#these aren't necessarily my PREDICTIONS for who's most likely to get in out of the whole cast BUT LIKE. IT WOULD BE SUPER COOL IF THEY DID
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Oshi no Ko 143 Reaction
This was a fun chapter. Ruby getting aggressive finally forcing Aqua to stop ignoring the problems in their relationship that have been simmering for 20 chaps now and actually have a conversation that puts it all out in the open. They're mostly saying stuff I predicted in advance, but some of it took me by surprise.
One bit that made me stand up and !!! was this page:
I thought I was doing something interesting when I compared Ruby's feelings towards Gorou to Aqua's feelings about Ai in my last two analyses but she just came out and said it directly on page, haha. I feel pretty validated.
I still stand behind most of what I wrote last week after this chapter. Ruby is desperately trying to make this a romance, but her best pitch is "I care about you in the same way we cared about idols in our past lives. Parasocially and without regard for the actual person, because I need to put somebody on an idealized pedestal or else I'll kill myself. This is what romance is, right?" Girl with so so so many issues, I love her.
The one thing that did really take me by surprise was the bit where she listed off Aqua's flaws as a person. In the past I assumed that Ruby was intentionally ignoring these flaws and making up a version of Aqua that didn't exist in her head. The way in her mind he's drawn like a romance hero and how she makes excuses for all the things she took issue with before lead me to believe she was intentionally distancing "Gorou, her idol" from "Aqua, the person, her brother" in her head. I'm not sure how to square this knowledge with the way she is (textually, now!) putting him on a pedestal. If I had to guess, I would think she actually is aware of who Aqua is as a person - she was friends with him as Gorou before and siblings for 18 years, she should know him better than anybody - but is intentionally separating this knowledge from the figure she is idolizing, because she needs to keep ahold of something for her mental stability.
I'm reminded of an analysis post of OnK ep 1 I read on tumblr almost a year ago, I forget who posted it so I can't properly credit it but it's not my own thoughts. (if anybody else remembers it please let me know so I can link it!) They contrasted Gorou's parasocial fan relationship with Ai to Ryosuke, the stalker who killed him: both put were fans of Ai, the Idol, but when confronted with the reality that she was more than an idol, that she had relationships and would have children, Gorou decided that the health and happiness of Ai the person was more important than his image of Ai the Idol, and did his best as a doctor to help her, while Ryosuke's reaction to having his image of the Idol shattered was to try and destroy Ai the person. The analysis put forth the idea that this was contrasting healthy vs unhealthy methods of being a fan - that there's nothing wrong with being a fan of someone, necessarily, but you have to keep in mind that you aren't entitled to anything about them, and there's always a real person underneath the performance.
I didn't fully agree with it - in my post about how the series portrays different kinds of love I talked about how it came down very harshly on dishonest and idolizing love - but I did think it was very interesting (obviously as I still remember it almost a year later). Anyway Ruby's approach to Aqua this chapter made me think of that a lot. She makes a big deal out of how Aqua is her idol, their relationship is idol/fan, and she can ignore all his flaws - but at the same time she points out that she does actually know what those flaws are. It puts her in something of a strange position. What would she do if her image of The Doctor, Her Idol, no longer existed, and she was left with just Aqua? Would she care for the person, or be mad at losing the illusion? According to this chapter she fits into neither of those, she chooses to pretend that the illusion still exists even while staring directly at the reality. Ruby seems aware that she is essentially using the idea of the doctor as a coping mechanism, but doesn't want to admit that this desire is directly in tension with the idea about caring about Aqua as a person, romantically or otherwise.
As for Aqua, it's great that he's finally being a little honest with his emotions and feelings after so long, to the one person who is really able to understand the context.
However, I think he's still holding a lot back, especially in the latter half of the chapter, because there are things he doesn't feel that he can say to Ruby, specifically about their relationship. He seems hesitant to directly tell Ruby that he can't be her lover or her idol, he can only be himself - even when he tries to tell her that he can't be the person he was she just brushes it off - and I think with how Ruby's mental health is holding on by a thread he is unwilling to do anything to jeopardize it, even if it means accepting the spot on her pedestal.
My read of the relationship between Gorou and Sarina 22 years ago was that they were genuine friends at the time. Regardless of difference in age and position they were both socially isolated people who found one person they felt they could be honest and open with. This makes their current relationship even sadder - Ruby has twisted the memory of their old friendship into dreams of romance and idolatry to fuel the desire to live one more day. Aqua, who in his last life would have been willing to do almost anything to get her to keep living, is forced to cut away his own relationship to her, both last life friend and current life brother, because being dishonest - being an idol - is the only way he can see to keep her alive and healthy. Both have already cut away most of their other bonds for the sake of the revenge plan, and now they can't even be fully honest with each other. Very tragic stuff.
All in all I really really liked this chapter. The interactions between Ruby and Aqua has always been multiple layers of relationships and mindsets existing on top of one another, and that just makes it super interesting for me. I love it whenever that leads to character tension. They've been friends and siblings and idols and all of that has to coexist, its a very unique kind of character writing that Oshi no Ko does well and I don't see very often and makes me care for the series a lot. I think I have a much more positive view of this arc than most of the fandom because the trainwreck of their relationship is one of the series highlights to me, so chapters like this, where exactly how bad their mindsets have gotten are placed as the main focus, are some of my favorite story beats.
I know there's a lot of negativity about this chap but I'm having a good time over here in my corner. Not sure if it's because I've been letting my thoughts about the series out in posts a lot more recently or because I liked this specific chapter a lot but this is definitely most I've been invested in the series for a while now. I think I was letting the Discourse kind of sour things for me and now I have mentally exorcised it from my mind.
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while I agree with the "using fanfiction tropes to describe mainstream fiction is annoying", I do think there's something of a fundamental disconnect between what fanfiction readers (and fandom enjoyers in general) want and enjoy, and knowing what mainstream readers want and enjoy.
Someone who primarily hangs out in fanfiction spaces is more interested in characters over most other things. Tropes mean something to them because they want to know what Situation their blorbos are in now. Enemies-to-lovers, Coffee Shop setting, A/B/O, these identifiers are important to a fanfiction reader because they define what is happening to the characters, and the kind of story the characters are experiencing. In essence, we're playing setting swap: taking the same characters and plopping them into different frames.
In my brief dips into doing genre study at work, I think mainstream readers aren't looking for that. For a lot of mainstream readers, the characters don't matter so much as the story or even the vibe does. Theyr'e doing sort of the opposite thing: rather than swapping frames around characters, they're swapping characters out of frames. Who is experiencing the story isn't as important to them as what the story is.
That's why there are so many formulaic stories getting popped out by certain presses so quickly, like at Harlequin Romance. this isn't necessarily a BookTok-centric problem, as these kinds of by-the-formula stories have existed for decades, particularly for romance. So the same tags above do mean something to mainstream readers, even if they originated in fandom spaces and were coopted by publishers. They indicate a type of story that the reader wants, and who is in that frame isn't necessarily as important as the fact that they follow a comforting, somewhat predictable path.
Where a primarily fanfiction reader wants to see Blorbo A and Blorbo B in Situation X, Y, and Z, a primarily formulaic mainstream reader wants to see Situation X over and over again. The names of the people experiencing the story aren't unimportant, but what they're looking for is a similar experience. They want to read twenty werewolf A/B/O stories, or fifty Amish romances. They aren't spending time thinking about those characters having other adventures, they want to read the adventure that's right there and then move onto the next one. Even something like enemies-to-lovers is a wildly popular trope that a lot of mainstream romance readers want to see done over and over again with different characters and settings.
So, yeah, sometimes it is annoying that publishers have coopted words that originated with our subculture to sell a lot of the same thing to people in true capitalist fashion, but I don't personally think the use of the terms is completely wrong.
We're all looking for the same kind of comfort food in the end, we're just looking for it in different ways.
#that being said you can't pay me enough to read another mainstream enemies-to-lovers#shrek voice 'they didn't even try to actually murder each other in real life'#lulu talks
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ellie... may I please know more about Chaos or the pixies? 🥺 pleaseeeee 🥺
of course my love!! <3 sorry it got so long ehe 👉👈
The pixies live in a pixie-specific dorm (which is basically a large birdhouse that Sheela and Huxley built) since they're all very close and tend to stick together as a pack. The ones you've met already are a group of six, but there's more pixies on campus if you know where to look. They aren't necessarily students, but aren't necessarily staff either; pixies tend to hole up wherever they fancy, and since they're quite rare and one of very few monster species that aren't governed by anyone but themselves, they're allowed to come and go as they please. Plus, they're considered to be good luck by most, so even their mischief is tolerated to a high degree since it's considered just part of their nature. They're usually pretty docile but since your arrival they've gotten.....more active than usual.
See, pixies have a long history with humans, but due to the current state of the monster-human world and the scarcity of the pixies themselves, they rarely if ever get to interact with humans like their ancestors did. It's one of the reasons that faeries, a sub-species of the pixie grouping, are so rare too nowadays--faeries are almost always born from a pixie-human union, so despite their long lifespans the race of faeries is slowly dying off. So the pixie girls on campus are eager to find ways to get close to you, partly because they're absolutely fascinated with humans...and partly because they'd like to recruit you, such a nice and pretty human, to make nice and pretty faerie babies that will revive their population! <3 Pixies are creatures of ecstasy though, and they can get easily distracted, so needless to say they might need a little time to get around to that while they're busy messing around with you and figuring out what you like. But lucky for you, pixie dust is a very potent aphrodisiac for humanoids--and lucky for them, they're small and sprightly enough to get under your clothes even while you're in the middle of class, just to give you a little pep boost for the day ♡
Chaos is a household curse and very well-known in myth, but very, very few have ever had the displeasure of meeting him in person and lived to tell about it. Chaos is one of the last and oldest titans known to both gods and man, imprisoned in The Pits in the deepest, darkest area of the Underworld for thousands upon thousands of years. Aside from being an immortal god whose actions are impossible to predict, Chaos was imprisoned for eternity for the crime of murdering the old gods who once ruled over the Holy and Unholy lands. Although many believe his treason was borne out of nothing more than a destructive, rageful urge and acted upon by impulse, scholars have uncovered many old tomes and ancient texts penned by godly scribes about Chaos' life as a free god; including the snatches of records that indicate that Chaos once had a lover and home he was wholly devoted to. Although the general public tends to prefer the simpler ideology of Chaos being an unpredictably evil god punished by the forces of good, it's been well-established in record that Chaos' story is much more...elaborate than that, and it roughly follows as such.
Eons prior to common memory Chaos once walked the earth as divinity in human form, freshly separated from his sibling Creation where they once were inseparable. Feeling a sense of dread and loneliness at walking the world alone that he helped shape, Chaos wandered until he stumbled upon a treasure in the sands of a beach; a pearl nestled safely inside a rugged oyster, perfectly shaped and smooth and cool to the touch. New to such a natural wonder and unable to resist the pull of a prize that had manifested without his or Creation's influence, Chaos claimed the pearl and carried it up the mountains he had made his home to the highest peak. There, he held out the polished treasure that he had kept so safe and warm to the sun, and with the radiance of the holy lands shining down a spirit sprung from the pearl! The glow of the holy lands spun that spirit into human form out of its light, and with the pearl nestled safely in the crest of their newly-beating heart, a new divinity entered the world; Eden, the first valkyrie of the gods and the first creation made from both earth, heaven, and underworld influence.
At first sight Chaos fell to his knees and wept, his loneliness forgotten, and he grew deeply infatuated upon the first touch of their hands as Eden helped him to his feet. The two were soon lovers and built a home for themselves, happy and content with their simple lives, until the old gods called Eden back to attend to their duties as a valkyrie. They were forced to fight the battles of the old gods and would return to their husband Chaos broken and exhausted, but never able to refuse the will of their deities who had given them life and love, and never without a smile on their face for him and him alone. Eventually the old gods demanded Eden's permanent return to the heavens and were stoutly refused, thus in petty retaliation they subdued Chaos and murdered his beloved spouse as punishment, stripping their immortality from them and casting their body into The Pits to suffer for the couple's shared act of defiance. And in a grievous rage, Chaos broke his shackles and rampaged through both the Holy Lands and the Underworld, slaughtering the old gods and each and every divinity that served them until he grew tired and slow from his injuries. In that moment of weakness the remaining deities cast him into The Pits to be sealed away forever and never return to the surface, destined to be bound by chains and tortured for all eternity as penance in a contract bound forevermore.
But as he wandered there, small and alone once again, he discovered a treasure--the pearl that once served as the heart of his beloved Eden, still warm but cracked and chipped from wear as it lay within their broken body. As the gates to The Pits closed for eternity, Chaos tearfully wrenched it from their breast, held his pearl aloft and begged one last time for mercy, not for him who would accept his suffering but for his paradise not yet lost. And just as his fate was sealed, the pearl was plucked from his hands and spirited far, far away from the Underworld; dropped into the vast ocean of the earth and sunk to the very bottom like a stone, Eden's restless spirit tugging at their shape to search vainly for their fallen husband. With time they settled in exhaustion, and for millennia they were left in the deep, dark coldness of the sea, the water and grit and current polishing them down, down, down until they became nothing but a handful of stardust glittering amongst the waves. And when time came, Creation returned to their side after rescuing them from death and scooped up what remained of Eden in their hands, lifted their palms to their lips, and blew that glittering stardust gently into a cloud that swirled and bound itself into a soul borne anew. With all but the smallest drop of immortal ichor remaining in their veins, Eden the valkyrie was rebirthed and given new life, all but that one drop and the same form they took remaining.
Some say that it was Creation's gift to their fallen brother who still endured endless torture in The Pits, growing larger century after century as his titan blood boils in rage and agony, his chains growing with him yet The Pits themselves eventually growing small in comparison to his enormity. Although close followers of Creation insist that their craft takes form regardless of any personal desire, as Creation itself is a god void of nearly all emotion. Either way, Eden supposedly walks the world in present day, void of memories of their past life and of their dear husband, of the life they once dreamed of and lived together in harmony. Some rumour that Chaos' eyes that were stolen long ago during his enchainment was to eliminate the possibility of him recognizing his newly-reincarnated spouse, for if he ever knew for certain that they live there would be no force that would keep him locked away a moment longer. But were they to be recovered and returned, if Eden themselves were to find their way back to the husband they never knew they lost, the world would undoubtedly witness the return of the most feared, most villainized god from myth and fairy tale alike, and would see firsthand the unbridled ecstasy and arrogance of Chaos claiming for good what he was willing to blight all existence for.
#the pixies#monster campus#chaos (mc)#pixie x reader#chaos x reader#monster girlfriend#monster boyfriend#neutral pov#monster campus lore#ellie writes#anons
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helloooo ridi. I have been thinking about young r/s a lot and I know that you describe them (especially s) as being "strange" about the other before they ever talked about their feelings and I wanted to ask if you had any examples that come to mind
hiiii love!! yah absolutely!! predicting my own too-long rambling response 2 this by adding a cut straight away but. i do have thoughts :^)
obviously usual disclaimer that this is. speculation this is my headcanon and in answering im probably going to take for granted a lot of insights into the general mwpp dynamic that other people might (and are free to) disagree with xx but for me personally!! i am one for them always sensing that their feelings towards each other r a little strange compared to their other friendships within the group long before they manage to identify romantic feelings from platonic ones or just generally understand what it is they feel for each other. n im going to go mostly with s here because i think a good way of laying it out is by contrasting it with the way i view his dynamic with j, although for the record i definitely imagine r to always feel a little strange towards s too.
i do genuinely think s loved j in a way that is perhaps. pointless to label as either platonic or romantic but in a way that was very different to the way he felt about r and i think. that difference at first is all he's aware of. he meets j and they are a double-act they're a two-headed monster they're each other's phantom limb they're thick as thieves they're more than brothers but i think immediately his dynamic and his closeness with r are very different and thus strange to him. they are not a double-act. he does not always know what r is thinking (although he wants to). their intimacy feels strange because it is not intimacy as a product of like. familiarity or similarity the way his intimacy with james is (horribly clumsy way of wording that but hopefully you can make some sense of it). i wouldn't necessarily go as far as to call them opposites because i think in a lot of ways they aren't, at all, but to me it is the difference between sitting next to someone at a table (j) and sitting across from them (r).
and i think the uncertainty when it comes 2 his relationship with r and his feelings about r mean that he sort of craves it more yknow (especially because he. unconsciously thinks a close relationship with r is infinitely worth earning). he seeks it out. r can make him uncomfortable and he likes that. i think he would go out of his way to make r laugh i think he would get a certain sense of triumph out of accomplishing it that he wouldnt look for/need with james. r's general aura of strange wistfulness and melancholy also contributes to this (and this is partly why i hesitate to position them as opposites) because although their experiences are so so different there is an understanding of. suffering? trauma? whatever you would like to call it that s can get from r that james (although he is very loving) just cannot provide because he has not experienced that. the discussions he has with r are not the same ones he has with j. the fact that r is more difficult to get close 2 and to make smile etc makes s want to try harder to accomplish it. and he wouldnt necessarily recognise that in himself but i do think if he tells a joke and everyone laughs he is conscious of the fact that he gets the most reward from having made r laugh. and not only that but he wants the person who makes r laugh to be him.
i do also think he is just. softer about r. whether or not he realizes it or whether he thinks his softness is just a result of r seeming more melancholy to him than the others/post-lycanthropy discovery just feeling the need (rightly or wrongly) to be more protective over him. like they are twelve n s will playfight and roughhouse j all day for fun but with r he will only ever. pretend to do it or mime doing it or do it very gently not just because r is generally in worse health but also because the idea of accidentally actually hurting r is genuinely very distressing to him. also touching him a lot probably also make s' stomach hurt and makes him go all sweaty and light-headed for reasons he doesn't want to explore. idk i am sure this has gotten far too long by now but i think. the strangeness is best felt by both of them when comparing how they feel about each other with how they feel about their other friends. its an intimacy that does not even resemble anything brotherly or familial and at their young age that is what they think it means to be friends with someone. it is not comparable with anyone else it is not as easily labelled it is full of hesitations and private moments and give and take and it trembles and it shapeshifts and it doesn't let anyone else in. there is essentially a private joke between them, except neither of them are in on it.
#have you ever known anyone to say so much just to say so little before in your entire life. bloody hell#begging you to find something here that makes sense. my brain is so fried from essay work 2day so i certainly am not doing it..#telegram#anon#r/s#theyre so freaky about each other. i cant wait for the day when im normal about that. free of it even. good lord
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Autistic Bruno headcanons/fic ideas go!
-gvr 💚
I dunno how fresh these are, but here I go:
Rubbing fabrics is one of his most common stims, but there are some others not seen in the movie. I don't remember who it was, but months ago someone said that they wanted to HC him flapping but felt bad because the way the fandom was... it's in the ol book of HC's now. you deserve flappy Bruno homie.
Sand is very texture™.
When he was a kid, Bruno spent long periods of time looking at the sand in hourglasses fall.
Being the gifted kid of the family allowed a lot of his quirks to get overlooked for a while. By the time he hit burnout, he was seen as a burden. this could probably be a general HC, but it was very much a double edged sword for him.
He advocated for Dolores at loud parties, and postcanon, the two will go to her room to enjoy a quiet activity.
His "Special rat" he mentions in OBB is his support rat that acts as not only a companion, but a comfort. He pets it and also trained it to lick his face and calm him down.
I've mentioned the HC of involuntary visions sometimes vetting tied to meltdowns. The swirlimg sand has unintentionally hurt people before, and out of context, a random villager probably would see it as scary.
This one is common I think, but Mirabel making Bruno textured a scarf,plush, etc? yes, she does that.
She is also one of the first people that really sat and listened to him to that extent. Second most would be Julieta, who was in general the nurturing big sister, though she took care of everyone. That line about holding him in the book until it relaxed and being ok with him not talkong until he felt comfortable is canon in my heart. She knew a lot what to do because of how gentle she is with Antonio and when it comes to emotional care, post canon especially she goes out of her way to make sure everyone, including him is okay.
Luisa gives some awesome pressure hugs, though she has to watch her strength, of course. Bruno can just give her a look and she knows.
If you let him talk about his rats or shows, he will be your best friend. It's not something that everyone necessarily understood, but post canon everyone, especially his family enjoy his shows and his enthusiasm. Something he loves just as much though is the actual process of making things. He can get into a full on trance making his art and sets.
Bruno being afraid of fireworks for the angst. :( It's another reason for him to get Dolores in her soundproof room though.
Julieta knows how his body reacts when he is happy, and is the most thrilled to see that as he is getting better emotionally.
The first time that they all ate together as a family again was chaotic and it was a learning experience. It took some tweaking and sometimes he will eat alone, but generally family meals are good now. :)
The silver lining to his gift is being able to have predictability in his life. He still isn't fond of when the future sneaks up on him or things don't go to plan like in the game where he freaks out and mirabel has to calm him down
He hides in tight corners and small spaces, and his new room has a little hiding spot. The family knows about it and the other spaces he has in the house but respect that
He hits himself and hair pulls when he's in a bad space mentally.
As he got older, a lot of his quirks were misumderstood by the villager and even his mother as him being moody or Noncompliant. Post-canon, she starts to listen to him more and gets to have a caring motherly role more often. She tries to check up on him and make sure that his limits aren't being puahed and that she isn't subconvipusly trying to make him someone else.
He asked Julieta to "fix" him at least once when he was older and frustrated with how sour everything had gone. He's a lot happier with himself, though.
These probably aren't the freshest ideas, but I might add more to the future. Anon, I would love to hear any of your ideas if you have them, as well as other people. Feel free to add in reblogs, comments, asks, or whatever you can think of
#encanto#bruno madrigal#autistic bruno madrigal#encanto headcannons#nd bruno#neurodivergemt bruno madrigal#I wanted to post this sun night but um... busy
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why are some divination questions more difficult to interpret? why does divination make you tired? (illustrated edition)
I do not claim that ANY of the following is literal. Please consider this post to be a hypothesis; a thought exercise. When I apply it to my practice, it assists me in navigating my own abilities. However, I do not claim that it is anything more than a (hopefully interesting!) concept that assists in personal introspection.
Anyway, I hope this sparks thoughts or conversations :)
Our lives can be conceptualized as mazes!
As three-dimensional fleshy dudes, we're stuck in the maze :)
If we want to see around a corner, well, we have to walk down the hallway and look around. This is a metaphor for making decisions and taking actions towards certain goals.
We can't see over the walls. Sometimes, this means not knowing what will happen until we're already right there.
And we can't necessarily walk forward and then go back to where we were. Here, the maze analogy fails -- we all know that in real life, you can't necessarily go back to how things were before.
In fact, walking down the hallway and turning the corner can often represent pivotal change.
Spirits aren't stuck down here like we are! (Well, not normally). Spirits, like that floaty golden guy up there, have a great vantage point. Your ancestors, guides, and other spirits can look down on the maze and tell us what they see around the corners!
Many people believe that it is the spirits themselves, or a universal consciousness, which makes divination work. Whatever it is, we can consider that the power within (or behind) divination tools isn't stuck inside the maze like we are - they can see around the corners.
(In this image, we have the vantage point of the spirits! We are the ones who can look down and see around the corners)
So, how does divination allow us to see the path between us and the goal?
Divination can be conceptualized like little windows into the future (or past, or within, and so on).
When we draw cards, we can imagine that the card is a literal window into the path ahead. Here, we see that the three cards draw represent three things that will occur on the way to the goal.
These "windows" can also be perceived as waystations - the most important or pivotal events on our way to discover something. (This is not limited to future predictions, but all kinds of readings).
However, divination tools are always symbolic. The tool can only show us its own closest representation of the path ahead.
When used correctly, the tool shows us its best approximation (this is also why different decks can reveal different aspects, but I digress).
Even though the tools can only give us an approximation, they also give us a place to start.
Because now, we have to engage in psychism to put the picture together :)
Heck yeah! We burn our personal energy in order to resolve approximated symbols into real-life events.
Check this out, this is where the concept gets neat :D
By contemplating the meaning of our tools, we begin to loosen, awaken, and activate our psychic senses.
It is truly only through our own psychism that we obtain real psychic interpretations of approximate, abstract symbols.
(The golden color coming from the person is the same gold as the spirit in the first picture. #symbolism)
Divination wears us out because it is tapping into our real psychic senses.
Using physical tools is a lot easier than only using our psychic senses. If we didn't use a tool, we wouldn't have a place to start - and that's a lot tougher.
Anyway, let's move on!
The divinatory tool is a window, right? The more distant the thing which is pictured in the window, the more energy and effort it takes us to resolve the meaning.
And if the window is really far away in the maze, this can lead to fuzzy pictures, inaccurate interpretations, and major fatigue.
Our bodies are our anchors. Our psychic senses are anchored to our present moment in time and space.
And our energy has to travel out of us, through each waystation and window, and resolve them one by one.
The further away from us we look, the more effort and energy it takes to resolve each card (or rune, and so on).
Once again, it is the tool that shows us where to start looking with our psychism - but it is always our personal energy that resolves the symbolism and discovers the true interpretation.
We can send our psychic senses away from our present physical reality. We can send those senses within ourselves, away into other places in the world, forward into the future, or stranger places still.
But our physical bodies always anchor those senses. So the further away we send them, the more and more difficult it becomes - like a taffy candy stretched thinner and thinner.
The further away from the present moment you read, the more and more you have to stretch your skills and senses in order to interpret and resolve the approximate, symbolic message your tool is sending you.
Your tool only ever shows you where to start looking. Your own personal energy does the rest.
The greater the distance between the actual circumstances and the approximation your tools can provide, the more energy you must expend to bridge the gap.
And if the question you want to read for is very far away from your present moment, it may literally be too far away for you to reach.
This is why a reading for next week can come in very crisp, but a reading for a year from now can be difficult and draining.
And this is also why you can make great leaps of intuition from apparently unrelated cards, but in doing so become very drained.
(The more sensitive and fine-tuned your psychism becomes, the more and more detail you can provide for every "waystation" you encounter).
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed going on this little thought exercise with me :) I would love to hear all of your thoughts about this.
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Thought of a fun thought experiment that will either age brilliantly or horribly quite soon.
So, we all know that Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe is coming soon, right? Like REALLY soon. Less than 2 months kind of soon.
We still don't really know much about what this remake will change or add except for:
1 new copy ability
new multiplayer mini-games
looming Magolor Castle (that is left unexplained for now) in promotional artwork
I don't mention the visuals because it's the most obvious and expected change coming from the remake of 2011 Wii game.
So I want to do something fun. I'll list my predictions on what this remake will change and/or add. I will be splitting them into predictions that are likely and predictions that are more on pipe dreams territory. I'll present arguments and/or evidence towards each point as we go. Let's begin!
Things that I think are likely to happen:
Playable Magolor. I mean, come on now. Not only he's now included on the cover, which he wasn't in the original game, he's also one of the most popular characters in the franchise now. Like he's actually probably the most popular addition to the series since Meta Knight and Meta Knight was introduced in 1993. I'm not entirely sure yet how this would work (it partially goes into pipe-dream predictions territory), but I'm certain it will somehow happen. It helps that modern Kirby games on Switch had a tendency to have a late-game unlockable that is super OP and is related to game's storyline in some way. Star Allies had playable Mage Sisters, Forgotten Land had Masked Hammer and Morpho Sword as milestones for beating main story mode and post-game campaign. Magolor only makes the most sense to follow suit.
Dedede, Meta Knight and Bandana Dee will receive their updated movesets from Star Allies. While I wasn't overall a huge fan of how Star Allies treated those three characters, being way less polished than later DLC Dream Friends, one things they got right is by finally giving them more original moves into their arsenal. They basically started out as hammer clone, wing and sword clone hybrid and spear clone respectively, which, I assume, was byproduct of RTDL's co-op being a late addition in the development. Giving each of them more unique moves in SA was a great move and them to carry over into RTDL DX would be excellent choice as well. Not only they would stand out more against contemporary copy abilities they were based on, it presents more fun gameplay possibilities (I'm sleeping and dreaming how much I will spam super dedede jump in various boss fights like grand doomer). But the best of all, we have an evidence of this potentially happening, ladies and gentlemen! In trailer footage we got we can decipher Meta Knight doing Galactic Counter that was introduced in Star Allies.
If this is anything to go by, all new additions are set in stone and it's just matter of seeing more of it in the final game.
The boldest prediction yet, mainly because it's not based on anything except for my gut feeling. But Magolor Castle will be the hub-world for the post-game in RTDL DX. It makes the most logical sense as it would be a good way to differentiate post-game from the main story where the hub world was Lor Starcutter. What we will do there? Who knows, there's tons of possibilities. It will most likely house mini-games but I doubt they would design such elaborate looking location just to be a place where you could pick a mini-game. There would certainly be more stuff to do, but what would it be?.. Time will tell!
Things that I want to happen but aren't necessarily likely:
King Dedede, Meta Knight and Bandana Dee becoming playable in single-player (outside of arenas). There are many ways how it could work, but the idea I'm betting on (and therefore hoping for) the most is introducing Guest Star-like mode where each of them get an abridged and changed take on the main campaign's levels, taking advantage of their individual movesets in the process. I feel like them being locked behind co-op in the original game was some of the biggest shortcomings of RTDL so I genuinely hope remake will fix that.
Entirely new post-game story. Extra mode that original RTDL had is less than stellar, to say the least. It's basically the same game again with slightly updated bosses and halfed health bar. Lame. If this remake were to go down the route of recent Switch Kirby titles, introducing an extra-mode that actually continues the story of the main game is the way to go! It can go down many ways, but personally I think the most fun (And funniest) plotline for such extra mode would be helping out to build Magolor's theme park (aka Magolor Castle we've been seeing on the cover art), mirroring the story of the main mode, but with lower stakes and reestablishing Magolor's current status-quo on-screen instead of it being left to Miiverse information.
Old Extra mode being remade into a difficulty option. I think both this game and Forgotten Land were developed co-currently so they are bound to share some of the game design philosophies. Getting rid of the old extra mode entirely would probably be too harsh and unfaithful to the original game... But if you were to repurpose it instead, it's a different story entirely. It will become this game's "Wild Mode", I wager.
These are all the main ideas I currently have for what this remake will have in store. I hope I got at least one of those things right. See y'all in 2 or so weeks when they will actually drop a new trailer.
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genuinely i think i've spent [~8yrs, the majority of my adult life & the entire time since i've known i was trans] trying to find a justification for how the ideology that i fled to-- queer feminism-- is so consistently hostile to me both online and off, and i just can't. i can't find solutions to the fundamental inconsistencies of the liberal queer feminism zeitgeist i (voluntarily but also necessarily) live in, and also recognize my own humanity.
i dont think you can have a truly trans-inclusive feminism that is also constantly suspicious, derisive, and in-defense-from men or masculinity.
i think the greatest crime & defining feature of White Feminism™ is a lack of self-awareness about the ways womanhood can be weaponized in service of white supremacy-- the ways that white womens' fears and tears are (both intentionally and unintentionally!) used as justification for racist & classist violence. the notion that men are privileged over women is only true in some contexts, and whiteness is (or at least should be, imho) the most glaring one.
imho, self-awareness about the ways that i can be dangerous and hurtful, even unintentionally, is like, my most basic responsibility as someone who thinks racism and sexism are bad. white dude allyship 101 is being self-aware enough to recognize when some interpersonal conflict or rudeness Aren't Really Personal-- recognizing that minority communities and individuals have rational & predictable self-defense mechanisms, and its kind and respectful for me to be understanding and accommodating about that even when it hurts my feelings. that's a piece of the cultural philosophy that i still agree with.
so i think it kind of just pisses me off to see that white feminism still has not grown much self-awareness about the ways that white women (& """"women""") can be dangerous themselves. the responsibility that i feel to forsake my own comfort for the good of others is not shared by white non-men. this suffuses the culture in ways that seem subtle, and are difficult to articulate, but don't feel subtle to me.
when i point out that norms in the culture are actually bad for me, my fellow trans queer feminists get angry and defensive. i cannot get my nonbinary roommate or upstairs neighbor or nonbinary-upstairs-neighbor's-cis-guy-roommate to stop calling me "them" no matter how much i ask them not to. i can't log on to social media without seeing memes about all the ways men suck-- t4t jokes, short king jokes, #notallmen, if men could get pregnant, men will literally X instead of get therapy, Types Of Guy, on and on and on. just constant humiliation and a thousand people rolling their eyes and waxing poetic about how its my duty to just take it.
i personally stopped making "men are trash" jokes in college bc 1) i was taught that public self-flagellation can be self-serving, and bc 2) i realized that every complaint about men as a class included black men, and i didn't feel like white ppl like me could talk that kind of shit and still consider ourselves allies. and like, i don't know, i still fucking feel that way?
i think that awareness of race has fundamentally informed my philosophy about gender, to the point that i that i think gender theory inevitably drifts into racism (or, more often, takes a sharp fucking turn into it) when it tries to be agnostic of race. to claim that men have an inherent power and privilege over women requires you to ignore the historical precedent where "protecting white women & children" has been the professed justification for racist violence (central park karen being a vivid recent example). and when you realize that this context is so important to this supposedly-universal male/female (or "men/non-men," the difference here is semantic) power dynamic, it starts to reveal the other contexts where men do not actually have the kind of power or clout that pop feminism seems to think we universally possess.
i don't know how to tell other queer people that i take it for granted that i am a man and that when they say "men" they mean me, too. i don't know how to tell people that living among self-avowed queer feminists has not led me to a people who are kind and accepting and treat me like i'm worthy of care in a way that the outside world of cishet people do not-- they all treat me like trash, and in a lot of the same ways. other queer people remind me constantly that they think i am stupid and annoying and they would love to never think of anyone like me ever again. and i don't see other groups of people receiving this standard i'm held to, that i have a moral responsibility to grow a thick skin, that "men who aren't trash know that when i say 'men are trash' i'm not talking about them." and like, i don't know, whether that's fair or not, i can't really deal with it, because i'm a person with my own traumas and my own intersections of oppresssion and whatever. i don't know. it feels [insulting? undignified? wrong?] to me to justify my like, right to dignity and care from my community, by citing that i am part of a minority group, i guess. like i think we all deserve those things bc we're human.
people don't really like it when i say i think that #notallmen hashtags-- implying-if-not-outright-stating that every individual person who IDs as a man is responsible for bearing the guilt for every sexual assault, every rude comment, every stereotypically bratty opinion ever held by another man-- was a perverse and pointed piece of widespread cruelty-- and pointing out that it was also tangentially transphobic doesn't do much to engage their sympathy, either. people think it's normal to treat me like i'm frightening, like i'm an enemy, like i'm dangerous-- trans men, trans women, and gnc butches-of-all-sorts have our emotions and behavior aggressively policed by other queer feminists based on our proximity to Obviously Scary Bad Cis Maleness & Masculinity. people put ads on lex for parties where No Cis Men Are Allowed and nobody has any inkling of why that's fucked up. cis gay men have a reputation for being transphobic, but nobody bats an eye when my lesbian friends think its cute to make gagging noises when i talk about finding men hot and wanting to fuck them. my broke transsexual ass is expected to lend infinite shoulders to cry on to every financially secure, college-educated, white ~non-man~ who wants to complain about the emotion work they do for men while also asking me about my genitals and regarding me with this weird mix of disgust and jealousy. i have to listen to other trans people complain about cis ppls' ignorance and cruelty while being ignorant and cruel towards me, and then when i point out my own burden in this exchange, they claim that i'm only upset because i don't respect their transness.
like, fuck, man, i'm tired, i've been tired for a really long time, everyone is so rude and disingenuous and solipsistic in dealing with actual ethical challenges. i just know that i'm expected to put up with a lot of shit that i wouldn't dare do to other people, either because i know it's uncouth because of the position i inhabit by merit of being a white man, or because i think it's just fucking cruel and disrespectful to say to anybody. i'm annoyed that the burden of trans allyship and antiracist allyship end at the border of white non-mens' comfort zones, that performative displays are vogue but actually leveling up your philosophy to incorporate consideration for new groups of people... isn't. i'm pissed off that a community that credits itself with trans pride and inclusivity seem incapable of taking the exact kind of criticism that they've bludgeoned me with for the last decade.
idk man it seems like every social ill that white feminists complain about suffering at the hands of men, they have also inflicted on me personally, as a trans man with a personal investment in the cause and the philosophy. there doesn't seem to be a social space for me where people genuinely treat me like a human who is worthy of care and community. "trans inclusivity" means not using the phrase "women's issues" to refer to abortion and never, like, actually thinking about how feminist culture is received by trans men. the shallowness makes me grind my teeth into dust, seemingly every time i talk to new people or log onto social media some jackass has to stomp on a nerve and then either get defensive or start crying when they're called out. it seems like taking cis white rich men down a peg by generalizing their sins as the sins of all men is more of a priority for feminism than treating someone like me as if i deserve dignity.
im currently reading queer theory books from the 90s that have better answers to contemporary gender-ethical questions than the fucking, twitter kink-at-pride discourse carousel and whatever. are we ever going to grow up or is feminism just going to end up in the reactionary dustbin of history, bc this new wave of terfdom does not look great for the philosophy's future
#fuck sorry i've just been like furiously mad for like 3 days solid#at this point i think i'd make more friends hanging out with leftist punks than with other queer people but eh grass is always greener#shit for brains roe v wade takes are coalescing like a decade of my frustrations with pop feminism#disk horse#the answer to the final question there is no
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Spoiler-free Nocturne ramblings
(Guess everyone's all worked up about Castlevania again because "Under the Milky Way" gained like 28 kudos and 1000 hits in 5 days, yay : D )
Just finished watching Nocturne. I have thoughts, but in the interest of keeping things SPOILER-FREE (because yes I got spoiled on things because people can't bother using a spoiler tag, thanks a lot you wankers), I'll keep this as vague as possible.
Olrox: far and away the best character thus far. I can see why everyone's hot and heavy for the guy already, and the smut fics are apparently already rolling in. I would not be mad if they simply shifted this to Castlevania: Olrox and sent everyone else home. More, please! How about some merch too? I'd buy the shit out of it, dude is straight up hot.
This is not my Richter. I expected this:
... and got this:
(Yes that's Joseph Joestar, not Richter. The point is, sexy brunet hot-headed asshole vs. plain white bread. Richter needs more asshole points, less nutritional void.)
Since Richter is 19, that'd make Maria 12, going by the Rondo of Blood timeline (apparently she's 16 in Nocturne but she doesn't look it). For those who get why I brought that up, marinate on that, y'all. A very long marinade, maybe another 5, 6 years...
I... actually don't mind Annette. I didn't know how I'd react to her, but I have no complaints.
I rather like Edouard.
I noticed Mizrak right off the bat. Thought to myself, now there's a cutie. I'm not the only one who noticed ^_~
Um, trying to figure out how to word this without doing a reveal ^^;... Thanks for throwing us a bone, sorta, on what's probably the most well-known Castlevania threeway relationship prior to the animations? Is that vague enough?
Uh.... honestly don't have much opinion on anyone else. I predicted a much higher body count by this point and people I thought would be dead aren't, and vice versa, but I'm sure the numbers will start climbing next season.
Things I wish would've happened:
A little closer compliance to game lore, as Richter has a good amount of game lore to reference. If they skip the entirety of the SotN storyline I think that'd be a mistake since it's obviously the best-known game of the franchise.
I'm not necessarily mad at the throwing away of the Vampire Killer's special clause (that only direct line male descendants can use it) as it's patriarchal and outdated but I would've liked to seen mention of that not being the case, first, before it got flung out the window.
A LOT less crying. I know Alucard was a faucet in the original animation, but the crying jags in this are ridiculous. I'm pretty sure even the horses were crying. Tera running off sobbing like an anime girl, complete with hands over her face? Ugh. Everyone just standing around and watching Annette cry her heart out, without even a hand on the shoulder in sympathy? Uggggh. No those aren't spoilers, as everyone cries at least twice, if not more.
Original animation vs Nocturne, and the lack of camaraderie and banter:
I guess what I miss most in this series so far vs the original animation series, is the lack of teamwork and camaraderie. Trevor, Sypha and Alucard were yes, forced by circumstance, to stick together, rely on one another, and build up a rapport (they spent the majority of S2 locked in the Hold together), to the point that they could work as a team without having to verbally communicate. There was something really refreshing about that, ya know?
The protagonists of Nocturne thus far... mostly do whatever they want? There's so little interpersonal dialogue. The only character relationship thus far that feels organic at all is the one that started as straight up sex - there's an honesty to that, at least.
Also I miss the banter, a lot more than I thought I would. Even with a serious storyline I like a bit of humor in my shows / stories. How else would we have learned that Sypha has icy cold feet, Trevor can't fucking read, or Alucard is triggered by the word "the"? I came away with zero new trivia factoids about Richter, Maria, and Annette.
#castlevania#castlevania nocturne#castlevania netflix#nocturne spoiler-free#richter belmont#maria renard#annette#mizrak#olrox#edouard
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Viddying the Nasties | Anthropophagus (D'Amato, 1980)
I decided to revisit this upon learning of Tisa Farrow's passing. Farrow gets some cute moments with her male co-stars and makes for a pretty appealing lead, so despite some of the horrible things that happen, this is a nice movie to remember her by. While these classic Italian splatter movies aren't necessarily known to be actors' showcases, you watch enough of them, and see the same actors pop up time and time again, and in a way they become your friends. So along with Farrow, it was nice to spend some time again with some other familiar faces.
Like Zora Kerova as an erratic psychic, although her inability to predict anything specific brings to mind a piece of wisdom from the great Jean-Claude Van Damme: “If you phone a psychic and she doesn't answer the phone before it rings, hang up.” And Serena Grandi, who has nothing to do but be very pregnant, although as pregnant performances in genre movies go, she ranks below Tisa's sister Mia in Rosemary's Baby and Chen Ping in The Vengeful Beauty, who would wince and hold her belly in between fight scenes. But out of the protagonists, I think the best used is Margaret Mazzantini, who is great at looking sc-sc-scared!!! with her appealingly wide eyes anytime she senses the monster is near from the scent of blood. Although when we first meet her, she leaps out a-stabbin' from a barrel full of blood, which I would assume would dull her senses somewhat. This is right after a cute little cat leaps onto a piano.
And most importantly, there's George Eastman as the titular monster. Like seemingly many of his movies, he plays a disgusting freak, but this time it's not just in the contents of his heart, he looks like one too. When I first saw this, I hadn't seen any of his other movies previously, so I kind of assumed that this is what he'd actually looked like. I mean, not the awful complexion, I knew that was makeup. But I definitely assumed he had the same hairline. Luckily there are family photos and a flashback that along with creating and then dispelling the central mystery, hold some educational value for those similarly unfamiliar with Eastman outside of this one movie. When I first watched this, I remember finding the initial reveal, which comes about halfway into the movie, a little lame. I'm not gonna pretend that's not still the case, but I do appreciate that Joe D'Amato quickly realizes his mistake and tries to correct for it by pushing Eastman back into the shadows, and during such scenes, I can appreciate this would have played great on a murky VHS in which you could barely make him out as he skulks around, a-stabbin' and a-bitin' and doing all the other horrible things he does. But for the rest of the movie, I can appreciate how well this plays in the relatively pristine forms it's now easily available in, as D'Amato strengths as a cinematographer are readily evident.
I was pleasantly surprised during my initial viewing how low key this was, and appreciated its commitment to building suspense by withholding the gore gags. Like I said, you don't even get to see the monster until halfway into the movie, and the scenes the movie is best known for, two outrageously gnarly scenes of violence, come within the last third or so. I can understand why those expecting a nonstop gorefest might be disappointed, but I like the way this movie almost lulls you to sleep with its pleasant scenery, the blindingly white beaches and buildings of the coastal village during the day, the darkened corridors and catacombs lit only by candles or torches. (Anyone like me who likes creepy corridor scenes will get a kick out of this.) The vacation vibes here are strong. Never mind the heavy breathing during the shots where the characters may or may not be getting spied on from a distance. What could go wrong?
And when you've dozed off, BAM! He hits you with a horrific gore scene. Within the first few minutes, we get some underwater bloodletting and some classic D'Amato face trauma. And of course there are those two all-timer scenes I mentioned, one unbelievably mean-spirited gag where Eastman, uh, gets the munchies for a California cheeseburger (D'Amato used a skinned rabbit covered in blood), and an equally outrageous final scene where Eastman get the munchies for, uh, himself. There's even some comic relief in the form of Eastman rolling off a rooftop after getting hit in the leg with a pickaxe like in a slapstick comedy. Is it intentional? Who cares?
As I'm gotten somewhat better versed in D'Amato's work, this now gives me some of the same queasy vibes as his Caribbean porno horrors, but is probably a more palatable watch. One, you don't get the same nauseating sense of heat and exhaustion as the vacation buildup is at least pleasant on the surface. Two, without the hardcore scenes, this runs at a more digestible hour and a half instead of the brutal two hour runtime of some of those. Three, without the hardcore scenes, you don't have to experience the raw, unmitigated horror of Mark Shannon's suspiciously textured balls in closeup. The only thing warty here is Eastman's monster makeup. Which I guess makes it a comparatively less scary movie. But otherwise it's a more enjoyable one.
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17, 27 and 35 for protectshipping?
I know you told me not to worry about taking too long to answer but GAAAAH I'm sorry 😖+😂 They were just really good questions.
OTP Relationship Asks
17. Who fell in love first?
Well, if we're talking about who *really* fell in love first, probably Ryo, but Tristan had a definite "oh, no, he's cute!" moment when he saw him for the first time. Based on the way he acts towards Miho and Serenity, I feel like he tends to idealise his crushes until he gets to know them better (bonus Carryshipping: Joey was the only exception, which is why it took him (Tristan) so long to work it out), so he was just standing there, letting his friends do the talking while he tried really hard not to stare at this fluffy-haired angel, and envying Joey for being able to talk to him so easily. (I was worried I was contradicting canon with this (not that it matters), but I had a look at my copy of vol.2 and not only does Tristan not say a single word to Ryo in that chapter, he's only in two panels! There is no proof that this didn't happen! XD)
The Monster World game was... an Experience for him, but it did help with that a bit - no time to feel awkward when there's an evil spinach spirit around! What really broke the ice, though, was when Ryo insisted, repeatedly, that the heckin' big hole in his hand wasn't a problem, really, no, he can't move his fingers, but it's fine, which finally showed Tristan that he was just a person - a brave, beautiful person, but still just a person with flaws (namely, being frustratingly stubborn), so there was nothing to worry about.
After Duelist Kingdom, Tristan made a point of checking on Ryo every so often, and while Ryo wasn't entirely sure how he felt about this at first (he didn't want to inconvenience Tristan - or worse, put him in danger), he came to appreciate it. Once the Ring wasn't a problem anymore, they grew even closer and started hanging out together one on one more often, and one evening (or maybe night, the idea hasn't finished loading yet) they were walking home from somewhere and there was a Moment... which made Ryo realise how he felt, and confused Tristan for another month. 🤣
27. What random everyday object/activity makes them think of each other?
Every time Ryo brushes his hair in the morning, he thinks of that concentrated look Tristan gets on his face as he styles his, and it always makes him smile a little bit.
And for Tristan? Well, it's not exactly an object, but the smell of tea reminds him of Ryo.
35. What movies do they enjoy watching most?
argh I haven't seen enough movies-
Fantasy (I know, predictable), adventure, some horror. Tristan's picks tend to be more on the action-y side, and in the case of the horror movies, the characters have a bit more sense (he can get *pretty* frustrated otherwise, 😂). And I know he secretly likes cheesy romantic movies too - these aren't necessarily Ryo's thing, but he's not the kind of cornflake who'd make fun of someone's interests, so Tristan doesn't feel embarrassed watching them with him.
Thanks for asking! 😁
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Everything Actiblizz Owns and What's Happening With It
Hey all.
So a big topic of discussion last year, especially near the last fourth of the year, was the fact that Microsoft had successfully acquired Activision Blizzard for around $69 Billion dollars.
Despite what the number might suggest, this is most certainly not nice. Acti-Blizz was far from a perfect, or even good, company, but a single company consolidating power is never a positive.
However, beyond the horrifying, monopolistic implications this could have down the road, this did get me thinking… Activision-Blizzard has been around for a very long time, in multiple incarnations, and they own a lot of different IPs. So I thought it might be a good idea to go over what they own, or rather what Microsoft now owns, and what's actually been done with these series and IPs recently, if anything. Because Activision-Blizzard owns a lot of stuff, but they don't necessarily do a lot with them, as seems to be the case with a lot of larger game publishers who have chewed up and spat out smaller studios.
I'm going to do my best to cover all of what Acti-Blizz owns, but I don't think this list is going to be entirely comprehensive, because beyond the big names that everyone knows about, companies this big often have nebulous piles of acquired IPs that they just quietly sit on and do nothing with, content in the fact that no one else is making money off of them, even when they're just rotting there in solitude. So if you see any sort of omissions that you think might below to Acti-Blizz, or any big, glaring ommissions, please let me know, because I'd love to know what sort of stuff a company this large, and with this long a history, is just letting waste away in their copyright office. I'm well aware of how prolific the company was during the early days of gaming for things like Atari 2600 and DOS computers, but I wasn't sure if I should include them or not, and because of their sheer volume, I decided not to for now.
Also, while many of my personal thoughts in this moment are pretty negative, I would in no way be disappointed to be proven wrong on my personal predictions here, many of which are a bit sour. But hey, the gaming industry itself has been souring on me for a good long while. I love games, I love the people who make them, I just hate the companies that run things.
So, let's get started:
Caesar
First Game: Caesar, 1992 (Developed by Impressions Games and Originally Published by Sierra Online)
Latest Game: Caesar IV, 2006 (Developed by Tilted Mill Entertainment, Originally Published by Sierra Online)
Personal Thoughts: Historical RTS games don't feel like they're very prevalent anymore, do they? I don't know how well this series did because, to be honest, I had never heard of it before. I'm assuming it did decently well, as a sequel cropped up every now and then, but consideirng that the last game in the series was released not long before Vivendi Games, who owned Sierra at the time, got gobbled up by Activision, I'm guessing this is an IP that got lost in the shuffle. Always there, just buried deep in the vault with a majority of the rest of Sierra's back catalogue.
Personal Hopes: We aren't exactly hurting for good RTS series nowadays. Civilization, Anno, Age of Empires, Northgard, Supremem Commander, Starcraft 2, Driftlands, Tropico, we're not hurting for good strategy. While I could potentially see this coming back considering that Microsoft pushes games just as heavily on the PC as they do on console, They'd be wading into a pretty crowded market, and Caesar isn't a name that resonates very strongly nowadays. I doubt a lot of the wider gaming market that Microsoft often targets would even know that it's based on a pre-existing series of games at first glance.
Call of Duty
First Game: Call of Duty, 2003 (Developed by Infinity Ward)
Latest Game: Call of Duty: Modern Warfae III, 2023 (Developed by Sledgehammer Games)
Personal Thoughts: I've never played a single game in the series. It is interesting to me as an outsider how it continues to be one of the highest selling series for the company when anyone I ask about it says that the series hasn't been good in years now. Not in any danger of having production ended, but eventually I do think it's going to become a console exclusive. I don't believe a word of what Phil Spencer says when he says they want to keep putting the games out on rival consoles. It might not happen right away, but I'm pretty sure it will happen eventually, even if they have to make a whole new series to justify it.
Personal Hopes: I have no interest in the series myself, but I do hope that those who play the series get some games down the line from here on out that they can say are genuinely good, rather than people buying it out of obligation and just thinking the game is mediocre.
Candy Crush
First Game: Candy Crush Saga, 2012 (Developed and Originally Published by King Games)
Latest Game: I… THINK this is the only game in this series? Correct me if I'm wrong, but despite how big it is, I think Candy Crush might be standing alone.
Personal Thoughts: What do you want me to say? It's Candy Crush. It basically came pre-installed with Windows for a while. It's one of those things where it's been around for so long and is apparently super popular, and yet I cannot think of anything good anyone has said about it. It's not even that unique of a concept. Match-Three games are so synonymous with mobile games now that there's an absolute deluge of them whenever you look around any app store. Heck, I don't think it's the only candy-based match-three game anymore. And of course, like every game made by King, it's designed to be predatory and push you towards microtransactions for helpful little tools you can use to get past those super hard puzzles that are holding you up, so it's already there on my shit-list.
Personal Hopes: It's Candy Crush. It's going to be fine, so long as it's still making money. If I have any hopes for this at all, I hope it just goes away, along with most of its micro-transaction pushing ilk.
Crash Bandicoot
First Game: Crash Bandicoot, 1996 (Developed by Naughty Dog, originally published by Sony Computer Entertainment)
Latest Game: Crash Team Rumble, 2023 (Developed by Toys for Bob)
Personal Thoughts: They had such a good setup for a comback with this one. Activision gobbles up Vivendi, who gobbled up Sierra Entertainment, who had the rights for Crash at the time, they did nothing with the IP for years, then bring it back with the N.Sane Trilogy, a very warmly remake of the first three games. Follow that up with a remake of the equally as beloved Crash Team Racing (subtitled Nitro Fueled), and then they release a long awaited original continuation with Crash 4: It's About Time. And then what? They turn Toys for bob and Vicarious Visions, the studios responsible for this excellent resurgence for the character, into support studios for CoD, release a maligned endless-runner mobile game that barely lasts two years, and take a scrapped multiplayer mode for Crash 4 and turn it into an online only MOBA game. They've squeezed the blood from this stone and they're happy to just put it back into the vault until they need another big of nostalgic goodwill. And I don't think that's going to change now that Microsoft owns the IP either. Microsoft has a few kid-friendly, or cartoonish IPs and they aren't chomping at the bit to do anything with them because those games don't appeal to their primary base. I just don't see this series continuing in any meaningful way under Microsoft's stewardship. It is still early days, though. Crash 4 was only a couple years ago, and despite a rather small player base, Crash Team Rumble is still active and getting updates, so there is a chance that we might see something more substantial in the near future.
Personal Hopes: Well after all that belly aching and my pessimistic outlook, my own home is that if they do continue using Crash and friends, I want to see more like Crash 4 in the future. Maybe do away with the more egregious 100% requirements and just focus on making a fun, straightforward platformer. Make it a smaller, more budget conscious project, something that doesn't mess with the formula laid down by 4 too much rather than trying to make it a big spectacle. And if they decide to remake other games in the series down the line, I would love to see a more complete version of Twinsanity, a version of that game with some of the cut content reintroduced would be real interesting I think.
Diablo
First Game: Diablo, 1997 (Devloped by Blizzard North, PS1 Version by Climax Studios)
Latest Game: Diablo IV, 2023 (Developed by Blizzard Team 3, Blizzard Albany)
Personal Thoughts: Hoo boy. If ever there was an example of a game company's shift in ideology. I have not played the most recent game. My experience mostly comes from the first two games, which were great dungeon crawlers. Never tried the third, or the remaster of 2, and let's be honest, Diablo has not been in the best place as of late. A horribly received mobile game in Immortal was released, which was hideously grindy, and then IV comes out and is just littered in microtransactions, like a disgusting amount. No matter how good the game itself, and I have heard folks saying that the game itself is a fun enough dungeon crawler, you just can't excuse how much is being charged for cosmetics in this game. It's terrible. The game also has battle passes and has an expansion coming out some time this year, so I'm going to watch this one carefully to see how its monetization pans out as it continues to be updated.
Personal Hopes: Look, the game sold really well, and it's apparently great for yanking more money out of people's wallet. I just want to see a diablo free of these nasty monetization practices, but considering that this is becoming part and parcel for a lot of Acti-Blizz's games, I don't see that happening, and I don't think Microsoft has any incentive to stop this sort of practice considering that now, they get a slice of that pie. And if the game can continue to be expanded with more expansions and battle passes and such, I highly doubt we'll be seeing another new Diablo of any form, in quite a while. So for this one? I don't have a lot of high hopes at all.
Empire Earth
First Game: Empire Earth, 2001 (Developed by Stainless Steel Studios and Originally Published by Sierra Online)
Latest Game: Empire Earth III, 2007 (Developed by Mad Doc Software and Originally Published by Sierra Online)
Personal Thoughts: Didn't take us long to run into another historical RTS series. This one had about just as much staying power as Ceasar, and in fact, most of the games in the series came out in the time between the third and last game in the ceasar series.
Personal Hopes: Most of my thoughts and hopes are pretty similar to Caesar. It's more similar to Age of Empires rather than focusing on a single civilization, but other than that, I feel like it's in the same boat as Caesar.
Gabriel Knight
First Game: Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, 1993 (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra On-Line)
Latest Game: Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers 20th Anniversary Edition, 2014 (Developed by Pinkerton Road Studio, Originally Published by Phoenix Online Publishing)
Personal Thoughts: Ah, our first example of an IP that Activision has acquired and has owned for a good long while now (around 10 years) and has done nothing with it. They've had this IP, a classic point and click series from Sierra, for a decade and I'm willing to bed most folks at the company don't even realize that they have it. Now granted, point and click games aren't exactly flying off the shelves, but adventure games in general have been making comebacks in recent years. We had that King's Quest game that was released piecemeal a while ago, and I think that Gabriel Knight could work in that sort of style if someone wanted to take a crack at it. But let's be honest, this is a series that doesn't have near the reach, fanbase, or history that its contemporaries at Sierra had. It's not a King's Quest, it's not a Leisure Suit Larry, it's not a Quest For Glory, and don't get me wrong, that doesn't make this game any less important than those titles, but it's not a series that has the same draw strength as any of those names, which makes Activision taking a chance on revitalizing this series, even with, say, an N.Sane style remake of the first three games, very unlikely. And despite the original creator, Jane Jenson, stating that she's interested in making a fourth game, she admits that the legal tangle with Activision-Blizzard makes that very unlikely. Doubly so now that Microsoft owns Activision-Blizzard, who ate Vivendi, who ate Sierra.
Personal Hopes: I just want a new game to come out. Again, it doesn't have to even be a lavish production. A small digital-only point and click would be great. Or some remakes of the first three games. Get it out where more folks can see it, already! And this is coming from someone who is garbage at Adventure games. I just want to see what a more modern take on this series and genre could be like.
Geometry Wars
First Game: Geometry Wars, 2003 (Developed by Bizarre Creations, originally published by Bizarre Creations)
Latest Game: Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved, 2016 (Developed by Lucid Games)
Personal Thoughts: I'm honestly surprised that we haven't seen more from this series over the years. You'd think that occasionally dropping a small, arcade-style experience like this would be an assured means of making something comparatively quick and easy compared to the constant deluge of AAA ‘blockbusters’ splurging forth from Activision's maw. Yet the series has been dormant since 2016, since basically every massive game studio only knows how to make massive games now. They don't want to make smaller, more digestible experiences, because those aren't the most profitable or something like that.
Personal Hopes: Considering that this game was originally a Microsoft-made series, a darling of the Xbox Live Arcade, I do think that we're going to see this series come back in some way shape or form. The question is going to be whether or not it's going to be more worth it compared to the indie space, where we've seen plenty of 2D twin stick shooters come out over the years, quite a few of them having a look or feel pretty close to what Geometry wars is. Still, I'd like to see another entry in this series, even if just a little bonus game you can play over on Game Pass or something.
Guitar Hero/DJ Hero
First Game: Guitar Hero, 2005 (Developed by Harmonix, Originally Published by RedOctane)
Latest Game: Guitar Hero Live, 2015 (Developed by Freestyle Games)
Personal Thoughts: All right, this one, I get why it isn't around anymore. Guitar Hero was THE rhythm game series to have back in the 2000's, what with its awesome controller and having a rhythm game based around classic and contemporary rock songs, rather than the typical pop, dance, or house music you saw in series like DDR… and also whatever Donkey Konga was trying to do. But between Guitar Hero, its attempted sister series DJ Hero, and its future rival Rock Band, the genre quickly became very oversaturated, the popular bands were mined clean, and we were drowning in a sea of plastic peripherals. No one is really eager to see this series return, and I don't see how you could easily bring it back. No one wants to have to buy a bunch of peripherals to have an optimal experience anymore, and while you can technically play the games with an ordinary controller if you really want to, the whole draw of the games was being able to feel like you were actually playing something resembling a guitar.
Personal Hopes: None here. Guitar Hero had its time in the sun, it was a fun fad, but I think that's all it was. We have plenty of other rhythm games to play now and the genre has been expanding out into other mixed genres as well. We have rhythm beat-em-ups like No Straight Roads and Hi-Fi Rush, or rhythm FPS games like Bullets Per Minute. And traditional rhythm games are doing well enough too with things like the Theaterythm series from Final Fantasy, or independent and free games that are still decently big and infinitely more customizable like OSU! and Stepmania. And then there are the funny weird ones like Trombone Champ, which lets you experience playing an instrument (badly) without the need for an extra set of plastic in your home. If they could find a way to make the experience still feel engaging without the need of peripherals, maybe there's a chance of it coming back, but I don't have high hopes for this one, even under new management.
Gun
First Game: Gun, 2005 (Developed by Neversoft)
Latest Game: Uh… there's only one game in this IP
Personal Thoughts: I'm kind of surprised with this one. This is an Activision Original, they've had it since before they merged with Blizzard, and during its hayday, it was pretty warmly received, basically got ported to every sku possible at the time, and it's even still available on steam right now. It's certainly a bit on the clunky side, and twenty bucks feels like a lot to be asking for an old PS2 era game… but that's also sidestepping the fact that it also does not have the best portrayal of Native Americans, to the point that it was boycotted by the Association for American Indian Development for the stereotypes portrayed in the game. It's a game that, even in its most recent re-release, still has that problematic element, that was still problematic when the game was released. So yeah, I'm surprised that we haven't seen other games using this IP… but I am surprised that the game is still up for sale in a time where such problematic content is more uncomfortable than ever.
Personal Hopes: I mean, the game might have legs for the future, but you'd have to definitely revamp that image a bit. Go back and start from scratch, with a more sensitive perspective in mind, and maybe there might be some legs to this, but I doubt anything more will be done with this IP. Big publishers don't strike me as really wanting to put the work in to address the insensitive nature of some of the things that were made in the past in hopes of giving such an old IP legs again.
Hearthstone
First Game: Hearthstone, 2014 )Developed and Originally Published by Blizzard Entertainment)
Latest Game: Same as above, it's an IP with one game to its name… unless you consider it part of the greater Warcraft ecosystem
Personal Thoughts: Hearthstone is one of those games that I remember thinking was real interesting when I first heard of it, but even after trying it, it didn't grab me. It's longevity at this point is a very good indicator of just how ingrained it is to its players, even if at this point it is nowhere near as large as it once was, at least from the outside looking in.
Personal Hopes: This one's gonna be fine. It's still around, even if it is more in the background nowadays. I don't see a lot of big Hearthstone news circulating is all I'm saying, but the fact that it's still around suggests that it's still profitable enough to keep going and I don't see Microsoft changing that. The reason it's never gotten another game or a sequel or anything is because it's never needed one, and I don't see that changing now. Unless of course, Blizzard decides to apply their current philosophy on Overwatch to this game. We might see some issues then…
Heroes of the Storm
First Game: Heroes of the Storm, 2015 (Developed and Originally Published by Blizzard Entertainment)
Latest Game: Yet again, one game here
Personal Thoughts: The game is basically dead at this point, as Blizzard ended development on it and put it into maintenance mode halfway through 2022. Near as I can tell, the game can still be played for now, but a game entering into maintenance mode is never a good sign. I admit, it had a better run than most live service, battle royale, and MOBA games nowadays have. It managed to make it for a full seven years, and most live service games WISH they could last for the better half of a decade at this point. But it was a game that was entering into an over-saturated market, even at the time, and it just didn't have the same sort of draw power that other big crossovers had. At least in my opinion.
Personal Hopes: The idea does have legs. I say that as someone who absolutely loves big, dumb crossover games. I love seeing a bunch of characters from different universes clash together, no matter how little sense it made. Even so though, if this IP wants to have any legs underneath it, I think it should reconsider its status as a MOBA, which at this point is a notoriously hard genre to break into, and maybe, now that they have Microsoft as a parent company, consider throwing in characters from the big M, or the other companies that Microsoft owns. I mean, I'd play a MOBA where I could play as the Doom Slayer, that's for sure. Probably won't happen and I doubt anyone's chomping at the bit to try and revitalize the storm, but the option is always there, and I would love to see another crack at a large-scale crossover.
Heavy Gear
First Game: Heavy Gear, 1997 (Developed and Published by Activision)
Latest Game: Heavy Gear II, 1999 (Developed and Published by Activision)
Personal Thoughts: Did you know that Activision made a pair of really cool mech games based off an old sci-fi tabletop RPG? I sure didn't! And hey, it's once again an activision original, so it's something that's been with them for a good, long while! However, this one is a bit more straightforward, I think. Since the games are based on a pre-existing, cross-media universe held by Dream Pod 9. So the games were only one piece of a much larger universe, including a tactical war game, an RPG, and even a card game. So it's pretty obvious why this one isn't showing up anymore, the rights are probably in flux, probably not helped by the fact that the second game sold like… horribly compared with the first.
Personal Hopes: I don't think we'll be seeing a Heavy Gear game again, even if Activsion still technically holds the publishing rights to video game adaptations. They'd probably have to renegotiate a licensing agreement with the original publisher, and while they're still around, I think their stuff has become a lot more niche than it used to be. Activision isn't the same company that they were back in the 90's, so doing something this niche just isn't seen as something in their wheelhouse anymore, which is a shame. We need more fun mech games out there, and Microsoft has had some success with their own sci-fi games before. But this particular universe? Yeah, I don't see it coming back in today's climate. It's a shame, but this one seems like it would be more of a licensing issue than anyone's willing to go through.
Interstate '76
First Game: Interstate `76, 1997 (Developed and Originally Published by Activision)
Latest Game: Yet another single-game IP
Personal Thoughts: You know, I'm not sure why this one didn't take off. It was a Windows only game in the late 90's, so while it didn't have a massive audience, vehicular combat games did tend to be pretty popular around this time. This was two years after the oriignal Twisted Metal, and the same year as Carmaggeddon after all.
Personal Hopes: Vehicular combat games are kind of a rare breed nowadays. Not entirely unheard of, but not something that shows up very often. It'd be a good time, especially considering that there isn't a huge amount of competition kicking around anymore. Not much else to say on this one, I just think a modern vehicle battle game would be nice.
King's Quest
First Game: King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown, 1984 (Developed and originally published by Sierra On-Line)
Latest Game: King's Quest, 2015 (Developed by The Odd Gentlemen)
Personal Thoughts: I love the old King's Quest games. While the Moon logic needed in order to get through some of the puzzles could grate on the nerves now and then, it's another quintessential adventure series, and the episodic return of the series in 2015 was a fantastic way, I felt, to modernize the old flavor of adventure games. It's both important to the history of the medium and still a beloved example of early adventure games. The fact that it's been so quiet is odd to me, especially with how well the revival went over.
Personal Hopes: The remake didn't see any great big revival for the series going forward, but I do think it was a step in the right direction. King's Quest is probably one of, if not the most well known of Sierra's old adventure game catalogue, and if the Odd Gentleman reimagining is any indication, there are still a lot of interesting stories that could be told in this world and with these characters, or with new characters here and there. The question is, though, Is Microsoft going to indulge more in the colorful, cartoonish games of this sort? I doubt it, but hey, if they gave Battletoads another shot, if only for a single game, if they let the right creative team handle this one, I think an occasional episodic adventure in the kingdom of Daventry wouldn't be too bad.
Laura Bow Mysteries
First Game: The Colonel's Bequest, 1989 (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra Online)
Latest Game: The Dagger of Amon Ra, 1992 (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra Online)
Personal Thoughts: Only two games in this series, and this is one of those IP that I would probably call a ‘deep cut.’ It's something that is beloved by those who have experienced it, but that group is fairly small, and the series itself was pretty short lived compared to other Sierra series of the same era, whcih would often get five to six games. I feel like this was one that was hanging out in the background long before Activision acquired Sierra's back catalog.
Personal Hopes: We're probably never going to see this one again. Like I said, there are folks out there who remember these two games very fondly, but in terms of an IP that would be likely to be revived by a major gaming conglomerate? Hate to be blunt, but no, this one is just going to be shoved to the bottom of the pile and they're not going to touch it again. Thankfully, both of the original games are available over on GoG, so who knows, maybe if there's enough interest shown over there, that might change. As it is now though, I just don't think we'll be seeing Ms. Bow or her adventures again any time soon.
The Lost Vikings
First Game: The Lost Vikings, 1993 (Developed by Silicon & Synapse and Originally Published by Interplay Productions)
Latest Game: The Lost Vikings 2, 1997 (Developed by Blizzard Entertainment and Originally Published by Interplay Productions)
Personal Thoughts: If anyone knows anything about Blizzard's early days, before the Warcrafts and Starcrafts and such, back when they were called Silicon and Synapse, they probably at least know the name of the Lost Vikings, one of the first puzzle platformers I ever played growing up. I never got very far into it when I was a wee lad, but damn was it fun. And while I knew it had a sequel, I was kind of surprised that we didn't see more of it later down the line. But nope, two games is all we get, and while this series has cropped back up in recent years, thrown into the Blizzard Arcade Collection… which is digital only and feels like it only exists to sort of remind people of some really obscure IP that Blizzard owns? It's strange.
Personal Hopes: This is one that I really hope would be coming back at one point or another. While multi-character puzzle games aren't really unique nowadays. Things like a Tale of Two Brothers, Toodee and Topdee, and of course multiplayer experiences in the same vein like It Takes Two, but I don't feel like it's a particularly oversaturated genre, and LV's take on it with three different characters, or even more given the other characters introduced in the second game, might even make it stick out. I think this is something that could have legs in the future, so I think it's something that could come back, though again, I don't see it being a very high profile production if it does return.
Overwatch
First Game: Overwatch, 2016 (Developed and Published by Blizzard Entertainment)
Latest Game: Overwatch 2, 2022 (Developed and Published by Blizzard Entertainment)
Personal Thoughts: I don't think I'll be adding much to the conversation on this one. I'm aware that Overwatch still has its fans, but from the perspective of someone who has watched Blizzard and Activision slowly piss away all of the good will and good press that the game got upon launch, I feel comfortable in saying that this is the first time I've ever watched someone take a diamond and just grind it into dust in front of my eyes. I don't think it's necessarily going anywhere for right now, but it just feels like Blizzard has been slowly removing all of the personality out of this game and this franchise. It bothers me because when the game first launch, it really felt like it set itself apart, and pretty much all of the characters were, at least from an aesthetic and personality point of view, interesting and unique. I can't comment on how the gameplay has changed since then since I never played the game, I'll leave that to someone who knows what they're talking about, but purely from the standpoint of how the game's image has been handled, even disregarding the company's overall behavior (and you really shouldn't disregard Blizzard's overall behavior), man did they screw this one up royal.
Personal Hopes: I'm begging you, just do something with a more coherent storyline. Make a more traditional shooter. Give folks what you initially promised for the sequel's story mode as something like a standalone game or something like that. These designs are too good to just waste away in a hero shooter that I've only heard people describe as aggressively mid since the sequel came out.
Phantasmagoria
First Game: Phantasmagoria, 1995 (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra Online)
Latest Game: Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra Online)
Personal Thoughts: I know that a lot of older media tends to not age particularly well as our understanding of certain social stigmas and the history of other peoples in relation to ourselves comes to light as time marches on, but I thing Phantasmagoria and its sequel are two excellent examples of just how poorly a game's content can age. These FMV games were both made with the purposes of rocking the boat, being very dark and touching on subject matter that games nowadays really don't want to touch upon, especially from major AAA publishers. I haven't played these games in years now, well before I developed any sense of social grace for myself, which probably means I was too young to have been playing them in the first place, so I can't say just how poorly they've aged, but I do know that i think back to my own experience with the games and it makes me shudder a little bit.
Personal Hopes: It's an FMV game series from the 90's that does have some merit to the history of the genre, if only for the risks it took in its subject matter, but the fact that it hasn't aged well, FMV games are seen more as memetic throwbacks nowadays, and the fact that the subject matter the games were famous for probably wouldn't fly today. Horror games in their many different iterations are seeing a big resurgence in popularity and while games nowadays can push the envelope at least a bit in terms of their content, I don't think invoking an actually controversial PC game from the 90's would be something they'd want to do.
Pitfall
First Game: Pitfall!, 1982 (Developed and Published by Activision)
Latest Game: Pitfall! 2012 (Developed by The Blast Furnace)
Personal Thoughts: I had no idea this series… was actually a series. Pitfall to me has always just been one game, the original Atari game that helped to codify the platforming genre, but no, there were several games released, all the way up to the PS2 era, and then it just sort of drifted off into history, with the last game using the IP that I can find being an endless runner from 2012.
Personal Hopes: Again, I don't see this coming back in any sort of big way. While the endless runner is no longer available, the original Atari Pitfall is available on Android at least, but pitfall could maybe make a comeback as a Tomb Raider or Uncharted style game, but we already have Tomb Raider and Uncharted for that and Pitfall has more of a historical legacy than a big brand identity, so not much hope there.
Police Quest
First Game: Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel, 1987 (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra Online)
Latest Game: SWAT Elite Troops, 2008 (Developed by Rovio Mobile, Originally Published by Vivendi Games Mobile)
Personal Thoughts: One of Sierra's classic adventure series that wasn't meant to be more on the comedic or fanciful side of things, Police Quest was well known for being a proper police procedural game; if you didn't follow the rules and proper protocol, you could end up bricking your game for something as simple as not showing your badge before you started questioning a suspect. It was wild, and a hell of a lot more involved than it ever had to be. I applaud the older games for their wish to stay as accurate as possible to the idea of being a cop, but I do feel that it makes the series kind of impenetrable to anyone who didn't grow up with it.
Personal Hopes: I don't think that this series would come back in any form mostly because the series is pure copaganda. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of that in video games and in media in general. Video games in particular have a real problem with fetishizing how awesome the American military is, for example. Now, if they brought it back and gave the series a seedier bent, I think it would be more interesting, maybe something more along the lines of This is The Police. However, I don't see it coming back in its original incarnation. I don't think stories where cops are portrayed as the out and out good guys resonate with a lot of folks of my generation and below, and while we do have examples of games where being organized and filing paperwork can be enjoyable (Papers Please, and Death and Taxes come to mind), I don't think a police procedural where missing even a single step in a lengthy process could kill a run hours beforehand is what folks are really looking for these days.
Prototype
First Game: Prototype, 2009 (Developed by Radical Entertainment)
Latest Game: Prototype 2, 2012 (Developed by Radical Entertainment)
Personal Thoughts: Edgy generic duology all about binary good and evil choices as well as some really well done animations and transformations and powers that you can attain as the game goes on, along with a free-roaming map hiding a bunch of secrets. There was an explosion of stuff like this at around the same time when the first game came out. The same year we had Assassin's Creed 2 and the original Infamous, so it simultaneously came out at the perfect time for a game of its type, and yet at the same time, I feel like it was always just sort of in the background and never really did much to stick out. I actually remember thinking for the longest time that this game was coming out of Ubisoft for some reason.
Personal Hopes: The second game, which came out 3 years after the first, apparently underperformed so badly that it was used as the justification to lay off a lot of the people at Radical, and turn it into an assistant studio for their large projects, primarily COD. It's one of those series that I see as a creation of its time, and I can see Microsoft showing some interest in the property given Xbox's perceived base. It's a shame that Radical Design wouldn't get another crack at it, since they're probably busy helping others with their own projects, and while I don't see it happening any time soon, I do think that this might be something that could see some sort of revival under a new regime. Maybe.
Quest for Glory
First Game: Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero, 1989 (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra Online)
Latest Game: Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire, 1998 (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra Online)
Personal Thoughts: This is the other big-name adventure series from Sierra, right up there with King's Quest, and while it didn't run quite as long, it has quite a big legacy, and is just as famous for it's many, many quirky death scenes, much like King's Quest, but often with a more personal bent to it with the ability to choose your class and customize your main character a little bit, with stats that can actually effect how you have to approach some of the puzzles, many of which have multiple ways of solving them to account for your stats, but it also allows for a certain level of creativity on the part of the player.
Personal Hopes: I do hope we see another one of these games in the future. We're inundated with a lot of games that have binary choices that affect the game superficially, but what I would love to see would be an adventure game more along what they did with the King's Quest revival, which did something similar, giving players multiple ways to complete a task depending on what sort of virtue you were going for. I think there's more fun to be had here, and while it's been a while since the King's Quest revamp, I think this would be a logical follow-up.
Singularity
First Game: Singularity, 2010 (Developed by Raven Software)
Latest Game: Yep, one game again. One could say that this particular IP is very… Singular?… where'd everyone go?
Personal Thoughts: It's a shooter for the PS3, during that horrid time where the brown and beige shooter kind of ruled the world, where because they could do pretty realistic, for the time, graphics, well, the real world isn't super colorful, so let's make our future-war, realistic world really boring to look at. Singularity, while its looks didn't really set it apart from a lot of the other military shooters that were out at the time, but it does at least have some mechanics that set it apart, with a sci-fi/horror bent to it that seems the main character hopping back and forth through different points in time. But even with that, I kind of see why this one didn't spawn a franchise. It sort of disappeared into the same sea that a lot of other shooters of the time sank into.
Personal Hopes: I think this does have a chance to come back. Shooters are still big business, but we aren't quite drowning in the genre as much as we were back during the PS3 and 360 era. And while we've seen these sorts of time manipulation mechanics before, a fresh start for the series, a shooter that keeps the ability to jump between time and place, that could work. It could be like Bioshock Infinite if the dimension hopping were an actual gameplay element instead of regulated to set pieces or story moments. The odds of it happening are slim, since the IP has languished for 14 years, but hey, there's a spark of an idea there.
Ski Resort Tycoon
First Game: Ski Resort Tycoon, 2000 (Developed by Cat Daddy Games)
Latest Game: Ski Resort Tycoon II, 2000 (Developed by Cat Daddy Games)
Personal Thoughts: The idea behind the Tycoon game has kind of fallen off in recent years. The idea of owning and operating a very specific business as sort of a faceless CEO who makes all the big decisions, fires and hires the people, and makes decisions about how your business operates. There are a ton of these now, from developers of various sizes, and of various levels of quality and seriousness. That is to say nothing of those tycoon games that have their own series in and of themselves. It's a bit of a mess, all things considered.
Personal Hopes: There are. So many. Tycoon games. Don't believe me? Go on steam and just search Tycoon and take a look at how many games pop up, and what sort of themes and businesses and ideas they use. Then think about something as basic as Ski Resort Tycoon being brought back. I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but even with the backing of major names like Activision or Microsoft, I don't see it doing much, especially not when there are just… SO MANY alternatives to something like this, and I don't know if a Ski Resort sim would be able to stand up against them in terms of interest. Maybe something niche, but ‘niche’ is a bit of a dirty word in the AAA game industry.
Skylanders
First Game: Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, 2011 (Developed by Toys for Bob)
Latest Game: Skylanders: Ring of Heroes, 2018 (Developed by Com2Us)
Personal Thoughts: It's kind of hard to believe how hard Toys-to-Life has flopped in the last few years. Wasn't that long ago that it felt like everyone was trying to get in on this grift, and now we're at a point where no one's really doing it anymore beyond Nintendo, and the only real reason it feels like Nintendo's held onto it is because their characters are recognizable enough that people outside of the game sphere are interested in them… and they can be used across a bunch of different games. At least, some of them can. Point is, they aren't locked down to a single game or series the way that something like Disney Infinity or Starlink or Skylanders was. Skylanders was the first big one that I remember coming out, the first one to really sink its teeth into kids, and while the series basically never changed much from just being a series of basic beat-em-ups for children, they were decent enough for what they were, if a little on the slow side. Each new game tried its best to have a new gimmick with the toys to keep giving people a reason to keep investing in more plastic around the house. The problem was there was just too much plastic…
Personal Hopes: As far as games aimed at a younger audience, they weren't terrible, but there were a lot of them in a very short amount of time. From 2011 to 2018, with the exception of one year, there was at least one new Skylanders game a year, and with them, a deluge of new toys to grab. It flooded the market all on its own, even before competition started to appear. This isn't going to come back, at least not in its original form. It lived on as a mobile property for a while, which as much as I hate the mobile market, it does fit right in with. The multitude of characters and heroes makes it a natural fit for the Gacha style of a lot of those sorts of games, but as it originally was? No. It even attempted to branch out into other genres briefly with stuff like the racing game Super Chargers, and from what I recall, that did next to nothing. Skylanders, I think, is done, and Activision doesn't seem in a hurry to try exploiting kids again, at least not on the console market.
Soldier of Fortune
First Game: Soldier of Fortune, 2000 (Developed by Raven Software)
Latest Game: Soldier of Fortune: Payback, 2007 (Developed by Cauldron HQ)
Personal Thoughts: I'm not really sure what to say about this one. I didn't play it at all, though it was a series that started before the PS3 shooter flood, and I understand that it was pretty well liked for the fact that enemies would react differently depending on which area of the body they were shot in. It did well enough to get a couple of sequels, and a very short lived MMO FPS (only released in Korea), but apart from that, was there anything that set it apart from its contemporaries or the contemporaries of its sequels?
Personal Hopes: Again, I haven't played any of the SoF games, so please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but from the outside looking in, I'm not seeing anything that would really set this one apart from the shooters that we have today. And I'm not saying that ‘Call of Duty’ is a title that really stands out in a crowd, but ‘Soldier of Fortune’ feels just as generalized and generic, but without the massive sales numbers to keep itself in the limelight. So I really don't think Microsoft would bother trying to pull this one out of obscurity.
Space Quest
First Game: Space Quest I, 1986 (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra Online)
Latest Game: Space Quest 6, 1995 (Developed and Originally Published by Sierra Online)
Personal Thoughts: This series was to science fiction what King's Quest was to fantasy, though I often feel like it somehow managed to be even more absurd than the series that was based around a fairy tale land where magic bridles could turn snakes into horses and sugar cubes could make you invincible. It was fantastic.
Personal Hopes: I would love to see a revival of the main series of this. And again, I feel like the King's Quest reboot would work for it. However, it should be noted that the original co-creators of this series have, after a long decade of development are allegedly close to releasing Spaceventure, a spiritual successor to the series. as it hasn't released publicly yet, I can't say whether or not it measures up to that moniker, and the fact that it took so long to develop doesn't help matters. While I'm always excited to see developers try and give us a well loved, long absent series successor, but I will always hope to see the series itself make a return as well. There is, in my mind, room for all these games to coexist, even if they only reach a niche audience. It's just a shame that Microsoft and Activision think differently.
Spyro
First Game: Spyro the Dragon, 1998 (Developed by Insomniac Games and Originally Published by Sony Computer Entertainment
Latest Game: Spyro Reignited Trilogy, 2018 (Developed by Toys for Bob)
Personal Thoughts: This one is pretty similiar to the Crash Bandicoot situation. Popular series, goes through a lot of hard times, ends up with Activision, they make a few cursory attempts to cash in, including using his name and likeness to help jumpstart the Skylanders franchise, but otherwise has allowed the series to remain dormant, until Crash Bandicoot's successful revival. A few years later, hey, Spyro gets the same treatment with the Reignited Trilogy, which does ‘well’ according to Activision in its launch window. And now… now he and a few of the other characters from his games are DLC for Crash Team Rumble.
Personal Hopes: This is another one that just makes me made. At least Crash got managed to get one brand new game out of the deal after his revival. Spyro? He got the revival treatment just in time for the studios that helped make it to get turned into CoD assistance studios and now for all we know, the series has once again gone dormant. You had a perfect setup to continue that train of success, and you blew it, ActiBlizz. Fuck you. Microsoft could, maybe do something with the series, like Crash, and I pray that they do, but considering their reluctance to do anything with other beloved kid-friendly characters they've acquired over the years (hello Banjo-Kazooie), all I can do right now is just hope.
Starcraft
First Game: Starcraft, 1998 (Developed and Originally Published by Blizzard Entertainment)
Latest Game: Starcraft: Remastered, 2017 (Developed and Published by Blizzard Entertainment)
Personal Thoughts: The sci-fi equivalent to Warcraft, and still a major beloved series for Blizzard, despite not really getting a truely new game since 2010. Starcraft II received a LOT of expansions from 2013-2016, and then we got a remaster of the original Starcraft the year after, but that's been it. And why would they need anything else new? Starcraft and its sequel is still played really often, it's doing just fine, to the point where Blizzard even did a good back in 2017 and made the original Starcraft (the non-remastered version), the Brood War expansion, and the vanilla version of Starcraft II completely free, if you download and play it from Blizzard's website over on Battle Net. And guess what? As of my writing this sentence, they are still available for free there! That's honestly nice to see.
Personal Hopes: I don't think that we have to worry about Starcraft going anywhere for a good long while, as its popularity as a competitive RTS game keeps legs underneath it, and ActiBlizz's willingness to keep a majority of the game free for people to play at their leisure (so long as they're playing using their proprietary launcher of course) has no doubt done a lot to keep the game fresh in people's consciousness. However, five years have gone by without any sort of new games or even new expansions for the existing games, and I worry that once people start to get tired of what they have (and they will, no game sticks around forever) that there won't be another new game on the horizon for the series. I don't think that's going to happen any time soon, but it is an inevitability that I think should be accounted for. I mean, they could always try to expand it out to other genres… might be a good time to revive Starcraft Ghosts, yeah?
Tenchu (Kinda)
First Game: Tenchu: Stealth Assassins, 1998 (Developed by Acquire)
Latest Game: Tenchu: Shadow Assassins, 2008 (Developed by Acquire)
Personal Thoughts: I wasn't entirely sure if I should add this one because technically speaking, Actiblizz, and therefore Microsoft, don't own the Tenchu IP itself, instead, they only own the games that they publushed before they sold the rights to the IP to FromSoftware in 2004. So while they can't make new games, they do have the rights to a lot of the classic Tenchu library. But I don't think they're doing anything with the games that they actually own.
Personal Hopes: I just hope that they make the games that they have the rights to available to find. Throw them up on game pass or put them together in a collection or something along those lines. I did check all of the digital storefronts I could think of (Steam, Playstation Store, Xbox Game Pass, etc.) and I could not find a single Tenchu game, Activision-owned or otherwise, so at least for now, it seems like the entire series is basically locked to physical. If I'm mistaken there, I do apologize, but I genuinely could not find a legitimate place to purchase any of the games in the series digitally at this point in time.
TimeShift
First Game: TimeShift, 2007 (Developed by Saber Interactive and Originally Published by Vivendi Games)
Latest Game: Single game IP again. Lot more of these than I thought there would be, to be honest.
Personal Thoughts: This was another one that came around during that infamous PS3 and 360 glut of shooters all trying to vye for the top of the shooter stack. Considering that this was the only game in its IP, that didn't work out too well. Whatever information I've managed to find on the game suggest that it really did not have the best development cycle, changing publishers, and being delayed multiple times, eventually just dropping out of the news cycle entirely and missing a lot of hype because of that. And after all of that, the game only really managed to do ‘okay’ which is pretty unexceptional when it comes to AAA gaming.
Personal Hopes: I really don't know what to say here. Like other shooters I've highlighted in this list, I just don't think this will be something that comes back. The idea itself does have some legs, and without having to compete with a glut of other shooters, it might have some legs to stand on, but with Gears of War, Halo, and Call of Duty all under the same roof, TimeShift's chances of getting another roll of the dice doesn't seem very likely.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater
First Game: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, 1999 (Developed by Neversoft)
Latest Game: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2, 2020 (Developed by Vicarious Visions)
Personal Thoughts: The fact that the latest release of this series is also a remaster of the first two games kind of shows how much staying power the original formula has, as the series sort of got bogged down in itself as time went on, relying more and more on outlandish comedy and scenarios, or gimmicks like the plastic board controllers for Ride and Shred, the horrible online for Pro Skater 5, or even just getting off the skateboard and running around the environment in several of the later games. Going back to basics was probably one of the smarter things they could have done with the series, but…
Personal Hopes: Given Activision's track record when it comes to remaking or remastering classic or beloved titles, to much fanfare, and then just not capitalizing on that to reintroduce new entries in the series to a new generation, so while I'd love to see more classic style, smaller skating games. I know that the status of the Tony Hawk license name has been a bit in flux as of late, so a rebrand might potentially be in the works as well. Maybe.
True Crime
First Game: True Crime: Streets of LA, 2003 (Developed by Luxoflux)
Latest Game: True Crime: New York City, 2005 (Developed by Luxoflux)
Personal Thoughts: A duology of open world games where you play as law enforcement in the named city. They're pretty close in gameplay to the GTA games of the time, something that the first game actually got favorable comparison for. First game was mixed in reviews, but did financially well, second game wasn't so lucky. Other than that, the only cool thing I can find about the series is that the cancellation of a proposed third game taking place in Hong Kong led to the creation of Sleeping Dogs over at Square Enix.
Personal Hopes: If the failure of the second game wasn't enough to state that this series probably isn't coming back any time soon, there's the fact that we don't really see a lot of GTA-esque games anymore that aren't GTA. Saint's Row did attempt a comback recently and unfortunately that didn't pan out well. Doesn't seem like there's a huge amount of open world city games anymore. There's also the fact, and I'll admit, I don't know how much this would effect their ability to make a new True Crime game, but apparently Activision basically abandoned the trademark for the series. If that doesn't say that they aren't really interested in this series anymore, I don't know what does.
Ultimate Soccer Manager
First Game: Ultimate Soccer Manager, 1995 (Developed by Impressions Games and Originally Published by Sierra Online)
Latest Game: Ultimate Soccer Manager '98, 1998 (Developed by Impressions Games and Originally Published by Sierra Online)
Personal Thoughts: I have absolutely no interest in sports games at the best of times, unless they have some sort of gimmick or are more arcade in nature. Closest thing to lrea life sports games I play are things like Mutant League Football or Mario Tennis. Even with my bias, I just don't think this will be coming back any time soon. First, this is a pretty niche idea. Sports fans like the fantasy of playing on their favorite team, or being able to put all their favorite players on one team, but it's a very specific group of people who wants to be more a part of the management side of things. Add to it, making sports games nowadays is difficult mostly due to the fact that Electronic Arts still holds a monopoly on most popular sports league licenses, and if you want a game to sell well, you either need to have the backing of an organization within the sport (NBA, NHL, FIFA, ETC), you need a well known character or franchise that can help draw in people who aren't necessarily sports fans (See the Mario sports games), or you have to have a really well executed gimmick that intrigues people to try out the game. As someone who doesn't travel in sports game circles, I unfortunately do not have a good example of this last one. Maybe the Pangya series? Even though that really is just anime golf… still fun though.
Personal Hopes: Even if this were a game that was aimed at me, I really don't think that it will be coming back because it's a topic that's very niche. Playing a sport in a video game has a certain amount of appeal to it that even folks that aren't necessarily fans of the sport can appreciate, but being hit with the management side of the sport, that is, I feel, much more niche, though admittedly it's a niche without a lot of competition. There's Sega Football Manager, but that's about it, and like… maybe you could branch out into other sports? Maybe? How have I put so many words into this particular game?
Warcraft/World of Warcraft
First Game: Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, 1994 (Developed and Published by Blizzard Entertainment)
Latest Game: Warcraft Rumble, 2023 (Developed and Published by Blizzard Entertainment)
Personal Thoughts: You all know what Warcraft is, I hope. Out of anything that has Blizzard's name on it, Warcraft, or probably more accurately, World of Warcraft, is what most folk are going to think of when the company is brought up. WoW has fluctuated in both quality and popularity over the years, but it's always been near the top of the MMO pile, and is even still getting brand new updates and expansions about twenty years after its original launch. That's staying power. Or maybe stockholm syndrome depending on how you look at it. The original Warcraft series though, that hasn't been given nearly as much love as the MMO. Last year we did have that tower defense mobile game, Warcraft Rumble, and before that, there was the disastrous launch of the remake of Warcraft 3, but in terms of brand new RTS games, discounting the mobile games and the remake, there hasn't been a new Warcraft game as in a full PC/console game release since 2003. Hearthstone was a phenomenon for a time as well I suppose, but that's also sort of fallen off.
Personal Hopes: Look, WoW might not be quite as big as it once was, but it's still a very big, reliable money maker for the company, but when it comes to the main Warcraft games, I don't think we'll be seeing a new one of those beyond mobile games for a long while, especially with how poorly the whole remaster fiasco went over. I'd love to see the series go back to other genres that aren't just relegated to mobile games that may or may not be around a few years down the line, of course, as things stand, I don't see that happening any time soon, not while there isn't a reason to end the stagnation.
Zork
First Game: Zork, 1977 (Developed by Infocom and Originally Published by Personal Software)
Latest Game: Zork III, 1982 (Developed by Infocom and Originally Published by Personal Software)
Personal Thoughts: I have not played the Zork games. I know them more from cultural osmosis than anything else, and of course that's mostly just that one memetic line that continues to crop up every now and then. Zork was a series of three (or four?) text adventure games, back before even the most rudimentary of graphics was standard for games of this nature, and I think that lack of any sort of visual element to it is what really made it a special series. It was a weird and wonderful story that required a lot of imagination to make sense of what you were reading and seeing, and how best to react to whatever you're faced with. Of course, every text adventure is like this, but Zork's quirky and charming descriptions really helped to set it apart from everything. Again, I'm going off of what little I've seen of the games, as I've never experienced a full playthrough of them, but what I have seen is very fun and clever, if a little bonkers sounding out of context.
Personal Hopes: Zork is a pretty legendary series, but considering how long the IP has existed, and the fact that it perpetually has existed in this one singular for maybe suggests that no one really knows how to bring this series back. A text adventure on its own, no matter how well written and no matter what the attached IP is, I don't think would pull a lot of interest in a medium that's come to be so heavily defined by its visuals, save for a small niche audience. For an indie production, that would probably be enough to be satisfying, but not for a company as big as Activision or Microsoft. Zork is a nostalgia name, but not much else, and I don't see it losing that distinction any time soon.
Closing Thoughts
This was a lot longer than I thought it would be. Apparently I couldn't shut up about all this stuff. It was also incredibly sobering to go through as I realized, going through all of these games that the odds of a lot of them coming back in one form or another is pretty unlikely, even re-releases.
I did my best to find as many IP that activision definitively own as possible, but I would not be surprised if I missed any, and I did make some exceptions like with Tenchu, which they only kind of own and can't actually make new games for. And yet, despite that, they're doing nothing with the games they do own, which is honestly just as annoying. Through my explorations of Actiblizz's back catalog (and there were plenty of places to look, considering that a lot of news sites were quick to put out lists outlining what Microsoft now owned), I did find a few that I wasn't entirely sure about and therefore did not include on this list. The two big ones that came up multiple times in my scouring were the Hexen and Heretic games. These two showed up on lists of IP microsoft gained in the Actiblizz acquisition, and yet when I looked up the series' myself, it seemed to suggest that they were currently owned and developed by Id software, which is currently owned by Bethesda, which is owned by Zenimax, which was gobbled up by Microsoft not long ago anyway. Either way, the games end up owned by Microsoft, so in the long run it doesn't matter, but I'm confused as to why these games kept coming up as something that Activision had ownership of when I couldn't find any conclusive information on whether or not they actually owned any of this.
While it was kind of depressing to see all these various IPs that are just laying dormant, I do have to remind myself that indie games have been picking up the slack. Despite this, one can't help but wonder what the added budget or manpower of a larger developer could do for classic series currently left out in the cold. I hold out hope for a few of these coming back at some point, but with the current corporate attitude of making nothing but absolutely massive blockbusters that have to sell millions of copies to be considered successes, and that are focus tested to hell and back to cast the widest possible net and get as many folks on board as possible, rather than taking a chance on a low-budget niche game… even though the risk would be low if the scope of the game was kept small and it was aimed at a specific audience, but hey who would want a more diverse portfolio made of more quickly produced smaller experiences that reach a smaller audience but overall would serve a wider demographic thanks to the variety?
Me.
I want that.
Do that, game industry.
And pay your fucking workers better.
#Activision#Blizzard#Everything that actiblizz owns#everything that microsoft now owns#Everything they're actually doing something with#My god#this took so long to put together#They own too much stuff they aren't doing anything with
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what does byler mean to you?
I think it's refreshing to get to see a different story being told. When I first watched season 1, I think I actually rolled my eyes during the Mike and El kiss (I hated them together from the start lol). It was just so predictable and boring with no build up. They were also so young and I kept wondering why they felt the need to push romance on them. I get what they are trying to do with the show in general now. They are inverting tropes and trying to get the audience to think and question the things we are being told.
I think it shows that they respect the audience enough to believe that most people will put in the effort to think about the narrative after all their cards are shown (if they aren't already thinking about it). People may not get it now, but after season 5 when we have all the info, I think it will make people question what we are willing to accept from the content that we consume. We assume Mike and El will happen because that's what always happens. It can be a badly written story and people still think that's what's going to happen in the end. They assume it's supposed to happen and no one questions this even if they don't really like it.
A byler narrative would change this. They are giving something unexpected and if it's well-written (I think it will be since it has been) it could put future writers in a position where they are willing to try new things and tell different stories. I think this is why I don't watch a lot of tv. After a while, the stories start to sound the same. They follow the same tropes, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it can feel repetitive if they always involve the same people. I like shows that make you think.
I also think it's important to not only acknowledge that this is a great win for queer representation but also for mental health rep. Both Mike and Will struggle with their identities but their trauma and grief are wrapped up in this, too. I think this is why people are having a hard time understanding Mike specifically. He's expressing his trauma in a way they aren't used to seeing. Because people don't really talk about this and it isn't always shown (or shown well) on tv. Oftentimes a character who is struggling with mental health either dies before they fully get a chance to heal (or just as they are starting to heal) or they don't address this at all. (Buffy comes to mind here. They got into her depression really well in the sixth season but then never let her heal or address it. And other characters are constantly giving her crap for not getting over it fast enough. It's frustrating to watch and this is so typical for storytelling even now.)
I don't think that will happen here. Mike and Will getting together is important for their individual arcs in terms of them accepting themselves. Once that happens I think we will see them start to heal from their trauma and be happy. As someone who has worked with people with mental health issues and struggled with it myself, it's so important to actually see this play out. We don't get to see the different ways people experience their trauma (with Mike he gets angry, with Will he bottles things up and pretends everything is fine). People expect behavior to be one specific way and it's so much more complex than that.
This is one of the many reasons I think they will get together earlier in the season instead of at the end. Actually getting to see them interact with each other in a healthy way and see them be happy is so, so important. Not just for the characters themselves and their individual arcs but for the audience watching. Especially the people who feel like they can't ever be happy or deserve it. It would show that it's possible to heal and that that kind of story is realistic and possible. A happy ending doesn't have to mean it's lame or simplistic. It would give their characters a satisfying ending and after everything they've been through they deserve it. And the audience deserves it, too. It would show that a non-conventional life can still make people happy.
Instead of the same stories of violence and trauma over and over with no resolution. The Walking Dead and The Handmaid's Tale come to mind. It's trauma porn and a lot of the people watching think this is mature, sophisticated storytelling when it isn't and the lack of closure and healing ends up being upsetting to watch after a while. And it's honestly just boring. They have a chance to show something different here. They can show that people can go through a lot and struggle and come out on the other side of it. It's a hopeful story and they are telling it in an honest and realistic way. They aren't ignoring any of the difficult parts of life or growing up. But they are showing that it can get better.
I swear I don't mean for all of my posts to be so long winded lol.
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And tropes aren't necessarily bad, it's just refusing to establish a character beyond them that sucks. Tropes are old storytelling tools and aren't inherently a sin. In fact, I'd argue that in franchises like Fire Emblem, having tropes especially surrounding characters like the main lords or royalty and those surrounding them is pretty normal and warranted as medival royalty is not really something most readers are going to go "oh I see enough of these people every day in my life. So really, I expect something unique." I've never been mad that a lord is chivalrous and brave and kind. I do get mad when that's all they are and they have the charisma of a pizza box. (COUGHROYCOUGH)
I never hated Xander for being loyal to his country and bullheaded. It's a totally fine trope to put a broad shouldered and strong brow'd prince heir to a kingdom of conquest in. He fit it there. I wasn't mad when he was stubborn or slow to believe the people he loved could hurt him, because it was "tropey" or "predictable." I think even, predicting what some characters will feel emotionally just means you understand them.
I hated Xander for being written poorly. I hated that he was a wildly different person in supports than he was in actual main novel points. I hated that Xander could tell us that harming civilians was never okay in one scene and then randomly say in another that it's simply a price of war. It wasn't the fault of the trope. If anything, if they stuck more heavily to the trope, he'd have less issues.
I never hated Camilla for being overbearing and mothering, I never hated Leo for being bratty and insecure, I never hated Elise for being optimistic.
I hated when Camilla's attachment to Corrin made the writers never let her drop it and therefore gave her very few chances to exist as an independent character. I hated when Leo was reduced to comedy or treated as if he was asking too much when asking for clarity or kindness. I hated when Elise was sidelined because they didn't know how to write her interacting with harder subjects.
I don't think tropes are bad. I still feel like there's a difference between just any "romantic guy who sucks at flirting" and Laslow/Inigo. There's a dividing line between using tropes because you don't want to write a character, and using tropes to help the reader feel more like they already know characters (which Corrin /does/. Xander playing into a sometimes gullible and dogmatic nobleman of war, as well as being a mentoring older brother, makes us go "ok, I feel like I can predict how he will act towards me." It allows the reader to feel more like Corrin, who has known Xander before we start playing. It allows them to skip a lot of this "showing us who he is" phase and skip to more advanced portrayal of this character type to make him stand out as his own character, which is sadly, often underutilized in fates.
Of course
At the end of the day, Fates is an unfinished paper snowflake of its original script which overshot and got too in love with its story to be portrayed in a DS game Nintendo only half cared about
Engage was fully finished and always intended to be... shit. So much that Nintendo stepped in and told them Alear was a bad character.
At the end of the day Xander was designed to be a prince. Corrin was designed to be a youth who was heavily sheltered. Alear was designed to be an isekai protagonist. Genuinely.
I dont hate tropes. I think blaming tropes is barking up the wrong tree. The DS games didn't overrely on tropes more than the GBA and Famicom games did. They arguably often relied less on them. When characters are lacking depth and it becomes apparent they were never intended to have depth so that they would sell easier, it's a major problem. That's the problem. Not recognizable tropes
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Personal rambling lmao
It feels a bit...silly to be posting this right after posting an art and recently after posting an art positivity post but I've always flip flopped between feeling great about what I make and feeling like. Meh. It's out there I guess. I know perfectly well notes/kudos aren't everything and you should make stuff (especially fan art/fic) for yourself first and foremost so I wouldn't say I've ever like...posted anything I didn't want to make.
But there are times when I feel like...I drew something that I knew would be more well-received over something I wanted to draw more. Or I drew because I put pressure on myself to make something to hit that high of attention. This is partially what the Blood Falcon in water vent art and the Stewart hanahaki sketch was about. Choking, drowning, the imagery is a bit dramatic but yeah. It sounds ungrateful to even say it when I have so many lovely people supporting me and what I do but maybe it's the anxiety talking when I say I feel isolated sometimes. Sometimes that's not necessarily a bad thing! I have fun vibing with my homies in my gay little corner of FZ fandom!
But sometimes I do wonder if the charas or ships I'm most interested in would be more popular if like...I could draw better or push myself to interact more (that one is more related to twt) or had more followers here/on twt or even if it wasn't a gay ship (sounds silly to say I know but FZ twt has a diff vibe). It's not that there isn't anyone else interested and that no one supports my misc ship ramblings (I love and adore those of you who do) at all I just feel greedy and want to do more than shouting into the void I guess lmao. Spread it to the world or whatever. There's no need to feel down about that like getting to spread my love for a ship into the world should be a positive thing so???? Ironically enough I think twt may have made it worse bc though I (usu) get more interaction there it also becomes easier to see when the art I put the most love into (anything Falcon/Stewart or Andy/Robert) gets very little attention compared to art I put less effort into that I made more for others or randomass pieces where I'm like ???? why that one.
I know this is common and that you can't predict what people will like and funny or general pieces usu do better than hyperspecific niche ship pieces but even though I intellectually know that it's still like :( Sometimes I catch myself thinking things like "should I make this piece more gen because if I make it too obviously gay/shippy the people will be turned off". It's not like I don't make things for myself! I have tons of material I've never published lying around just because it makes me happy and sometimes I will polish it and turn it into something presentable because it makes me happy to do so. But again there's also this like...internal pressure (that no one else put on me it's just me being dumb lmao) to keep pushing out content to get my ships out there because there's very little of it (or none of it) otherwise so I feel like I have to keep pushing pushing pushing even though literally no one is pushing me but myself. Or to make things that aren't really the thing I wanted to make because it will get more attention even though attention isn't everything I know, I know.
None of this really matters in the grand scheme of life and it really sounds like I should go touch grass or something but I'm stuck inside for now because of work and school and physical pain so yeah lmao. It's that kind of situation where I think people would advise me to take a break from socmed and creating things since I do still feel happy when I go out with friends or family but to bring up the burning star analogy again, I feel that I'm burning up as I make things at a fever pace but I also feel like I'm burning up if I don't make things so. I might as well make things so I can be temporarily euphoric upon seeing what I made. It's not like I don't have other interests or people to socialize with it's just...a vague feeling of discontent about. Fictional characters of all things. Why lmfao
I know these feelings aren't uncommon for artists and envy towards other creators/putting yourself down in comparison is a common problem so it's like the conundrum of I know exactly what's wrong with me I just can't defeat it with logic lol. It's not my intention to sound ungrateful for anything I already have or to go hashtag first world problems or to like....guilt anyone or sound entitled or begging for attention or what have you...I just felt like it would feel, if not better, at least something from trying to make sense of my illogical thoughts by dumping it out somewhere.
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Be Mine Superstar Ep 1
Decided to give this one a try since I don't have much on my plate right now. We'll see how it goes. I hear it employs the whipping boy trope and I do love a good whipping boy trope.
Lol this is great. Is this what Lakorns are like? If so I might have to give one a try. Recs for the most soapy Lakorn Thailand has to offer, please. I want hot hot mess and will accept nothing less.
Where do I recognize the actress from? It's going to drive me nuts until I can figure it out. Expect an interjection halfway through this when I remember.
Lol okay the infighting is making me lau - oh hey is that the dude who played Pruek in Between Us?
*quick run to MDL later*
It is! And the woman I recognize is from Rose in Da House. Would not have remembered that since I literally saw one clip once on youtube I think? Thank you MDL, you save me from going crazy wondering where I know that face yet again.
We're gonna have a stalker wall, aren't we? This whole thing screams stalker wall somewhere.
I'm with baby bro on the celeb crush, actually.
Genuinely do not know if the bts squabbling of the drama within the drama is going to stay amusing to me for very long, so if this is too heavy on it I might have to bail.
Wow getting serious Hira vibes with this one. Maybe mixed with a little Toh? This is not necessarily a bad thing. Lord knows I love Utukare.
My goodness not!Pruek is so lovely.
Oh I hope they do flesh out the friendship between the three actors, though. Seems like they like each other a lot despite the manager beef.
HA, okay one thing I can definitely get behind is extended fantasy scenes. I don't know why but I love 'em.
Well okay then, bar scene. Loving it, honestly. Love me two confident men who know exactly what they want and know how to go about getting it.
Oooh I like doc. I think these two might be fun.
Hm. So our leads haven't really met per se, they just had a slow motion spinny cam moment that probably meant far more to Pun than Ashi. I think Title and Ashi have a thing happening and good for them, really. I already care more about the second couple than the first one, but well. Early days and the second couple got more stuff to do this ep. As predicted I'm already finding the managers a little grating, although as I said I am interested in the dynamics between the three actors.
I plan on sticking with this for at least a few episodes. We'll see if it catches me, I guess. Currently there's not much else on but that's soon to change...
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