're not going to beat me, and at this rate anyone." He said with venom dripping down his voice before turning away. "Dismissed!" He shouted on the way, grabbing his jacket while I just stared at him from my place on the ground.

"Y/N are you okay!?" Petra asked hurriedly, helping me up. I just nodded, forcing on a fake smile. His words hurt... He said it as if I would never be able to accomplish anything.

"Ye-yeah I'm fine." I didn’t want her help, instead I shrugged her worried hands off of me and headed towards the barracks to immerse myself in some kind of fantasy world where I didn’t have to think about about how worthless of a soldier, of a person I really was.

The bad thing is that he always treated me like this, always called me out as if he had some kind of vendetta against me. The last time we cleaned for instance, I missed a speck of dust on the top shelf of a bookcase and got assigned to clean the whole floor by myself all over again while everyone else was dismissed. “Make something useful of yourself and clean until this whole area is spotless.” I remember him saying before locking himself in his office. And that’s what I did, cleaned into the early hours of the morning to the extent that one could see their reflection in the tiles beneath their feet. Yet that didn’t satisfy the Captain. All he did was ‘tch’ and glare at me the way only he could.

I walked to my bunk, sitting down against the wall next to the bed, reaching a hand under the pillow to grab the book I was currently reading. It was a mystery book, although I believe it was roughly based on Kenny the Ripper and included a detective who really enjoyed drinking tea... Similarly to Levi.

I groaned in annoyance, why can’t I even enjoy a book without being reminded of him like this? He always makes me brew his tea in the mornings if we have a squad breakfast, then proceeds to say it tastes like piss. I just don’t understand why he doesn’t make his own tea from the get go if he just pours mine down the drain anyway and makes another batch.

“Hey Y/N?” Petra’s head came into view as she peaked into the room with a worried expression. “Are you okay?” She asked, slowly walking into the room and sitting on my bed.

“Yeah...” I sighed, leaning my head against the wall and closing my eyes. “Listen... Would you be able to cover for me tonight at dinner?” I suddenly asked, an idea popping into my head as I thought back to the book. The main detective liked his tea but... His assistant loved his alcohol due to all the stress and maybe I could use the same stress relieve too? It was worth a try, especially since I’d definitely be back by breakfast.

“I- Where are you going to be?” She asked, slightly surprised at my request.

“I just wanted to have a night in the city, a little stress relieve... Apparently there’s a really nice place with cheap drinks only an hour away according to Nanaba.” I explained, begging her to agree with my eyes.

Petra nodded hesitantly. “Okay, but... Just be careful.”

I instantly jumped up and hugged her. “Thank you! I owe you so much for this!” I exclaimed, running to the little drawer that belonged to me and picking out some civilian clothes in which it would be easy to sneak out in. A long skirt and a simple short sleeved cotton t-shirt.

"Are you taking anyone with you?" She questioned suddenly.

I simply shake my head. "If more people go then one of the superiors is sure to catch on. We can't have that." I explained, opening the drawer again and picking out my money from it, placing it into a pouch and attaching it to my hip securely. "Don't worry, I'll be fine." I smiled, glancing out of the window now to see that night was beginning take over. "I'll see you later tonight!" I said, beginning to walk out of the barracks as stealthily as possible, aware that everyone would either be in the mess hall or heading there now, the perfect time to steal away.

I took the route through the forest, remembering there was a small hole in the surrounding fence which saves me the trouble of explaining to whoever is in main entrance duty why I'm leaving. Honestly it was easy to get out and I headed towards town, remembering the route off by heart once I reached the main road. It did take around an hour after all to get to the tavern.

There was a strong scent of alcohol as I pushed the door open, it filled my nose and I instantly let my muscles relax, not even looking at the surroundings, not taking into account who was shouting and celebrating in different areas of the establishment. Instead I headed straight for the barkeep, asking for the strongest drink, which was downed within seconds.

I took a seat right in front of the bar. "Can I open a tab please?" I questioned, it wasnt hard to figure out I was going to be here all night. The barkeep nodded but got stopped by someone.

"Nonesense! Ill be paying for the ladies drink!" The man slurred, then asked for another of what I just had. Normally I would refuse but if it saves me money then why not.

I'm not too sure how much time went by but after a few more drinks, the man was beginning to really cosy up to me in an uncomftorable way. My head was spinning so I couldn't even walk away.

"Why don't I take you to mine, rest that pretty little head of yours." The man whispered in my ear, tugging at my arm and making me stumble in the process.

"No I-" my hand grabbed the counter as everything started spinning. "I need to go back to HQ." I mumbled.

"I'll take you there in the morning." There was an undertone to his words as his hand begun to travel down my lower back.

"I said no." I tried to straighten my back but the sudden movement made everything go black and I had to sit down promptly, which made the man pull me up roughly from the seat.

"Now listen here, I paid for your drinks so you are coming home with-" He stopped talking and completely let go of me, I lifted my eyes to see him on the ground, Levi towering over him with his back towards me.

"Now you listen here, the lady said no.” The short man said, crossing his arms from what I could tell in my current position. “And if I ever see you anywhere near her again, you’ll have to deal with me.”

“A-Aren’t you Captain Levi?” The man stuttered out, crawling away on his hands and knees before getting up and sprinting out of the building.

With that, Levi turned to me and extended his arm. “Tch, look at you. You’re supposed to be a soldier not a damsel in distress.” His eyes were icy as he took in my appearance. Yet, without uttering a word, I turned around and started drinking yet another beverage.

“You know Levi.” I hummed, a little more confidently than I usually would, not even addressing him with respect at the moment. “You’re making me feel like I’m not good enough.” I smiled sweetly at him, then turned back to my drink.

“What are you talking about?” He questioned, grabbing the drink from my hand and placing it far out of my reach.

“How did you know I was here?” I asked, yet my eyes were glued on where he placed the alcohol.

“Petra.” He answered simply. “I know you can do better than you give yourself credit for, that’s why I push you.” He sighed at the end of his words.

“I try...” I muttered.

“Yes, and as your Captain it is my duty to ensure you perform to the best of your abilities. Now stop being an idiot.” He clamped a hand onto my shoulder. “If you weren’t worthy of being on my squad, I wouldn't have selected you. I’ll give you some slack from now on but don’t expect any special treatment tomorrow with your hangover.” At the end of his words his lips twitched, as if a small supporting smile.

“Thank you Captain...” The realisation struck my drunk mind, he seemed like he cared even though he was terrible at expressing his emotions. “Should we- should we return to HQ?” I finally asked after a moment of silence, and with a simple nod from him we begun heading back.

#levi attack on titan #levi #levi ackerman #levi x reader #petra ral #nanaba #gelgar #attack on titan #attack on titan x reader #shingeki no kyojin #snk #AoT #levi imagine

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kaialone · 7 years

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I’m gonna ramble about Ganon(dorf) for a bit

Proceed if you’re interested (I wrote a lot)

Okay so I don’t even know how to start this, I’ll just go.

(note that I’ll mention the timeline in this, please dont think that I dont know that the timeline could be changed at any moment should nintendo feel ike it, I just like semi-going by currently established canon. Also please note that I got no problem with people who dont feel like following the timeline for any reason, to each their own.)

I kinda really like the fact that Ganondorf is said to be a reincarnation of Demise, because, idk, somehow the idea of powerful demons needing to reincarnate into human form for some reason, and then once they have this form and live that life they start having human feelings and emotions and start struggling with what they want to be and maybe end up becoming good guys, is just somethign I really enjoy.

(If that sounds weirdly specific, Great Demon King Piccolo from Dragonball is one character with that kinda arc that I love.)

And then of course, one of the most interesting things about Ganondorf, imo, is how in the three different timeline branches, you got one incarnation of Ganondorf who turns out very different in each branch.

Something I always like is to just kinda, look at the different “last words” Ganondorf has in each timeline branch, and what they really mean for each of them:

"The wind... it is... blowing."

“I am the Evil King, Ganon...”

“The history of light and shadow will be written in blood!”

(though this gets a bit muddled in the Downfall Timeline, as technically Ganon died in ALttP, but was revived in OoX,´, which I see as his true death for now, but then again we dunno if any Ganons after that where him revived or reborn so *shrug*)

But first we should talk about the guy that “grows up” to be these other three.

I mean, personally I think no matter how you look at it, OoT!Ganondorf did lots of bad stuff, and wasnt a good ruler to the Gerudo (I dont mind different interpretations at all though), but I do think his initial intentions were good like we hear him talk about in WW, but lets not get ahead of ourselves here.

OoT!Ganondorf doesn’t really end up helping the Gerudo once he actually takes over Hyrule (all the Gerudo are still over in the desert, cept for maybe Iron Knuckles) and its heavily implied all the Gerudo were brainwashed to some extent (The carpenters note that the Gerudo seem nicer, post-Twinrova’s defeat), and Nabooru, who was very respected among the Gerudo, was explicitly against Ganondorf, but then brainwashed into submission.

Like even if you think Twinrova did all that without him knowing, not noticing your parents brainwashing your people doesnt exactly make you a good leader.

Adding to that, if A Link to the Past’s backstory is to be believed (and the timeline is not said to split until Link falls in the final battle) then, Ganondorf entered the hiding place of the Triforce alongside fellow thieves of his, and ended up killing them all so he could have the Triforce for himself.

Buuut before you think I’m just gonna talk about how bad OoT!Ganondorf is, like, I still think he genuinely wanted to help his people (at first) and that everything WW!Ganondorf says does represent his true feelings, and that at some point, he just really wanted to do something good.

I think its interesting to think about why that presumably changed for a while, wether you think its the usual getting mad with power, getting to close to the “dark side” or whatever with all the dark magic going on, or being groomed into this role by Twinrova, or all of that, or something else entirely.

I mean, he definitely did some bad stuff before that too, but in the context of Ganondorf being a reincarnation of Demise, I wonder if it could be possible that either seeing Link and/or Zelda or laying eyes on the Triforce ended up having some effect on him, like awakening some part of Demise within him so to speak, contributing to him losing sight of his initial goals and getting more about power in general.

Notably post timeskip Ganondorf seems to use a lot more monsters/dmemons to do his bidding than before, but this could easily just be the difficulty spike for the player.

Idk if this sounds cheap to people somehow, but I remember a popular theory being that the Triforce of Power turned him evil so, its not that different imo.

Of course, in the final battle we see OoT!Ganondorf become Ganon, presumably for the very first time, but honestly? The transformation itself isn’t that important to me, as it just feels like a visual representation of the downfall Ganondorf had undergone already anyway.

And then, when he is defeated, he infamously curses Link, and ZELDA, and THE SAGES, vowing to kill their descendants once he breaks free from the seal and all...

...which leads into who is everyone’s favorite Ganondorf, and rightfully so, WW!Ganondorf.

Before going into the present day of WW, there is its backstory, which is very interesting to me, cause you just gotta think, how do we go from a guy like OoT!Ganon to WW!Ganon?

At some point after OoT but before WW, Ganondorf’s threat became reality, he broke out of the seal and tried taking over Hyrule once more.

But I cant help but wonder how it mustve felt for him. I picture him for years, decades, centuries maybe, sealed away, picturing his revenge, imagining how great it’ll feel to get free and eradicate the descendants of Link and Zelda, and finally making Hyrule his.

But when he was freed, he likely found a Hyrule that was different from how he remembered it. Notably, there would be no hero, nor descendants of his for him to exact revenge upon. And while we know that a princess seems to have had existed at the time, who knows if she was “a Zelda”, if you wanna call them that.

I just imagine it wouldve felt a lot less satisfying that he imagined, heck, probably wouldve felt more like he was robbed if his chance to take revenge.

And who knows what even happened to the Gerudo by that point? I know lack of them in Wind Waker doesnt mean they are extinct, but for all we know they couldve left hyrule altogether? (Like they seem to have done between OoT and TP, and mightve done post OoT in the Downfall timeline, if you dont think they went extinct)

Overall I could see what Ganondorf mightve pictured/wanted to be his most glorious moment, his long awaited return, mightve just ended up feeling kinda empty.

Not that I think he wouldve done a complete 180 already because of that, but I could see it leaving him in a bit of a shock.

Adding to that, now just as he is about to conquer Hyrule for real, the gods decide to destroy it, essentially. Or at least, thats how Ganondorf felt about the situation, given how he speaks of it in the game. Its like the gods are playing with him, everytime Hyrule is just within his graps, they take it from him.

The flood mustve felt especially terrible for him, cause the way he saw it, it mustve been something like the goddesses saying “we’d rather just end hyrule and kill all its people than have you be its ruler”. What a slap in the face, to put it lightly.

After that, getting sealed away again, and all the stuff I mentioned above, probably gave him time and opportunity to reflect upon his life so far, and the future too.

I dont think that in WW, Ganondorf was just “going through the motions”, and just trying to finish what he started because he had no choice at this point. I do think he still genuinely wanted to try and conquer Hyrule, its just that he has had some time to think about it, a bit more about why he wanted it, and about what he did wrong before, and regretting those mistakes.

Like for example, he really doesnt seem like he wants to harm Link and Zelda anymore, if he can help it. He could be hating them, still furious for what happened during OoT, but he doesnt seem to be.

One of these days I wanna talk about all the contrasts and parallels WW seems to draw to Zelda games that came before it, especially OoT, but for this bit I just wanna mention this one thing.

How in OoT you confront Ganondorf, who smugly plays his leitmotif on the organ, the sound of which growing louder the further you approach his chamber. His back pointed at the entrance which he knows the hero will emerge from. Zelda, encase in a crytal, hangs above him like a trophy, like the hero bait she is to him at this point.

And then in WW, his leitmotif plays in his final dungeon, but actually grow more quiet the closer you get to him. That already makes you feel like, while it invokes OoTs atmoosphere, it actually turns it on its head. And then, when you do cofront him, “Zelda” is instead peacefully sleeping in a bed, (presumably Ganondorfs bed?) with him calmly sitting by her side, watching over her. He doesn’t face Link directly as he enters, but isnt completely turned away from his either.

Of course this scene still has some creepy atmosphere to it, especially when he starts reading her mind, but maaaan, the contrast to OoT (and games that came before it) just GETS ME everytime I just think about it.

Ahhh, I could go on and on like, you all know this stuff, you all thought about him in this game so much, didnt you?

I really hope nintendo will choose to give another Ganondorf this kinda depth, and maybe even just play with the idea of Ganondorf taking on a different role than “final boss” in a Zelda title. I would love that.

Now, let’s turn the clock wayyy back to when Ganon fought Link, and talk about the timeline that occurs when Link is actually killed by him.

To me, this is kinda of the “original” timeline, for various reasons, but I don’t wanna distract from our main man here too long.

In this version of the events, Ganon manages to actually aquire the full Triforce in the final battle of OoT, and causes quite a bit of misery before the Sages finally manage to seal him away in this version, too. But because he is so powerful with the Triforce and all that, it ends up costing a lot more lives to finally get to that point.

Now from that point on, this Ganon seems to just kinda rule the Dark World, a twisted “evil” version of Hyrule of his own creation. And of course most notably, either because of this worlds properties, or his general state of being, this Ganon seemingly always stays in beast form from that point on.

Sadly this one doesnt talk too much (though he is very much capable of doing so), so we dont get much of a grasp on his character.

To me, ALttP!Ganon feels like somewhere in the middle when it comes to Ganons. Despite his bestial appearance, he doesnt seem as blind with power and rage as TP!Ganondorf, maybe cause he doesnt call himself a god or something. But he of course is nowhere near WW!Ganondorf in terms of reasons and having reflecting upon his past.

Either way, it is clear that he is not happy with just ruling his very own personal Hyrule, filled with damned people that have become monsters like him, as in ALttP he does attempt to break his seal and go back to the World of Light

This might just be out of greed, but you could also imagine he might simply be unhappy in this demonic world, or even scared? Given how we see that some inhabitants of this land lose their humanity to such an extent that they’re turning into things like trees, maybe even completely losing their sense of self?

One of the more curious things about ALttP!Ganon is his relationship to Agahnim. No one is entirely sure what they are to one another.

In some of the mangas, Agahnim is portrayed as a human who gets possessed or turned by Ganon in some shape or form, and this portrayal is popular from what I’ve seen.

But in the actual game, Agahnim is described as being Ganon’s alter-ego. The term used in the japanese version is “bunshin”, which can mean a lot of things, including alter-ego or even reincarnation, but in the context of the Zelda franchise, there is another part in the series where it is used. In Phantom Hourglass, Oshus is described as being the “bunshin” of the Ocean King. So, if we assume Agahnim works the same way, his consiusness would have to be exactly Ganon’s, right? Of course that doesn’t mean other interpretations can’t exist, I myself am not even sure what to think.

The usage of the word bunshin does imply that to some extent, Agahnim literally was a part, or offshot of Ganon. So froma certain point of view, we could add his character to Ganons, if we wanted to.

Something that intrigues me though is that in the Downfall Timeline, we never see Ganon in human form again. Could this be related to Agahnim? Maybe not exactly literally but symbolIcally?

Did Ganon split the humanity he had left off of himself, because that was the only part of him that could exit the Dark World before the seal was lifted?

If so, did Agahnim dying have any effect on him? Or did whatever Agahnim was in the end just return to him?

So much to think about here, ahh.

Of cours, ALttP!Ganon then gets killed by Link in their battle. Not sealed away, just flat out killed.

Normally this would probably be the end, but of course OoX happened, in which Twinrova tried to revive him, but didnt quite succeed.

Ganon is revived as a seemingly mindless beast, only actualy talking in his final moments, which is the quote from earlier.

In the japanese version, this quote is written entirely in katakana, which can indicate that its pronounced weirdly somehow, in cases like this likely because he had a hard time forming the words at all.

He also refers to himself as a Demon King in japanese, but that term hadn’t caught on in the english versions of the games yet.

Okay so, as I kinda mentioned above, this Ganon’s story gets a bit muddled from this point on.

Sometime after ALttP, but before ALbW, ALbW’s backstory (which is not ALttP) occurs, during which a hero fights a Ganon, who is then sealed away by him, the princess and the sages, but we dont know if this Ganon is the same, just revived again, or an entirely new incarnation.

But you could argue that it hardly matters, cause he barely does anything in the game, essentially acting as a power boost for Yuga...

However, there is a theory that he might do more than that actually.

So, according to this theory, Yuga actually was completely loyal to Hilda, and its only by fusing with Ganon that he starts wanting to betray, due to Ganons influence. The theory is nice in the sense that it makes Yuga more of an opposite of Ganon than he seems if you take the game at face value, and gives Ganon more to do. Depending on your interpretation, Yuga might just be influenced by Ganon, or they literally fuse into a being that is just as much Ganon as it is Yuga.

But of course that is just a minor theory, and you dont have to like it, naturally.

After that we get HF and AoL!Ganon, who is said to be more of a mindless beast as this point, no trace left of the human he used to be.

A rather sad fate.

Again it is unclear if this is the same Ganon, revived yet again, or maybe (anotehr) reincarnation.

But if its the former, you can only assume that, even if you dont think Agahnim dying had any effect on Ganon, just forcing him to ressurect over and over instead of letting him reincarnate properly, must’ve done quite the number on Ganon.

Somehow thinking about this version of Ganon in particular makes me think about the cursed boars in Princess Mononoke, who where lost to their anger. Especially the moment when the Wolf faces the Old Boar, who we have seen slowly lose his self at this point, and she almost pitifully says “Can’t you even speak anymore?” to him.

It almost feels like Downfall Timeline!Ganon is cursed by fate, in a sense. Not really in-universe either, but out of universe too!

History is already written (the first two games are already out) and thus Ganon has to follow the path that is already set for him, become what he will be in the future (what he is in the first two games), a frightening monster that terrorizes this kingdom of Hyrule for the sake of power, with no humanity in him (him having been human wasnt part of his character at the time the first two games where released)

I wonder if the demons failing to get Links blood in 2 will mark the end of this Ganon? (I hope not)

It was kinda nice to see BotW seemingly do somewhat of a modern take on this kinda idea of Ganon, something that has become little more than destruction of Hyrule in pyhsical form. I could see people place BotW as post- AoL for that reason, even.

And well, rolling back time yet again, we go to the last way OoT!Ganondorf turned out, which is TP!Ganondorf...

....who, compared to the others, actually has a bit more of a complicated “set-up” that kickstarts his character.

When Link gets send back in time at the end of OoT, his Tiforce of Courage breaks apart into the pieces we find in WW, presumably because Link was literally removed from that reality as he possessed it?

Then upon his arrival in the new Child Timeline, Link immediately gets the Triforce of Courage of THAT timeline, presumably cause he is in a state of being where he is meant to have a Triforce Piece of Courage?

Well, regardless of what you believe to be the cause, this is what happens, and as a result, the other two Triforce pieces choose Zelda and Ganondorf to bear them and end up residing in them. Thats how the pieces ended up with the three without the Sacred Realm being entered in this version of the events.

Link ends up warning Zelda and the king of the events that will transpire in the future, and thus Ganondorf loses the trust of the king and is unable to set his plan from OoT into motion.

Its a bit vague, but sometime after that Ganondorf starts a direct attack towards Hyrule, but gets captured and put on trial.

And as you know, as he was about to be executed, the Triforce of Power activated and saved him from death.

Now I am not sure if this is true, but I think up until that point, Ganondorf didn’t even know he had it.

But wether he discovered he had it now, or the moment it fist came to him, one thing I am sure of, he mustve felt so great for it. Cause he has no idea that a time travelling Link caused this to happen, right? From his perspective, the power of the gods just came to him like that because he is that great! And then, he cant even die as a result of this? He is literally immortal? Well, he must be the dang chosen one, right?

No wonder he got all god complex in this one!

Something I´m kinda interested in is how this guy spend years, likely centuries, in the Twillight Realm, and if his form in there is any indication, not exactly in physical form either, I mean isnt it implied he HAD to mae use of Zant like that in order to be able to have a physical form like that?

Ultimately TP!Ganondorf just is a lot like OoT!Ganondorf if you think about it, just kinda taken to a more extreme. He is no longer just human, but has transcended humanity much further than OoT!Ganondorf has, and feels superior to everyone because of it.

He is absolute in his own eyes, he is a god, his eventual victory is certain, his battle with the hero just a formality at this point.

And he sticks to that mindset until the very end, even as he is stabbed and fatally wounded by Link. It only makes sense, he couldnt be stopped by this before, why would it stop him now?

Of course the events that follow are rather vague, and people argue about what it means to this day, but I think it ultimately boils down to Ganondorf biting of more than he can chew, overestimating his own power. Or rather, what he thinks is his own power, cause its not even his.

From the moment he was impaled by the sword of the sage, Ganondorf has been a dead man.

He has only been kept alive afterwards through the power of others, the gods, and Zant as well.

This power was not his, and thus it could just leave him just as quick as it came to him.

The imagine of Zant snapping his neck, to me, either just refers to the fact that with Zant dead, who acted as Ganondorf anchor of sorts, Ganondorf himself dies as well, or it refers to the fact that Ganondorf, who saw himself as a god and superior to everything, was ultimately just as much of a mortal and simple being than the very person who worshipped him as a deity the most.

Yes, you could call Zant the very person that made Ganondorf a god in the first place, in more ways than one, so without him, Ganondorf is a god no more. And he dies just like any mortal would.

Ultimately this Ganondorf story feels like a story of hubris.

Simple, but neat.

(Its interesting like, its almost like, TP!Ganondorf was a human who longed to be a god, and WW!Ganondorf was like a god who longed to be human?)

But, do not think it ends here...

We’ve looked at all the people that OoT!Ganondorf grew up to be, but that isn’t all the Ganons there is, the story of Ganon actually continues further down the Child Timeline.

Yes, this brings us to FSA!Ganon, or as I sometimes like to call him, Ganon II.

I understand that most probably never played this game, and I probably won’t blow your minds if I tell you Ganon doesn’t actually do much in this game but, I still like to think about him.

He’s actually a proper reincarnation of TP!Ganondorf, folowing the latter’s death at the end of TP.

From some dialouge in-game we know a little bit about his past. Like his past life, he was a boy born to the Gerudo people, and was named Ganondorf.

Interestingly, in this game, the Gerdudo dont actually say that every 100 years a male child is born, they that every 100 years a “special” child is born, and of course Ganondorf was that special child. They still mention the “only man” part, but it doesnt come up with the “every 100 years” line.

Notably it also doesnt seem that Ganondorf was supposed to be their king, and it doesnt seem like they ever treated him like a king, they only mention he was supposed to be the protector of the Gerudo people and the desert.

This is just speculation, but perhaps, after what happened to the first Ganondorf, the Gerudo people decided it wasnt a good idea to treat the sole male like a king just because.

The Gerudo in the game tell you that the older Ganndorf became, the more twisted and obsessed with power he became, and eventually he started breaking their laws, too.

When he entered the forbidden pyramid, the Gerudo basically considered him banished from their tribe, but also didnt think he would ever survive in there and presumed him to be dead.

The Gerudo in this game really only talk badly about Ganondorf, which probably makes sense if he really just did bad stuff to them, but its a very stark contrast to OoT where the Gerudo seemed to just let Ganondorf get away with everything, kinda.

Something I wonder about if maybe like, Ganondorf wasn’t exactly treated well by the Gerudo, out of fear of him turning out like the old Ganondorf, or if Ganondorf just turned bad all on his own. Or maybe a mixture of both?

What is sorta interesting is the story of how this one came to be Ganon, which is that within the pyramid, he found a certain Trident, which is implied to have caused him to “awake as Ganon”, so to speak, as he picked it up. This is the inscription found with the Trident:

“Seek...you...the world? Seek you...power? Does your...soul...despise peace and...thirst for... more? Does your soul...cry... for...destruction and... conquest? We...grant you...power to ...ruin...the world. The power of...darkness. Evil...spirit of magic trident. You are...the... King of Darkness.“

The trident feels like it has more out of universe meaning than in-universe (though I do headcanon it to be a reincarnated ghirahim somehow, because I can). The trident being a weapon that franchise-wise is heavily associated with Ganon, and notably Ganon only, as Ganondorf is never really seen wielding a literal trident.

This Ganondorf picks up the trident, and with it the legacy of the interpretations of Ganons that came in the games before this one, so to speak.

I´m sorry for this part being so unstructured, but interestingly, Ganondorf is this game is referred to as “ancient demon reborn”, or something like “instrument of evil reborn” in japanese, hinting that even at the time of the game’s release, this Ganon was probably intended to be the reincarnation of a previous evil, likely a previous Ganon, of course.

What I wonder about is how much this Ganon is aware of that, though. When he grew up, becoming more and more twisted, did he know? Did he know he was the reincarnation of a villain that had previously plagued Hyrule? Did he feel his hatred? Did he know whose it was, or did he consider it his own? Or was it simply his own?

And when he picked up the trident, and transformed into a demon beast, did he understand what this meant? What he was? Did he ever obtain any memories of his past self, even?

Something that hints that this /might/ be the case is Shadow Link.

Now Shadow Link is not actually created by the dark mirror from the evil part of Link’s heart as the english localization suggest. Instead its created from the evil part of Ganon’s heart, using the dark mirror. It is said that through the mirror,the hatred and evil of Ganondorf, throughout time, took on the shape of Link. Likely because the hero is a major subject of Ganondorf’s hatred.

The fact that this happened when FSA!Ganon used the mirror, despite himself never having met Link up until that point, hints that he might, at least subconsiously, harbor the memories of his past incarnations?

But really, as usual there is a lot open to interpretation.

I´m just so intrigued, like in this timeline there is a “second Ganon”, a Ganon that came “after”, someone who had to take on this cruel legacy.

And, with that we have now talked about all the Ganon(dorf)s that have existed in the franchise to this day, not counting stuff like BS Zelda and the CDI-Games.

If you stuck around until this point, thank you so much, you’re too kind!

But also thanks to everyone that just skimmed this or looked it over briefly, I hope this wall of text did something for you.

(Sorry for any typos I... type too fast when I get excited about a topic.)

#legend of zelda #ganon #ganondorf

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anonymoustalks · 4 years

Text

idk if lenins polcy of bruning churches was good but you have to have soem kind of athiest government

(6-20-20) You both like politics.

You: hi

Stranger: hi

Stranger: ideology?

You: moderate left

You: you?

Stranger: far left

Stranger: uk

You: ahh kay

You: why do you like omegle?

Stranger: er dunno just fun to chat without consequences i guess

You: mhm that's fair

You: I like to hear about what other ppl think

Stranger: yh and argueing

You: haha I don't really argue that much

Stranger: some people arnt worth ur time

You: mhm maybe

You: where are you from?

Stranger: uk^^

You: I'm from the us

Stranger: noice

You: and I'm totally ignorant of british politics lol

Stranger: i know a little bit about america

You: how does your government work?

Stranger: cos its the centre of the world

You: sorry if this is a really dull question

Stranger: its fine ill asnwer w my limited understanding

You: I just ran into someone who was praising the monarchy

Stranger: pfft

Stranger: haha

Stranger: so basically above everyone we have a queen who approves certain stuff and has the ability to interjec tin products but msotly doesn then you have the unlected house of lords which is aristocrats recommended by other rich ppl and below that the ppl elected

Stranger: we have a prime minister so he doesnt have the same powers as president

Stranger: but hes more powerful than other pm's

You: mhm

You: the house of lords...

Stranger: yep

You: is the aristocracy still a big thing in the uk?

Stranger: its just like the senate in the usa except not elected and idk probaably

You: how does someone get recommended to the house of lords?

Stranger: be rich adn good at something or know someone whos rich

You: ahh I think it's weird that it's so closely tied to wealth

Stranger: not really the uk ruling class make it prtty obvious to us peasnts that its a ruling class fake democracy

Stranger: unlike the usa where everybody is supposed classless

You: right

You: I guess that's a fair statement

Stranger: but yeah fuck the queen

Stranger: how was the guy defedning monarchy?

You: oh he sounded kind of weird

You: like how god and the monarchy is essential for uk's stability and being

Stranger: pfft

You: he didn't really explain much

Stranger: both are irelevant nowadays

You: just pointed out that france and us are chaotic, according to him because there is no monarchy

Stranger: oh yeah thats totally

Stranger: why

You: yeah lol

Stranger: if only they had a monarchy then there owuld be no class and racial conflict

You: so how far left are you?

Stranger: very far

You: anarchist?

Stranger: nope left communist

Stranger: basically anti stalinist communist

You: what does your ideal government look like?

Stranger: well until you have a relatively stateless socialism you have a dictatorship of the proleterait

Stranger: and that has an armed population as the army and has direct democracy and a representive democracy who are payed wages simualr to that of a workmans

Stranger: in brief

You: mhm and membership has a criteria that you must be working class?

Stranger: membership of the democratic process yep

Stranger: a worker

You: mhm

Stranger: not necearily poor

You: what is the exact definition of working class btw?

Stranger: sombody who doesnt own and live off capitlist property

Stranger: or is a cpatilsit in other respects

Stranger: like an investor

Stranger: businessmen landlords and bankers

You: hmm I feel like it's hard for me to draw parallels

You: I know a pharmacist friend

You: who rents his place

You: for extra cash

Stranger: well when we have the revolution i doubt he'll be locked up or anything but youknow

Stranger: hes just a small landlord i guess

Stranger: supplemetning work income

You: so would people just discouraged from doing that kind of stuff?

Stranger: well hosuing will be nationalised as an early step

Stranger: so you wont have to

You: mhm

Stranger: making rent equal to bills

You: my parents also have investments

You: for like retirement

You: and just in general

Stranger: sure

You: was curious what would happen to those

Stranger: well i mean by investor sombody who is rich and does it for a job

You: ah kay

Stranger: the socialsit pension ting will be good anyhow

You: mhm

You: do you think that's it necessary for the world to follow this model? Or do you think that it can still work with just a communist state on it's own?

Stranger: nah for a lot of reasons you cant have it in one or a few states surrounded by cpaitlsit ones

Stranger: for one a DOTP surrounded by cpatilist states is forced to act like one to compete

Stranger: and therefore exploit other countries and its own labourers to the max

You: right, I was curious about that actually

Stranger: that was trotsky's argument

You: mhm

Stranger: he said u cant have 'socialsism in one country' because you have to first have international DOTP

You: dotp stands for?

Stranger: or you just become a state cpaitlist state like stalin

You: dictatorship of the prol.?

Stranger: dictatorship of the proletariat

Stranger: yep

You: mhm, that makes a lot of sense

Stranger: yep

Stranger: DOTP being when workers hold the state but not the economy

Stranger: the economy is still in private hands

You: right

You: I think I mix up all the varieties of socialism and communism

Stranger: yh DOTP isnt so much a variety but a transition

Stranger: from cpaitlism to socialism/com

You: mhm

You: I feel like I think about human nature cynically

Stranger: oh go on

You: as in, I'm skeptical of being satisfied with equality

You: *ppl being

Stranger: well tehy certainly arnt satified by inequality so how bad can it really get?

You: mhm true

Stranger: we dont mean absolute equality

Stranger: just equality of opporutunity to realise ur best self

You: idk if this is school bias or anything, but when we learn about communism, it's often framed that the party just ends up with all the wealth

You: or power

Stranger: theres a reason that idea of so called communism is taught rlly

Stranger: mainly cos of porpaganda but theres some truth

Stranger: under lenin the state was definitely a semi deictatorship of a few workers parties

Stranger: but with a democratic mechanism and worker councils to elect them

You: hm

You: *mhm

Stranger: with the intention of educating a largely illitarate peasant russia into a democratic socialsit society

Stranger: but after the vicotry of stalin after lenins death, whatever redistribution of power was dropped and centrlasing power in the party and in stalin was the priority

You: right

Stranger: so there is a history to it

You: I feel like I was thought that there was a component of ideological purity -- like, if you expressed greater loyalty to the party, you could get more stuff

You: like better food tickets or cars or stuff

You: *taught

Stranger: sure teh soviet union during and after stalin was definitely a class society

You: mhm, how do you avoid class from rearising?

Stranger: you dont centralise power in bureacracy

Stranger: and make it mroe acoutnable

Stranger: you arm the popualtion

Stranger: make durable directly democratic mechanisms

Stranger: accountability at all level

You: so you're saying like enshrining freedom of speech / freedom of arms in the system?

Stranger: im not a freedom of speech absolutist but sure

Stranger: its very important

You: wasn't China kinda of freedom of speech until tianmensquare, were they?

Stranger: ha no

Stranger: you got tortured if you spoke out

You: ah kay

Stranger: same as soviet union really

Stranger: mao wasnt masively different

You: I'm just thinking of the blm protests in the US

Stranger: yh

You: when ppl feel like change isn't happening

You: then they can get violent

Stranger: yep

You: was just curious how your government would handle that

Stranger: well the governmetn and the people are intrinsically merged

Stranger: but it depends like waht the situation would be

You: mhm I mean technically there's universal suffrage in the US but not everyone votes

Stranger: yep

Stranger: electoral college too

You: and I think minority parties can sometimes be the loudest and most opinionated

Stranger: yh

You: so even with a proletariat government I think there might still be disagreement

Stranger: yh

Stranger: for sure

Stranger: and debate

Stranger: whats ur point

You: mhm idk

Stranger: aight sitl idk the answers

You: yeah it's interesting

Stranger: what are u taught abotu socialism in schools

You: mhm, I guess just the things I said?

You: I think we studied east germany and the ussr

Stranger: ah k

Stranger: yep

You: what life was like

You: to live there

Stranger: sure and if you trying and feed everyone this is waht happens type shite

Stranger: you cant be nice with the economy

You: mhm I don't think my teachers tried to make extremely biased conclusions or anything

You: but the curriculum itself could be biased I think

Stranger: k yeah same

Stranger: yeah fr

Stranger: we dont learn at all about the british empire

You: yup

Stranger: like not once

Stranger: or really any british history beyond knights and castles

You: actually in world history class my teacher commented that I was beginning to sound "anti-american" lol

Stranger: haha good

Stranger: anti american what a word

Stranger: being anti imperialist and anti racist is being anti british too

You: lol

Stranger: tells u what they think about britishness

Stranger: its not culture but power

Stranger: which is a load of bs

You: mhm

Stranger: what did you say to teacher

You: idk I'm not very nationalist

You: I didn't say anything, I'm not really the kind of person to argue

Stranger: neither but i like uk just not enough to block refugees to preserve it

Stranger: like some wacko patriots are

You: mhm

Stranger: they act like the uks not been 15% non white since like 1940

You: mhm

You: what do you think of their opinion that a country should have a right to control their own culture/ethnicities?

Stranger: erm

Stranger: well thats tough

Stranger: i think the ideal of direct dmeocracy and a reactioanry population is contradictory

Stranger: and therefore maybe u need more centralised leadership there

You: I think I heard a scenario of belgium or something wanting to block the construction of mosques in like a historical district or something

You: to preserve their national culture/history

Stranger: yep idk

You: yeah idk either

Stranger: but like how would direct democrayc work in somalia

Stranger: or saudi arabia

Stranger: thats a tough question

Stranger: would men use it to repress women

You: mhm yup

You: or well, there are several states that have a democracy

Stranger: its like india was basically a dicatroship for its first 20 years

You: and they voted to impose state religion

You: state religious laws

You: that kind of thing

Stranger: basically cos it would be a bloodbath

Stranger: of relgion and caste

Stranger: so the governmetn had to go against the people to do whats the long term good

You: I think it's sometimes hard to have foresight about what the "long term good" is though

You: like everybody things they are doing things for long term good

You: *thinks

Stranger: well in indias caste removing caste racism and relgious bigotry was a big thing

Stranger: and many people died due to it

You: mhm

You: I think it's really hard for me to know what is "right"

Stranger: and i think general equality is a good thing impose against a population

Stranger: if they dont want it

Stranger: thats the only way change has ever come

You: mhm although I think indoctrination is always possible

Stranger: eh

You: I mean, this is kind of a hot take, but Western values are indoctrinated

Stranger: yeahthey are

You: similarly speaking you could indoctrinate capitalistic values or communist values

Stranger: some are right some are wrong

Stranger: not succesfully

You: and I think the ppl who grow up with whatever they are indoctrinated with are generally happy

You: and support the views they grow up with

Stranger: yeah true

You: although I think it's sad for whoever gets left out of the system

Stranger: like anti deisicimination laws are passed despite a population

Stranger: for a long term good

You: mhm

You: yeah idk governments are hard haha

Stranger: haha yes

Stranger: thats why were still talking about it

You: mhm

You: I don't really know what to think about ppl who support religious states

You: like indonesia has that problem

Stranger: theyre idiots

You: like they want their state to become religious

Stranger: ik snd prolly will

You: but if I imagine myself in their shoes

You: I think they just want to be closer to their religion

You: which is like a personal value

You: like I'm secular, so things like freedom and equality mean a lot to me

Stranger: truw

You: but I can also imagine a different world were idk god and faith matter a lot to me

You: we have pretty significant freedom of religion battles in the us

Stranger: same]

Stranger: if i didnt grow up in suhc an athiest school and get bullied for it id be hardcore jesus

You: oh your family is religious?

Stranger: yep

You: mhm I was reading about the us lgbt anti-discrimination ruling earlier

Stranger: yeah

You: the religious schools here are worried about being affected

You: like they don't want to hire gay teachers

Stranger: good

You: bc they're a religious school

Stranger: get w the program schools

Stranger: idk if lenins polcy of bruning churches was good but you have to have soem kind of athiest government

You: mhm I think anti-discrimination is good, but I feel like I can understand their resistance of feeling like they can't teach their religion the way they want

Stranger: sure yeah

You: idk most things I don't know what to think lol

Stranger: but think about if they dont get agy teachers

Stranger: anti discimination laws dont work

You: hm?

Stranger: cos u can jsut say u didnt disciminate and taht it

You: ohh no it still matters

You: like imagine you are a religious school

You: and a pastor applies and says they are a gay priest

You: and you don't want to hire them

You: they can sue bc discrimination

Stranger: maybe but its a relgious school why u even applying

You: mhm some ppl kind of want to change christianity I think

You: like there are pastors who are much more sympathetic to lgbt

Stranger: eh still

Stranger: lictus and that

Stranger: levictus

You: yeah idk

You: most of the churches in my area are pro-lgbt

Stranger: pretty sure my preist is closeted

You: aww

Stranger: hes very camp

You: camp ?

Stranger: and went to cambridge

Stranger: femenine

You: ahh

Stranger: yep

You: yeah religion is an odd place in politics for me

You: like it's often at the root of weird stuff

Stranger: oh yeah

Stranger: are u relgious

You: that runs counter to like modern science common sense

You: no

You: well, I'm like 20% spiritual I guess

You: but I'm not religious

Stranger: yep

Stranger: never got the difference

You: between spiritual and religious?

Stranger: yep

You: oh, for me, religious is like adhering to a religion, or denomination, or religious practice

You: spiritual is like vaguely believe in something

You: *belieiving

You: without doing anything about it

You have disconnected.

#omegle #politics #communism #uk #dictatorship of the proletariat #class warfare #education #indoctrination #religion #reigious freedom

0 notes

ciathyzareposts · 5 years

Text

Star Control II

In this vaguely disturbing picture of Toys for Bob from 1994, Paul Reiche is at center and Fred Ford to the right. Ken Ford, who joined shortly after Star Control II was completed, is to the left.

There must have been something in the games industry’s water circa 1992 when it came to the subject of sequels. Instead of adhering to the traditional guidelines — more of the same, perhaps a little bigger — the sequels of that year had a habit of departing radically from their predecessors in form and spirit. For example, we’ve recently seen how Virgin Games released a Dune II from Westwood Studios that had absolutely nothing to do with the same year’s Dune I, from Cryo Interactive. But just as pronounced is the case of Accolade’s Star Control II, a sequel which came from the same creative team as Star Control I, yet which was so much more involved and ambitious as to relegate most of what its predecessor had to offer to the status of a mere minigame within its larger whole. In doing so, it made gaming history. While Star Control I is remembered today as little more than a footnote to its more illustrious successor, Star Control II remains as passionately loved as any game from its decade, a game which still turns up regularly on lists of the very best games ever made.

Like those of many other people, Paul Reiche III’s life was irrevocably altered by his first encounter with Dungeons & Dragons in the 1970s. “I was in high school,” he remembers, “and went into chemistry class, and there was this dude with glasses who had these strange fantasy illustrations in front of him in these booklets. It was sort of a Napoleon Dynamite moment. Am I repulsed or attracted to this? I went with attracted to it.”

In those days, when the entire published corpus of Dungeons & Dragons consisted of three slim, sketchy booklets, being a player all but demanded that one become a creator — a sort of co-designer, if you will — as well. Reiche and his friends around Berkeley, California, went yet one step further, becoming one of a considerable number of such folks who decided to self-publish their creative efforts. Their most popular product, typed out by Reiche’s mother on a Selectric typewriter and copied at Kinko’s, was a book of new spells called The Necromican.

That venture eventually crashed and burned when it ran afoul of that bane of all semi-amateur businesses, the Internal Revenue Service. It did, however, help to secure for Reiche what seemed the ultimate dream job to a young nerd like him: working for TSR itself, the creator of Dungeons & Dragons, in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He contributed to various products there, but soon grew disillusioned by the way that his own miserable pay contrasted with the rampant waste and mismanagement around him, which even a starry-eyed teenage RPG fanatic like him couldn’t fail to notice. The end came when he spoke up in a meeting to question the purchase of a Porsche as an executive’s company car. That got him “unemployed pretty dang fast,” he says.

So, he wound up back home, attending the University of California, Berkeley, as a geology major. But by now, it was the 1980s, and home computers — and computer games — were making their presence felt among the same sorts of people who tended to play Dungeons & Dragons. In fact, Reiche had been friends for some time already with one of the most prominent designers in the new field: Jon Freeman of Automated Simulations, designer of Temple of Apshai, the most sophisticated of the very early proto-CRPGs. Reiche got his first digital-game credit by designing The Keys of Acheron, an “expansion pack” for Temple of Apshai‘s sequel Hellfire Warrior, for Freeman and Automated. Not long after, Freeman had a falling-out with his partner and left Automated to form Free Fall Associates with his wife, programmer Anne Westfall. He soon asked Reiche to join them. It wasn’t a hard decision to make: compared to the tabletop industry, Reiche remembers, “there was about ten times the money in computer games and one-tenth the number of people.”

Freeman, Westfall, and Reiche made a big splash very quickly, when they were signed as one of the first group of “electronic artists” to join a new publisher known as Electronic Arts. Free Fall could count not one but two titles among EA’s debut portfolio in 1983: Archon, a chess-like game where the pieces fought it out with one another, arcade-style, under the players’ control; and Murder on the Zinderneuf, an innovative if not entirely satisfying procedurally-generated murder-mystery game. While the latter proved to be a slight commercial disappointment, the former more than made up for it by becoming a big hit, prompting the trio to make a somewhat less successful sequel in 1984.

After that, Reiche parted ways with Free Fall to become a sort of cleanup hitter of a designer for EA, working on whatever projects they felt needed some additional design input. With Evan and Nicky Robinson, he put together Mail Order Monsters, an evolution of an old Automated Simulations game of monster-movie mayhem, and World Tour Golf, an allegedly straight golf simulation to which the ever-whimsical Reiche couldn’t resist adding a real live dinosaur as the mother of all hazards on one of the courses. Betwixt and between these big projects, he also lent a helping hand to other games: helping to shape the editor in Adventure Construction Set, making some additional levels for Ultimate Wizard.

Another of these short-term consulting gigs took him to a little outfit called Binary Systems, whose Starflight, an insanely expansive game of interstellar adventure, had been in production for a couple of years already and showed no sign of being finished anytime soon. This meeting would, almost as much as his first encounter with Dungeons & Dragons, shape the future course of Reiche’s career, but its full import wouldn’t become clear until years later. For now, he spent two weeks immersed in the problems and promise of arguably the most ambitious computer game yet proposed, a unique game in EA’s portfolio in that it was being developed exclusively for the usually business-oriented MS-DOS platform rather than a more typical — and in many ways more limited — gaming computer. He bonded particularly with Starflight‘s scenario designer, an endlessly clever writer and artist named Greg Johnson, who was happily filling his galaxy with memorable and often hilarious aliens to meet, greet, and sometimes beat in battle.

Reiche’s assigned task was to help the Starflight team develop a workable conversation model for interacting with all these aliens. Still, he was thoroughly intrigued with all aspects of the project, so much so that he had to be fairly dragged away kicking and screaming by EA’s management when his allotted tenure with Binary Systems had expired. Even then, he kept tabs on the game right up until its release in 1986, and was as pleased as anyone when it became an industry landmark, a proof of what could be accomplished when designers and programmers had a bigger, more powerful computer at their disposal — and a proof that owners of said computers would actually buy games for them if they were compelling enough. In these respects, Starflight served as nothing less than a harbinger of computer gaming’s future. At the same, though, it was so far out in front of said future that it would stand virtually alone for some years to come. Even its sequel, released in 1989, somehow failed to recapture the grandeur of its predecessor, despite running in the same engine and having been created by largely the same team (including Greg Johnson, and with Paul Reiche once again helping out as a special advisor).

Well before Starflight II‘s release, Reiche left EA. He was tired of working on other people’s ideas, ready to take full control of his own creative output for the first time since his independent tabletop work as a teenager a decade before. With a friend named Fred Ford, who was the excellent programmer Reiche most definitely wasn’t, he formed a tiny studio — more of a partnership, really — called Toys for Bob. The unusual name came courtesy of Reiche’s wife, a poet who knew the value of words. She said, correctly, that it couldn’t help but raise the sort of interesting questions that would make people want to look closer — like, for instance, the question of just who Bob was. When it was posed to him, Reiche liked to say that everyone who worked on a Toys for Bob game should have his own Bob in mind, serving as an ideal audience of one to be surprised and delighted.

Reiche and Ford planned to keep their company deliberately tiny, signing only short-term contracts with outsiders to do the work that they couldn’t manage on their own. “We’re just people getting a job done,” Reiche said. “There are no politics between [us]. Once you start having art departments and music departments and this department and that department, the organization gets a life of its own.” They would manage to maintain this approach for a long time to come, in defiance of all the winds of change blowing through the industry; as late as 1994, Toys for Bob would permanently employ only three people.

Yet Reiche and Ford balanced this small-is-beautiful philosophy with a determination to avoid the insularity that could all too easily result. They made it a policy to show Toys for Bob’s designs-in-progress to many others throughout their evolution, and to allow the contracters they hired to work on them the chance to make their own substantive creative inputs. For the first few years, Toys for Bob actually shared their offices with another little collective who called themselves Johnson-Voorsanger Productions. They included in their ranks Greg Johnson of Starflight fame and one Robert Leyland, whom Reiche had first met when he did the programming for Murder on the Zinderneuf — Anne Westfall had had her hands full with Archon — back in the Free Fall days. Toys for Bob and Johnson-Voorsanger, these two supposedly separate entities, cross-pollinated one another to such an extent that they might almost be better viewed as one. When the latter’s first game, the cult-classic Sega Genesis action-adventure ToeJam & Earl, was released in 1991, Reiche and Ford made the credits for “Invaluable Aid.” And the influence which Leyland and particularly Johnson would have on Toys for Bob’s games would be if anything even more pronounced.

Toys for Bob’s first game, which they developed for the publisher Accolade, was called Star Control. With it, Reiche looked all the way back to the very dawn of digital gaming — to the original Spacewar!, the canonical first full-fledged videogame ever, developed on a DEC PDP-1 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology circa 1962. In Star Control as in Spacewar!, two players — ideally, two humans, but potentially one human and one computer player, or even two computer players if the “Cyborg Mode” is turned on — fight it out in an environment that simulates proper Newtonian physics, meaning objects in motion stay in motion until a counter-thrust is applied. Players also have to contend with the gravity wells of the planets around them — these in place of the single star which affects the players’ ships in Spacewar! — as they try to blow one another up. But Star Control adds to this formula a wide variety of ships with markedly differing weaponry, defensive systems, sizes, and maneuvering characteristics. In best rock-paper-scissors fashion, certain units have massive advantages over others and vice versa, meaning that a big part of the challenge is that of maneuvering the right units into battle against the enemy’s. As in real wars, most of the battles are won or lost before the shooting ever begins, being decided by the asymmetries of the forces the players manage to bring to bear against one another. Reiche:

It was important to us that each alien ship was highly differentiated. What it means is, unlike, say, Street Fighter, where your characters are supposedly balanced with one another, our ships weren’t balanced at all, one on one. One could be very weak, and one could be very strong, but the idea was, your fleet of ships, your selection of ships in total, was as strong as someone else’s, and then it came down to which match-up did you find. One game reviewer called it, “Rock, Scissors, Vapor,” which I thought was a great expression.

Of course, even the worst match-ups leave a sliver of hope that a brilliant, valorous performance on the field of battle can yet save the day.

You can play Star Control in “Melee” mode as a straight-up free-for-all. Each player gets seven unique ships from the fourteen in the game, from which she gets to choose one for each battle. First player to destroy all of her opponent’s ships wins. But real strategy — that is to say, strategy beyond the logic of rock-paper-scissors match-ups — comes into play only with the full game, which takes the form of a collection of scenarios where each player must deploy her fleet over a galactic map. In the more complex scenarios, controlling more star systems means more resources at one’s disposal, which can be used to build more and better ships at a player’s home starbase; this part of the game draws heavily from the beloved old Atari 8-bit classic Star Raiders. A scenario editor is also included for players who get bored with the nine scenarios that come with the game.

Star Control strains nobly to accommodate many different play styles and preferences. Just as it’s possible to turn on Cyborg Mode in the strategy game and let the computer do the fighting, it’s also possible to turn on “Psytron Mode” and let the computer do the strategy while you concentrate on blowing stuff up.

Star Control in action. The red ship is the infamous Syreen Penetrator.

Yet the aspect of Star Control that most players seem to remember best has nothing to do with any of these efforts to be all things to all players. At some point in the development process, Reiche and Ford realized they needed a context for all this interstellar violence. They came up with an “Alliance of Free Stars” — which included Earthlings among its numbers — fighting a war against the evil “Ur-Quan Heirarchy.” Each group of allies/thralls conveniently consists of seven species, each with their own unique model of spaceship. Not being inclined to take any of this too seriously, Toys for Bob let their whimsy run wild in creating all these aliens, enlisting Greg Johnson — the creator of the similarly winsome and hilarious aliens who inhabit the galaxy of Starflight — to add his input as well. The rogue’s gallery of misfits, reprobates, and genetic oddities that resulted can’t help but make you smile, even if they are more fleshed-out in the manual rather than on the screen.

Reiche on the origins of the Illwrath, a race of arachnid fundamentalists who “receive spiritual endorsement in the accomplishment of vicious surprise attacks”:

The name “Illwrath” comes from an envelope I saw at the post office, which was being sent to a Ms. McIlwrath in Glasgow, Scotland. I didn’t see the “Mc” at first, and I swear, my first thought was that they must be sending that envelope to an alien. I am sure that somewhere there is a nice little Scottish lady laughing and saying, “Oh, those crazy Americans! Here’s one now calling me an evil, giant, religiously-intolerant space spider — ha, ha, ha, how cute!” Hmm… on second thought, if I am ever found beaten with bagpipes or poisoned with haggis, please contact the authorities.

Around the office, Fred Ford liked to say that the Illwrath had become so darn evil by first becoming too darn righteous, wrapping right around the righteousness scale and yielding results akin to all those old computer games which suddenly started showing negative statistics if you built up your numbers too far. (Personally, I favor this idea greatly, and, indeed, even believe it might serve as an explanation for certain forces in contemporary American politics.)

Reiche on the Mmrnmhrm, an “almost interesting robot race” who “fear vowels almost as much as they do a Dreadnought closing in at full bore”:

When I first named the Mmrnmhrm, they actually had a pronounceable name, with vowels and everything. Then, in a sketch for the captain’s window illustration, I forgot to give them a mouth. Later, someone saw the sketch and asked me how they talked, so I clamped my lips shut and said something like, “Mrrk nsss,” thereby instituting a taboo on vowels in anything related to the race. Though the Mmrnmhrm ended up looking more like Daleks than Humans, the name stuck.

Reiche on the Syreen, a group of “humanoid females” who embody — knowingly, one likes to believe — every cliché about troglodyte gamers and the fairer sex, right down to their bulbous breasts that look like they’re filled with sand (their origin story also involves the San Francisco earthquake of 1989):

It was an afternoon late last October in San Francisco when Fred Ford, Greg Johnson, and I sat around a monitor trying to name the latest ship design for our new game. The space vessel on the computer screen looked like a copper-plated cross between Tin Tin’s Destination Moon rocketship and a ribbed condom. Needless to say, we felt compelled to christen this ship carefully, with due consideration for our customers’ sensibilities as well as our artistic integrity. “How about the Syreen Penetrator?” Fred suggested without hesitation. Instantly, the ground did truly rise up and smite us! WHAM-rumble-rumble-WHAM! We were thrown around our office like the bridge crew of the starship Enterprise when under fire by the Klingons. I dimly remember standing in a doorframe, watching the room flex like a cheap cardboard box and shouting, “Maybe that’s not such a great name!” and “Gee, do you think San Francisco’s still standing?” Of course, once the earth stopped moving, we blithely ignored the dire portent, and the Syreen’s ship name, “The Penetrator,” was graven in code.

Since then, we haven’t had a single problem. I mean, everyone has a disk crash two nights before a program is final, right? And hey, accidents happen. Brake pads just don’t last forever! My limp is really not that bad, and Greg is almost speaking normally these days.

Star Control was released in 1990 to cautiously positive reviews and reasonable sales. For all its good humor, it proved a rather polarizing experience. The crazily fast-paced action game at its heart was something that about one-third of players seemed to take to and love, while the rest found it totally baffling, being left blinking and wondering what had just happened as the pieces of their exploded ship drifted off the screen about five seconds after a fight had begun. For these people, Star Control was a hard sell: the strategic game just wasn’t deep enough to stand on its own for long, and, while the aliens described in the manual were certainly entertaining, this was a computer game, not a Douglas Adams book.

Still, the game did sufficiently well that Accolade was willing to fund a sequel. And it was at this juncture that, as I noted at the beginning of this article, Reiche and Ford and their associates went kind of nuts. They threw out the less-than-entrancing strategy part of the first game, kept the action part and all those wonderful aliens, and stuck it all into a grand adventure in interstellar space that owed an awful lot to Starflight — more, one might even say, than it owed to Star Control I.

As in Starflight, you roam the galaxy in Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters to avert an apocalyptic threat, collecting precious resources and even more precious clues from the planets you land on, negotiating with the many aliens you meet and sometimes, when negotiations break down, blowing them away. The only substantial aspect of the older game that’s missing from its spiritual successor is the need to manage a bridge crew who come complete with CRPG-style statistics. Otherwise, Star Control II does everything Starflight does and more. The minigame of resource collection on planets’ surfaces, dodging earthquakes and lightning strikes and hostile lifeforms, is back, but now it’s faster paced, with a whole range of upgrades you can add to your landing craft in order to visit more dangerous planets. Ditto space combat, which is now of the arcade style from Star Control I — if, that is, you don’t have Cyborg Mode turned on, which is truly a godsend, the only thing that makes the game playable for many of us. You still need to upgrade your ship as you go along to fight bigger and badder enemies and range faster and farther across space, but now you also can collect a whole fleet of support ships to accompany you on your travels (thus preserving the rock-paper-scissors aspect of Star Control I). I’m not sure that any of these elements could quite carry a game alone, but together they’re dynamite. Much as I hate to employ a tired reviewer’s cliché like “more than the sum of its parts,” this game makes it all but unavoidable.

And yet the single most memorable part of the experience for many or most of us remains all those wonderful aliens, who have been imported from Star Control I and, even better, moved from the pages of the manual into the game proper. Arguably the most indelible of them all, the one group of aliens that absolutely no one ever seems to forget, are the Spathi, a race of “panicked mollusks” who have elevated self-preservation into a religious creed. Like most of their peers, they were present in the first Star Control but really come into their own here, being oddly lovable despite starting the game on the side of the evil Ur-Quan. The Spathi owe more than a little something to the Spemin, Starflight‘s requisite species of cowardly aliens, but are based at least as much, Reiche admits a little sheepishly, on his own aversion to physical danger. Their idea of the perfect life was taken almost verbatim from a conversation about same that Reiche and Ford once had over Chinese food at the office. Here, then, is Reiche and the Spathi’s version of the American Dream:

I knew that someday I would be vastly rich, wealthy enough to afford a large, well-fortified mansion. Surrounding my mansion would be vast tracts of land, through which I could slide at any time I wished! Of course, one can never be too sure that there aren’t monsters hiding just behind the next bush, so I would plant trees to climb at regular, easy-to-reach intervals. And being a Spathi of the world, I would know that some monsters climb trees, though often not well, so I would have my servants place in each tree a basket of perfect stones. Not too heavy, not too light — just the right size for throwing at monsters.

“Running and away and throwing rocks,” explains Reiche, “extrapolated in all ways, has been one of my life strategies.”

The Yehat, who breed like rabbits. Put the one remaining female in the galaxy together with the one remaining male, wait a couple of years… and poof, you have an army of fuzzy little warmongers on your side. They fight with the same enthusiasm they have for… no, we won’t go there.

My personal favorite aliens, however, are the bird-like Pkunk, a peaceful, benevolent, deeply philosophical race whose ships are nevertheless fueled by the insults they spew at their enemies during battle. They are, of course, merely endeavoring to make sure that their morality doesn’t wrap back around to zero and turn them evil like the Illwrath. “Never be too good,” says Reiche. “Insults, pinching people when they aren’t looking… that’ll keep you safe.”

In light of the aliens Greg Johnson had already created for Starflight, not to mention the similarities between Starflight‘s Spemin and Star Control‘s Spathi, there’s been an occasional tendency to perhaps over-credit his contribution — valuable though it certainly was — to Toy’s for Bob’s own space epic. Yet one listen to Reiche and Ford in interviews should immediately disabuse anyone of the notion that the brilliantly original and funny aliens in Star Control II are there entirely thanks to Johnson. After listening to Reiche in particular for a few minutes, it really is blindingly obvious that this is the sense of humor behind the Spathi and so many others. Indeed, anyone who has played the game can get a sense of this just from reading some of his quotes in this very article.

There’s a rich vein of story and humor running through even the most practical aspects of Star Control II, as in this report from a planet’s surface. The two complement one another rather than clashing, perhaps because Toys for Bob is clever enough to understand that less is sometimes more. Who are the Lieberman triplets? Who knows? But the line makes you laugh, and that’s the important thing. When a different development team took the reins to make a Star Control III, Reiche’s first piece of advice to them was, “For God’s sake, don’t try to explain everything.” Many a lore-obsessed modern game could afford to take the same advice to heart.

Long after every other aspect of the game has faded from memory, its great good humor, embodied in all those crazy aliens, will remain. It may be about averting a deadly serious intergalactic apocalypse, but, for all that, Star Control II is as warm and fuzzy a space opera as you’ll ever see.

Which isn’t to say that it doesn’t go in for plot. In fact, the sequel’s plot is as elaborate as its predecessor’s was thin; the backstory alone takes up some twenty pages in the manual. The war which was depicted in Star Control I, it turns out, didn’t go so well for the good guys; the sequel begins with you entering our solar system in command of the last combat-worthy craft among a shattered and defeated Alliance of Free Stars. The Ur-Quan soon get wind of your ship’s existence and the last spark of defiance against their rule that it represents, and send a battlefleet toward Earth to snuff it out. And so the race is on to rebuild the Alliance and assemble a fleet of your own before the Ur-Quan arrive. How you do so is entirely up to you. Suffice to say that Earth’s old allies are out there. It’s up to you to find the aliens and convince them to join you in whatever sequence seems best, while finding the resources you need to fuel and upgrade your spaceship and juggling a whole lot of other problems at the same time. This game is as nonlinear as they come.

Star Control II takes itself seriously in the places where it’s important to do so, but never too seriously. Anyone bored with the self-consciously “dark” fictions that so often dominate in our current era of media will find much to appreciate here.

When asked to define what makes a good game, Paul Reiche once said that it “has to have a fun core, which is a one-sentence description of why it’s fun.” Ironically, Star Control II is an abject failure by this standard, pulling in so many directions as to defy any such holistic description. It’s a strategy game of ship and resource management; it’s an action game of ship-versus-ship combat; it’s an adventure game of puzzle-solving and clue-tracking. Few cross-genre games have ever been quite so cross-genre as this one. It really shouldn’t work, but, for the most part anyway, it does. If you’re a person whose ideal game lets you do many completely different things at every session, this might just be your dream game. It really is an experience of enormous richness and variety, truly a game like no other. Small wonder that it’s attracted a cult of players who will happily declare it to be nothing less than the best game ever made.

For my part, I have a few too many reservations to go quite that far. Before I get to them, though, I’d like to let Reiche speak one more time. Close to the time of Star Control II‘s release, he outlined his four guiding principles of game design. Star Control II conforms much better to these metrics than it does to that of the “one-sentence description.”

First, [games should be] fun, with no excuses about how the game simulates the agony and dreariness of the real world (as though this was somehow good for you). Second, they [should] be challenging over a long period of time, preferably with a few ability “plateaus” that let me feel in control for a period of time, then blow me out of the water. Third, they [should] be attractive. I am a sucker for a nice illustration or a funky riff. Finally, I want my games to be conceptually interesting and thought-provoking, so one can discuss the game with an adult and not feel silly.

It’s in the intersection between Reiche’s first and second principles that I have my quibbles with Star Control II. It’s a rather complicated, difficult game by design, which is fair enough as long as it’s complex and difficult in a fun way. Some of its difficulty, however, really doesn’t strike me as being all that much fun at all. Those of you who’ve been reading this blog for a while know that I place enormous weight on fairness and solubility when it comes to the games I review, and don’t tend to cut much slack to those that can only be enjoyed and/or solved with a walkthrough or FAQ to hand. On this front, Star Control II is a bit problematic, due largely to one questionable design choice.

Star Control II, you see, has a deadline. You have about five years before Earth is wiped out by the Ur-Quan (more precisely, by the eviller of the two factions of the Ur-Quan, but we won’t get into that here). Fans will tell you, by no means entirely without justification, that this is an essential part of the game. One of the great attractions of Star Control II is its dynamic universe which just keeps evolving, with or without your intervention: alien spaceships travel around the galaxy just like yours is doing, alien races conquer others and are themselves conquered, etc.

All of this is undoubtedly impressive from a game of any vintage, let alone one as old and technologically limited as this one. And the feeling of inhabiting such a dynamic universe is undoubtedly bracing for anyone used to the more static norm, where things only happen when you push them to happen. Yet it also has its drawbacks, the most unfortunate of which is the crushing sense of futility that comes after putting dozens of hours into the game only to lose it irrevocably. The try-and-try-again approach can work in small, focused games that don’t take long to play and replay, such as the early mysteries of Infocom. In a sprawling epic like this, however… well, does anyone really want to put those dozens of hours in all over again, clicking through page after page of the same text?

Star Control II‘s interface felt like something of a throwback even in its own time. By 1992, computer games had almost universally moved to the mouse-driven point-and-click model. Yet this game relies entirely on multiple-choice menus, activated by the cursor keys and/or a joystick. Toys for Bob was clearly designing with possible console ports in mind. (Star Control was ported to the Sega Genesis, but, as it happened, Star Control II would never get the same honor, perhaps because its sales didn’t quite justify the expense and/or because its complexity was judged unsuited to the console market.) Still, for all that it’s a little odd, the interface is well thought-through, and you get used to it quickly.

There’s an undeniable tension between this rich galaxy, full of unusual sights and entertaining aliens to discover, and the need to stay relentlessly on-mission if you hope to win in the end. I submit that the failure to address this tension is, at bottom, a failure of game design. There’s much that could have been done. One solution might have been to tie the evolving galaxy to the player’s progress through the plot rather than the wall clock, a technique pioneered in Infocom’s Ballyhoo back in 1986 and used in countless narrative-oriented games since. It can convey the impression of rising danger and a skin-of-the-teeth victory every time without ever having to send the player back to square one. In the end, the player doesn’t care whether the exhilarating experience she’s just had is the result of a meticulous simulation coincidentally falling into place just so, or of a carefully manipulated sleight of hand. She just remembers the subjective experience.

But if such a step is judged too radical — too counter to the design ethos of the game — other remedies could have been employed. To name the most obvious, the time limit could have been made more generous; Starflight as well has a theoretical time limit, but few ever come close to reaching it. Or the question of time could have been left to the player — seldom a bad strategy in game design — by letting her choose from a generous, moderate, and challenging time limit before starting the game. (This approach was used to good effect by the CRPG The Magic Candle among plenty of other titles over the years.)

Instead of remedying the situation, however, Reiche and his associates seemed actively determined to make it worse with some of their other choices. To have any hope of finishing the game in time, you need to gain access to a new method of getting around the galaxy, known as “quad-space,” as quickly as possible. Yet the method of learning about quad-space is one of the more obscure puzzles in the game, mentioned only in passing by a couple of the aliens you meet, all too easy to overlook entirely. Without access to quad-space, Star Control II soon starts to feel like a fundamentally broken, unbalanced game. You trundle around the galaxy in your truck of a spaceship, taking months to reach your destinations and months more to return to Earth, burning up all of the minerals you can mine just to feed your engines. And then your time runs out and you lose, never having figured out what you did wrong. This is not, needless to say, a very friendly way to design a game. Had a few clues early on shouted, “You need to get into quad-space and you may be able to do so here!” just a little more loudly, I may not have felt the need to write any of the last several paragraphs.

I won’t belabor the point any more, lest the mob of Star Control II zealots I can sense lurking in the background, sharpening their pitchforks, should pounce. I’ll say only that this game is, for all its multifaceted brilliance, also a product of its time — a time when games were often hard in time-extending but not terribly satisfying ways, when serious discussions about what constituted fair and unfair treatment of the player were only just beginning to be had in some quarters of the industry.

Searching a planet’s surface for minerals, lifeforms, and clues. Anyone who has played Starflight will feel right at home with this part of the game in particular.

Certainly, whatever our opinion of the time limit and the game’s overall fairness, we have to recognize what a labor of love Star Control II was for Paul Reiche, Fred Ford, and everyone who helped bring it to fruition, from Greg Johnson and Robert Leyland to all of the other writers and artists and testers who lent it their talents. Unsurprisingly given its ambition, the project went way beyond the year or so Accolade had budgeted for it. When their publisher put their foot down and said no more money would be forthcoming, Reiche and Ford reached deep into their own pockets to carry it through the final six months.

As the project was being wrapped up, Reiche realized he still had no music, and only about $1500 left for acquiring some. His solution was classic Toys for Bob: he ran an online contest for catchy tunes, with prizes of $25, $50, and $100 — in addition to the opportunity to hear one’s music in (hopefully) a hit game, of course. The so-called “tracker” scene in Europe stepped up with music created on Commodore Amigas, a platform for which the game itself would never be released. “These guys in Europe [had] just built all these ricky-tink programs to play samples out,” says Reiche. “They just kept feeding samples, really amazing soundtracks, out into the net just for kicks. I can’t imagine any of these people were any older than twenty. It makes me feel like I’m part of a bigger place.”

Upon its release on November 30, 1992 — coincidentally, the very same day as Dune II, its companion in mislabeled sequels — Star Control II was greeted with excellent reviews, whose enthusiasm was blunted only by the game’s sheer unclassifiability. Questbusters called it “as funny a parody of science-fiction role-playing as it is a well-designed and fun-to-play RPG,” and named it “Best RPG of the Year” despite it not really being a CRPG at all by most people’s definitions. Computer Gaming World placed it on “this reviewer’s top-ten list of all time” as “one of the most enjoyable games to review all year,” and awarded it “Adventure Game of the Year” alongside Legend Entertainment’s far more traditional adventure Eric the Unready.

Sales too were solid, if not so enormous as Star Control II‘s staying power in gamers’ collective memory might suggest. Like Dune II, it was probably hurt by being billed as a sequel to a game likely to appeal most to an entirely different type of player, as it was by the seeming indifference of Accolade. In the eyes of Toys for Bob, the developer/publisher relationship was summed up by the sticker the latter started putting on the box after Star Control II had collected its awards: “Best Sports Game of 1992.” Accolade was putting almost all of their energy into sports games during this period, didn’t have stickers handy for anything else, and just couldn’t be bothered to print up some new ones.

Still, the game did well enough that Toys for Bob, after having been acquired by a new CD-ROM specialist of a publisher called Crystal Dynamics, ported it to the 3DO console in 1994. This version added some eight hours of spoken dialog, but cut a considerable amount of content that the voice-acting budget wouldn’t cover. Later, a third Star Control would get made — albeit not by Toys for Bob but by Legend Entertainment, through a series of intellectual-property convolutions we won’t go into in this article.

Toys for Bob themselves have continued to exist right up to the present day, a long run indeed in games-industry terms, albeit without ever managing to return to the Star Control universe. They’re no longer a two-man operation, but do still have Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford in control.

To this day, Star Control II remains as unique an experience as it was in 1992. You’ve never played a game quite like this one, no matter how many other games you’ve played in your time. Don’t even try to categorize it. Just play it, and see what’s possible when a talented design team throws out all the rules. But before you do, let me share just one piece of advice: when an alien mentions something about a strange stellar formation near the Chandrasekhar constellation, pay attention! Trust me, it will save you from a world of pain…

(Sources: Compute!’s Gazette of November 1984; Compute! of January 1992 and January 1993; Computer Gaming World of November 1990, December 1990, March 1993, and August 1993; InterActivity of November/December 1994; Questbusters of January 1993; Electronic Gaming Monthly of May 1991; Sega Visions of June 1992; Retro Gamer 14 and 15. Online sources include Ars Technica‘s video interview with Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford; Matt Barton’s interviews with the same pair in Matt Chat 95, 96, and 97; Grognardia‘s interview with Reiche; The Escapist‘s interview with Reiche; GameSpot‘s interview with Reiche.

There’s a rather depressing pitched legal dispute swirling around the Star Control intellectual property at the moment, which has apparently led to Star Control I and II being pulled from digital-download stores. Your best option to experience Star Control II is thus probably The Ur-Quan Masters, a loving open-source re-creation based on Toys for Bob’s 3DO source code. Or go hunt down the original on some shadowy corner of the interwebs. I won’t say anything if you don’t.)

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/star-control-ii/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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