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sonic-hot-takes · 7 months

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New Sonic media needs to introduce more heroic male characters to the lineup.

Normally I like my takes quick and spicy and let people come to their own conclusions with them, but out of all my thoughts on the series that I’ve shared with fellow Sonic fans, this one tends to get the most ire. Bellow the cut are my more in depth thoughts on the matter.

I may be forgetting someone but I’m pretty sure the last character the series introduced that was simultaneously a guy, a hero, and had any sort of staying power was Silver all the way back in TWO THOUSAND SIX. This applies to ALL Sonic media/canon, by the way (be it the games, comics, spin offs like Boom, etc.)

The closest character I could think of that fills this criteria is Razor from the post-reboot Archie comics—he did appear in both the main comic and Sonic Universe, and was the only new character to get his own SCO backstory—but for obvious reasons he’s not showing up again any time soon. I don’t count Chip or Yacker since they’re pretty blatantly meant to be one off characters that fill a specific niche for that game’s plot. Also let’s be real they’re both mid as hell

Compare this to the girls: Sticks, Tangle, Whisper, Sage (who is framed as more of an antihero in Frontiers than a villain), Trip, this new girl from Dream Team…

People scream sexist at me whenever I bring this up, which is ironic because I am a Girl™ myself. My favorite Sonic character, Blaze, is a Girl™. Sticks is one of my favorite additions to the series in a long time, and she’s a Girl™. I’m not against Girl™ in Sonic.

BUT it does make me raise a brow looking at the track record of new characters that have been introduced to the series, specifically when it comes to gender and morality alignment. This is a lot more prevalent in the IDW comics than in the games, but it’s present in both.

Since Colors (which signaled a shift in direction in the series), the new antagonists we’ve gotten in the games are: Orbot and Cubot, the mostly male Deadly Six, the Hardboiled Heavies (if you wanna count them), Infinite, and Sage (kind of). In the IDW comics, we’ve gotten Rough and Tumble, Dr. Starline, Mimic, Clutch, Kit, and Surge.

In the same time period, the new leading/supporting protagonists we’ve gotten in the games are Yacker, the Forces OC, Sage (kind of), Trip, and Ariem (the new girl from Dream Team). You can also squeeze Sticks in here since she’s the only Boom character to get any extra relevance or spotlight on her outside of that spin off. In the IDW comics, we’ve gotten Tangle, Whisper, Jewel, Belle, and Lanolin.

Sure, there’s a little overlap here and there. But you should notice a pattern.

Do not interpret this as me saying that Sonic Team or the writers at IDW have some kind of anti-men agenda going on. That’s not what I’m suggesting. BUT I am getting tired of every new hero being a girl and just about every new villain being a boy. Can’t we switch it up a little?

Even the most prominent female antagonists in the series have some kind of sympathetic edge to them. Surge was brainwashed and experimented on by Starline. Sage’s character arc is supposed to be the focal point of Frontiers, and she only does evil things under Eggman’s command. Trip isn’t even evil in the first place, she just ends up working with Eggman and Fang for…reasons, and ultimately turns against them and becomes a playable hero. They’re not framed the same way that most, if not all of the male villains are. Not even Merlina is fully immune of this.

Outside of the sexist allegations, I usually get one of two responses whenever I bring this up:

A lot of Sonic fans are girls, so the series should introduce more female characters in order to appeal to their female fans.

The series already has a lot of male characters, so they need to balance out the cast with more girls.

Both of these points have their merits and flaws. I think that both of them are/were true up to a certain point, but nowadays they don’t hold up as well after we HAVE gotten tons of new female characters. When Sticks and Tangle were first shown off, I was ecstatic! Sticks being a fourth wall breaking conspiracy theorist is both tons of fun and a character archetype that the series hadn’t explored until then, and Tangle has one of my favorite designs of any Sonic character. But at some point, I started to notice the trend of every new hero being a girl and every new villain being a boy, and it really started to bother me. For IDW Sonic it was around the time Belle and Clutch were introduced (with Lanolin ultimately being the straw that broke the camel’s back—she insists upon herself), and for the games it was after seeing Ariem in Dream Team (I probably would’ve been more annoyed by the Fang/Trip dichotomy if I wasn’t absolutely joyous that the Nack Is Baaaaack). The whole “we need to introduce more girls to the series” angle doesn’t hold up as well when the series seems reluctant to commit to a straight up evil girl. Sonic desperately needs to flesh out his rouges gallery in the games, so why not add an absolutely psycho female antagonist?

Also this is a more personal note but I hate hate HATE it when people allege that girls can’t relate to male characters, so franchises need to introduce the Girl™ character so the Girls™ can relate to her. Can girls not relate to boys? Can boys not relate to girls? Once again, not against female characters in general, but that particular mindset has and will always bother me.

Who knows, maybe Ariem will end up being the main villain of Dream Team. It’d be cool, but I don’t see Sonic Team taking that route, especially not on an Apple Arcade exclusive. I don’t expect any big twists in that game.

Those are my two cents. I just think it’d be cool if we got a new boy as well as all the new girls we’ve been getting.

#I think I’ve brought this up here before but I don’t remember #sonic the hedgehog #sega #idw sonic #sticks the badger #tangle the lemur #whisper the wolf #sage the ai #surge the tenrec #dr starline #ariem the sheep #sonic dream team

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lannisterdaddyissues · 2 years

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1, 9, 10, 11, 20 and 25 for the top gun ask game!

- finite-skies

AAAAAAAAAAAAA @finite-skies TYSM FOR SENDING THESE ASKS BESTIE ILY!!! 🥺🥺🥺

1. Who’s your favorite character & why are they your fave? oh i think we all know the answer to this one, but i'll say it anyway: maverick! nobody even comes close to him in my eyes. i just love him. i love everything about him. if you want the short answer for why i love him, he is my scrunkly. he is my firstborn son. he is my sweet angel baby whom i offer my life. in my head i commit hate crimes against anyone who does not enjoy him the way i do. he is wonderful and perfect and deserves to be loved unconditionally by everyone and everything. also he is played by the loml tommy cruise 'nuff said <3

the long answer though is that he is just such a great main character. he has all the qualities that i find compelling in a protagonist. he's cool, badass, and confident both in his abilities and in himself as a person. these are both good qualities and bad qualities: on the one hand, he has total conviction in his beliefs and will do anything to defend them to people who try to curtail him (good), but on the other, he tends to be an attention-seeking showboat which can cause unnecessary troubles for others (bad). he has the complex backstory that everyone loves to read about, and it sets him apart from everyone else from the very beginning. that isolation gives him an extra layer of depth that's hard to see on the surface, but it's certainly there. i love his growth in the first movie after the trauma of goose's death and i love seeing his journey towards closure and acceptance in top gun: maverick.

tl;dr, pete "maverick" mitchell is my sopping wet little purse dog. thank you for listening to my ted talk. you did not ask for this but you may have it all the same.

9. What’s your favorite scene in either movie? ooh, man. there are a lot of those, but i think it has to be the scene in top gun: maverick where he flies the mission in 2:15 because that was such a sick power move like mans' dick game is huge

10. Favorite part of the soundtrack from either movie? i love the man, the legend / touchdown from top gun: maverick! i've listened to it so many times. from the original, it's definitely danger zone by kenny loggins by a long shot. he's one of my favorite artists!

11. Do you prefer the original Top Gun or Top Gun: Maverick? this is a really tough question! i enjoy the characters in the original a lot more, but i really love the story and the action in the sequel. therefore i choose option c) both! <3

20. Is there anything you’d delete from canon? either the charliemav sex scene bc wtf was that or the off-screen falling-out between mav and bradley because it hurts me to think of mav being sad and lonely all those years (except for ice, of course)

25. Are there any other canons you’d like to see Top Gun have a crossover with? i'd say mission: impossible but i'm already writing it 😎! for other possible crossovers, this one is waaaayyyy out there but i recently started watching westworld and ed harris plays a main antagonist in it and now i keep asking myself, "is this what the man in black [his character] does when he's not shooting up androids in westworld? he's a navy admiral?" LOL. however for a real answer i think a crossover with kiss kiss bang bang would be so funny because val kilmer also plays a mean gay guy in it and his "love interest" is also a doe-eyed brunette twink. you can't convince me tom kazansky doesn't also have an identical twin now. he's also in a polycule with michelle monaghan and she played tom cruise's wife in mission: impossible 3 which is just. hilarious to me

#thank you so much for these asks bestie you're the best <3 #ask #reply #finite-skies #mutual #fandom ask

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lioma-gaming · 1 year

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Xenoblade Chronicles

TL;DR: It’s a great game. If you haven’t already, go play it.

The original Xenoblade Chronicles is, without a doubt, my all-time favorite RPG. A large-scale petition under the name of “Operation Rainfall” brought this game, along with two others, from Japan to the rest of the world in 2011. It was first released on the Wii, and got a Port for the New 3DS in 2015, as well as a visual overhaul in the “Definitive Edition” that came out for the Switch in 2020.

What appealed to me back then was this gigantic, unique world, as well as the overall very “non-Anime” design. Top that off with a story you can actually follow and a gameplay that’s both easy to get into and offers a lot to explore in the long-term, you get a memorable experience.

The Story

I don’t know about you, but most JRPGs that I’ve played tend to overdo it with the complexity of their plots, often introducing various conflicted organizations, nations, or organizations within nations, several kinds of “higher beings”, a magic system that is somehow absolutely vital to anything, different worlds or planes of existence besides the “main” one. Granted, none of that is a problem if you learn things one step at a time, but some games throw you into their world as if all of that is common knowledge. Xenoblade Chronicles starts off with an easy to understand concept: The biological world vs the mechanical world. Man vs machine, if you will. The people are outnumbered and weaker in terms of equipment, but they have an unbending will and, more importantly, a sword that easily penetrates machine armor, but does not harm living beings. After a long and hard battle, it seems as though all machines have been defeated, but then they launch a surprise attack on one of the remaining human colonies. Shulk, the protagonist, loses a dear friend, and off we go to chase the machines across the world and get revenge.

At this point, we do not need to know about Nopon or High Entia, let alone Egil, Zanza or Meyneth. Here’s the basic concept of the story and a motivation, the rest you’ll learn along the way.

The world

Did you ever play a game that’s set on the bodies of titans? As far as I know, this trait is exclusive to the Xenoblade Chronicles series. Unless you are traveling underground, you are always visually reminded in some way that you are traversing the body of a giant being, and the opposing titan, Mechonis, is often visible in the distance as well, like a constant reminder of the machine threat. The main titan, Bionis, offers different environments, from plains to rain forests, to a great sea and a frozen tundra, and every environment is populated with monsters and machines of various levels, sometimes even far above your own. The trick with these is that not all enemies react to “seeing” you. Some can be passed by walking slowly, and some will simply not attack unless provoked. Or you can simply come back in late game to check out that cave you never dared to venture into. Overall, each area is limited enough to offer enough corners and sights to explore and find treasure without getting lost, but large enough to feel "open-world", even though areas unlock one after another, and some even become inaccessible in late-game.

The visual design

One of the things I like best about this game is the design of its world and characters. Enemy design is a bit weird, but if you’ve played any JRPG that’s nothing new. (I’m just glad if I can recognize what that thing was based off.) None of the characters come off as stereotypical or undeveloped, they each have a unique design, skills, and personality traits - which also double as passive skills. Everything about them is consistent, and believable. They are never so over-the-top or anime-ish that it becomes impossible to take them seriously. And yes, that includes Riki - which is considered to be the least annoying Nopon in all of Xenoblade history. The only thing I very much dislike are the “more revealing” armor designs for the female characters. Thankfully, though, those armors are optional, and not even the standard outfits these characters come with. In contrast to Xenoblade 2, I can overlook this issue simply because I have the option to.

The gameplay

Like most JRPGs, you start off with some party members and gain more as you progress through the story. Levelling up is your key to survival, as well as figuring out how to use each character’s skills effectively. You can only control one character, but you can choose that character, as well as move freely during battles. Standard attacks are executed automatically, whereas skills have a “cool down” duration. Skills become more effective under specific conditions, like standing behind an enemy, being executed in a specific state or in combination with another skill. Besides the application of Buffs and Debuffs, this game also allows enemies to be (stance) broken, toppled and dazed, which is often needed in this specific order, but most characters can only break, topple or daze - so this is where the NPC party members come into play. The AI does, perhaps not a great, but a decent job at following up with the right skill when needed. Nonetheless, it is a great mechanic to help make it feel like you are really working as a team. Another noteworthy gameplay element are the visions. Not always, but usually when the situation grows dire, the game will grant Shulk a “vision”. Gameplay-wise, you see the next attack of your enemy, who is targeted, and what effect that attack will have, and then return to the “present” with a timer showing when that future is going to happen. You may then choose to prevent that future, either by doing something yourself, or by talking to one of your NPC companions and accessing their skills. There’s far more to combat, but rest assured that the game has good tutorials and everything is explained within the first couple of hours. (Unlike some other entries in the series that still introduce new features 80h into the game). The rest comes down to you mastering what you've learned.

A question that often comes up with JRPGs is: Will I have to grind for levels? Yes and No. If you do a majority of the side-quests in every region, you will be fine. The side quests are not particularly interesting, but there are many that can be completed in one go, and if you like the battle system as well as exploration, you probably won’t mind.

The technical aspect

On the Wii, the biggest critique were the graphics. Environments are so large that a lot of details were lost within a fairly small radius. Textures have low resolutions, and you can almost count the polygons on some models. But that was all because of the fairly poor capabilities of the Wii. The Definitive Edition on the Switch looks much better, providing far more details, and much cleaner textures. As for everything else, I can only say that I’ve played the Wii version last in early 2020, and gameplay-wise, it felt like it hadn’t aged at all, - and the Definitive Edition even tops that off with some quality of life improvements. It is also one of those games, that, thanks to being developed in an offline era, does not require patches or updates. It simply works. Imagine that!

The sound design

One complaint sometimes heard is that the characters talk too much during battle. I get that, it can be a bit much at times. They will comment on critical hits, on misses, on morale dropping, on enemies' HP dropping to zero and more. It never felt entirely out of place, too me, however, especially since characters answer to each other, so the "conversation", if you will, flows naturally. And that's considering you can create a team of three from any of the seven party members. The music is also fantastic! I was lucky enough to pick up some of the original tracks for free back in the Wii era when Nintendo still had a points-reward system that awarded players with PC wallpapers, screensavers and soundtracks. I'm getting old, I know ... If you want to check out a specific theme, I recommend "Engage the Enemy", which is the pre-boss-battle track that plays during cutscenes.

In conclusion

Xenoblade Chronicles is a great game that I have very fond memories of and still like to revisit every few years. It is also a game I could talk about for hours on end (This review is already shortened, believe it or not).

I was overwhelmed by how good this game was, considered that it was the first title of Monolith Soft, and sadly, it still makes me furious to think of how badly Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and yes, even Xenoblade Chronicles X, fare in comparison when the studio clearly knew how to make a good game for an international audience. But that's a rant I'm saving for another day ...

#xenoblade chronicles #nintendo switch #nintendo wii #video games #jrpgs #xenoblade chronicles definitive edition #game review

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ninjapotatohead · 2 years

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SONIC & Dr. EGGMAN: An Analysis of Their Dynamic and Character

It shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone, but I've been a Sonic fan for pretty much my entire life. I've played pretty much all of the games front-to-end, watched the many adaptations of said games, and even read some of the comics whenever I could. It's also no secret that this franchise has a very dedicated and passionate fan-base (for better or worse), and it's a thing of wonder to behold that some members of the community have their talents recognized by the team that brought the blue hedgehog's fame into the stratosphere.

...that being said, it always comes as an eyebrow-raiser that, despite being so fixated on the details of the Sonic franchise, the one thing that's always being misrepresented (not just in fan-made works, but now in official media as well) is the dynamic shared between the titular protagonist and his archenemy.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that the interactions and dynamic between the main protagonist and antagonist (sometimes plural) can make or break a product. Especially when the subjects are as iconic in the world of fiction as Sonic the Hedgehog and Dr. Eggman. Which begs the question of why do so many people misunderstand Sonic and Eggman's animosity, much less the core of their characters? How did I even reach such a conclusion to make such a bold accusation? Well, let's find out (assuming the title didn't make you lose interest, that is)!

Sonic the Hedgehog, as the world already knows, is a speeding blue dude with attitude who's always on the search for his next big adventure. He's not the kind of guy would have the patience to stay tied down anywhere; he's always on the move. You know, like the wind. Sonic never takes oppression and injustice lying down, standing up for those who can't stand up for themselves. He's an unequivocally good guy at the end of the day, but he lives his life doing what he thinks is the right thing to do; to hell with the consequences or what anybody else has to say about it.

Doctor Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik (with an optional pompous trilling of the R's) is a mad genius bent on world domination, hatching (pardon the pun) an array of schemes to build an empire/theme park/race track/etc in his own image with himself as the sole ruler. He's an absurdly intelligent man, and he knows it... and he wants the entire world to have this etched into their collective skulls. Considering that this guy can and has made machines that can very well achieve just that and generally cares not for the lives of innocent bystanders, that's probably not a good thing.

Pretty basic rundown of the characters so far. Nothing too complex or hard to understand. But, then we have the whole reason I even wrote this dumb essay in the first place; the amount of misconceptions surrounding these two and the extent of their life-long animosity.

Let's start with...

"Dr. Eggman isn't actually that bad of a guy deep down."

This may actually hold true to certain animated iterations of the character (Like Sonic X or Sonic Boom, depending on who you ask), but as far as the games/main canon is concerned, Eggman is still a bastard at the end of the day. He's a villain, one of the most iconic villains in the video game medium (up there with the likes of Super Mario's Koopa King Bowser and Street Fighter's M. Bison). A villain has no need to be deep and complicated in order to be effective.

Not to mention that he tends to treat his own robots like crap more often than not; especially when they spectacularly fail at a job that the doc himself has assigned them to. Matter of fact, for as much as the fandom loves to believe that Eggman treats Metal Sonic like a son thanks to the Archie/IDW Comics... the actual games showcase that this couldn't really be any further from the truth. Eggman's even straight-up just abandoned Metal quite a few times in the series when it benefited him (and only him).

Sentiments towards the game in question aside, Eggman literally just abandoned Metal on Little Planet after the events of Sonic CD, and Eggman only really brings him back purely out of convenience. Eggman doesn't really care about Metal Sonic as a sentient being with wants and aspirations; as far as Eggman's concerned, Metal is designed to be a killing machine. Metal is just the best at his job, and that's quite literally the only reason why Metal is ever given any special treatment or congrats compared to, say, Orbot & Cubot. Hell, whenever Metal shows any insubordination towards his master, Eggman either just abandons him, punishes him offscreen, or probably both.

And remember how I said earlier that Eggman is always hatching plans to achieve his goal of taking over the world, and that he doesn't really care who gets caught in the crossfire?

Yeeeeeeaaahh... That was NOT an exaggeration. Eggman's completely willing to throw countless innocent lives under the bus for his own ends, and without remorse. He more often than not just shrugs off the damage he (regularly) causes, and simply moves on to another crazy scheme. Has Eggman saved the world before? Well, yes. There have been a few times where he'll begrudgingly join forces with Sonic and friends to save their world... but again, it's always for Eggman's own self-interest. As Eggman himself has succinctly said...

Dr. Eggman already has quite a body count anyhow, and he doesn't care; as far as Eggman's concerned, what's a few more barrages of missiles into very heavily populated areas gonna hurt? Certainly not him.

And then, there's the supposed "smoking gun" people often use to support their argument. That being the ending of Sonic Adventure 2. After Shadow's... "Disney Death", Sonic and the gang (and Eggman) all have a moment of reflection once everything's said and done. Eggman himself expressing disappointment that his grandfather, Professor Gerald, had planned to destroy humanity. Sometimes, this is accompanied by Eggman being appalled that his old man also made a deal with Black Doom in 2005's Shadow The Hedgehog.

This argument falls apart for a number of reasons. The main reason being that Eggman himself has done so much worse than this. I mean, the sort of callous things he would do just for his own ends (aka the aforementioned nonchalant attitude towards the lives of countless innocents) are far beyond the scumminess of an old man who just wanted to save his dying granddaughter. That, and Eggman himself hasn't shown any signs of being all that affected by these revelations anyhow. By the time Sonic Battle rolls around (which obviously takes place after ShTH), Eggman's pretty much remained completely unchanged. Because he ultimately doesn't care. Moving on.

"Eggman is completely incapable of forming a solid plan."

This is, by far, one of the most flat-out untrue things I've heard regarding Eggman as a character, especially from a writer on an officially licensed SEGA product who should know better. It seems to me that every single example people use to support this... miss the point/context of each plan entirely. Even when Eggman's schemes don't always work out exactly as planned, Eggman is perfectly capable of adapting to a situation and turning the tide in his favor despite what Ian Flynn thinks. I'm so tempted be a complete smart-ass, just saying that the mere existence of Sonic Forces completely slaps this claim in the face, and leave it at that... but, I might as well address the more common examples of this argument (aka Ian Flynn's statements) rapid-fire;

1) "He blows up the Master Emerald to release Chaos just to feed him more Chaos Emeralds. He doesn't know what's its going to do, aside from giving it more power that he'll assume will be able to control. And we all saw how that went."

Yes he does? The man's read the stone tablets cover-to-cover; Eggman even blurts out that Chaos transforming was predicted by said stone monuments. Plus, even in the event that Chaos would've gotten out of control (which did happen), Eggman himself built a second Egg Carrier because he did consider the possibility! True, it didn't work against Perfect Chaos, but the fact remains that Eggman had a contingency plan. We saw how it went. Did you?

2) "He throws a missile into the heart of Station Square and went to manually detonate it because it didn't explode on impact. Didn't really think how far ahead that was gonna go!"

...yeah, this claim's bogus. This was Eggman's Plan B. You can choose to ignore gameplay/story segregation and say that Eggman's interference in the Chaos 6 fight was what put Chaos out of commission... and that simply wouldn't be a convincing argument because I can use that same logic and say that Eggman suicide-diving at Sonic in the Egg Viper fight was a highly effective move against him (still turning the situation into his favor).

3) "He single-handedly tears through G.U.N. facilities to grab Project Shadow, and he has no idea what it is. He just knows is a thing that he wants."

Okay, I never once thought SA2's plot was all that special, and even I know this is completely misinformed. Eggman storms Prison Island to procure Project Shadow because he had read documents about it in Gerald's diary (which literally has the old man goading whoever reads it to release Shadow into the world; Rouge herself surmises this). Eggman stumbling across Gerald's notes is what piqued his curiosity. Did we play the same game, per chance?

4) "Sonic Unleashed, he blows up the planet and throws Sonic and the Emeralds through the airlocks, except, oops, he needed those!"

Except, actually, no he didn't; he still was able to make his plan work just fine without them. Again, turning the situation around to work in his own favor; rolling with the punches and adapting to the situation.

5) "So no, Eggman never-ever has a solid plan. It's always a big execution, but he never settles on the details."

That's a funny way of saying you think that, because Eggman's plans tend to fail due to not being psychic enough to account for every possible scenario, Eggman himself is completely incapable of cognitive function. You know it's bad when even TVTropes calls you out on missing this much. Again, games like Sonic Forces exist.

"The Sonic franchise would be much more interesting if Eggman were replaced as the main villain by Mephiles/Scourge/Insert Evil Hedgehog OC here"

HahahahaHA, no. No, it wouldn't. What're you on about?

Really, what makes Eggman so effective as a villain is that the doc isn't some deity with otherworldly powers (Sonic 3 notwithstanding), nor is he a talking animal like Sonic or the rest of his friends. He's just a (relatively) normal human, and the only thing resembling a super-power that he has, apart from his absurd intellect, is his uncanny ability to cheat death. the series just can't really function without these two at each other's throats. Meta-textually, it's because Eggman's basically the Joker to Sonic's Batman. Whether the fanbase and Ian Flynn wants to accept it or not, Eggman's the main antagonist of the franchise, and like the titular hero, he's not going anywhere until the series actually comes to an end (which is not very likely to happen with a long-running franchise like Sonic). And, to steal an example from my GF, "Why watch/produce an entire Tom & Jerry series if you could only have Tom OR Jerry in it?"

"Sonic is all about giving second chances. This is why he never has it in him to out-and-out kill characters like Eggman or even Metal Sonic."

One of the more annoying ones I've seen. Just playing through the Storybook series alone is proof enough that Sonic is definitely not above ending a villain's life if he deems it necessary. And, believe it or not, he actually does more often than not. Biggest examples of this being characters like Void, Erazor Djinn, "King Arthur", and even Merlina.

Void was a lonely soul wandering the realm of Maginaryworld (yes, I know; dumb name). The dude was causing all sorts of trouble for this newfound dreamworld, to the point where Lumina was dead-set on making sure Void is dealt with. Sonic, in this case, did indeed have the power and the means to end Void's life; he could've done it... but (along with Amy, Knuckles and Tails) chose not to, as Void's very existence is necessary for Maginaryworld to keep itself running. As it turns out, Void is an entity born from negative emotions like sadness, emptiness, all that jazz. These negative emotions are exactly what cause dreams to occur in the first place (or at the very least, strengthens people's dreams), which in turn, keeps Maginaryworld around. Meaning that if Void is taken out of the equation, that means no more Maginaryworld. It eventually also turns out that Illumina was never kidnapped (nor was she even in any danger), as Lumina & Void are the two halves that compose Illumina. So, Sonic choosing to not kill Void here is a matter of necessity and pragmatism rather than any sort of blind "compassion".

Erazor Djinn, to put it simply, was a complete bastard through and through. He was a constant thorn in Sonic's side all throughout Secret Rings (both figuratively and literally). With how much of his dialogue is spent just taunting/belittling Sonic and Shahra, and with how little regard he treats Shahra with when she takes the bullet for Sonic (much like the hedgehog did for her at the beginning of the game), I can safely say that Sonic most certainly would've killed Erazor Djinn in a heartbeat if Erazor himself wasn't... y'know, literally immortal. Even that aside, he also still needed Erazor to grant Sonic's wishes with the lamp Erazor used to be bound to (and normally, I'd go into a tangent on how little sense this makes in context because it's Maekawa, but this essay is already getting long in the tooth).

Never mind the fact that Sonic was perfectly willing to violently de-horn the Mist Dragon (aka, the very first boss of Black Knight) and was not only perfectly fine with it, but also brags to Merlina about it; can we also bring up the fact that Sonic spends the entire game finding a way to kill "King Arthur", and has absolutely no reservations against attempting to slice a clearly depressed teenage girl into ribbons.

Contrary to popular belief, Sonic's never shown mercy to Eggman whatsoever. That whole Mr. Tinker fiasco in the IDW-verse might have been a perfectly fine exception because the Eggster legitimately (or maybe not-so?) did have amnesia, and punishing a once-evil man when he doesn't even remember a thing was quite a moral dilemma... but then, Sonic's negligence makes matters worse than they actually are. Sonic choosing to just let Metal Sonic go was a dumb decision any way you slice it because Sonic should've known that Metal Sonic is just as ruthless to the bone (or AI, I guess) with or without Eggman in the picture. Even if you want to argue that Starline was the one who threw a wrench in things, Sonic's still at fault here because he himself promised he would stop by Windmill Village regularly to check on Mr. Tinker. He apparently never lived up to his promise (which is already bad for a character like Sonic).

Frankly, the reason why Eggman continues to survive his scuffles with Sonic and friends isn't because they have some moral code against killing each other; Sonic and Eggman have attempted to do so multiple times. The actual reason (or reasons) being that Eggman has specialized in cheating death; he always come out relatively unscathed from scenarios that should've killed him millions of times over. And the reason why Sonic allows Eggman to concoct more of his schemes isn't because he's some "diet Spider-Man in a hedgehog suit", as much as I like to make the joke. It's never been that Sonic has never once attempted to kill Eggman before, because he most certainly has tried multiple times. It's actually because Sonic is a thrill-seeker who is just so confident in himself that he can handle anything the doc can possibly throw his way... because he always does.

I'm probably going to get crucified for this, but I'm just glad I finally got this out of my system.

#sonic series #sonic the hedgehog #dr eggman #sonic characters #character analysis

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nyadversary · 2 years

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1 and 3 for writing ask memes!

1. give short descriptions of all your current WIPs.

the main original project i've been "working" on (i put that in quotes because this is still very much in the brainstorming stage — there is very little actually on the page yet, all i've got is notes) has gone through a variety of iterations in terms of general plot arc, but the basic premise right now (though this may change) is that it's about a writers' retreat/workshop type of program that the main characters attended as teenagers. i did a couple summer writing workshops myself as a high schooler hence the idea. the workshop happened a decade ago at the time the story starts, so the former participants are all in their mid-late 20s. they end up having an unofficial "reunion" of sorts. i'm being vague because i'm still figuring out the specifics and also the idea is that i'd reveal this gradually during the course of the story, but Something Happened during the first workshop and everyone who attended has been dealing in their own way with the aftermath of that. i'll leave it at that because this is already not a short description.

also i have a couple fanfics i've been working on occasionally; one of them i have about 11k words written (most of that is from when i started the fic back in 2014 lmao, but the last couple thousand are recent) and the other is also still in the brainstorming stage. the one i have 11k words of is a danganronpa fic that i actually plotted out a large amount of back in 2014; the basic idea is a protagonist/mastermind swap (though i guess it's actually a lot more complicated than that) and it's essentially an alternate timeline of the first game. the other one is also danganronpa, specifically sdr2, and it's sort of a similar alternate timeline idea. i just wanna write some fucking murder mystery bullshit i guess (also it's fun to play around with other people's characters)

3. what makes you love writing?

i'm not even sure that "i love writing" is how i'd put it, though that's not wrong either. the way i tend to think about it is more like... writing is something i feel the need to do, more along the lines of like a compulsive behavior. i don't feel as though i really have any choice in the matter. ever since i was a little kid i've devoted large amounts of my time to coming up with story ideas and (when i manage to) writing them down. from what i know this is fairly common with writers, i think it's also similar for those who write music or draw/paint or other forms of creative expression. it's something you just feel compelled to do. i do get an immense amount of satisfaction out of actually finishing something or getting substantial work done on a project, so i guess in a way i'm just always chasing that, but even during periods where i haven't gotten much writing done at all i'm thinking about it near-constantly.

i was also always a huge reader growing up, and i go fucking nuts about analyzing the fiction i enjoy, which probably stems directly from that. i would always reread books as a kid (often many, many times over) to catch the stuff i missed the first time, and i think that gave me a lot of appreciation for writing as a craft and has motivated me to hone my own skills in that department. good fiction (also bad fiction sometimes, especially if it still has some good elements that shine through) can have a profound impact on people — it certainly has on me — and that's what makes me feel as though this compulsion i have is worthwhile. i'm not sure that i'd ever be Successful Author material, that's all kind of a crapshoot anyway, but it is my hope that i'd be able to write something that means something to somebody, even if the audience winds up being small.

so i guess the tl;dr there is that i love writing as an art form because it's had a huge impact on me personally throughout my life. writing as an activity, though, i tend to think of more as like "me doing this is just how it is on this bitch of an earth."

#silverstreams #inbox #thanks for sending these!! sorry i rambled!! etc. i have had so much caffeine

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empty-dream · 3 years

Text

Just read Alice in Borderland manga

Basically isekai but instead of fantasy world it's The Hunger Games-slash-Saw

Ryouhei Arisu, low-profile student with family and self issues, and his friends along with other random people get sucked into another world where they have to play various life-threatening games, or else they die.

I haven't finished the Netflix series yet but I see some of the games are different from the manga. So this will be mostly about the manga. No spoilers, that'd be in the reblog (if I have time to write it lol)

The thing with games as the plot is that there should be a long, clear explanation of the game mechanism. Sometimes I don't have enough brain cells to understand the more complicated games. (The ♦ games, usually )

Bloody hell 7♥. Bloody hell. I knew their next game would be hell but holy shit I didn't imagine it would be that bad. I was crying in the end. Even after games of higher level have passed, that one still emotionally scars me.

The author really said Beach episode? Fuck that we're going Beach ARC.

I have never understood why manga(s) of survival thriller genre often have the women drawn from some suggestive angles for little to no reason. E.g. Cage of Eden, Real Account. Like a woman is talking about a heartfelt past time and I was tearing up, and then the panel just shows her cleavage. Way to kill the mood. It's not *that* bad in this manga tho, but I just can't help thinking.

The side stories are important!!! Later even the main story also doesn't focus on Arisu only. Yeah, in those stories, the focuses change to different people altogether. The stand-in protagonists are pretty different from Arisu's character. Likewise, the opponents are also different in each game. Some you can and will genuinely love, some you wish you can burn them yourself, some you will probably hate but also understand their point.

I like the balance between the good and bad of humanity in this series. There is still some good in bad people. And good people still do bad things. Of course, there is a boundary that none should cross as human beings. And if you do, the ones you hurt do have the right to hate you. But making peace with yourself is attainable, as long as you seek it.

The life lessons and messages in this series is quite heavy. Even for me. More often than not, I can only read one arc at a time. Sometimes the emotional burden is a bit too strong. Which is a good thing because usually, stories like this with people dropping like flies tend to drive me into no longer caring anymore. Not the case in this manga, apparently.

Now I know why Usagi is not the main character. If she is, the climax of the story will be over in a fucking flash it's not even funny.

I feel like people’s opinions are going to be divided when the truth of the world is revealed. Idk how it is with everyone else, but I personally cried at the end. It just hits HARD. It has every right to do so. It feels so earned for the characters who start off either not wanting or scared to live and then end up choosing to live — not survive, but live — for the good in this life, no matter how bad the world is.

I kinda get why the English title is Alice in Borderland. But the Japanese title itself (今際の国のアリス/"Imawa no Kuni no Arisu") gives some different perspectives, that all make complete senses, depending on how you translate it. As someone who already finishes the story, wow.

TL;DR These people want to live that badly huh.

#alice in borderland #random saying #imawa no kuni no arisu

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crusherthedoctor · 3 years

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Can we have some unpopular Sonic opinions?

I tried to cram in a lot, so I hope this satisfies you. :P I tried to stick to the ones that I haven't brought up quite as often, since by this point, we all know that I think IDW's storytelling is dire, SA2's story is overrated, X Eggman is an embarrassing portrayal (at least from season 2 onwards), Blaze shouldn't be handcuffed to Silver, Shadow's backstory had issues with or without the Black Arms, Neo Metal Sonic looks silly, etc. But anyway, here we go:

- Knuckles may be tricky to incorporate into plots that don't relate to Angel Island, but making him obsessed with his duties is no better than having him forget about Angel Island entirely.

- I like Marine, and never found her annoying. Oh, I understood what they were trying to do with her, but I honestly wasn't put off by her, and found her Aussie lingo more endearing if anything. Since her debut was during the period in my life where where I couldn't stand Sonic himself, I instead thought he was irritating (and hypocritical) for getting annoyed with her for doing shit he would often be guilty of.

- Silver is just as guilty of being shoehorned into games and plots as the Deadly Six are. Having more fans than the latter is irrelevant, since we're still talking about a character who constantly has to time travel in order to be present.

- Speaking of Silver, if he has to stick around, please do something different with him. They've pulled the doomed future routine multiple times now, and it's been boring every single time. I wasn't interested when it involved Iblis. I wasn't interested when it involved Knuckles drinking the edgy Kool Aid. I wasn't interested when it involved a council of dumbasses... give it a rest already.

- The Tails Doll can work as a mildly creepy thing, with maybe more to it than meets the eye when it's time for a boss fight or what have you. But the memes about him stealing your soul are just dumb, and I thought it was dumb even back in my teenage youth.

- “Eggman is supposed to be clownish!” Yeah, well he's also meant to be a genuine villain with a 300 IQ. These qualities don't have to be mutually exclusive.

- “Sonic is supposed to have attitude!” Yeah, well that's not the same thing as being an absolute cunt. Sonic was only ever meant to come off as having an edge compared to Mario. He was never meant to be a GTA-tier protagonist.

- Rouge is not a villain, and never was a villain. Literally the whole point of her role in SA2 was to reveal that she was working against Eggman and Shadow the whole time, albeit using sneakier tactics to do so. You'd think all those people who exult SA2's story would remember this, but apparently not. She barely even qualifies as an anti-hero, since aside from stealing the Master Emerald, she rarely does anything morally questionable otherwise. She's got a lot more good in her than people give her credit for.

- Captain Whisker is a better Eggman Nega than the actual Eggman Nega. And as far as robot characters in this franchise go, Johnny's design is pretty underrated.

- I don't like Iblis or Mephiles, but I DO like Solaris, and it annoys me that it was out of focus for most of the story due to all the time spent on its less interesting halves. Had they kept the backstory with the Duke and his experiments, and worked from there, I think they could have provided an interesting contrast with Chaos (since Solaris can also qualify as a monster with a sympathetic backstory) instead of recycling the surface level schtick.

- Black Doom may technically be just as bad as Mephiles, Nega, Scourge, Mimic, etc, since he's yet another villain with one-note characterization and fucked over Eggman. But because he never gained a disproportionate fandom, he doesn't annoy me to the same extent. It's easier to ignore him by comparison, and his Dr. Claw voice and face shaped like a lady's delicate part make him enjoyable to mock.

- Likewise, while Lyric is also on the same level as these other villains, it's easier to dismiss him because I was never invested in the Boom games anyway, and being an obvious alternate universe (compared to Sonic X or IDW, which retain the Modern designs and plot elements), it never had an effect on the main series. I also unironically like his design, and if nothing else, at least this snake didn't start a hypnotism fetish across the internet.

- Sally - and the rest of the Freedom Fighters for that matter - have had their importance in the franchise severely inflated. They may have been lucky to be the face of popular media (SatAM and Archie), but they're not these magnificent entities that the game characters are but a speck of dust in comparison to. Having a “legacy” doesn't make them more entitled to shit than any other character, old or new.

- Conceptually, the treasure hunting gameplay is one of the better alternate gameplay styles IMO. But it was let down in SA2 by its one track minded radar (the levels may have been big, but I don't think that would have been an issue on its own if the radar was better). If they brought it back and made it more like SA1's treasure hunting, I'd be all for it, although it would probably be better suited for a spinoff title.

- This goes for a lot of games, but when it comes to 2D, I prefer sprites over models. Not that the Rush models are bad (though the ones in Chronicles sure as fuck are), but the sprites in Mania and the Advance trilogy are just so charming and full of character.

- I actually like Marble Zone. Yeah, the level design is a bit blocky, but I love the concept of an underground temple prison, mixed with lava elements in a zone that otherwise isn't a traditional volcano level.

- I also like Sandopolis Zone. Again, completely understand why it's not the most popular zone around, but I've been a sucker for the Ancient Egyptian aesthetic since childhood (you can thank Crash 3 for that), and Act 1 is visually stunning.

- I prefer the JP soundtrack for Sonic CD over the US version overall... but I also prefer Sonic Boom over You Can Do Anything.

- SA2's soundtrack isn't bad by any means - I love Rouge's tracks, and The Last Scene is one of my favourite pieces of music - but as far as variety goes, it's a step down from SA1's soundtrack.

- If Sonic X-Treme had been released, it probably would have been unenjoyable and confusing. Whatever your thoughts on SA1, it was probably the better option between the two as far as Sonic's first legitimate translation into 3D goes.

- I have no qualms with Modern Sonic and the other Modern designs and characters, but I also fully acknowledge that changing gears from Adventure onwards - and doing it with a great amount of fanfare - was always going to create one of the biggest divides in the fandom, and fans shouldn't act surprised that this happened. The fact that they felt the need to hype up a new design and direction in the first place (compared to Mario, who has mostly been the same since the beginning, with only the occasional minor change with little fanfare) also indicates that they weren't confident enough in Sonic and his universe being the way it was, which often gets ignored by all the “SEGA have no confidence!!!” complaints you see with their recent games.

- Unleashed did not deserve the incredibly harsh reviews it received back in the day... but it doesn't deserve its current sacred cow status either. It had more effort put into it than '06 to be sure, and I can respect that, but much of it was misguided effort, and even if you like the Werehog, you have to admit that the idea came at the absolute worst time. The intro cutscene may be awesome, as is the Egg Dragoon fight, but 2% doesn't make up the entire game. Chip was also quite annoying, and I wasn't particularly sad when he pressed F in the chat at the end.

- On the other hand, while Colours definitely has its shortcomings, and people have every right to criticse those shortcomings, a lot of its most vocal detractors tend to have a stick up their arse about the game because people actually enjoyed it, and it had a gimmick that people actually liked. Yes, it may have been the first game to have those writers everyone hates, but then SA1 was the first game to give the characters alternate gameplay styles and have other villains upstage Eggman, so...

- Forces is absolutely not on the level of '06. It's nowhere close. A game being flawed does not make it the next '06, clickbait YouTubers. Or should I say, the game they want to retroactively apply '06's reception to, since they've been trying hard to magically retcon '06's own quality...

- To echo @beevean, ALL of the 3D stories have their issues. SA1 is probably the most well-rounded of them on the whole, but even that one isn't perfect.

- To echo another opinion, although I do love SA1, I'm not crazy over the idea of a remake, and would prefer them to just take Sonic's gameplay from SA1 and work from there. Because with a remake, you're stuck in a hard spot: Do you keep it the way it is bar the expected graphical upgrades, and risk accusations of not doing anything to actually improve the experience? Or do you try to address past criticisms, and risk the wrath of the fans who will inevitably go on a #NotMyAdventure crusade about it? What people fail to consider is that the Crash and Spyro remakes were accepted gracefully because their original iterations were still unanimously beloved for the most part, whereas SA1 - and especially SA2 - have always been divisive, and have only gotten moreso over the years.

- People take their preferences for the character's voice actors too seriously. I have my own favourites like anyone else, but I don't make a big deal out of it.

- And with fandom voice actors, they usually focus too much on doing a basic impression of their preferred official voice actor, and not enough on the acting. So you end up getting a lot of fan voices who sound like decent impressions of Ryan Drummond or Jason Griffith on the surface, but they sound utterly empty beyond that impression, because there's no oomph or depth to the actual emotions. They think about the actor rather than the character, when it should really be the other way around.

- The thing with Ian Flynn is that he is capable of telling a decent story, and he can portray some characters well. But he's proven time and time again that everything will go off the rails if he's given too much freedom (ironic, given how quick he is to point the finger at mandates when something goes wrong).

- Ian Flynn and Shiro Maekawa are not the only people in the world who are allowed to write for Sonic. I understand that one should be cautious when seeking out new writing talent, but for all the fandom's accusations of playing it safe, they sure aren't in a rush to experiment outside of their own comfort zone.

- And of course, the big one: You don't fix the franchise's current problems by crawling back to its previous problems. It's much more helpful and constructive to discuss the good and bad alike with each of the games. Less “THIS GOOD, MODERN BAD”, and more “This could work, but maybe without that part...”

#Crusher's Asks #Opinion #Sonic the Hedgehog

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metalandmagi · 5 years

Text

Summer 2019 Anime Worth Watching

Summer is here, and with it brings another new season of anime! In case you’re feeling lost and want to find some new shows to pass the time, here’s some of the anime I think are worth checking out...because some really good shows tend to fly under the radar. I think there’s some genuinely interesting stuff this season, so hopefully you’ll find something you like too.

I also have a Winter list and a Spring list and a fall list now!

And here’s my master list for 2020

New Shows!

Given: A *cough* BL *cough* romance anime in which tsundere highschool guitarist Ritsuka Uenoyama is on the verge of losing his passion for music when he stumbles upon the sleepy-eyed Mafuyu Sato who constantly carries a guitar around that he doesn’t know how to play. Drama and musical shenanigans ensue. This was by far my most anticipated show of the season, because I happen to have read a few chapters of this manga and liked it a lot. The only reason I stopped was because I wanted to hear the music in this music oriented story...so naturally the anime makes me very happy. Not only is it sweet and cute with great animation, but it’s also hilarious. Sato is also basically a human incarnation of a lost puppy, and you just help but fall in love with him and the other characters! AND NOW WE HAVE TWO GAY MUSIC SHOWS THIS SEASON!

Dr. STONE: An action adventure anime that takes place 3,700 years in the future after the world is struck with a mysterious phenomenon that turns the entire human race to stone. Our protagonists: the genius, scientific minded Senku Ishigami and the muscle-y comic relief Taiju Oki, must find a way to rebuild civilization and turn humanity back to normal using the POWER OF SCIENCE! It’s fun, good looking, and way more interesting than I thought it would be. I’m not very attached to the main characters yet, although it’s still early. I’m mainly sticking around for the plot, the comedy, and the answers to the crazy amount of questions I have after watching the first episode!

Fire Force: An action/drama where super powered fire fighters must protect Tokyo from people who are spontaneously combusting while our hero Shinra must find out who started the fire that killed his mother. More than anything, I’d say this show is definitely worth watching for the cinematography and action because almost every second has been high flying dynamic animation that really grips you. It reminds me a lot of Soul Eater, the story and characters have a lot of potential, and you know an anime will be good when the girls have muscles too!

If it’s for My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord: Can you tell it’s based on a light novel? A slice of life set in a fantasy world where an adventurer named Dale stumbles upon an adorable lost little girl in the woods, who happens to be branded as a criminal. So of course Dale basically adopts her and tries to find out how she came to be with him. It’s basically fantasy School Babysitters without the tragic depth to it (but there’s room for potential). Yes, this is definitely the most wholesome show of the season, but it’s to be expected considering it’s basically Japan’s latest attempt to get people to have more babies. Personally, the most interesting aspect of this show is the fact that Dale and his “daughter” can’t speak the same language. Unfortunately, the light novel ends up pulling a Bunny Drop...so I sincerely hope the anime doesn’t try the creepy romance factor. So for now, if you feel like puking up some rainbows, give this one a try.

To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts: An action drama where, during a civil war, one side used “forbidden technology” to enhance their soldiers and basically turn them into badass monsters. The only problem: the soldiers who were turned start to lose their humanity and end up killing humans for the fun of it. Now our protagonist must hunt down his fellow soldiers and kill them before it’s too late. Honestly, this show has some pacing issues and can be a bit stilted in terms of its character interactions, but what kept me watching was the last 5 minutes of the first episode. I was so not prepared for the roller coaster that was the first episode’s ending, and now I’m extremely intrigued. Besides it’s made by MAPPA so I would at least give it a couple episodes to see if it’s for you.

Vinland Saga: The story of a young boy named Thorfinn’s journey to become a great warrior and while the adults deal with going to war. IT’S THE ONE WITH THE VIKINGS!!! It basically feels like a darker, grittier viking version of Moana. I’ve heard literally nothing but praise for this manga for so many years that my hopes skyrocketed as soon as I heard Wit was doing the adaption. And it has definitely lived up to the hype so far! It’s a great action historical drama to fill the void after Dororo. The only problem is no one will watch it because it’s on Amazon Prime.

Kochouki: Wakaki Nobunaga: A fun brightly colored historical anime about the famous warlord Nobunaga when he was a young teenager. I honestly don’t know what the tone of this anime is going to be from here on out, because it’s going to go from “fun thieving shenanigans with pretty boys” to leading people into battle, but it got me interested. I know putting Nobunaga in an anime isn’t exactly original, but this one seems like a fun ride...and it looks gay as fuck.

And I have to shout out some that haven’t premiered yet...just in case...

Try Knights: This one doesn’t come out until the end of July, but you bet your ass I’m going to be watching it because it’s an original anime about PRETTY BOYS PLAYING RUGBY! And I have a feeling it’s going to be very... different from the other resident rugby anime All Out.

Yokai Ningen BEM (Humanoid Monster BEM): Okay, this one’s not out yet either, but the trailer had a really cool vibe to it, so I’m including it anyway. It’s a remake of the 1968 anime in which a group of yokai who look like humans fight crime in the big city. If nothing else, the music is cool, and it’s made by Production I.G, so why not?

*UPDATE* The first episode finally dropped, and holy crap I’m so into this. It’s basically Durarara mixed with Psycho Pass mixed with Bungo Stray Dogs. The first episode has me completely hooked!

Next seasons and continuations!

As always there are some leftovers from the spring season that are continuing into the summer that I highly suggest!

Carole and Tuesday: The musical sci-fi anime directed by Shinichiro Watanabe wherein a rich runaway named Tuesday meets a streetwise girl named Carole, and the two decide to start a band together. Now Carole and Tuesday must rise to stardom in a world dominated by android created music. It was by far my favorite new show of the spring, and if you can find a way to watch it (because it’s still not available legally anywhere aside from Japanese Netflix apparently) I wholeheartedly recommend it. It’s got the best and most diverse music I’ve seen in an anime in a long time, an interesting setting (apparently it takes place in the Cowboy Bebop universe!?), and very well rounded fun characters. And I'm dying for a soundtrack release with all the songs!!!!

Fruits Basket 2019: Yes, the remake of the classic 2001 anime in which a girl moves in with a family who can turn into animals from the zodiac is getting a full run. And thank God because I just can’t say goodbye to it after only 12 episodes. It is so stunningly beautiful in both animation and story subjects that I don’t know what I would do without it. The characters feel so much more fleshed out, and I feel like I learn a lesson about life each week even though I already know most of what’s going to happen. If you never watched the original because thought you were too “cool” to watch a shoujo anime, give it a chance. Because if you think it’s just a generic love triangle romance show, you couldn’t be more wrong. The reboot is so good at portraying different kinds of love and how the presence of love and family can change lives AND IT’S JUST SO FREAKING GOOD!

Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba: In case you missed Ufotable’s newest project, this is a shounen anime that follows a young boy named Tanjiro and his sister Nezuko who has been possessed by a demon and their journey to turn Nezuko back to normal while fighting demons along the way. I still feel like this is a pretty basic shounen anime story wise, but I really like the characters, especially the villains. It has some of the coolest fighting/power mechanics I’ve seen in awhile, and the animation is very cool and different!

Ace of Diamond act 2: Our favorite shounen baseball anime is continuing into the summer. And I have very mixed feelings about this season so far. We are getting some fun new characters and some great scenes with the team, but the games are very...choppy and rushed. Apparently this is how it goes down in the manga, and we’re in for some good Sawamura development...but it’s still touch and go for me personally.

That’s it for now. Most of these are available on Crunchyroll, except Vinland Saga, Carole and Tuesday, and Kochouki: Wakaki Nobunaga. Since Try Knights and Yokai Ningen BEM aren’t out yet, I don’t know where they will be available legally.

See you next season!

#long post #anime recommendation #summer 2019 anime #ace of diamond #demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #fruits basket #carole and tuesday #try knights #yokai ningen bem #kochouki: wakaki nobunaga #vinland saga #to the abandoned sacred beasts #katsute kami datta kemono-tachi e #if it's for my daughter i'd even defeat a demon lord #fire force #dr stone #given #given anime

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missholoska · 3 years

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Have you ever thought about making some Deltaswap designs? I personally am not a fan of the Kris and Susie swap or the Lancer and Ralsei Swap, but I didn't like Underswap Alphys either, but you managed to get me to like Alphys alot more with your design for her.

I’m so out of touch with Deltarune AUs I didn’t even know that Kris & Susie was the main swap, ahah :’D I know Deltaswap is A Thing That Exists™, but I’ve never once looked up any content of it. to be honest I’m not against Deltarune AUs at all, but personally it feels like if you tried to make Underswap just based entirely on the Undertale demo. like, imagine trying to make Underswap Toriel without knowing she was a queen, or lost over half a dozen children, or even about her friendship with Sans? you probably could make it work, but you’re lacking like 80% of the depth the characters have.

point is, despite how charming all of DR’s characters already are in a single chapter I feel like there’s gonna be so much more we find out about them in the full game, and any AU I tried to make with what we currently know would just feel kinda flat to me. just doing some designs wouldn’t be bad, but I like to make designs feel relevant to characterisation and personality, so uh. same issue

...but despite that this ask did get me thinking so just for fun, here’s a very undeveloped Deltaswap idea I’m not going to do anything with:

(and again, I know absolutely nothing about any versions of Deltaswap, so apologies if any of this has already been done, I genuinely do not know)

swapping Kris & Susie and Ralsei & Lancer does sound like it’d make sense as the two duos of Lightners and Darkners, and it requires way less worldbuilding changes than this idea of mine, but I really can’t imagine Ralsei with Lancer’s personality at all? and I can’t say I have any ideas on how I’d handle Kris and Susie’s personality swap, either.

so if we’re avoiding that swap, the next logical option to me would be Kris & Ralsei and Susie & Lancer, since those are the two main friendships for a chunk of the game. but then that causes the issue of Darkners in the roles of Lightners, and the only way I could make sense of that is to swap the Dark World and Light World entirely. swapping locations usually isn’t my preference, but I could see this being fun!

a Dark World-themed Hometown could have buildings in the style of Card Castle and Ralsei’s Empty Town, and the autumn trees would be replaced by those red square-leafed trees like in the field and forest, and the Darkners who live there are just chill friendly people to talk to.

the Light World would then be the one you fall into, and it’d have the same layout as the original game’s Dark World but with the Light World aesthetic. the field and forest would be all autumnal, and maybe the Empty Town could look like the graveyard area? and I guess you’d have more of UT’s monsters who can show up as repeated enemy encounters, but there’d be the occasional familiar faces to talk to or fight as well.

as for the characters: no clue what to do with Ralsei’s home life or the player possession thing, but I’d see him as the quiet loner type like DR Kris, though still very sweet and friendly, and not as much of a silent protagonist. maybe he’d have his classic hat and black fur appearance in the Dark World and the hatless white-furred look in the Light World.

Lancer would be outright meaner but his insults still tend to be pretty goofy, and both DR Susie and Lancer already have issues with no one actually liking them, so no change there. I don’t know how his appearance would change in the Light World jhgjksdf

Kris is... complicated, but I think their personality would be like a more serious version of DR Ralsei. they’ve been alone for a long time waiting for the Heroes to arrive and act as a responsible guide for Ralsei, and I could see them having a “my choices don’t matter, but maybe yours will” kind of mentality? dunno how much sense that makes but whatever it sounded cool ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Susie wouldn’t be as silly as DR Lancer, but she definitely has more fun being the Mean Girl with her actual motorbike. also not sure what to do with her home life and being related to whatever big bad the Light World has...

Rouxls in Alphys’ role as a Dark World teacher would be hilarious and you can’t convince me otherwise. “thoust worms, bringeth me the chalk This Instante or thou shalt all be placedesteth in the Detention Dungeons”

Alphys on the other hand would be Suffering over puzzles and you’d probably just feel bad for her until she realises how cool the Fun Gang is and roots for them instead.

Jevil swaps with Sans. you know in your heart there’s no one else either would swap with. Jevil would’ve recently moved to the Dark World Hometown to run a shop, but remains a terrible little gremlin man who says weird things at you. still has his CHAOS CHAOS branding, of course.

Sans just gets to be a hellish boss and make dumb jokes again, only he has a jester-themed hoodie or something.

...and uh, I guess since people like shipping Jevil with Seam (don’t really get the ship myself but more power to those who do), it’d only be fair to swap Seam with Toriel. Seam as Ralsei’s parental figure could be pretty adorable, actually? it’s just a shame the price of that fluff is putting up with Jevil talking about befriending your parent last night.

Toriel can be the sweet, tired shopkeeper who kindly tells you about the Light World, offers you some food and armour, and later gives you hints about her long-lost friend who got locked in Clown Jail for causing problems on purpose.

I guess Spade King and Asgore would be an obvious swap, but I can’t see the King being a father figure to Ralsei and there’s no way in hell Asgore would be cruel to Susie, so who knows.

swapping Clover and Undyne could be very cute! DR Undyne being a cop is, uh, controversial to say the least, so instead Clover could be one of those people who holds stop signs to let kids cross the road safely. some of her heads yell at people if they don’t slow down quick enough.

Undyne’s just yelling about puzzles and celebrating her birthday, she’s having a good time

I have nothing more than that and this already got miles long anyway but if there were a Deltaswap like that out there maybe it’d be kinda neat 👍

#disclaimer: I know there's like 276 plotholes in this idea which is exactly why I'm not making it a thing #but it was fun to think about for a bit at least! and thank you about my swap alphys too I'm glad you like her ;v;#holoskart asks #holoskart rambles #bad opinion zone #anonymous #long post //

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venti3dieci · 3 years

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THE DIZI TAG GAME

Rules: Answer the questions and then tag people you want to participate! (Also tag it #The Dizi Tag Game so we can see everyone’s lists)

Tagged by: @missloislane and @aslibekroglu thank you SO SO SO much! I was planning on doing it anyway even if I was never tagged because this seemed so fun so thank you for not letting me jumping off of someone else’s post

1. your first dizi & how you discovered Turkish dramas :

So, this is a long story so TL;DR: Kiralik Ask and facebook groups.

Now, for the long story. It might have been 10 years ago now? probably less? I don’t know, since the end of highschool I have lost consciousness of time and what a year is and when it ends. Anyway, Kiralik Ask was all the rage in Italy and in the facebook groups I was in, people were talking about this and Cherry Season a lot (I’m pretty sure this wasn’t 10 years ago but I’m dramatic) and I became obsessed with all the videos and things and everything (of KA, I didn’t care for Cherry Season) BUT I did not watch it then. Years later, like maybe three years ago? maybe 2? No idea. I discovered Vatanim Sensin thanks to @rescuemeifyoucan and her posts about it and became obsessed with that as well so, like a normal person, I searched for Hileon videos on YouTube and found every single scene they were in (only Hileon scenes) and watched a lot of those videos, probably 3/4 of the first season, stayed up all night (fun fact, I went to sleep at like 8 in the morning and when I woke up a couple hours later I got called and did my stage/started working at the place I’m at) and that was my initiation to Turkish shows but since I did not actually watch it, only precise scenes, that is not technically my first dizi. About 2 weeks of VS and only VS I decided that it was time to watch KA (because I found a playlist of YT of every episode from the beginning with Italian subtitles and others in English subtitles if the Italian ones were missing) so technically this is my first actual turkish dizi watched, since it is the first dizi that I have seen complete episodes of, from the first episode.

2. show(s) you’re currently watching:

Technically none but also technically thousands. So, technically (expect this word to be the most used in this post) I am currently watching Menajerimi Ara (haven’t watched since more than two months ago probably), Alev Alev (last watched I think last month) 50m2 (again, last watched last month), Kiralik Ask (it’s been a few years actually BUT I haven’t given up on it yet and I will continue it... someday), Her Yerde Sen (last watched probably last year? Maybe start of the pandemic, maybe before that), Kuzey Yildiz (last watched I think the end of last year), Halka (I have no idea when I stopped with this honestly), Kara Para Ask (last year? maybe? Before Her Yerde Sen I think), Benim Tatli Yalanim (around the time of HYS), Kimse Bilmez (again, around HYS time). I haven’t seen any of these for some time but they are all shows that I plan to continue sooner or later. It’s all shows I loved but put aside because I found a new obsession but I do get back to them sometimes.

3. your favorite genre of dizi (romcom, mafia show, contemporary drama, historical/fantasy, etc.):

Romcom. I do like some dramas but I tend to hate almost all of the characters except a selected few and I can’t handle all that hate, my liver cannot survive it.

4. the show you rewatch (parts of) the most:

I think KA? or MA? or HYS? They are my favorite shows of the ones I have started. Also Ask 101 (the only Turkish show I have actually completed and only because it’s not 10 thousand episodes long and it’s easily available on Netflix so it’s easy to rewatch again)

5. favorite Turkish actor and actress (feel free to pick multiples):

I have this problem, it’s names, I rarely know the names of actors, if I know them I forget them, I sometimes mistake the character’s name with the actor’s name, sometimes the opposite so let’s try this and see what mess comes out:

Aybuke Pusat, the guy who played Demir on HYS, the two friends of Selin from HYS and the receptionist. Elcin (?) and Baris (?) from KA, Burcu (?), Alina, Kubilay, and the other kids from Ask 101, Dicle and Baris and Julide from MA, Hilal and Leon from VS, Cicek di Alev Alev, Cagatay Ulusoy (I remember his name! my beloved CaCa), The female protagonist of KPA (she was also in the first episode of MA which is the reason why I started that show), Hande Ercel, Kerem Bursin, Elcin (?), Melisa, the one who played the third main friend, the red headed girl, all from SCK, Ismail (?) and the actress of Yildiz from Kuzey Yildiz, also the three girls from there. Most of the cast of Hercai, although I hate more than half of the characters.

I feel so bad that I don’t remember their name. I swear I love them!

6. a show you quit before finishing:

A few. First and foremost Sefirin Kizi (couldn’t get past episode 1). Erkenci Kus (hated the direction it was going, which was in circles), Ask Laftan Anlamaz (hated hated hated the lie that guy protagonist said. Wanted to watch after but I can’t do that to myself). Sad to say but also Sen Cal Kapimi. I loved it SO MUCH and then first he does that stupid break up thing that I hate (because it similarly happened in ALS and that is the whole reason why I never finished that show so already not a good start), then it seems to be picking up and we got the amnesia thing so yeah, nope, not doing it. Afili Ask (I liked it but not enough to continue and I have to give up on a few shows). Also probably Hercai since I enjoy how it ended in season one and never felt the urge to continue.

Technically most of the answers from the 2 question apply here as well but I do intend on continuing those, these ones, however, I will not continue.

7. favorite song(s) you’ve discovered in dizi’s:

Birakman Dogru Mu 2 by Zeynep Bastik and Anil Piyanci, heard on Menajerimi Ara and the song that started my love for pop songs made in Turkey

8. the show whose plot disappointed you the most:

Sen Cal Kapimi and Ask Laftan Anlamaz are the ones that first come to mind. And Erkenci Kus. God, Erkenci Kus disappointed me SO MUCH.

9. a show that was cancelled too soon / ran too long:

Ran too long: definitely EK. And SCK (sorry not sorry, it should have ended right before the amnesia).

Cancelled too soon: I don’t usually watch shows that get cancelled soon (in the sense that I usually wait a bit before watching a show because I wouldn’t want for it to be cancelled while I am passionate about it) and technically I do not yet know if they were cancelled too soon, but I would say HYS and Benim Tatli Yalanim because I was loving them and I have less than 10-15 episodes left to watch

10. favorite character(s):

The children in every drama are my favorite so Gul (Hercai), the children in Alev Alev, the child in Sefirin Kizi (the only character to save themselves in that show except for Gediz), the girl from BTY, Bulut (?) from Dolunay. Also CeyCey (EK), Baris and Dicle from MA, basically the entire cast of SCK (I might hate the direction where this is going but I do love the characters), the main characters from ALA (except for the main male protagonist, he can choke), the main characters from Atesbocegi, Suna from BTY, Reyyan (Hercai), a lot of others, I just don’t remember the names.

11. your favorite romantic pairing(s):

ReyMir (Hercai), LeyEm (Erkenci Kuş), Edser (Sen Çal Kapımı), Defom (Kiralık Aşk), SelDem (HYS), Suna x Nejat (BTY), DicBar (MA), Bahar x Kaan (Halka), Ibo x Ayda (?) (HYS), YilKuz (Kuzey Yildiz), probably others.

12. favorite side character(s):

Cey Cey (Erkenci Kuş), Julide (MA) (I know people hate her but to the moment I’m at, I still love her), Ayda (?) (HYS), Burcu (BTY), again, others but I don’t remember the names.

13. best kiss:

I love the fire side (?) kiss between Selin and Demir from HYS as well as their kiss when she thinks that he stood her up when in fact he didn’t even know that he was supposed to go on a date with her and so she gets pissed off (rightfully so) and he chases after her and OMG I love them! Also the first and second kiss between Nejat and Suna. These last three I have made gifs of, and they were my first gifs, unedited, kinda ugly, but I love them (not saying that I make good gifs now because I do not, they are still ugly and unedited but not my firsts anymore).

14. an underrated show more people should watch:

Her Yerde Sen. And Benim Tatli Yalanim. And Menajerimi Ara (although more people were getting into it). And Alev Alev.

15. a show everyone loves that you aren’t interested in:

The one with Demet Ozdemir (BOK I believe is the tag). Never was interested in it but based on gifs alone, I think they had the character who is either played by an actor whose name is Ismail or the character is called Ismail make a 180 from season 1 to season 2 and I hate it when they do this kind of things in books and series (I might be wrong though) so now I have even less interest in it. Also Son Yaz. The gifs, I love them, but I don’t want to actively watch the show. I’ll enjoy it from gifs and posts about it.

16. a show you want to recommend right now:

Menajerimi Ara, Kara Para Ask, Her Yerde Sen, Alev Alev, Benim Tatly Yalanim.

17. the next show on your list:

none, to be honest. I mean, I already have a LOOOONG list of shows to finish so it’s better that way.

tagging: @rescuemeifyoucan and, for people who heve not been tagged yet, take this as the sign that I am tagging you.

#the dizi tag game #tag #this is probably way longer than it should have been #also my inability to remember names is really bad!#also definitely not 10 years ago my first knowledge of dizis #since KA started airing in 2015 #my ability to understan the passage of time is as bad as my ability to remember names

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monkey-network · 4 years

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The Glory of No More Heroes

Who would’ve thought a Wii game by Suda 51 would be the best slap in the face. Let’s not beat around the bush, No More Heroes throws you right in. When Travis says, “It’s Game Time”, he means it. The swinging of the light saber, the splatters of blood, the essence of this badass looking weeb fills me with joy every time I play. NMH is a game I cherish and I wanted to express why.

The Touchdown

Honestly when I think of a realistic take on an anime anti-hero, I immediately think Travis Touchdown. He’s basically Saitama from One Punch Man except not invincible, considerate, bald. He doesn’t have a luxurious status compared to everyone he meets and he’s fine with that. Then again, they both have this subconscious pride in either looking for a challenge or, for Travis, becoming #1. Then again, where Saitama’s story is about understanding the humility of being a hero, Travis’s story is more macabre with how far you’re willing to go with your aspirations.

Travis isn’t facing any bad guys that are out to take over something like the city or whatever. They’re cantankerous mercenaries where the job of assassin has driven them to the deep end. Travis goes down the same path, the garden of madness, but in a different light; he at first gets a kick out of facing his enemies like its a movie where he’ll get the girl at the end, but soon enough empathizes with the idea that not everyone feel the same way and everyone has their own goals in this gig.

Beyond the finale, he doesn’t really possess a chip on his shoulder in the first game and that clashes with everyone that’s been through a lot. The game does a great job veiling the haunting spiral Travis goes through by making his attitude towards it all eclipse the harsh reality of his journey. He’s becoming a remorseless killer, but that never gets in the way of the thrill you and Travis gets when slashing down some dudes or talking shit.

At the same time, he’s not a complete asshole in spite of how sees this game. This is generally where we have to talk about...

The Ranked Fights

Every assassin in NMH is memorably unique, some more than others but they nonetheless capture the point of the game, without ‘em this would’ve been a standard beat ‘em up all things considered. With the exclusion of one, the assassins aren’t as enthused with their job as Travis is and even that excluded one, Destroyman, takes it to a level far beyond Travis’s likeness. That is the thing, all of them are Travis yet taken to differing yet equally extreme turns as assassins. For Letz Shake and Dr. Peace, it’s a euphoric calling. For Shinobu, it’s about the honor of the fight. For Bad Girl and Holly Summers, it’s all they think they have for a life. Each believing that being an assassin was their exit to something better but, aside Shinobu who was spared, had their fate sealed until Travis showed up. It’s kinda how Batman internalizes his “No Kill Rule”, you kill one and you’re potentially going to continue until someone stops you. And really, you probably appreciate every one of them. A couple fall by the wayside personality wise, but most the assassins has their moment before and/or after that makes fighting them feel gratifying. It’s almost impossible to hate them and they each subconsciously welcome you to give it your all.

This helps makes Travis a great protagonist. Moments like when he holds the mic for the defeated Dr. Peace, when he spares Shinobu, especially when he feels remorse for not killing Holly himself are what shows the true man in him, the growing protagonist. He tends to be cocksure, but isn’t a full on scumbag to everyone and is never rewarded for his shitty moments. Travis has an ego, literally rising in the ranks, but he doesn’t consider himself so above the people he fights. He’s kinda the hero in a way of giving each assassin a humble end, a sense of satisfaction that comes with the 1v1 challenge. Travis doesn’t cheats his way to the top and the assassins aren’t stripped of their humanity regardless of the downward spiral that came with the job.

He is no hero and the people you fight aren’t either hence the title, but at the end of the day, as badass as everyone is, everyone is human wanting that paradise. But, with that want comes...

The Work

I often think of No More Heroes as a balanced Male Power Fantasy. DMC5 and Bayonetta are ones where while the action is earnest and the cutscenes are spectacle gold, the joy lacks in everything else. NMH fixes that by making exploration genuinely fun to do. The jobs, the challenges, the training, the clothing you’re able to get, all pay just as well in investment as getting to the main event. I seriously get in the zone when I finally maxed out my combos, got the final beam katana, and get to the timed challenges where I’m slaying as fast as possible. The previous two I mentioned are already badass in their own right and it’s mostly up to you, the player, to make them dance with your gameplay. But I say NMH takes that extra step, while having simpler controls, to where it’s not just your gameplay that makes you feel epic, but taking your time to gradually make that epicness come to fruition not just with earning money but doing the odd jobs and exploring the city.

Santa Destroy feels like more of a character and you feel better integrated in that world than you admittedly do in most hack and slash games. It also helps that getting to the next ranked fight isn’t as frustrating in the grind. There are a couple stinker jobs and assassin gigs but they all pay well that beyond getting to the first event with Dr. Peace, earning money never felt like an insufferable chore. Once again, this plays well into Travis as a character. He’s not immediately given immense power locked away inside him; he earns it all. You train him, you collect those balls for the special moves, you earn money for those beam katanas, he’s strong enough to suplex and pile drive people effortlessly, but you know he’s capable of becoming better. The only thing you generally got no charge is the motorbike which honestly is the sweetest damn thing in the game. It adds up to a character that, in a typical modern environment, you make happen.

The Beauty

I say the genius of No More Heroes is its portrayal of everything. You’re not the chosen one destined for greatness, you’re an average anime lover that got his fighting skills from VHS tapes and won a weapon from eBay. You’re not fighting in grandiose locations but everyday buildings like a school, parking lot, the beach, train station, warehouse, etc. And again, you’re not fighting chaotic supernatural enemies but people with lives that just happen to love killing people. NMH makes a playground out of the mundane without making it cynical or boring; honestly reminiscent of home movies where you’d have epic battles take place in the backyard or mall lot but given that legit bloody action flare of video games. With the humor and music being the jimmies and cherry on top.

This is why 1 works far better than the sequel but that’s for another time.

Suda overall sets you in an believable environment to go nuts in but doesn’t sucker punch you when shit gets real. He gives you exactly what you crave but doesn’t make you out to be an emotionless killing machine. The synergy between the player and Travis is what makes NMH great, potentially underrated, and it never shames you for enjoying it. Even when there are no more heroes on every front,

You still feel like one in the end

The Conclusion

So yeah, I love this game. It’s one where I’m just into playing it in one sitting and as I grew up, came to appreciate more than before. It isn’t the most complex unless you really dive into Suda51′s “Kill the Past” lore but doesn’t need to be. Like I said before, compared to most big titles nowadays, this one jumps right in and whether you find it deep it or not, it’s all compelling. It’s up there as a favorite with Great Teacher Onizuka where it’s an underrated celebration of the no shits given badass counter part of pop culture while having some meaningfulness in what it actually says. I’m glad I got into this game series.

#No more heroes #NMH #travis touchdown #Suda 51 #grasshopper manufacture #video games #analysis #Good Stuff #long post

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ryqoshay · 4 years

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How did u think of the username ryqoshay?

The tl;dr version is that I was tired of Ricochet typically being taken in the games I was playing years ago and decided to rework it into something a bit more unique. And she grew into something more.

The full story will be under the cut as my trips down nostalgia lane tend to run long.

Ricochet started off as a character I created for a story I was writing years ago based on games I played as a child. The games were not electronic, rather based around physical toys and the characters and events were made up on the spot by my friend and I.

While our games generally focused on battles and conflict between two established groups, the story I decided to write focused more on the characters of the protagonist group and their interactions. Worth mentioning here that the focus group was a crew of mercenaries as it will come into play later. I realized that the current cast was comprised mainly of front line fighters and wanted to flesh out the team with some back line and support members; medical, recon, intel, etc.

Enter Ricochet. I liked the idea of taking a stereotypical stoic and battle-hardened sniper character and turning it on its head by making a hyperactive, adorable little girl. A character whose slightly warped idea of cute included heavy weaponry and thus treated her gun like a teddy bear, even going so far as bringing it to bed with her.

The name itself had a dual meaning as it referred both to how she was always “bouncing off the walls” and an intentionally ironic reference to a typically undesirable outcome for a sniper. Her given name at the time was Rebecca; Becky is fine, but don’t call her Becca or Reba.

I don’t recall if I addressed her parents in this iteration, but Rico entered the team under the care of Tackleberry. Yes, that Tackleberry; he was my friend’s favorite character from Police Academy, though I believe what I’ve turned him into maintains only the name and obsession with weapons. I already had him as the former legal guardian of another character, so I figured giving him someone new to oversee would be fine.

Then I stopped writing that story. And it remains on indefinite hiatus to this day.

City of Heroes was released and a friend convinced me to join. I was drawing a blank in character development when I stumbled across the Assault Rifle/Devices build and Rico jumped up out of my memories. The name Ricochet was taken so I tacked on -chan to the end as I was quite addicted to anime by this point in my life. This also gave me the excuse to weeb out and insert random Japanese words into her speech patterns as her linage was now half Japanese and half U.S. born Caucasian.

I designed a diminutive, blonde girl sporting high twintails and a dark purple flak jacket outfit with black accents. Her short backstory described a her as having two heroes for parents and wanting to live up to her family legacy. And as said parents were still around, Tack dropped out of the picture.

I liked Rico so much I started translating her over to other games as well as using her name in my overall online presence, as small as it was then. Ricochet itself was pretty much always taken, so I often had to modify the name in some way, be it by adding -chan or shortening it to Rico or whatever.

Then came the game changer; City of Villains. It came as no surprise that Ricochet was taken, but I was getting tired of using -chan and my other methods, so I decided to create something new. This would be the first time I used Ryqoshay, an intentional misspelling of Ricochet for a character.

Since CoV allowed a short backstory like its predecessor, I knew I had to come up with an in-universe reason for the name change; I also still fancied myself a writer, even though I hadn’t really written much in a while. I figured a villain might do well with a more tragic backstory than a hero, so I offed her parents. The character limit didn’t allow for specifics on the where, when, why and how, but I made sure to mention that she took the first letter of their names - Yuri and Quentin - to rename herself Ryqoshay.

It was at this point, Ryqo also finally received a family name, Bouteillevoix, and with it, a change in linage to half Japanese and half French. I don’t recall the specifics of how I settled on Bouteillevoix iteself, but I do remember liking the dissonance of an outspoken character bearing a name meaning “bottle voice” as if it were to be contained in some way.

For her aestetic design, I swapped out the black for white in her outfit to use the Dark Is Not Evil and Light Is Not Good tropes; dark purple remained, however. This also meant her hair went from blonde to black. And her twintails went from high to low in an attempt to appear a bit more mature, though she maintained her high energy personality.

Also, while not mentioned in her in-game bio, Tack was able to reenter the picture as a Commando, the highest level Summon of Ryqo’s Mastermind power set.

While I wasn’t actively writing stories about her, I was certainly fleshing her out as a character with notes and whatnot. Quentin and Yuri also got some attention as I ended up designing alternate dimension versions of them for me to play. And as the alt-oholic I am in MMORPGs, I also came up with some alternate dimension versions of Ryqo herself; Ryqoshot, a lonewolf gunslinger using the Corrupter’s Assault Rifle power set and Ryqoaraignée, an Arachnos Crab Spider build who was more closely aligned with Arachnos than her other versions.

With all of the alts I was creating, I decided to use the game’s guild mechanics to pass stuff among them. Thus, Ryqo’s Roughnecks was born, named after Rico’s Roughnecks of Starship Troopers fame. Joining members included L4t3ncy_0, a mechanical Mastermind; Recipere, - Rx for short - a thug Mastermind who kept her crew alive with healing powers; Yozakura, a ninja Stalker serving as Ryqo’s bodyguard and Vivian Sexon, a dual-wielding Brute and villainous translation of a dual-wielding Scrapper from my CoH days.

Not long after, a friend invited me to join a game of D&D. The team needed a door kicker so I brought in Vivian as a brutish barbarian with a split personality, Sanguine, taking control when she raged. My intended two paragraph introduction quickly turned into two pages, which eventually turned into twenty and started translating over other Roughnecks; Ryqo included.

Ryqo dropped her sniper rifles in favor of a more theme appropriate bow and arrow. L4t3ncy_0′s call sign was changed to Nullsiver Luna and she became an artificer who struggled against the world’s tech limits. Recipere, not surprisingly, took on the role of a cleric. Yozakura kept her ninja trappings, but started playing by the Bodyguard Crush trope as I was deep into yuri shipping at that point thanks to the likes of Lucky Star and others.

Even after the game stalled out, I continued to work with the DM to build their world in which all of their games took place. The Roughnecks gained a permanent place in the timeline, extending both before and after Ryqo’s time as their leader, as well as a permanent base of operations, which eventually grows into a full fledged township later at the behest of Ryqo (spoilers should I ever get around to posting these stories.)

My online presence was growing and with it, Ryqo. She became my main when I returned to WoW, a Blood Elf Hunter running around with a giant Devilsaur as a pet; yes, she would think it was cute. (She was changed to Human when I followed by guild to another server that needed more Alliance players.) My Demon Hunter main in Diablo 3 was named Ryqoshay, as a surprise to absolutely none of my friends at the time.

Aion was a strange exception insofar as I wasn’t fond of the Ranger class for my primarily solo playstyle. I still made said ranger and of course named her Ryqoshay, but my main in that game was a Chanter known as Ameliorator, a more fanciful version of MedKit, the character for whom Tack was a legal guardian in the story mentioned above. However, I still played out the Ryqo persona on the forums because I enjoyed it and I’d long forgotten Med/Ame’s personality from that old story.

When Love Live started to take over my life and I found Sukutomo, I went with Ryqoshay as my screen name for reasons I don’t fully recall. I started this tumblr account as a way to post some “Idolsona” stuff where I translated Ryqo into a LL style idol, along with Yoza, Luna and a newer Roughneck, Flash Pyre. And when I started writing my fics, it was easy to use the account I already had here and then keep the name when I went over to AO3.

Hindsight being 20/20, I probably should have chosen Nico as my primary icon, as her appearance is closer to Ryqo’s than Maki’s, even if she wears her twintails high like Rico instead of Ryqo’s low tails. Neither Nico nor Maki have grey eyes as I’ve given Ryqo, so that wouldn’t fit, but none of the LL characters do thus far. That said, Maki prefers purple more than Nico and Ryqo isn’t much a fan of pink, so maybe that played into things? Perhaps someday I will commission one of my favorite artists to draw Ryqo as I envision her and start using her as my avatar, someday… maybe.

Also worth mentioning that NicoMaki has had a heavy influence on how I envision Ryqo and Yoza, and vice versa. Heck I’ve directly translated some NicoMaki doujin into scenes for my D&D story and sprinkled some RyqoYoza stuff into HtHaN. With HtHaM being a more D&D’ish setting, I may very well steal some stuff from my D&D story for it. Perhaps Luna or Vivian might make an appearance? I’ve already referenced Ryqo when Maki remembers hearing stories of an 11 year old girl taking over a mercenary guild. As always, I shall follow where my µ’s muse leads.

In conclusion, while Maki - with Nico very close behind - may hold a position as my favorite fictional character not created by me, Ryqo easily tops that position as my favorite overall; yes, the fact that I created her absolutely factors into this bias. There are reasons I don’t bring her up often - beyond using her as a screen name, posting through her persona on a few forums and the Idolsona thing - not the least of which include a fear of her being labeled a self-insert or Mary Sue or whatever, as I’ve seen some decidedly distasteful reactions to such characters online. But there is also the fact that the bulk of her development has been within a world not designed by me, but by one of my DMs, and I would want to ensure they would be fine with me posting stuff about said world; I’m sure they would be fine, but I haven’t gotten around to asking. Perhaps someday, I might post more about Ryqo. Perhaps writing more of HtHaM will inspire me to take my D&D story off hiatus, dust it off and have a talk with my DM about posting it. In the meantime, I will continue to use her namesake for my online and in-game presence because she is a character I hold very dear.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for joining me in my journey through nostalgia. And I hope this sufficiently addresses Anon’s question.

#Ryqo's Q&A

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peerless-soshi · 5 years

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Interesting choices! I have to ask, did you watch the DR anime? If so did Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School side despair, change your view of Hinata Hajime at all?

OMG, let’s start with the fact that my Danganronpa journey was actually pretty interesting as I didn’t start with the game, but with anime instead. Yup. When I think about it now, it could be a good choice because I doubt I would be able to go through this anime as calmly as I did if I knew the game. Anyway, when Danganronpa 3 came out I was like “OK, let’s watch it. I know the first game and the general world-building so it can’t be that hard, right?”. As it turned out, it was hard and I didn’t understand shit. Plus I spoiled myself Izuru Kamukura as well as few other things, luckily I’m not that kind of person who minds spoilers.

But even in the mix of new characters and confusion, I still had my eyes on Hinata Hajime. Who knows, maybe following his story in that order affected my final opinion? The thing is, I liked him. I liked him a lot. Hinata was a very frustrated character and I like adopting kids with issues, especially if roots of said issues are in the ground I can feel personally. And yes, as you can see I have a thing for characters who build their self-worth on school-like success... Hm. Hinata in anime seemed to be a person who didn’t love himself on the deepest and the most destructive level. His confidence balanced between very high and very low: on the one hand, he felt worse than the Hope Peak’s students, he was insecure about his class, he didn’t feel good enough. On the other hand, Hinata seemed to look down on students from his class who didn’t try to aim for the main course, therefore he felt better than “ordinary” people and somehow thought he deserved to be in Hope’s Peak. And on the totally side note, I think it’s very interesting if we remember how Komaeda pointed that him and Hinata are similar - Komaeda, too, tends to put himself down so at first glance his confidence looks bad, however the finale proves that he sees himself as someone much more worthwhile than the rest of the group.

Back to Hinata, I may be wrong but in my eyes he was someone who was supposed to be happy (as he never mentions anything sad or traumatic in his life) and yet he felt very miserable? Look how he’s the only protagonist who never mentions his family. Naegi and Saihara stayed strong even when they missed their families but Hinata’s memories focused solely on going to school. Nothing more. And we indeed see him like that in anime. I always interpreted him as a character who didn’t find happiness in the modern world and so convinced himself that climbing higher would make him feel better about himself. Better grades? I will feel more confident. Better school? I will feel more confident? Better class? If I remember correctly, Hinata even said that he only wanted to feel good with himself and yet was unable to find validation inside of him. And we all know that if we don’t have love for our self, any success won’t make us feel better.

I have mixed feelings about Kamukura Project tho. Personally, I think it would be better if anime stayed close to the game and let Hinata join the project because of his personal insecurities. It would be a natural consequence of all the pressure I mentioned above. I guess anime stuff found those reasons to be... flat? Maybe too selfish? So they added Hinata’s relationship with Nanami and totally destroyed Kamukura project in my eyes. Anime Nanami was constantly convincing Hinata that he was good as he was and what did Hinata do? Joined the project for her! Where’e the logic here???

So yes, to sum it up there were parts of Hinata that I liked a lot and some moments that I disliked, but in the general overview he was a character that I was fond of. And then I played the game, and then I was shocked because I thought that I liked him already? A big mistake. I fell in love with the real Hinata, the game Hinata, who was so much more interesting, salty, funny, brilliant and and responsible (and kept those insecurities which I found close to me in anime), so Hinata became my true fav :)

#asks #hinata hajime #I kinda drifted away from anime and talked about everything #but I hope you'll forgive me hahaha

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sage-nebula · 5 years

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I’ve always wanted to play the fire emblem games, but I never knew which to start with or if it even matters. What would you recommend?

Hmm, well . . . I’m far from a series expert given that I’ve only played three games out of the series (with Three Houses being my third), and the fact that I don’t even know exactly how many games are in the series to begin with. But with that said, I would say that---at least when it comes to the three games I have played---I don’t think it matters very much which game you start with, so long as you’re not starting with one that’s a direct sequel to another.

I mean, to begin with, to my knowledge there are still many Fire Emblem games that were never localized outside of Japan. I’m not sure how many of those there are, just as I don’t know how many games are in the series itself, but for instance, I know that Marth’s primary game (games?) at the very least was (were?) never localized, and the same with Roy’s (which I think is different from Marth’s). This is why they only had Japanese voices in Smash Bros for so long. Setting aside the ones that weren’t localized, the ones that were localized a long time ago tend to be extremely hard to get a hold of nowadays, and very expensive if you do. The two that come to mind most readily are Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, one of which is a direct sequel of the other (and I’m not sure the order on that one), but both of which are very expensive if you try to buy them off eBay (which is your best bet since they’re out of print now). If you don’t want to spend that cash you can pirate them, but that involves homebrewing your Wii, which is another challenge in and of itself. Until Nintendo wisens up and puts Gamecube and Wii games on the Switch Virtual Console (and then adds those games), they’re not exactly readily accessible to players who want to try them out today.

So I don’t think you’re at fault for not experiencing games that were never localized to a language you understand (unless you’re fluent in Japanese, in which case by all means go play the older ones, and also I’m envious), nor are you at fault for not paying hundreds of dollars for a single game, or trying to homebrew a Wii so you can play a pirated version. Furthermore, at least when it comes to the three Fire Emblem games I’ve played (Awakening, Fates, and Three Houses), you don’t have to have played the older ones, because outside of references to older ones made here or there (which is mostly relegated to Awakening for reasons I’ll get to in a second anyway), the older ones aren’t relevant---and even then, you don’t have to understand the references in order to understand what’s going on, and any you do need to know (e.g. Tiki’s relationship with Marth in Awakening) are explained.

With that said, if you were looking to get into Fire Emblem fresh right here and now . . . well, as I said, I’ve only played Awakening, Fates, and Three Houses. I can only talk about these three games, and I’m sure much more passionate and experienced Fire Emblem fans could point you in the direction of others (though I’d ask them to please do so on their own posts because I don’t want Fire Emblem discourse in my notes). But in my opinion, I would have you start off with the game I started with, which is Awakening.

Fire Emblem: Awakening was created both as a swan song for the series, as well as a way to try to save it. Basically, from what I’ve heard, Nintendo was ready to cancel Fire Emblem outright and never make another game for it because it wasn’t making them the kind of money they wanted. (That it wasn’t really localized / marketed well in the west is something i’m sure didn’t help, but that’s another issue altogether.) Intelligent Systems, the developers who make it, were given one last shot to make a game that would create the kind of profit needed to save the series, and so they created Awakening, a game in which the story largely surrounds primary characters trying to prevent a dark, hellish future riddled with death and despair (which I imagine is how the IntSys devs felt about their series being canceled, haha).

Long story short, their plan worked.

Long story long, the reason why their plan worked is because Awakening is accessible to newcomers in the series, while still having modes of gameplay similar to older Fire Emblem games (a.k.a. more punishing) for veterans of the series. (Actual veterans have plenty of discourse to say about this, but again, I don’t want discourse on this post, so please don’t.) Namely, Awakening introduced Casual Mode, in which if you lose units in battle, they only temporarily retreat from the battlefield instead of being killed off forever as in older Fire Emblem games. It also has a difficulty setting, so you can play on easier difficulty levels if you’re new to the series. Further, while I’m pretty sure that even older Fire Emblem games had support systems between characters that unlocked conversations and such, since a large part of Awakening focuses around family, the supports in this game involve actually getting to marry characters to each other, and so for those of us who like to participate in fandom, the aspect of getting to make our ships* canon was appealing as well.

(*Sadly, this only applied to het ships. Awakening does not have any same-sex options whatsoever. IntSys is . . . only very slowly getting better about this.)

Anyway, on top of all that, Awakening has a really fantastic plot, wonderful characters, and very fun gameplay. The animated cutscenes are beautiful, the voice acting is top-notch, and the music is gorgeous as well. It’s definitely not overwhelming for a newcomer (in fact, the entire point was that it wasn’t supposed to be since IntSys wanted to save their series!), and since it’s a 3DS game, it shouldn’t be very hard to get a hold of. So if you wanted to start anew with Fire Emblem, I’d recommend starting with Awakening, since that’s what IntSys intended anyway. :)

After Awakening they released Fates, which is a garbage fire better off avoided. Fates was released in three simultaneous installments, all full priced (with maaaybe a slight discount on the other two if you bought one? I think??): Birthright, Conquest, and Revelations. In order to get the full story you have to at least have either Birthright or Conquest, and then buy Revelations on top of it. You cannot get the full story without Revelations, and you cannot get Revelations without either Birthright or Conquest. So it’s basically one game for the price of three, and much worse than Pokémon since at least with Pokémon games you can get the whole plot in one game if you want, and trade for the ‘mon you’re missing. (Or at least you used to be able to. RIP National Dex.) With Fates you can’t do that. On top of that the main character is the worst, they made the shipping aspect creepy (at one point you’re supposed to blow on your 3DS so that it can seem like you’re blowing on your spouse’s face . . .), and the plot is just mind-bendingly awful. The only redeeming quality Fates has is this song, and honestly, it pains me that such a beautiful song is attached to such a terrible game. But seriously, just do not waste your time on Fates. It is not worth it.

There were a couple releases after Fates that I didn’t play, most notably Echoes, which was a remake of an older game in the series (though I’m not sure which one). However, the next main main release in the series was the one that just came out, Three Houses, which fixed EVERYTHING Fates did wrong and, in my opinion, is quite possibly even better than Awakening (though I still love Awakening to pieces and always will, don’t get it twisted). Most notably, while there are now FOUR different story routes, they’re all contained in the same game, so you only have to purchase one game to get the full story experience. Also, while there are even more ways to interact with characters now (e.g. having tea with them, eating meals with them), there are no creepy “blow gently on your system” moments, or “stroke the stylus to pet their faces” moments. The romance in the game (which only happens if you want it to) only occurs at the very end as well, at that, so it’s a slow burn romance no matter what. And lastly, the protagonist this time around is truly a silent protagonist, so you don’t have to deal with having a protagonist who, in the words of one liveblogger:

Granted, the Fates protagonist, Corrin (or as I like to call them, Corn), only works for their evil dad in Conquest, but believe me when I say that they are no better in the other routes. Corn is basically the Bella Swan of Fire Emblem, in every conceivable way. They are the worst. I hated them throughout both my Birthright and Revelations playthrough. We are blessed for not having to put up with a protagonist like this one in Three Houses, trust me. (Especially since Corn was such a downgrade from Robin in Awakening . . . and then one paralogue has the sheer audacity to compare Corn to Robin, like . . . how dare they . . .)

So anyway, this is an extremely long post and I’m sorry for that, but ultimately the TL;DR is:

It doesn’t matter too much which one you start with, since most of them are not sequels of each other.

I recommend starting with Awakening if you’re a new player, and so does Intelligent Systems, the developers.

Fates is a garbage fire waste of money and you are best off skipping it.

I have no opinion on Echoes, but I’ve heard it’s good.

If you have a Switch, definitely pick up Three Houses when you get a chance, since I’ve already put about 60 hours into it and I’ve only had it for eleven days.

And once again, other Fire Emblem fans, please do not start discourse on this post, I do not want to engage in the discourse, thank you.

#fire emblem #long post for ts #Anonymous

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golden-redhead · 5 years

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100?

100. Opinion on all the Protagonists!

Naegi Makoto - I like him. It’s funny because he’s about as generic as a protagonist can be but at the same time he manages to be his own character and I honestly don’t think that it’s possible to dislike him. Like, he’s definitely not my all time favorite but I like him just fine and I think that he served his role as the protagonist well. Keep in mind, though, that I’m basing this opinion mostly on the anime and those few scenes from the game that I’ve actually seen… which is not much…

Hinata Hajime - I LOVE THIS BOY WITH ALL MY HEART! I know that my blog is mostly about V3 but man, I really love Hinata and I would die for him. I should probably make some Hinata Hajime appreciation post or something. I love how salty, sarcastic and straightforward he can be while at the same time being just a genuinely kind person. I think out of all the protagonists (and maybe even characters in general) he’s the one I relate to the most. He’s very human and I think that most of his reactions, comments, and opinions feel very realistic, like something that an actual person would think or say in this kind of scenario. I really enjoyed playing him a lot and I love how he had to prove his worth.

Kaede Akamatsu - I feel like I may get some hate for it but I think I liked Kaede more as a character than as a protagonist. I don’t think it��s a bad thing, though. I think my main issue is that I am very different from Kaede as a person and for someone as introverted as me playing a character who acts so extrovert was… well, kind of tiring XD’ I love Kaede but I’m actually one of those people who are fine with her not being the protagonist the whole time. I think that she’s a very complex and compelling character who left a huge impact both on the player and the game itself. I love her conflict and her flaws make her a very relatable and interesting character and tie well with the major themes of all DR games. I am a bit annoyed by how both fandom and even the game tend to show her as some kind of innocent martyr because… that’s not who she is. I find her struggle to do the right thing both admirable and ultimately very sad and I wish it was something that was discussed more. Also, I find it a bit weird that people often act as if pre-game Kaede from her audition video is a completely different character than in-game Kaede when it’s clearly not the case.

Shuichi Saihara - I have some issues with both his and Kaede’s writing and I hate how chapter 6 completely destroys his character. I think he’s a great character, I have a lot of warm feelings towards this boy, but I think that both fandom and the game treat him very unfairly and it makes me a bit salty about his character in general and sometimes I find it difficult to separate those feelings. I think my biggest problem with Shuichi isn’t his personality but the way he was handled so when I think about him as a protag I always feel a little disappointed because he could have been so much better even if he’s already a pretty great character. In general, I really like Shuichi and while I may question some of his interpretations or how canon treats him, he’s still one of my favorite V3 characters and I personally really like writing about his perspective in my fics. He’s just… easy to write. And I like how intelligent he is, in this quiet and thoughtful manner, I have a weak spot for characters like that.

And I still haven’t played Ultra Despair Girls so I can’t say much :c Komaru looks like a great protagonist though and I can’t wait to play it! I’ll let you know what I think after I finish.

—

DANGANRONPA ask meme - send me a number!

#ask #anon #danganronpa ask meme

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