#why have high standards as a creator when you can have fun instead | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

art · 2 years

Photo

Creator Spotlight: @min-play

I’m Min! I’m an animator and storyboard rti t who also posts comics and fan art online. So far, I have worked on the Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and LEGO Monkie Kid. I run on AAA batteries.

Check out our interview with Min below!

How did you get your start in animation and storyboarding?

Fanart! My hyperfixations kept me drawing and posting online since I was around 16. Later I dropped my Computer Science degree to study animation. After graduating, I worked as an In-between Animator, Key Animator, and Storyboard Artist. My fanart of a couple funny skeletons played a big role in getting hired.

What do you wish you knew when you first started out creating content that you know now?

It’s ok to make mistakes. All the flaws in a drawing make it look much more interesting. Also, it’s a lot more fun than spending ages perfecting one line.

Have you ever had an art block? If so, how did you overcome it?

I always get 3 different flavors of art block (that I remember):

Art block from perfectionism

Sometimes there’s this self-enforced pressure that what you make has to be of a certain standard. Gotta loosen up and forgive yourself for not meeting an imaginary quality. Do it for the fun of it. Instead of thinking’ needs to be better,’ think ‘eh good enough lol.’ It’s cool to strive for improvement! Just don’t do it to the point it becomes self-deprecating.

Art block from burnout

Art hibernation! It’s ok to take breaks. Not every waking moment needs to be productive. Treat yourself to something yummy, hang out with people you’re comfortable with, or pick up a new anime series. Take the time to get some well-deserved rest.

Art block while drawing as a full-time job

WELL DANG.

Switch your ‘drive.’ If you’re running off on passion or interest as a motivator for work, that’s great! I do too! But also, it’s finicky. Set up routines for when that high runs out. I have a ‘Do task’ mode where I play a song or a movie I already watched on loop in the background (sometimes for weeks on end). I don’t know why but it helps me concentrate. Last week, it was the movie Cars.

These are personal methods and may not work for everyone, but I hope it helps!

What are 3 things you can’t live without as a creator?

Music + Noise-canceling headphones + Big blanket = Comfort force field

What is a medium that you have always been intrigued by but would never use yourself?

Does blacksmithing count as a medium? I’d like to try it out at least once, though.

How do you want to evolve as a creator?

To connect with other creators more. Especially writers. They are so powerful.

Warm tones or cool tones?

Cool tones! Especially this one particular blend of blue and green.

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

So maaaanyy. At the top of my head, though: @northpen. I am obsessed with their vivid-imagery writing style, and immaculate characterizations. Their character banters always have me in a gigglefit. They have this fic I binged in one sitting and left me crying and empty in a good way.

Thank you for such amazing answers, Min! You can check out more of Min’s creations over at @min-play!

#creator spotlight #animators on tumblr #storyboard artist #artists on tumblr #min-play

2K notes · View notes

irisopranta · 1 month

Note

The power of glamour lets us dress up our characters in any way we want! With that in mind, do you always have your character(s) tastes in mind when you put together glams for them, or are there ensembled you've put together they'd absolute despise? Bonus points if you have pictures!

Asking the hard hitting questions. The simple answer to this is Yes and no. With a character like Iris, someone who loves fashion and dressing up in general, canonically she could be in anything without too much fuss from the character. However, what it is will depend on what the occasion. Cut below as this is long and a bit spoilery.

I would like to start out where I as well as the character disagreed to wear and why. The biggest thing I think that me the creator and Iris the character can agree to is showing her midriff outside of swimsuits. Luckily this list is very short in her canon as I can only think of one example where we ran into this.

When she first became a dragoon and was rewarded the Drachen Armor. She disliked that the armor shows off her midriff when she has to fight dragons and she would be dressed like Estinien which is a fashion forward person's worse nightmare. I agreed and changed her outfit to cover it up while still having that HW feel for her story by going with the Titanium Cuirass of Maiming.

Likewise, the level 80 Dancer Artifact top is something that she would dislike wear in front of strangers or those she doesn't want to see her like that. this is obliviously noncannonical for Iris the character.

So what does she like? Well if she's in normal day to day, going to take care of business at the shop, she'll be in her proprietress outfit. She finds it suits her quite nicely and it fits her standing as a shop owner and lady of a high house.

Now if she isn't running her shop and is around the city of Ishgard, then it's likely she is in normal noble women gowns, covered in fur and thick wools.

For warmer climates, you may see her in her more lighter clothing like her ruffle skirt with lightweight shirt.

Well that's for her casual outfits. What about her armor during her journey? Well....

ARR:

She was a standard girl that knew a bit of healing. Just starting out, even if she didn't want to be an adventurer. She's just dressing how she would normally dress as.

HW:

I kind of when over this one above. She didn't like the open space on the Drachen Armor nor looking like Estinien. We just cover that up and let her have a lance.

SB:

She goes back to healing but through Astrology instead of conjury. Seeing that she is going to be in Ala Mhigo and Doma, she decided on showing some skin in favor of being cooled down.

Shb:

Depending on what was needed in her fights, She either went as a Dragoon or as an Astrologian in the fights on the first. For dragoon, she was more armored up as she expects the sineaters to be fearsome foes.

With her Astrologian outfit, She figured to dress in the stars so that she can channel it a bit better. We are not sure if Astrology works that way but she likes to think it does.

EW:

For her dragoon appearance in Endwalker, she wanted something that lightweight considering she would be in Thavnair for a while. She's very confused how Estinien can be in his usual armor without feeling overheated.

Her Astrologian appearance is more formal in the cases where she has to interact with Sharlyan's Forum. She figured that it help present herself to not be a murderous savage.

DT (tentative):

Going to Tural is very much her honeymoon vacation with Stephanivien as they just got married (yes he is with her in my HC for DT as a treat.) So instead of the usual armor, she's more dressed for traveling.

(As a creator's note, this glam is an all role glam, which works great for me as I have yet to decide on my main job in Dawntrail due to the possible rework on both Astrologian and Dragoon.)

Outside of her casual glams for her day to day life as well as her combatant life, she dresses up just for the fun of it. In fact, All Saints Wake is her favorite holiday. As her Mun, I try to keep up with holidays and special events for glaming her up to fit the season. I haven't felt too inspired as of late but here are some of my favorites I had done.

Thanks for the ask @gatheredfates

#oc: iris opranta #thanks for the ask!#ask meme

10 notes · View notes

shuttershocky · 2 years

Text

There's a strange "privilege" I think about sometimes: getting to be a hater.

I cannot stress enough how much being a creative for a living, not just making things but needing to make things to eat, blunts your ability to hate on the internet.

If you showed me now to the me of ten years ago, the past me would find the current me unrecognizable. I was picky as hell with what I liked and notoriously difficult to please, and because I liked to write a lot, I learned how to state my vitriol in words and say exactly why and how I thought something was shit.

I got good enough at it that I got paid to write reviews about video games while in college, and while I attempted to make my criticism more constructive and state my opinions as opinions rather than fact, I wasn't about to go lowering my standards just because someone was an indie working on their first game.

At the same time though, I ended up writing FOR local projects, and that's when it really landed with me that this shit is fucking hard.

Making anything at all involves baring a piece of your soul to the world, but all I had ever made before were short stories that made no sense and would get laughed out of literature club and embarrassing video game fanfiction I was too ashamed to upload to my account on fanfiction.net. I hadn't made things that people were actually supposed to read and play before, and seeing people at cons reading my words on a screen (on a project that sadly went unreleased due to other reasons) was an excruciatingly humbling experience no writing tips or advice ever really prepared me for.

I felt the effect almost immediately. Lots of little annoyances in a game I'd play or in a movie I'd see that I would have given it shit for in the past would just... Get accepted. Some mistakes or even whole creative choices that used to be dealbreakers for me were just regular old minuses. Things I would have found merely passable before became likable in my eyes. I started to find the roughness charming, imagining what sort of bullshit must the creators have gone through to even release this thing at all.

The thing is, I don't think my critical eye has weakened at all. I can still pick out and name parts of a work I would have torn to shreds when I was a teenager. I can still go ham on something I find particularly egregious if I really want to. I just... Don't really want to nowadays. Not anymore.

I don't have the energy for it. I think about what it must have been like to work on something and my tone immediately dials it back several notches because I was once hired to write for a game while in a very dark period of my life and that memory haunts me still.

Now when I don't like something half the time I just don't mention it. When I like something even a little I talk up what I find so enjoyable in it, and I don't even LIKE being positive and restrained, it's just what comes easier to me now. I kinda miss being a hater, but I'm slowly coming to accept that those days are done.

This is just something I think about every once in a while, because now and then someone still remembers how I used to be and assumes I've still got these impossibly high standards. I've had a friend tell me "So and so said that if [Shutters] likes it, it must mean it's really good", and I kind of just have to give a half-hearted "Oh well you know it's got its flaws, I just had a lot of fun" because people regarding my approval as some kind of seal of quality feels sinfully good for my ego, but I don't like getting people to expect a masterpiece off of something that only promises a fun ride. That wouldn't be fair to both them and the work.

I guess I'm still adjusting to my changing standards. There is one nice side effect though: it's a lot easier to enjoy your guilty pleasures when they become just pleasures instead.

#All this to say I would not have liked Tsukihime the same way ten years ago #something about understanding the feeling of writing even when you feel like garbage because you can't eat if you don't submit something #really makes its rough but earnest nature charming

81 notes · View notes

x0401x · 3 years

Text

Jeweler Richard Fanbook Short Story #11

Feel free to message me about possible corrections, and please consider supporting the creators by purchasing digital copies of the official releases: Novel || Manga || Fanbook. In case anyone is feeling generous: Ko-fi | PayPal. ( ╹◡╹)っ’･*

← Previous || Index || Next →

Delicious Recipe

I would soon be at an age where I could envision my 50’s. My only daughter was a college student. I didn’t think of myself as too much of a passionate clerk, but I was fond of my current job at a mass retailer. Said shop was on the line of so-called “luxury supermarkets” in a way, so it had many products that weren’t available at supermarkets in my neighborhood, which meant stocking shelves was a hassle, but it was fun to look around. It had things such as assortments of high-quality cheeses or pouches of cold soup called vichyssoise. Since the shop was within walking distance of one of the largest stations in Tokyo, its clientele was diverse and there were many first-time customers, but on the other hand, that was exactly why it was so easy to remember the face of repeating customers.

“Hmmm...”

The young man glaring at the syrup shelf for a while now, who seemed old enough to be a university student, was actually a regular customer as well. Said regular – who stood out like a sore thumb in this shop, which had an overwhelming elderly customer base – always asked for simplified receipts. The name on them was “Jewelry Etranger”. Must be from a jewelry store. I believed him to be about as old as my daughter.

He was pacing back and forth in front of the shelf. Even though he usually came to buy snacks such as youkan and cookies, he was groaning in front of the cocktail syrup shelf today. Was it for private use instead of an errand? While I was staring at him, our eyes met, and with an apologetic face, he came over to my counter. There were no other customers.

“Hum, excuse me.”

As I welcomed him with a “yes, what might it be?”, he asked for a strange piece of advice.

“I want to make melon soda.”

“Haa.”

“The kind that you can quickly make into cream soda, with vanilla ice cream floating on top...”

“Haa.”

Then wouldn’t it be all right if he just bought the melon-flavored shaved ice syrup and carbonated water over there and mixed them in the appropriate proportions?

Before I could say this, he cut off, a crease rippling between his brows as he furrowed them, “I want it to be tasty. Very tasty.”

“Haa.”

A tasty melon soda. A very tasty one, no less. What kind of melon soda would that be?

I fumbled around my memory for the latest experience I had with a melon soda. The last time I had gone to a fast food was when my daughter was about ten years old. It had already been quite a long time. But I didn’t think there were any revolutionary changes in taste since then. It was carbonated, green and simply sweet. It didn’t have the same variety as tea or coffee. As if pressed with a stamp, melon soda was just melon soda. It was different from those confusing flavored-tea leaves.

He had actually already bought the melon syrup, he told me. But no matter how he changed the proportion of carbonated water, it didn’t have enough of a punch to it.

“I did some research at bars about how different the taste was from the melon sodas that we drink out there, but I kind of couldn’t tell... I think it might be best if I mix it with something. That’s why I’m looking for syrup, hmmm...”

With the exception of standard syrups for shaved ice, all syrups we handled were meant for cocktails. Bottles of vivid colors, in flavors such as apricot and mint, were lined up there. But I didn’t know whether any of them could be the secret ingredient for melon soda. The prospects were dim.

For starters, why had he decided to make something so troublesome by hand? To the point he was thinking of purchasing a bottle of syrup that was by no means cheap.

Of course, I didn’t say such things in front of the customer, but as if seeing through my hesitation, he smiled, as though a bit embarrassed. “No, hum, I have a friend who likes cream soda. She will be coming to the shop I work at one of these days... so I wanted to surprise her. Ehehe,” he laughed, looking happy.

I would guess that I did nothing but blink silently for a moment. It was an astonishingly good motive. I didn’t know what kind of friend she was or what kind of shop she would be visiting, but if nothing else, she seemed to be someone important to him.

If it were me, that would probably become a memory to last a lifetime.

A secret ingredient for a sweet juice. What suddenly crossed my mind was a time when my daughter was still little. A time when she caught a cold. I once made her a sweet juice when she didn’t want to take her medicine. I had a memory of being troubled as she was reluctant to drink water, saying it was painful. This had happened either in September or October, so there was still some leftover shaved ice syrup from the summer in our fridge. Making sugared water using it as colorant apparently gave it a special vibe, so she cheered up and drank it. Was it just sugared water? Hmm, if I wasn’t mistaken, in order for it to feel refreshing in the mouth, I had added—

“Ah, lemon juice.”

“Eh?”

“Mr. Customer, I’m not a bartender or anything, so I might be giving a wrong guess, but...”

Lemon went surprisingly well with sugared water.

As many cocktail recipes had lemon juice in them, I believed it strained the flavor that tended to unilaterally turn into “sweetness”. I didn’t think there was freshly squeezed lemon in the melon sodas of fast food shops, but if he was in pursuit of tastiness, wasn’t it a possibility?

When I told him this, he looked at me with a happy face, bowing his head with a “thank you very much”. And so, when he was about to leave the store without buying anything, he came back as if remembering something, lining up in front of the register and buying a package of specialty cookies from a certain place. When I was about to make the receipt, he told me he didn’t need it today, so I could tell it was his own pocket money.

“Really, thank you so much,” he said with an uplifting face, and this time, he exited the shop for good.

I didn’t think the suggestion I gave him warranted such consideration, and yet, what a proper child he was. His mother certainly must be happy to have a son like that, I thought, but afterward, I changed my mind, as he might surprisingly not be like that at home. My daughter, too, was an unfettered general at home, but the boyfriend that she discreetly brought over at the end of the previous year said some dreadful things about her, such as that she was a “refined young lady”. I thought they wouldn’t last for long, but it seemed they were still dating. It might be that people possessed many sides, just like those stylistic syrup bottles. Like the gemstones sold in jewelry shop. And he had showed me a wonderful, brightly shining side of his.

As a clerk, I wished from the bottom of my heart that his peculiar act of hospitality would go well.

On Thursday morning, while I was extremely busy with stocking items, someone called to me with an “excuse me”. Even though I wished people wouldn’t talk to me at times like these, I couldn’t let it show on my face. When I turned around with a “yes, what might it be?”, my facial expression froze up. A blond, blue-eyed man was standing there. He was such a beautiful man that you’d end up asking yourself if it was okay to be breathing the same air as him. My face stiffened. He was speaking in fluent Japanese.

“Do you have canned cherries?”

“Eh, hah—aah, cherries?”

“Cherries. I need them urgently,” he said with a sour face.

Whatever might be the situation that required such a pretty young man, who looked like he had fallen from Heaven, to purchase canned cherries, it was beyond me. Anyway, with a manner of walking that looked like a frantic penguin, I guided him to the canned fruits corner and bowed with an “it’s this way”. He smiled as if relieved, leaving me floored.

“Much obliged.”

You’d think of it as an ordinary expression, but it was difficult to describe this with any word other than “bombshell”. His smile was like the glowing summer wind. As a result, you’d find yourself wondering about even unnecessary things, such as if this person had lived a life full of hardships. Was he an actor? Could be a model. His beauty was so removed from this transient realm, so I couldn’t think he was someone from the same world as myself. If a person like him were playing the hero in a tragic drama, I had the feeling that the audience would be a bit turned-off. As in, wouldn’t the role of charismatic villain suit him better? After a brief moment of escapism from reality, I came back to my senses and returned to stocking the items.

Once the checkout of the canned cherries was finished at the register, the elegant man left the shop while cursing someone’s carelessness with an “honestly, that heedless guy,” using a word that even a Japanese person seldom would.

At that moment, for some reason, the figure of that regular customer boy suddenly surfaced in my brain. The one who had told me he wanted to make melon soda. The kind that could quickly be made into cream soda, with vanilla ice cream floating on top. Melon-flavored soda aside, if you wanted to make a cream soda, the cherry was the last thing you should forget - that was what I had always been thinking, but unfortunately, he hadn’t showed up in the shop yet ever since then. Well, someone who had been so obsessed with the melon flavor probably wouldn’t do something like forget about the cherry, but there were instances such as the blond Onii-san of today. If he ever showed up again, I would make sure to mention the cherries.

On that day’s afternoon, I finally gave it a thought, and just as I was going home, I went into a family restaurant for the first time in ten years, and while tasting an awkward embarrassment, I ordered a cream soda. I had actually been wanting to drink it all this time ever since I saw him. My first cream soda in a while had the painfully sweet flavor of childhood.

#housekishou richard shi no nazo kantei #housekishou richard #jeweler richard #the case files of jeweler richard #nakata seigi #richard ranashinghe de vulpian #richard ranashinha de vulpian #richard #jr short story collection #tsujimura nanako #yukihiro utako #novel #my translation

54 notes · View notes

houseplant-central · 3 years

Text

Yuri Katsuki does a better, more nuanced job of the "clumsy girl" trope than any female character I've ever seen

I will start this off by saying that I DO NOT think the 2016 anime about figure skating "Yuri!!! On Ice" is in any way "good cinema". It's 90% fanservice, fetishization of mlm relationships, and one 16 year old antagonist/ comic relief character being way over-sexualized (Plisetsky, where are your parents?)*.

It has some problems to say the least and I'm certainly not here to hype it up as an example of good writing or an example of good representation.

HOWEVER, Yuri Katsuki's character (the main character of the show) does an interesting thing by very closely conforming to what I would describe as the stereotype of the "clumsy girl".

My childhood and teen years were FULL of "makeover stories". Of narratives in which a nerdy, clumsy, bookish girl gets a makeover by the popular kids, gets contacts instead of glasses, and suddenly becomes a member of this societal elite, escaping former bullying. From the music video for "Last Friday Night" by Katy Perry, to (the classic) Mean Girls, to the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer, to the Heather's Musical (although Heather's pokes a bit of fun at this trope and how popularity might not work out for you), narratives about a dorky girl who suddenly gets swept up by somebody popular and "taught" how to "be" popular permeated my youth.

Besides just giving my entire generation the incorrect impression that glasses had to be taken off in order of the makeover to be complete, these stories had the strange reverse effect of appealing to girls who felt like they were the "before" of the makeover. If Bella Swan, self described as "too clumsy to play badminton without sustaining an injury" and "too awkward to have friends" could be swept off her feet by the hottest vampire in town because he saw something in her, then there was hope for the rest of us. This sort of idea of "potential" untapped permeates the genre, because the clumsy girl was always pretty, she just needed to take off her glasses, put on some makeup, and gain some self-confidence.

The concept of "untapped potential" is also quite prevalent in the world of sports anime. Again, this makes sense, since a story about a winning athlete just continuing to win would be boring, so naturally works within this genre often start with the athlete at their lowest, and then follow them on their journey to a comeback or newfound fame. The mentor character who gives the athlete life-changing advice is also a staple, and it's easy to see how that mentor character might be similar to Regina George holding the makeup brush in "Mean Girls".

However, the creators of "Yuri on Ice" seemed to want their (questionably fetishizing) romance to over conform to the genre standards so they drop-kicked the mentor character archetype out the window and had Yuri's dreamy coach do much more makeover-ing than athlete-training. Some of this rests at the intersection of the fact that the sport of choice in the series is figure-skating, where your image matters quite a lot, and Viktor being implied to be in love with our fair protagonist Yuri**, but neither of these aspects fully explain how well the writers made this sports anime series fit into the "makeover" genre instead of the "sports anime" genre.

But back to Yuri Katsuki himself. In the first episode, we see him crying in a bathroom. We learn that he has serious issues with self-confidence in his sport and his personal life, and that this materializes in insecurity about his weight. Episode one Yuri fits nearly every aspect of the "clumsy girl" trope: he's socially awkward, quiet, and... well, clumsy. He narrates a lot of the first episode with his own voice, saying he's "a dime a dozen skater" and "totally awkward", a kind of self-narration reminiscent of Bella Swan. While the other characters are dressed in modern clothes, Yuri's in an oversized, comfortable sweater, and has a generally very outdated wardrobe. He doesn't seem to care about how the world perceives him, (or more likely won't make an effort because he's afraid of rejection). Were he a female character, this is what I would call the "not like other girls" trope. We immediately elevate him to a pedestal as the viewers because he's relatable, and in comparison, the other characters seem to be trying too hard. While this is not as prevalent in male characters from the time (because the other male characters surrounding them are rarely well dressed except for maybe one jock the viewers are supposed to hate), it's hard to find a piece of media between 2014 and 2016 with a female lead without this opposition of "main character can't dress but all other female characters are well dressed, clearly they're try-hards." (Ironic, because that main character is about to be well dressed after their makeover, but I digress).

(Yes, this is an issue that's been in media for a long time and will be for a long time still, and yes there are plenty of good examples of stories where the male main character is just "not like other boys" and has to compete in a world where the other boys are all well dressed, but cases of writers doing this to their female characters SKYROCKETED in the few years while I was a younger teen and it was slightly ridiculous).

Anyways, Yuri is insecure and undressed. But he has a heart of gold! Who can help?

Enter mentor character Viktor (who is.... very naked for some reason. Mitsurou Kubo, was that really necessary to subject my eyeballs to?). Viktor is the epitome of high class. He's good-looking, rich, and successful at his sport, and we're told that Yuri has personally idolized him for a long time. While not exactly a Regina George, he does present his offer to help Yuri in a way that implies that Yuri would be a fool not to accept his help; he's the best of the best and he knows it, he's used to hearing it.

Over the next few episodes Yuri is basically forced into a position acting outside his comfort zone preforming a figure skating routine called "Eros". There's a weird but somewhat comedic moment where a frazzled Yuri, hard-pressed to explain what the concept of eros means to him, says that eros means his favourite food, pork katsudon. While comedic, it is to me the very epitome of "clumsy girl": while other female characters might be alluring in their experience, the clumsy girl is appealing to the love interest and appealing to the male gaze because she doesn't "get it", she's not tangled up in the politics of sex like many female characters are written to be, she's different. (I could talk for hours about how problematic this aspect of the "clumsy girl" trope is, the implication that childishness/ lack of experience is attractive is so gross, but I will spare you).

As a whole, this fanservicy nonsense is fairly par for the course, but it's two aspects of the journey to completing the "Eros" program that interests me. We see him eventually go to his friend, who is a dance teacher, and ask her for help on how to move more femininely. This in part is a nod towards his future realization of his sexuality (or not, depending on whether you watched it before or after they retconed his and Viktor's relationship). But as his dance teacher friend shows him how to move with confidence, he fulfills one of the first steps of getting the clumsy girl makeover: somebody shows him how to move in a "sexy" way, and he is miraculously no longer clumsy. The other thing about this figure skating program is his literal makeover: as Regina George had given to Katy before them, Viktor gives Yuri one of his old outfits, which symbolizes the high-class and success that he's supposedly preparing Yuri for. Yuri switches his glasses for contacts (an iconic aspect of the trope), slicks back his hair, and is suddenly more confident.

As the show progresses Yuri gains more confidence, symbolized not just by his body language but also by his clothing and presentation. He meets a fan of his and has a character changing moment when he realizes that he has a fan who idolizes him like he once idolized Viktor. This realization of new societal power is often a turning point for the clumsy girl finally feeling like she has self-worth, and indeed, Yuri immediately ties a new sense of self-worth to the knowledge that he has fans.

After quite a lot of figure skating animation, fanservice, and a weird subplot about a poodle, Yuri finds a sense of self-worth in the life he's building for himself as a member of "high society" and leader in his sport, no longer relying on outside validation. This, I think is the part that differs from other clumsy girl stories.

Why is this interesting? I think because I'm so very used to seeing female characters get shallow character development in the form of taking their glasses off, letting their hair down, and suddenly being hot, and male characters getting character development in the form of working out in a montage to the eye of the tiger and then getting hot. Despite Yuri basically only doing what female characters often do to become "popular" and no longer nerdy, his character development feels genuine, fuller, and less shallow. For him, his new look genuinely ties to internal character development, whereas in media with women it's usually all about the looks, and the assumption that a changed style must equal a changed character.

Bella Swan from Twilight, Katy from Mean Girls, and Veronica from Heathers all experienced a makeover and new look and implied character development because of a rise in social status (whether they asked for it or not), but ultimately all of them realized the popularity was not what was important to them and they went back to how they "looked" before to symbolize their identity and values shifting back to what they were at the beginning. Yuri ends the series in the fanciest suit we've seen him in yet, dancing with Viktor and excited about the prospects his new high-society life will present him with. His transformation into being self-confident is genuine, and his changing appearance was just a reflection of that internal transformation. Ultimately, I think this plotline is what the original genre of "clumsy girl gets makeover was aiming for", because it is what's most appealing to the viewer: genuine growth and happiness. But all the female "clumsy girl" stories I've seen fell flat of that in one way or another, leading me to very much dislike the trope until "Yuri on Ice" quite accidentally did a good job of it.

* to anyone who's seen this show: yes, I do know what is implied to have happened to Yurio's parents. I'm just a) quoting that vine where the kid goes "wouldn't you like to know, weatherboy" and the reporter goes "where are your parents?" and b) I'm mad that this over-sexualization of Yurio (even within the plot of the series) is something that happens relentlessly to young female characters who've "carved out a place for themselves in an adult world" and also apparently happens to effeminate (implied to be queer) male characters who have done the same thing, and that's not cool either.

**For the sake of my sanity I'll say implied, because though they kiss onscreen, there is apparently much room for debate. The original Japanese cut had them exchange engagement rings near the end of the series, but then both the Japnese version and the English dubbed version ended up having them show off their rings and say "look at our friendship rings". (Ah yes, because I love wearing a matching gold band on my left ring finger with my buddy to show the world what good homies we are (/sarcasm.))

As an interesting aside, in an Uno reverse card moment, the "clumsy girl" trope was made for the male gaze (proof: any trope that talks that much about women putting on less clothing and suddenly becoming hot is 1000% for the male gaze), and was accidentally latched onto by teenage girls. Yuri on Ice was made for the teenage girl gaze (proof: the fetishization of queer men, the pre-existing "boy love" genre that's so popular it has a name), and accidentally fell into the trope of the "clumsy girl".

5 notes · View notes

venusmages · 3 years

Text

Cyberpunk 2077 non-spoiler review

Anyways here’s my writeup about my least favorite parts of 2077 for people who are interested in seeing if it’s for them. Both going to talk about content as well as gameplay. This is for PC version, too, because I know last gen consoles are suffering terribly rn and I wouldn’t recommend the game if you’re not going to be playing on PC. At least not until it’s on sale or the issues have been resolved. It really, really shouldn’t have been released on last gen consoles at all in my opinion - or at least should’ve been released on consoles LATER.

If you like Saints Row, GTA, Mass Effect, Shadowrun, or the Cyberpunk genre in general - I definitely think this is something you might want to take a peek at! I wasn’t anticipating the game until about a month or two before release - so maybe that’s why I’m having a blast - but It’s one of my favorite stories from the past decade as far as sci-fi goes. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, and It’s really impressed me. I can’t even go into detail about all the things I LOVE because I really want folks to experience it themselves. Just know there’s a very intricately detailed world, all the characters are memorable and insanely well realized and complex, and the story is great fun. Also made me cry like 5 times. It’s become one of my FAVORITE games very quickly.

I’d also recommend Neon Arcade if you want someone who’s been covering the game for quite a while, including the technical and game industry aspect. He does well to go into some detail and even though he’s a fan, I’ve found him to be largely unbiased. I’m not going to go into industry politics here because I feel that’s up for everyone to decide on their own terms.

No spoilers, things to keep in mind, content warnings, etc. below!

CONTENT WARNINGS and issues with plot/story

this setting is dark. very dark. if you struggle stomaching things like dystopian landscapes, body horror, physical, mental and sexual abuse, corporate and gang violence, abuse of children, harsh language, and concepts that mess with the perception of reality - this game might not be for you. It’s a very mature setting, and I don’t mean that in the Adult Swim kind of way. I mean it in the ‘oh shit, it went there’ way. In my opinion I haven’t run across anything in it that was handled distastefully when it dipped into the depressing, but dark and gritty isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and I wanted to give a disclaimer.

The game’s universe in advertising and working for the lower class also exploits sex/sex work quite a bit. This is part of the lore itself because in this universe everyone’s become desensitized to sex and violence to the point that marketing embraces it and makes it ridiculous. I feel it’s very obvious that it doesn’t condone this message and is instead a commentary on consumerism - but people still might be uncomfortable seeing a lot of suggestive stuff all over the place regardless.

Women in game are naked more often than men - even though there is nudity for both. This is likely a mix of appealing to the Gamer Boy demographic (even though the story does NOT actually), or the fact that media is way more cool with seeing naked women than seeing full frontal nudity on men. They probably had to tone some of it down to avoid going above an M rating.

The story is amazing, but sometimes it dumps a lot onto you at once. It’s one of those sci-fi stories that you have to really be following the names, faces, and concepts continually to get it all down. There’s a lot of betrayal, background players, etc. I think by the mid-way point I’d mostly had it, but It’s pretty dense. However it’s still amazing. You might just need two playthroughs before every tiny detail clicks - because there’s a LOT of details.

Honestly I think it would help to read up on the lore first so you’re not going ‘what’ constantly. But people have seemed to manage fine without that also! Neon Arcade has a really nice series of videos (like 2 or 3) that get you up to speed with the universe. It also helps you decide if the tone is right for you.

I think the main story should’ve been longer, also. I don’t mind a 20 hr story, especially in a massive RPG, but It feels like they really struggled to cram as much into that time frame as possible. It skirts the edge of being nice and concise, snappy, and tight - and needing just a few more moments to take a breath and wait a second. This is helped if you do a lot of side quests.

The straight male romance option, River, is INCREDIBLY well written but he doesn’t tie into the main plot in any way whatsoever. It’s very strange and feels like they either ran out of time with him, or slapped together a romance with him at the last second. All the other romances at least know what’s going on with V’s story - meanwhile River has no idea, and you can never tell him. He’s an amazing guy though and I highly recommend his questline. He appears in ACT 2.

In general I’d say not to bother with the romances. There are only 4 total, and while the romancible characters on their own are really well written, the romances themselves are just kinda meh. One romance you don’t even meet until act 3. I don’t think they should’ve been included in the game at all, because they definitely don’t feel as fleshed out as everything else.

CDPR also sometimes forget that women players or gay men exist. Panam and Judy have a lot more content than River and Kerry for example. I don’t think this is intentional, they just have a large fanbase of dudebros. It only shows in the romance content and the nudity thing though.

Johnny, Takemura, and Claire should’ve been romances and I will fight to the death on that.

There are gay and trans characters in the game and their stories don’t revolve around their sexualities. It’s very Fallout: New Vegas in it’s approach to characters: IE. you’re going to love them. All of them.

V’s gender isn’t locked to their body type or their genitals- but to to their voice. I don’t think it’s the best solution they could’ve used but given how the game is heavily voice acted I assume that was what they had to work with.

Some of the romances are locked to both cis voices AND body types (not genitals if I recall but body shapes). That’s disappointing but I assume it was because of scripted scene issues and/or ignorance on the dev’s part considering the LGBT NPCS are so AMAZINGLY done. There’s no homophobic or transphobic language in the game - though there are gendered curse words and insults if that bothers you.

Some characters MAY suffer from ‘bilingual people don’t talk like that’ syndrome. But it can be hard to say for sure given that translators exist in this universe and the way they operate aren’t fully described. It’s only momentarily distracting, not enough to take away from how charming the NPCs are.

The endings are really good don’t get me wrong but I want fix it fic :(. All of the endings out of like 6 (?) in the game are bittersweet.

Both gender V’s are very good but female V’s voice acting is out of this world. If you don’t know what voice to go with/are neutral I’d highly recommend female V. Male V is charming and good but he feels much more monotone compared to female V.

V has their own personality. To some this won’t be a detractor - but a lot of people thought they’d be making absolutely everything from the ground up. V is more of a commander shepard or geralt than a skyrim or d&d pc, if that makes sense. You can customize and influence them to a HUGE degree, some aspects of V will always be the same.

Streetkid is the most boring background - at least for it’s introduction/prologue.

GAMEPLAY/TECHNICAL

If you can run your game on ultra, don’t. It actually looks best with a mix of high and medium settings. Unless you have a beast that has ray-tracing - then by all means use ray tracing and see how absolutely insanely good it looks.

There are color blind modes for the UI, but not for some of the AI/Netrunning segments in cutscenes. Idk how much this will effect folks with colorblindness but those segments are thankfully short.

There was an issue with braindances being an epilepsy trigger because for some reason they decided to mirror the flashing pattern after real epilepsy tests - probably because it ‘looks cool’. I don’t have epilepsy but it even hurt my eyes and gave me a headache. Massive oversight and really goddamn weird. Thankfully this was fixed.

There is no driving AI. Like at all. If you leave your car in the street the traffic is just going to pile up behind it. It’s one of the very few immersion breaking things I’ve encountered.

Sometimes when an NPC is driving with you in the car, they’ll drive on the curb and/or run into people. It’s kind of funny but can occasionally result in something weird. Feels very GTA - but nothing excruciating.

The camera angle feels a little too low in first person mode when driving on cars. You get used to it though.

The police in this game feel slapped on and I hope they improve it. Right now if you commit a crime, you can never tell what will actually trigger it. And if you just run away a few blocks the police forget about it.

Bikes are just way more fun to ride than the cars are.

You CANNOT respec your character after you make them. Ever. it sucks. Go in with an idea ahead of time what you wanna do - it’s better than being a jack of all trades.

as of now you also CANNOT change their appearance after you exit the character creator. This, also, sucks. Make sure you REALLY like your V or you’re gonna be replaying the openings over and over like I did.

Photomode on PC is the N key. Had to look it up. The mode itself is great though

Shooting and Mele fighting feel pretty standard. I don’t have a lot of shooter experience besides Bethesda games so anything feels better than that to me. So far I’ve enjoyed stealth and mele the best, but that’s just my own taste! The combat and driving aren’t groundbreaking by any means, but they’re still very fun. I look forward to running at people with swords or mantis blades, and zipping around the city on a motorcycle to see the sights. The story, lore, and interesting quests and characters are the real draw here.

I haven’t encountered any game breaking bugs in 80-ish hours of play time. One or two T-poses, a few overlays not loading or floating objects - but nothing terrible. Again, my experience is with Bethesda games. This is all usually fixed by either opening your inventory and closing it again, or exiting out and reloading your save.

The C button is mapped for crouching AND skipping dialogue by default. That’s terrible. Change it in the settings to be HOLDING C skips dialogue and you’ll be gucci.

There’s apparently a crafting system. I have never been inclined to touch it. But I also play on easy like a pleb so IDK how it all scales otherwise.

The mirror reflections can be a little bit weird, at least on my end. They always end up a teeny bit grainy despite my computer being able to run everything on Ultra Max. You can still get good screens out of it though!

So many people text me to sell me cars and I want them to stop. Please. also the texting menu is abysmal. The rest is ok tho

It’s pretty clear when you’re going to go into a ‘cutscene’. all cutscenes are rendered in-engine BUT you often will be talking to other characters at a specific angle or setting. The game locks you into this usually by having you sit down. It works for me - after all we do a lot of sitting- but it IS very obvious that it’s a way for the game to get you in the frame it wants to display.

That’s all I can think of rn! If you’re interested but wanted to get a slightly better idea of whats going on, I hope this helps. I’m really enjoying it and despite my issues it’s exceeding my expectations. I’m going to be thinking about and replaying this game for quite a while.

#cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk 2077 review #2077 review #cp2077 #rosetxt #txt

5 notes · View notes

thesunnyshow · 4 years

Text

Name: Leo

Writing Blog URL(s): @hereisleo

What fandom(s) do you write for?: I write for ATEEZ, VICTON and ONEUS.

Age: ‘99 liner

Nationality: Indonesian

Languages: Indonesian, English, Japanese and a sprinkle of Korean.

Star Sign: Leo

MBTI: INFP-A

Favorite color: Neutral but mostly black! (Other than neutral colours, I’m partial to blue, dark green and red).

Favorite food: Indonesian and Japanese cuisine! The taste of home!

Favorite movie: Resident Evil franchise.

Favorite ice cream flavor: Vanilla.

Favorite animal: Owl ever since I was a small child.

Go-to karaoke song: None. I don’t enjoy karaoke.

Coffee or tea? What are you ordering?

Both! Recently, I’ve been ordering black coffee again whenever I stop by a cafe.

Dream job (whether you have a job or not)

I’m interested in a lot of fields of work, it used to be Red Cross worker, paramedic and flight attendant. Now it’s barista-bartender. It’ll likely change in the future too.

If you could have one superpower, what would you choose?

Teleportation, let’s travel the world!

If you could visit a historical era, which would you choose?

The Golden Age of Piracy! I want to sail! And such freedom to spite against governmental standards.

If you could restart your life, knowing what you do now, would you?

Without a doubt, yes. I’m always down for changes and new adventures.

Would you rather fight 100 chicken-sized horses or one horse-sized chicken?

Holy moly… 100 chicken-sized horses...

If you were a trope in a teen high school movie, what would you have been?

The quiet smarty one at the back of the class. Common? Yes. But it’s true.

Do you believe in aliens/supernatural creatures?

This universe is too big to be only occupied by humans.

Fun fact about yourself that not everyone would know?

Badminton is my favourite sport!

When did you post your first piece?

June 2019!

Why did you decide to write for Tumblr?

I always love writing so I wanted to share my creations and see how they fare in the world instead of keeping them for myself.

Do you write fluff/angst/crack/general/smut, combo, etc? Why?

I mostly write platonic relationships, fluff, slice of life, romance, comfort and a lot of AUs. It’s what I’m comfortable with and thrive in best! I do enjoy writing mystery, crime/murder and angst once in a while. Gotta let the dark side out too.

Do you write OCs, X Readers, Ships...etc?

Usually, it’s either member centric and or ‘X reader/ + Reader’, it’s not always romance when reader insert is involved :)

What genres/AUs do you enjoy writing the most?

Definitely friendship and slice of life! AU wise, I’m a sucker for the supernatural side: demons, angels, mythical creatures and mythology, they are all right up my alley. I also enjoyed writing crime AU and anything dark, nothing like unleashing the inner criminal legally through words… and occasionally being questioned, “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

What tropes do you love, and what tropes can’t you stand?

Tropes I love, I’m a sucker for friendship/platonic, slow-burn enemies to lovers, the cafe/bar occupation, single parent, the demon is suddenly your guardian angel, the breakup and the crime syndicate dynamics. Tropes I can’t stand on the other hand aren’t much, I don't actively read a/b/o dynamics, Hogwarts, hybrids and werewolf/vampire. It’s mostly AUs now that I listed them.

What is your favorite work and why? Your most successful?

Oh this is tough. I think it would have to be ATEEZ: ‘Supernatural Activities’ series. I’m proud of how ‘Dante’s Inferno’ & ‘Angels in the Streets’ turned out and they are well received too.

Who is your favorite person to write about?

Song Mingi of ATEEZ. Somehow writing about him always seems personal. Maybe it’s the similarities we carry. It seems like a lot of the time, the bias is the one who is most similar to us.

What inspires you to write?

Simply the need to escape reality and it’s an outlet to expel excess emotions I carry sometimes. All is well in the mind after I write and sleep.

What do you hope your readers take away from your work?

I hope it provides you an escape for a brief moment, I hope it makes you happy. I hope you could enjoy the world with a touch more romanticism, we are all a part of the aesthetic we see in the media and more. Sure it’s a tough world but there are good in it too.

What do you do when you hit a rough spot creatively?

I take a break. It’s no use for me to push on when I hit a rough patch. I’ll read and do everything else except writing. It rarely happens as I’m constantly full of ideas, it’s the lack of motivation that keeps me from creating.

What do you think makes a good story?

To be honest, if I enjoyed it, it’s good. I’m a simple person with simple pleasures.

What is your writing process like?

Messy 😂 There’s no getting around it. I would rewrite a paragraph three times if I don’t like it, delete a thousand words, scrap a different story to incorporate it into another. I don’t always start from the beginning either. A writing piece could take anywhere within several minutes, a few hours to days, weeks and months. It all depends on my motivation and how busy work is keeping me from writing. (Psst, it’s mostly the former).

Do you think there’s a difference between writing fanfiction vs. completely original prose?

Yes. Writing in the fanfiction world, more often than not, we are already given much of the relationship dynamics and setting. (Unless it’s AU then that's a whole different animal, it might as well be an original prose). In original prose, we have to weave most, if not all, of the world and characters building… I hope I understood the question right...

Would you ever repurpose a fic into a completely original story?

Maybe. It’s usually the other way around. I have thoughts to repurpose an abandoned original story for a fic series. Highly unlikely that I’ll actually do it.

How much would you say audience feedback/engagement means to you?

A lot! Please! It’s the biggest motivation for us content creators to keep creating! You have no idea how fast my hand reaches for my phone every time tumblr notifications pop up, hoping for a reblog and comments in the tags.

What has been one of the biggest factors of your success (of any size)?

My mutuals reblogging my works. They’re exposed to new eyes and the readers, on the other hand, find a new blog.

Do you think fanfic writers get unfairly judged?

Yes. Fanfic writers are as important to the fandom community as the rest of the content creators are.

Do you think art can be a medium for change?

Absolutely. Art is a fantastic gateway to many things.

Do you ever feel there are times when you’re writing for others, rather than yourself?

Only when I decided to take requests which happens like once a year and maybe even less.

Do you ever feel like people have misunderstood you or your writing at times?

No, I don’t think so. No one has asked me to clarify any of my writings. One anon used to send me asks about world expansion and said anon turned into a dear friend.

Do your offline friends/loved ones know you write for Tumblr?

NOPE. DON'T LET THEM KNOW. I WON’T LET THEM KNOW. NEVER. Leave my virtual writing world be. *puts ‘do not cross’ yellow tape all over*

What is one thing you wish you could tell your followers?

Please leave me some feedback, even keyboard smashes are fine, I can translate those. Don’t be shy to leave me asks if you want to chat, ramble, or get something off your chest. This is a safe place for you, an escape from reality.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers who might be too scared to put themselves out there?

Don’t be afraid. As hellish this platform is, it'll help you grow in the writing department. I know this is not the best advice but you have to try to see the result.

Are there any times when you regret joining Tumblr?

I don’t think so. There were moments of “Why do I even bother?” but it happens and will happen again in the future but no regrets.

Do you have any mutuals who have been particularly formative/supportive in your Tumblr journey?

I do! Most of the ones who were there from the beginning aren’t there anymore but it’s alright. Their lives outside of Tumblr are always more important than anything else. I don’t have to heart to unfollow their pages. My current handful of mutuals are an amazing bunch too! The sheer talent and creativity they possessed are out of this world. I love seeing their posts outside of the writing world, their personalities shine through and my heart feels fuzzy whenever I see it. Though I don’t interact often with most of them, I adore them all and consider them good friends.

Pick a quote to end your interview with:

Since we, writers, create in order to find escape and or brush up our skills or simply for the sake of creating. As we broaden our skill sets, “Necessity is the mother of invention. Failure is the mother of success.” Common, I know, but it’s comforting to know that failure can be a motivation to do better. Don’t stay down, always rise again.

BONUS: K-POP CONFIDENTIAL

#@hereisleo #thesunnyshow #featuredauthor #episode 28 #ateez #victon #oneus

7 notes · View notes

hellyeahheroes · 4 years

Text

Building Molly Hayes in D&D 5e

So I noticed that I have now one build more for DC than I have for Marvel so how about we build something straightforward and easy and yet very fun to play? How about one little girl who really can beat everyone up?

Since I follow the blueprint set by Tulok the Barbarian, we need to establish our Goals for this build. First of all, we need to punch like a true Bruiser, someone worthy the title Princess Powerful. Second, we need to be as hard to kill as someone whose creator forced into the contract a clause she will never be killed or maimed. And finally, we need to do that while being able to fool people into thinking we’re just a harmless little girl, so they won’t realize the problem before it is too late.

Ability Scores: We Will be using the Standard Points Array - 15, 14, 13, 12, 10 and 8. If you want to roll or use point-buy, go ahead but remember to keep your Strength high.

Strength: 14, your nicknames aren’t just for show.

Dexterity: 13, we will boost it in a moment

Constitution: 15, Molly can take as much as she can diss.

Intelligence: 8, it represents formal education and Molly has few years of a hole in that and even without it is still in her early teens so she had even less of it than many other characters we did.

Wisdom: 10, should be higher but we cannot have everything.

Charisma: 12, Molly is adorable aaaand much smarter than people give her.

Now for D&D version of species, Race. Molly is a mutant and last time I checked mutant considered themselves a separate species altogether. So we’ll go with Stout Halfling. Your size is small, to the point Halfling passing for a human child is a known thing in D&D. You get +2 to Dexterity and +1 to Constitution. You are Lucky, allowing you to reroll natural 1 on any attack roll, ability check or a saving throw. You can move through space of any creature larger than you, you have an advantage on saving throws against poison and resistance to poison damage. You can speak Common and Halfling and your base speed is 25 feet.

Alternatives: If you want to play Molly Hernandez, who is not a mutant, pick up Variant Human and grab Lucky feat.

We will make Custom Background - pick up Deception and Acrobatics, any language that could be campaign relevant, artisan tool proficiency to play tuba and City Secrets feature from Urchin background.

Class Levels: First we will get us some punching. First level Fighter gains proficiency in all simple and martial weapons, Strength and Constitution saving throws and proficiency in two skills, I’d go for Insight and Athletics. You get to pick a Fighting Style, Unarmed Fighting makes your fist deal 1d6+ Yoru Strength Modifier damage instead of static 2, 1d8 if you use two hands at once. When you grapple a creature, you can deal them 1d4 damage whenever you hit them by a melee attack. You also get Second Wind, letting you once per short rest use your bonus action to regain 1d10+your Fighter level hit points.

2nd Level: Molly is known for wearing cute hats. But do you know what she doesn’t wear? An armor. Which is why we will quickly grab the first level of Barbarian for Unarmored Defense, letting you add your Constitution modifier to your Armor Class when you're not wearing armor. You also get to enter Rage, in which you have an advantage on Strength checks and saving throws, lets you add extra damage to attacks made while you rage and resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage. You can enter it a limited number of times, it lasts 1 minute and ends if you decide to, lose consciousness or do not attack anything for one turn.

3rg Level: Fighter of 2nd Level gains Action Surge, letting you take extra action for a turn between every long or short rest.

4th Level: 3rd Level Fighters get to choose a martial archetype. Brute lets you add 1d4 to any damage you deal with a melee weapon you’re proficient with. Meaning now this little girl hits with her bare hands like a guy with a sword.

5th Level: 4th Level Fighter gets an Ability Score improvement, but we will pick a Feat. Second Chance is a Halfling feat that lets you once per battle force a creature to reroll an attack roll that would hit you. You also get to Increase your Dexterity by 1.

Alternative: If you build Molly Hernandez instead, either grab Tough for more HP or increase your Strength.

6th Level: On 5th Level Fighter gets an Extra Attack, letting you attack twice in a single attack action, four times with Action Surge. You can punch fast because you have the power of youth...wait, that’s from some manga.

7th Level: 2nd Level Barbarian gains Reckless Attack, letting you before the first attack decide to gain an advantage on melee attacks during this turn but at the cost of enemy attacks having an advantage against you during the next turn.

Unearthed Arcana also gives Barbarian Survival Instincts, letting Molly become proficient in Perception and Animal handling and doubling her proficiency bonus to these skills. Between Old Lace and psychic cat Rufus, Molly is pretty good with animals after all.

8th Level: 3rd Level Barbarian gets to enter a Primal Path. Path of the Zealot is lore-wise hard to fit, as it is a fanatical follower of the gods. But you can easily refluff it - Molly is so devoted to protecting her friends that it gives her outright fanatical empowerment. Or maybe ask your DM which god in their setting is a patron of friendship and found families.

You gain two features. Warrior of the Gods ensures that if you’d die and someone, say your goth surrogate mom, cast a spell restoring you to life, they do it without having to pay a, usually high, material price. The second feature, Divine Fury, makes Molly hit even harder. Now when you rage the first attack you hit with on each of your turns deals an extra 1d6 + half of your Barbarian level of radiant or necrotic damage.

9th Level: 4th Level Barbarian gets an Ability Score Improvement, boost up your Strength to hit even harder.

10th level: 5th level Barbarian is sadly a doozy because you get Extra attack you already got from Fighter. It sucks but they do not stack. Cheer yourself up by the fact you can now puch so well to make Punisher write it in his journal. And you get extra 10 feet of movement when you’re not wearing armor to cheer you up.

11th Level: 6th Level Zealot gets Fanatical Focus, letting you to once per rage (which at this level raises to four uses per long rest) reroll a failed saving throw while you rage. As with previous features that let you reroll things, you must accept the new result even if its worse.

12th Level: 6th Level Fighter gains another Ability Score Improvement, increase your Constitution for better AC and more Hit Points.

13th Level: 7th Level Brute gains Brutish Durability, which allows you to add 1d6 to any saving throw you make, and if it’s a Death Saving Throw and it would push you to or above 20, you treat the roll as a natural 20, making you automatically regain 1 hit point.

14th Level: 8th Level Fighter gets to round up Constitution with another Ability Score Improvement.

15th Level: 9th Level Fighter becomes Indominable, allowing you to once per long rest reroll a failed saving throw and accept the new roll, even if it's worse.

16th Level: 7th Level Barbarian gains Feral Instinct, giving you an advantage on Initiative rolls and letting you act as if you’re not surprised in case an enemy surprises you, but only if the first thing you do is enter Rage. Which is what you should do if X-Men show suddenly to kidnap you to their weird cult island.

17th Level: 8th Level Barbarian can increase Strength with our last Ability Score Improvement.

18th Level: 9th Level Barbarian gets Brutal Critical, allowing you on a critical hit roll one additional die of any type you use in an attack, and since you use multiple ones, you can pick the highest one.

19th Level: 10th Level Zealot can make a Zealous Presence, letting you once per long rest as a bonus action rally up your teammates in need, giving them an advantage on saving throws and attack rolls for their next turn.

20th Level: Our capstone is 11th level Barbarian, giving us Relentless Rage. If you are raging and drop to 0 hit points but not outright killed, you can succeed a DC 10 Constitution saving throw and drop to 1 hit point instead. Every time you use it between rests the DC increases by 5 and goes back to 10 after short or long rest.

Overview: Molly Hayes is a Stout Halfling Brute Fighter 9/Path of Zealot Barbarian 11, let us see how good this build is.

Pros: First of all, your damage from various sources can stack up to pretty decent damage. Second, you are ridiculously hard to put down, with over two hundred hit points, resistance to damage, multiple ways to succeed saving throws and even more to get yourself out of the death situation - Indominable, Fanatical Focus, brutish Durability - and Second Wind, you can stay in combat for a long time. Your AC is at 18, which is also decent. Finally, you get to reroll so much you really feel like someone who is contractually set up to not die.

Cons: You are not as strong as you could be, we didn’t round up Strength in the end. Molly is strong but not as much as guys like Colossus. You also don’t deal much in magic damage and many creatures will have resistances or immunities against your punches, so you better hope DM gives you something to make your fists magical. And finally, you're a bit of a one-trick pony, you just punch people and I know from experience playing someone who just hits can bore some players fast.

However, this is pretty in character. You’re still a kid, so you have still time to surpass powerhouses like Hulk. But in meanwhile remember to keep your found family safe and teach everyone this kid is not to be underestimated.

Alternatives: I was considering Rogue but it didn’t really work with it since Molly doesn’t use anything that can deal Sneak Attack. if you sacrifice that character bit, you can start as a Rogue to get better skills. Going up to 4 levels and picking Swashbuckler or Scout for an Archetype will combine well with Cunning Action to make you move on the battlefield with an energy an excited kid like Molly has.

- Admin

#Molly Hayes #Runaways #Molly Hernandez #Marvel #Dungeons & Dragons

11 notes · View notes

slytherflynn · 4 years

Text

The Return of Slytherflynn | Witch Weekly No. 1

Salutations, witches and wizards! Slytherflynn here. I haven’t posted on this account in a long time. My reason? Actually, there are a few. I’ll get to those soon. Today I’m going to give you an introduction to me, discuss why my exodus happened, and what this blog will consist of moving forward. Let’s jump right in!

Who Is Slytherflynn? Who else? My name’s Eden, but my last name is Flynn, hence the username. I am a Slytherin primary, Hufflepuff secondary. My patronus is a dolphin, so that’s pretty cool. I’m mixed, but live the life of a white girl because I look white and don’t care to argue with people about my DNA. I enjoy elevating underrepresented voices, and will go to any length to protect the unprotected. I’d consider myself to be a humanitarian. I know people despise labels, but I believe choosing labels wisely can give others a great insight into who you are as a person, so here are some labels I identify with: Bisexual, Androgynous, BLM Ally, Liberal, Socialist, University Student, Abuse Survivor, ADHD, Excoriation Disorder, OCD, Depression, PTSD, [an] Attachment Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Tacoman, Creator. There are plenty more I could throw out there, but those in particular are important to me. Make of them what you will, but know that I am not ashamed of any of those. I am going to open a nonprofit center supporting POC Youth and connected communities in art and education, but I also want to do everything. Now that you know about me...

Who Are You? Yes, you, reading this paper! What do we have in common? Different? What makes you special, and what makes you the same? What communities are you tied to? Tell me in the replies!

My Magical Journey I grew up in a dreadfully muggle world. My mother, also a muggle, delighted in Harry Potter, as did my brothers. I was resolutely a Harry Potter hater, and thought they were too fangirly, but when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince came out and I saw Louis Cordice portray Blaise Zabini, everything changed. I may or may not have gone off the deep end and started fangirling over him - what? He’s attractive, okay? But I did end up reeling myself in, as having unrealistic fictional crush is one thing, but thirsting for an unattainable person who probably is married with a kid by now is another, and I didn’t want to get to a point where I was fetishizing someone rather than admiring them for their skills and unique perspective on the world. He did notice my thirsting though, and thought it was funny! So no harm, no foul as far as I’m concerned. Absolute win! Anyways, after becoming a fan of him, Tumblr let me know that there was more content about Blaise Zabini in the books than the movies, so what did I do? Commit to reading all seven, because my ADHD said so and would rather do that than homework. Eventually, I started up this side blog so my main blog wouldn’t be so flooded with hp content. I have written quite a few fics, all appropriate, all probably trash because most of them were written in my junior year of high school, all available for you to read. I ought to make a masterlist for my work, now that I think about it. Anyways, you can find that content and other fun stuff under the tag #slytherflynn so check that out for some light, probably shitty reading!

Why I Left At some point, I decided not to post as much, and went from 100 to 0, real quick. I have a bunch of unfinished writing in my drafts, and I’m not really sure how to start up everything again, but I know I want to, because writing and creating is such a passion of mine, and so is Harry Potter. Part of the reason I left was because I’m a perfectionist and felt this need to make every post perfect, my feed perfectly curated, everything perfectly on time, and I ended up holding myself to a standard that I just can’t meet - no human could, not even Hermione Granger, as evidenced in Prisoner of Azkaban. It took a long time to come back to this blog because I burnt myself out, truth be told. That perfectionism carries over into every aspect of my life - I did mention I want to do everything, after all - and I ended up piling so much up that I couldn’t get all of it done. I felt guilty every time I thought about this blog, because I had so many faithful followers that I essentially abandoned without warning, and I know feeling abandoned isn’t a good feeling. That, and I still couldn’t shake the shame surrounding the fact that I wasn’t posting content every week despite my want to. I even considered deleting this blog! Sorry to anyone who was waiting for me to post hp content on my main account ( @id-rather-be-an-outsider ), I got too anxious to do that, even.

Seeing the Future I’m not skilled at Divination, but I can confirm that I will be making an official return to this blog - complete with Witch Weekly articles whenever I have updates to give! I have at least one short fic finished that I’d like to create a moodboard for and post on here sometime soon. This time around, I’m only going to be posting when I really want to so I’m not putting any pressure on myself, and I’m going to open up asks for you guys to request writing for pairings (note that I do not write smut), as well as giving you guys the opportunity to submit stories - my goal for submissions is to elevate PoC and other voices the masses don’t usually hear, and I encourage those who do submit to always self-promote in their author’s note! You can find the guidelines for post submissions on my submission section :)

Goodbyes Since we are reaching the end of this article, I’m going to be officially saying goodbye to: negativity, destructively high and unrealistic expectations, anxiety, writer’s block, artist’s block, fear of under 10 notes (notes shouldn’t matter, but yakno, there’s still gonna be that part of me that knows bad writing probably won’t be getting 10 notes so it’s still... scary), fear of unfair criticisms, defensiveness... and hello to: creativity, letting our hair down, wearing our glasses, posts on the witching hour, going to bed early instead of staying up late to force out a piece, perfectly imperfect writing, pretty moodboards, and making mistakes! Hope to see you all soon with a post, and Happy Pride! My city’s official Pride month is July so I get to celebrate Pride twice, lucky me!

be loving <3 - slytherflynn

2 notes · View notes

nedflames · 4 years

Text

Danny and Criticism: An Essay/Rant?

Since I’m on desktop I can finally put this under a read more thank god and also jesus

it’s very long…and I didn’t edit it so some of it might not make any sense because I type too fast for my thoughts sometimes

I’ve been thinking about Danny, big surprise, and the way he executes criticism. Since I started watching Eddy, I’ve noticed that Danny rarely has an overt/expose criticism when he is talking about other creators, unlike Eddy and Drew.

Eddy and Drew usually criticize creators that are actively doing something ethically wrong. Their content is more essay-like and research-based than Danny’s; So, Eddy and Drew’s commentary is more satirical while Danny’s is more purely comedic.

The thing is, Danny has been overtly critical in past videos and, for a while, it bothered me that he has backed away from it. It still does kind of bother me, to be honest, because he’s an intelligent dude who has some hot takes on important topics. I think now more than ever he could execute harsher criticism and keep it entertaining; “Bag Tho” is an excellent example of that and so was his criticism on the pedophile theory for Yummy on his second channel.

But it doesn’t bother me as much as it used to because I realized something the last time I was focusing on this issue; I’ve learned more from Danny about criticism and comedy than I have from Eddy and Drew. He has influenced the way I approach a text in more ways than any other comedian has (except maybe Bo Burnham…they’re tied). This doesn’t mean that Eddy and Drew don’t have influence over my critical thinking skills, but, for me, their content is the result of practiced critique; I don’t learn how to approach a text, but I learn about the text; it’s like discussing a subject with my peers instead of learning it from a professor; in college, both of those practices helped me learn and exercise my critical thinking so, in no way do I think this makes any of them superior to the others.

Danny’s main goal is to make people laugh; he’s said it in his main videos; he’s said it on podcasts; and he’s said it on his second channel, too. In his interview with Anthony Padilla he said that he treats his videos like stand-up. (I’d fucking love to see his live stand up. I’d give every cent in my savings account to see that.) Danny is a comedian, first and foremost, and YouTube is his platform. You could tell from his vine career just how hard he was trying to pursue comedy as a career, to be noticed as a comedian. He comes by it honestly and has said some of his vines weren’t funny and were just attempts at going viral. The dude is worried about his brand to a fault, imo, but he’s got talent and confidence to back it up. So, of course his content is going to reflect that more than Eddy’s or Drew’s.

Eddy and Drew are also comedians who want to make people laugh but Eddy has said recently on the Gus & Eddy podcast that he wants his commentary to be about people who are actually doing something wrong instead of clowning on cringe content like Danny does. (Yes, he specifically listed Danny as an example. At first I was on the defense and felt like Eddy was kinda shaming Danny for not pursuing a more “noble” style of commentary. But, after calming down and listening to the episode again, I realized he was just saying that their content does different things which I totally agree with…still don’t agree that Danny “just clowns” on people but more on that later.) Eddy still wants his content to be funny, and still has commentary videos that don’t have an overt critical agenda, but you can tell that satirical comedy is a main motivator for him.

I feel like Drew is right in between Danny and Eddy on the criticism scale. He has his more comedic videos and he has his more serious ones. But, in my opinion, his serious videos are just a little bit better. It’s honestly hard to tell what the driving motivation behind his commentary is because he hasn’t fully spoken up about it, as far as I know, but I would say he leans more toward satirical comedy.

Since I started studying comedy in college I’ve had a sort of thesis building in my head: humor is a comfortable way to approach uncomfortable things; it’s a way to battle cognitive dissonance. Laughing at something wrong is an effective way to sneakily change someone’s mind; ridicule and shame are powerful tools; that’s why I love satire. (I will also add since humor is amoral it can also be used negatively, but that does not mean we should jump to the conclusion that all ridicule/satire is naturally wrong.)

So what does that have to do with Danny’s style of commentary? Sure, he’s a comedian trying to make people laugh and sure he avoids addressing more serious topics, but he does provide important criticism even if it’s not in the same area as Drew or Eddy. In that interview with Anthony Padilla, Danny said he wants to prove that content on YouTube can be as good as traditional media. His goal isn’t to expose people for doing bad things, though he is still doing that but not as critically as the other two, but to show his audience how to be critical of popular media; a main criticism in his videos overall is about low-effort and formulaic content because that’s something he very clearly cares about. His goal isn’t to call out people for being toxic; it’s to call out their content for not being as good or well-though-out as it could be. The problem with low-effort content, especially from bigger creators, is that it’s there to make money and nothing else; it’s content that has no substance; it’s manipulative. Even content that has a high-production value needs to have substance, creativity, and originality.

Danny pointed out in his “how i make a video” video that he doesn’t want to make fun people who are just inexperienced; he wants to make fun of people who know exactly what they’re doing and still don’t put in the effort to make their content good.

Another one of his critiques, usually with Badads, is about dishonesty; his badads videos are mostly goofy but they all have the same criticism about their manipulative nature. In fact, his whole experiment with badads was about pointing out the manipulative tactics and valuing honesty (even if his honest ad didn’t get a higher CTR.)

I think his critiques are capable of teaching people to be more critical of the media they consume without making them feel like they’re wrong for enjoying it.

Another thing I think Danny approaches well is misogyny. (Again, his badads videos are prime examples because so many ads sexualize women.) But the way he does it IS IMPORTANT and, in my opinion, a better method than other commentary channels. Returning to my theory about ridicule being an effective tool to sneakily change someone’s perspective, Danny isn’t overt about his criticisms toward misogyny. He doesn’t say shit like “sexism is bad and women are great and I worship women and blah blah blah” but he does ridicule misogyny often. His methods aren’t preachy or forceful but he does normalize the ridicule and shaming of misogynistic behavior. By laughing at the behavior and treating it like it’s outlandish and ridiculous he normalizes respect for women. This is why you will never see me saying some shit like “Danny drinks his respect women juice ohmygod he’s my heeerrrooo” because it’s not heroic behavior and he doesn’t fucking treat it that way. If we over-worship this stuff we set the bar hella low. It should not be seen as the highest possible standard for men; it should be seen as the normal standard for men. I definitely praise him for this approach, but not for just…acting like a dude should act.

All that being said

Do I think his general audience walks away from his content with these criticisms in mind? From my experience in the fandom, and from just scrolling through the comments in his videos, I don’t think it effects everyone like it effects me. This is mostly fine because I don’t think his full intent is to get people to learn how to think critically about the content they consume; I firmly believe him when he says he mostly wants to make people laugh. But I’m hopeful that they are more critical of things even if they aren’t conscious of it.

The biggest I problem I have with Danny is that he avoids confrontation with his fans. As I said before, he’s a little too worried about his brand. I don’t think he’s as bad about it as some of his contemporaries, who have co-dependent relationships with their fans (which I distrust because I find that manipulative and dishonest); I hate when he feels like he has to do damage control with his stans on twitter (the Reddit AMA thing) but I don’t think he panders either.

BUT what bothers me The Most is that he doesn’t make the point to call out fans who harass the creators he covers. He’s done it once or twice but I feel like all commentary YouTubers should make an effort to specify the difference between comedy/commentary/criticism and bullying/harassment. Most people swarm to commentary content because they want the drama, because they love to hate and, sadly, they think that harassment is justified even if a creator isn’t doing something horribly wrong. Hell, even if they’re doing something horribly wrong, they’re still getting undeserved attention and harassment. doesn’t. communicate. criticism.

This is a reason why I’d wish he’d be more overt with this criticism because it doesn’t always translate…especially for his younger fans.

What’s the point of all this? I guess I just wanted to get my inner-monologue about this out in the fresh air but I also wanted to point out that Danny’s content is still critical and it’s been effectively critical for me. He makes me appreciate comedy and criticism more but I still wish he’d be more overt about some things.

#moe's soap box #all #text #he has a young face

9 notes · View notes

wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 4 years

Text

Michael in the Mainstream: Pokemon Generation I & II

Pokemon is one of the biggest media franchises on the planet since 1996, and while it’s never exactly hit the same highs as it did back in the 90s, the franchise has been going strong for over two decades regardless. So, in honor of the latest entries in the franchise, I decided to take a look back at the old generations and look at what worked and what didn’t about them, though obviously in my own style. And what better place to start than the original two generations, Generations I and II?

Let’s start with Generation I, which includes the three games that started it all – Red, Blue, and Yellow, though back in the franchise’s homeland of Japan they had Green instead of Blue (hence why we got FireRed and LeafGreen, but no WaterBlue). These are the games that launched the franchise into the stratosphere of popularity, and for a long time they were held up as the gold standard of Pokemon games, attracting a die-hard base of “fans” known as Genwunners, who would bash anything outside of the first 151 Pokemon. Lately that sort of opinion has declined, though you still get the odd person here and there whining about how newer Pokemon designs look like Digimon, which indicates that the person saying that is unfamiliar with either franchise.

But what of the games themselves? What are they like? I have long expressed distaste for the Gen I games, mostly because of my hatred of Genwunners, but ultimately my opinions on the games are a lot more mixed. I do believe that Yellow is a genuinely good game and probably how the first generation should be experienced if you really want to go back to the old games, but my opinions on Red and Blue are a bit more mixed – but, shockingly, mostly positive.

You see, here’s the thing with Pokemon games – even at their worst, they’re still fun, and Red and Blue prove that. These are impressive games for their time that had the misfortune of aging far worse than a lot of their contemporaries, mostly due to the nature of the games themselves – any sort of franchise based on collecting and battling among groups of friends is going to need a lot of polish between releases, which will inevitably leave older games in the dust, especially when each generation after would add more and more Pokemon with each new generation. But even if they haven’t aged all too well, there’s still plenty of fun to be had here, though a lot of it is not in ways the creators intended.

Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first – the balance in this game is absolutely atrocious. There are some types that are just objectively better than others, some types are so scarce as to be utterly useless, some moves don’t work like they’re supposed to, some of the computers use moves they shouldn’t know… the game is a hot mess, to put it lightly. At points the games feel frustratingly unplayable, especially when you come up against Sabrina, the gym leader wielding the all-powerful type of Gen I, Psychic.

The more mixed parts of the game are the story and the beloved, exploitable glitches. The story here… well, there isn’t one. There’s sort of an excuse plot in place - you have to beat all the gyms, challenge the Elite Four, and battle your rival (who you can name whatever, but I’ll be referring to him by his canon name, Blue). Other than that, though? There’s not really any sort of overarching plot. You kind of just wander into situation after situation on your way to the next gym. Even the whole Team Rocket plot here is mostly just you beating them up because they prove to slightly inconvenience you at every turn. Unlike in later entries, where the player is roped into saving the world from destruction at the hands of all-powerful PokeGods. Here the plot is basically “Young boy accidentally foils the Mafia while on a walk with their pet.” It’s so hilariously simple it’s hard to totally hate it, and to be perfectly fair a lot of early RPGs had rather simplistic plots, and this was one of the first handheld RPGs, so I cut them a bit of slack here, especially seeing as we at least got Giovanni out of this.

The glitches are infamous and iconic, but even them I’m a bit mixed on. Like, I love Missingno as much as everyone else, but I think tat if you need to break a game this hard to have fun, it kind of ruins things. I feel the same way about the glitches as I do the Crissaegrim in Symphony of the Night sure, they’re cool, flashy, and powerful, but they make the game so pathetically easy from that point onwards it just isn’t that entertaining anymore.

Still, this game does excel in one area: character. There are a lot of great characters in this game, human and Pokemon. A lot of the gym leaders are absolutely iconic, and the Elite Four is mostly interesting, though I will say that they lack a lot of character compared to later Elite Fours (though he Gen III remakes ameliorated this problem). It’s pretty impressive how so much character was able to be crammed into these characters even though they are ostensibly just roadblocks on your way to the next gym.

Then there are the Pokemon. The designs in this generation are pretty simple, occasionally to a fault, but there is a reason for this: a lot of Pokemon are based on yokai or tsukumogami, both of which are pretty essential in Japanese folklore. Tsukumogami in particular are something the franchise seems to absolutely love, with the Voltorb and Magnemite lines being notable examples from this generation. Other Japanese folklore represented in this Generation include kitsune, which the Vulpix line is explicitly based on, kappas, which Golduck is inspired by, baku, which the Drowzee line represents, and so in. In fact, the entire concept of Pokemon is so entrenched in the concepts of yokai and Japanese spirits that it is endlessly amusing to see Westerners nitpicking the designs, ignoring the cultural meaning behind them. Pokemon have a variety of inspirations obviously, but the weirder you think a design is the more likely it is to have been based off of some sort of yokai.

I think the definitive Gen I experience is Yellow, which is inspired by the anime. You start off with Pikachu who follows behind you at all times, you can acquire all of the starters, the game overall feels more polished (but not overly so), and you get to fight Jessie and James. It’s a lot of fun, and it doesn’t heavily alter the story, instead adding a few neat little additions, something that would become common with third versions in the franchise. The Kanto games are a solid start to a franchise, but they definitely could have used a bit more work…

That’s where Generation II comes in.

Generation II honestly feels like what Generation I should have been like, leaving Red and Blue as the unpolished alpha, Yellow as the beta, and Gold and Silver as the full release. In fact, it kind of leaves the second gen feeling a lot more like an expansion pack than anything else, but not in an obnoxious or bad way like a certain other game (COUGHOverwatch 2COUGH). These games are so much better in just about every conceivable way, it’s not even funny.

A lot of important series mainstays made their debut here. The biggest and best is probably the introduction of the Dark and Steel types, the latter of which really feels like it should have been in Generation 1 to begin with. Steel quickly established itself as a very defensive type, and Pokemon of that type are just naturally tough due to Steel resisting nearly every other type in the game, with it only being nerfed slightly once the games jumped to 3D. Dark on the other hand was extremely cool in concept, but a lot of the Pokemon of the type were not able to properly utilize their impressive movepools due to Dark being classified as a Special type and a lot of early Dark-types running with high physical stats.

Let me clarify real quick: prior to Generation IV, the type of the move determined whether it ran off of Physical or Special Attack, no matter how ludicrous it seemed. That means Dark moves like Bite and Fire moves like Blaze Kick ran off of the Special Attack stat despite almost always appearing on Pokemon that had much higher Physical Attack, leaving a lot of Dark-types in the dust until the Sinnoh games rolled along and balanced things. Still, this bump in usability did not stop Dark-types from being popular and beloved, with Pokemon like Umbreon, Sneasel, and Houndoom all debuting here in the land of Johto.

Speaking of new Pokemon, fewer were added this time around, only about 100, sort of fitting in with this game feeling like an expansion pack. A lot of the new Pokemon are odd and gimmicky, with strange creatures like Unown, Delibird, and Shuckle making their debut here, as well as the almighty Dunsparce. While time would be kind to some of these (Dunsparce and Shuckle in particular have gained niche uses and cult fandoms), other gimmicky Pokemon got left in the dust. Still, I do think having weird, gimmicky Pokemon adds some flavor to the world. If there’s one thing I am upset about, it’s some of the Pokemon that were cut from the game, revealed to the world in the prototype version of Gold and Silver that leaked online. We almst got a new Shellder evo that looked like Slowbro’s tail, as well as Pokemon like Lickilicky debuting two generations earlier (and with a far better design). Still, what we got is pretty impressive, and though I find Johto a tad bit vanilla, there are a lot of Pokemon I love in this generation.

Another great addition to the franchise is lore behind the Legendary Pokemon. Gen I did have a bit of lore in regards to Mew and Mewtwo if you chose to read all of the journals in Cinnabar Mansion, but the bird trio got nothing and sort of just felt like random bonus bosses than Pokemon really deserving the title of legends. In this game, every legend introduced feels legendary. Entei, Raikou, Suicune, Ho-Oh, and Lugia all have fascinating lore behind them, and while they don’t play a major part in the story or factor in to Team Rocket’s plans (save for Suicune in Crystal, who has its own subplot), it showed that even this early on they were working on making the legendaries feel bigger and more impressive to the point they deserved their title as legends.

Then of course there are the new additions to gameplay and collecting that helped really make the franchise shine. The introduction of held items is one of the most significant; now there were even more ways to improve your standing in a battle! Give your mon a berry, they’ll eat it when their health gets low! This feature would be expanded on in later games, but its start here introduced a whole new world of possibilities. There was also the splitting of the Special stat into Special Attack and Special Defense a choice that helped balance the games and not completely overpower the Psychic type. And speaking of, Type distribution was quite a bit better in these games, though the new types Steel and Dark as well as Ghost and Dragon were still fairly underutilized and rare.

Then there is the introduction of gender and breeding, which allowed players to get new Pokemon by leaving two Pokemon in the same egg group in a day care together. This not only allowed for the introduction of new baby Pokemon (which are largely useless and Pokedex filler if I’m being honest), but it gave the transforming blob of jello Ditto a new lease on life, as it could breed with absolutely ANYTHING, even some genderless Pokemon. Finally, we have the introduction of shiny Pokemon, Pokemon that had a different coloration than normal Pokemon and that almost surely existed to show off the power of the Game Boy Color. Back in Generation II, shinies were guaranteed to have perfect IVs of some sort or another to make their rarity more worthwhile, but this was scrapped after this gen. Still, there is nothing cooler than having that fabulous Pokemon with its incredible sparkle pop up while you’re roaming the wild, and nothing sadder than realizing you don’t have any balls to catch it.

The story here is also improved, which is a plus. A rarity for Pokemon games going forward, these games were true sequels to the originals, taking place a few years after the events of the Gen I games, and so the plot concerns the player getting roped in to not only stopping the remnants of Team Rocket trying to rise to power yet again, but also fighting off a mysterious rival named Silver, all while trying to complete the gym challenge. The stakes are a bit higher this time, but not overly so, and the plot definitely feels bigger and more important, with their being a sense of “I have to stop Team Rocket or something bad could happen” rather than “Ugh, these guys are blocking the way to the next gym, guess I better get rid of them.” And if that’s not enough, this has one of the more impressive post-games for the series… for its time. Much has been made of the late, great Satoru Iwata’s impressive cramming of the entirety of Kanto into the game, and you won’t hear me say that for the time these games came out what he did was impressive.

The thing is, this accomplishment has aged about as well as the games the Kanto region debuted in. Gen II’s version of Kanto has a very poor level curve, meaning you can basically steamroll through most of the gyms, and a lot of areas are blocked off, gone, or cut down. While it is cool to see all these places two years after the original games, it’s not nearly as fun when you’re crushing underleveled Pokemon and you can’t access Cerulean Cave or the legendary birds. When you finally acquire all the badges though, you get to head to Mt. Silver and make your way up to one of the definitive bonus bosses of the franchise – Red, the player character of the original games. He’s a pretty tough opponent, and the game seems to lean towards making Yellow the true canon game as Red has all three starters plus Pikachu,

There’s not much else to say, as there isn’t too much negative to say about the Johto region or the games. The definitive version is, of course, Crystal, as it has a bit of extra story and polish to it and even let you play as a girl for the first time, and though there are aspects that the remakes of these games would improve on, the Generation II games are actually extremely solid and a lot of fun to play to this day, even if they haven’t yet achieved optimal balance for Pokemon. At the very least, they’re a lot more fun and playable than the Gen I games.

It’s pretty undeniable that the first two generations put Pokemon on a pretty solid path of progression and started the franchise off with a bang. There was really nowhere to go from here but up, and boy oh boy did they ever go up from here.

#Michael in the Mainstream #Review #video game review #Pokemon #Red #Blue #Yellow #Gold #Silver #Crystal #Generation I #Generation II #Kanto #Johto #Team Rocket

16 notes · View notes

guyveranimefan87-blog · 5 years

Text

The thing about old cartoons...

Lately I had watched some YouTube video talking about few nostalgic cartoons from 80's and 90's, and it made me think.

Most of those shows that we call classics, fondly remember and talk about to this day were shameless cash grabs, created solely to promote some new toyline, that somehow got popular enough on their own, sometimes eclipsing the stuff they were supposed to promote.

Is this still a thing?

I mean yeah, series that started like that, for example “Transformers”, “The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” etc, are still getting new cartoons, but at this point they are a cultural phenomenon on their own, that would sell new toys regardless of the cartoons.

And when thinking about new shows based on that idea, off top of my head I can only recall cancellation of "Young Justice" since toys did not sell, and "Stretch Armstrong and The Flex Fighters" from Netflix, since it was kinda-sorta based on a toy that was rather obscure for modern audiences.

So, IMO probably it is not a thing anymore, but maybe we should give this idea a chance once again?

I know it sounds kinda weird, but we don't get so many creatively insane cartoons today, as we did then.

For example let's look at...

Inhumanoids (1986)

youtube

We have a trio of ancient monsters with frightening powers awakened in the present times... well at least present at the time of the show's airing... threatening to destroy the world, and a group of brave scientists clad in advanced powered armors, and using various vehicles to fight them, sometimes with the aid of other, more friendly monsters.

Seems standard, eh? I mean, a group of good guys, a group of bad guys, battle for the sake of the world, etc, with a lot of options to add new characters or vehicles to sell as toys later on.

And then we get to see the clips from actual show, and start to wonder how the heck not one Concerned Parent Organization protested about it...

youtube

As a bonus we also got some blood, limbs being cut or crushed...

Heck D’Compose was a different class of being non-kid friendly in itself, since aside from changing people into monsters, and ruling over an army of undead, he also trapped enemies inside his chest, with internal organs visible...

You know... For kids!

But aside from that, it was actually quite a well-written show, at least for it’s target demographic and standards of the time, since it had resigned from self-contained one-episode stories, instead building longer story-arcs, with numerous subplots etc.

Sure, it did get silly from time to time, especially in later episodes, but when it did, it was at least silly to an insane degree, which actually made it enjoyable, and memorable.

For example in one of those later episodes we got a plot about a love potion, that caused Inhumanoids leader Metlar to fall in love with... Statue of Liberty.

He then uses his powers to bring her to life... only to regret it later, as she turns out to be a high-maintenance, overtly demanding harpy, who loves to shout at him...

Yeah...

80′s were weird.

OK, or maybe something a bit less obscure, and a little less bizarre?

Jem and the Holograms (1985 - 1988)

youtube

So...

A young woman inherits a failing record company and an incredibly advanced, sentient A.I. that can create a hard-light holograms, and instead of selling the tech and becoming obscenely rich, she uses it to create a second identity for herself, and becomes a music star.

OK, why not?

Now, regardless of what I had written above, I really admire this show, for perfectly embodying the times it was created in, for example taking cues from the growing popularity of MTV and music videos in general by creating their own song, and accompanying videos.

Which in my humble opinion still held up quite well, despite the fact that series itself is over thirty years old.

youtube

Yup, still awesome.

Aside from that we had a strong cast of diverse characters, longer story-arcs, and quite a lot of heart, which seems quite nice for a series intended as a commercial for a line of Totally-Not-Barbies...

OK, let’s get into obscure and bizarre again :)

Mummies Alive! (1997)

youtube

Yup, a superhero series about a team of resurrected Egyptian mummies with power to transform like Power Rangers or Kamen Riders, to protect a kid from San Francisco who is apparently a reincarnation of the pharaoh they had served in the past from an immoral ancient sorcerer.

Things like that could only happen in the 90′s...

Still despite how bizarre the whole idea was, the show did took time to introduce viewers to some aspects of Egyptian mythology... even if it was watered down a bit, and kept “kid friendly”, characters had their story-arcs, and well... it kinda looked cool, I am not going to deny it.

I mean, mummies doing henshins through “Strength of Ra”? How could it not be cool?

What I am trying to say, is that those cartoons created solely to sell us stuff were quite often very original and distinct, and more often than not, writing teams had to be very creative to sell viewers bizarre concepts they were forced to work with, resulting in interesting products.

I mean, they could either try harder, to justify the weird stuff, or just embrace it by not treating it too seriously.

And it worked somehow.

Plus, those show usually looked a bit better than their counterparts, since toy producers could afford to pay animators better than usually, since if it worked out as planned, they would still earn more on the toys.

And I mean, could You imagine someone green-lighting some of those classic shows today? Exec who would push for it would probably be fired...

I mean, show about anthropomorphic rodents from space who rode bikes and fought evil greedy corporation led by a guy who was a space fish in disguise couldn’t possibly be popular, right?

Or maybe a series about a group of “radical” kids obsessed with junk food, skating and so on, who were changed into humanoid sharks by mad scientist?

Nah, that’s just sounds dumb, it would never sell...

And don’t tell me You can make a good, engaging, and kinda dark show based on those Polly Pocked rip-offs for boys, that pitted a kid with a baseball cap against various monsters?

Now, I am not saying we’re not getting good cartoons nowadays, quite the opposite, but I kinda miss this mad, unrestrained creativity that could only be achieved through corporate greed and unreasonable restraints put on the creators...

So, maybe we should try this again?

Edit:

Since it was fun to write, I had uploaded a second part. Cause why not?

The thing about old cartoons #02.

#nostalgia #80's nostalgia #90's nostalgia #nostalgic cartoons #classic cartoons #classic animation #classic tv shows #stretch armstrong #inhumanoids #jem and the holograms #mummies alive #biker mice from mars #street sharks #mighty max #rant #i have too much time on my hands

99 notes · View notes

toilethought · 4 years

Text

ok so my issue with the whole idea of “you can write/draw whatever you want” assertion is that, while technically true, it’s also important to remember that you are responsible for what you write.

and this has been an argument going around in fandom communities on tumblr for ages now, especially re: ao3′s absolute lack of any type of moderation on their site. and while i’m not a hardliner (and i doubt most people are) who thinks that you should /never/ write about [insert terrible thing here], i certainly do hold the view that people should be conscious of what they’re promoting when they write.

so, yeah, sure, write all your sexual fantasies that you won’t admit to in the light of day, but tag them. make it clear in author’s notes that it’s just a fantasy. make it clear that this type of thing is wrong in real life, and don’t act as if it’s a chore to do so (or as if it’s ridiculous that anyone would think it’d be right). because, maybe it’s that i’m young enough to remember when i was a baby on the internet and all the things i stumbled upon as a kid. but i don’t doubt that young people will stumble upon these fantasies, not knowing what they are, and not realizing that they’re bad. this isn’t a “people are stupid” thing. it’s a “some people are too young to have learned all of this yet” thing. and, and, you better make sure it is damn hard for any random kid on the internet to wander in and find what you’ve written.

and, yes, the onus is on the author to do this, not on the kid to realize that the world is a scary place and maybe they’re not quite yet mature enough for some things.

[like, a few months ago there was a kerfuffle between a certain manga site and some groups of yaoi scanlators in which these scanlators tried to get this manga site to list their scanlations as R18+ and hence inaccessible without an account and verification, but said manga site kept insisting that only hentai was R18+ and that yaoi wasn’t, despite yaoi also containing graphic sex. these scanlators, on the basis of not wanting their work to be found by minors on accident, ended up leaving this manga site for precisely this reason. and while i would’ve been shocked at this choice even just a few years back, now, at 25, i completely understand where they’re coming from and agree. this is what being a responsible adult looks like.]

and, returning to the original crux of the thing, i’m reminded of what i posted a while back re: the scarjo debacle, that i think anyone who believes art is immune to criticism is wrong (and a hack). because art not only reflects real life but also influences it too. (and not just in bad ways too -- i’m sure we can all name a book or painting or whatnot that changed out lives.) and so when you’re drawing or writing or creating art, you have to be a responsible creator of The Thing. because no matter how media likes to paint the image of the lone, tortured artist, none of us ever work in isolation, no matter how we might want to.

like, think about it, do you really want to be a Nabokov, crying decades later that “no, lolita wasn’t a romance, and if you think it is, you’re a pedophile”? like, we can proselytize all we want about why we, as a society, read lolita and think “love story” instead of “ew pedophilia”, but at the core of it, Nabokov is responsible for bringing it into the world. and if that many people think it’s something Nabokov didn’t intend it to be, something went wrong in translation, and rather than shouting “you’re reading my work wrong!” maybe start thinking, “i probably should have written it differently”. Nabokov probably got the rudest wake-up call in that sense, but i think that applies to a lot of things. (like, if a lot of folks are reading racism into your work, i’m sorry to say, but your work is probably racist... and it’s something you have to fix, even if it was unintentional.)

so, my base point isn’t that you should never write something objectionable, but that you have to be a responsible author-adult when you’re writing. that you have to be aware of what message it is you’re sending via your writing. it’s fine to write sexual fantasies, but make the readers aware that it’s only a fantasy. tag your work properly! write the obligatory disclaimer that you don’t condone this behavior irl! it might seem silly as an adult, but it’ll make a difference to the minor who inadvertently stumbled upon your work. especially since ao3′s kudos system seems designed to elevate extremely porn-y works over others.

(like there’s further permutations of this debate. re: the difference between a published work vs. fannish work. the former of which most seem to hold to a higher standard than the latter, since the latter is “just for fun”. i think, with how the internet is structured, it’s naive to think that fannish work can just remain in isolation, within its own fandom communities, especially since ao3 itself encourages cross-pollination across fandoms. this isn’t the usenet or even LJ days where you have to deliberately go and search for these things. it’s there, and it’s easily accessible. and, yes, i agree that fannish works shouldn’t be held to as high a standard as published works, but there does need to be a standard. and if it takes a bit longer to write/publish a fanfic nowadays, i think that’s a necessary -- and good -- tradeoff in exchange for safer, more inclusive spaces for everyone.)

2 notes · View notes