#This somehow started off as Zelda discourse

[sibblank]

"you call people incels and yet you people don't even have sex!"

Uh, yeah? There's nothing wrong with not having sex, the problem with incels has never been that they don't have sex, that's THEIR philosophy, the problem is the entitlement therein.

[flukeoffate]

Cosplayers in videos: lol Betcha can’t guess this cosplay!!! (Proceeds to show off a nice outfit that could go to one of five other characters and a hairstyle NONE of them wear.)

That’s not the flex you think it is. Especially if you pull out the character’s iconic simple braid and wear your hair down with jewels. Stop pretending you are somehow special for this purposeful deceit.

It’s all well and good to have a laugh when someone calls a Legolas cosplay “Zelda”. But fishing for that kind of foolishness just to make people confused so you can manufacture a laugh at their expense? Gross!!!

I know they do it for engagement but there are enough people causing discourse for engagement and it’s just a drain on the community at large. Gonna start blocking the worst offenders.

[yarns-and-d20s]

There was this dude who wrote some works with extremely dark and brutal violence, including one where a young woman is sexually assaulted, and has her hands cut off and tongue cut out so she can't report it to anyone. Eventually she is able to tell her dad, and her dad murders the perpetrators and feeds them to their own mother before killing her, too.

Same dude also wrote about a lady whose twin brother appears to be dead, so she assumes his identity. Another lady falls in love with her while she's pretending to be her brother... but oh, no, while she's pretending to be her brother, she falls in love with some other guy! Whatever is she to do????

"how you treat [characters], even as objects of fiction, can speak about your own character, be careful out there". What do these two things tell us, exactly, about William Shakespeare's own character? What does the very breadth of the human experience that he wrote about--from Titus Andronicus and Macbeth to Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night's Dream--say about him as a person?

My personal answer to that is... nothing. I don't think they make him bad. I don't think they make him good. I don't think the people who wrote My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic are saints while, well, let's go whole hog: George RR Martin and everyone else involved in writing Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon are all absolute monsters. The folks at Nintendo cannot all be assumed to be comprised of sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows (because of Mario, let's not get started on how fucked up things can get with Zelda) compared to the teams at Larian Studios (Baldur's Gate III) and BioWare (Dragon Age, Mass Effect).

Professional writers--for movies, TV, games, books, the stage--have written absolutely heinous and horrendous things happening to, and committed by, their characters. Maybe you think that's wrong. Maybe the fact that George Lucas, Leigh Brackett, and Lawrence Kasdan were capable of writing what happened to Anakin Skywalker and what he subsequently did as Darth Vader makes them monsters, whether or not they also wrote everything else that happened in Star Wars.

Or do the professionals get a pass because... reasons... while fan writers don't? Is it because they're someone else's characters and those characters are sacred and precious somehow so we can't make them do bad things or have bad things happen to them because they don't belong to us? Is that it?

This discourse is exhausting.

I really think everyone needs to truly internalize this:

Fictional characters are objects.

They are not people. You cannot "objectify" them, because they have no personhood to be deprived of. They have no humanity to be erased. You cannot "disrespect" them, because they are not real.

[planetbass]

bro all 25 of those aspec asks, hit it

holy shit dude, alright

Space, dragon, or cake ace?

space

How long have you known you were ace?

probably since i was 12 or smth? whenever i first found out what it was, which was when i joined tumblr. as for arospec, i went by grayromantic for a little bit, i don’t remember when that started. by mid to late 2015 i was going by full aromantic. 

Favorite part of being ace?

it’s one less thing to worry about lmao.

Least favorite part of being ace?

all the discourse n gatekeeping around it on tumblr. the constant ‘not feeling lgbt enough’ despite having other lgbt identities. 

Intimacy, yay or nay?

depends but typically nay

What kind of moments make you think “oh yeah, I’m definitely ace”

when i hear abt other people my age (or even younger) engaging in sexual acts all the time. it’s just like,, ?????? yall do that??

What’s your theoretical type?

we talkin looks? cuz idc. when it comes to crushes i’ve had in the past, it was always someone that could make me laugh.

Are you in / would you want a QPR?

i’d be open to the idea

Describe your ideal romantic/platonic partner

someone with a similar sense of humor, and someone that i never really feel drained being around. someone who shares the same interests as me.

Say your best aspec pickup line

i literally have nothing to say or think of here

Most underrated form of intimacy?

being weird together

Favorite music genre?

alternative, typically. folk/folk rock etc. indie, or whatever tf you’d call mili.

Any really niche interests?

defunct theme parks

What’s the first movie/show you think of when you think “unnecessary sex scene” or “unnecessary romantic subplot”

supernatural. marvel movies. 

Rather than sex/romance, media would be much better off with more ____

FOUND FAMILY. m/f friendships that don’t turn into romance. intimate platonic m/m relationships. more diversity in general. 

Do you experience the aspec obliviousness when it comes to innuendos or the like?

nope i’m hyperaware

Do you have an ace ring?

are we talkin abt like a physical ring or like, a friend group, or smth else. either way no. but majority of my friends happen to be acespec

Do you want kids, or pets?

definitely want pets. i don’t necessarily want kids or plan on having them, but if i ever did end up with kids somehow i would definitely want to adopt. 

Instead of sex, I’d rather have ____

all of the zelda merch

Favorite movie/book/game genre?

movie/show - comedy, feel-good, fantasy, slice of life, musical

book - mystery, thriller/suspense, horror, sci-fi, comedy

game - rpg, adventure, single-player, story-driven, horror/psychological horror 

Could you see yourself in a relationship with a sexual person?

big maybe. i’d probably shy away from it

Name something you do that’s ace culture

eat cereal at 2 am

Are people surprised when you say you’re ace, or not?

i don’t really mention it, and when i do its just to ppl online. so no not rly.

Are you out to people?

nah. my friends know and that’s good enough for me.

If you could live somewhere with only aspec people, would you?

maybe. i don’t know if id want to live somewhere with only aspec people, but a society that’s severely less sexualized sounds ideal. 

[xb-squaredx]

Gaming in 2019: A Look Back

2018 was a quieter year for gaming. With new consoles on the horizon, Sony and Microsoft were in a transitional period, and while Nintendo hit the ground running with the Switch in 2017, aside from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate at the end of the year, they seemed to stumble a bit. By stark contrast, 2019 has been absolutely bonkers, with tons of quality titles and bigger announcements littered throughout. With 2019 now at its end and the end of a whole decade upon us, let’s take a look back at the world of gaming over the past year, and take in the highs and lows.

BACK TO BACK HITS

In going over all the releases this year, I was surprised at the sheer number of quality titles spread across 2019. New games release all the time, but 2019 in particular seemed hell-bent on keeping customer wallets empty with release after release. January kicked things off with a bang; Capcom graced us with the remake of Resident Evil 2, a gorgeous, terrifying reimaging of the survival-horror classic and it seems 2020 will follow suit with a remake of Resident Evil 3. Speaking of threes, Kingdom Hearts III released and…while many fans seemed happy with it, the hype surrounding it was nowhere near as high as I had always imagined it would be. Of course, the fact that this is the twelfth installment might have something to do with that. But hey, it finally happened and that counts for something. I suppose the same could also be said for the long-awaited and shadily-funded Shenmue III. It doesn’t seem like it made a huge splash; the general consensus is that while the gaming industry grew in-between the releases of Shenmue II and III the Shenmue series itself largely ignored those advancements. A game that, much like Duke Nukem Forever, would have likely fared better had it released in a timelier manner. All this talk of threes and somehow Half-Life 3 remains in development hell…but at least we’re getting a VR game, right? R-Right?

As the year went on, we saw a lot of high-quality action games like Devil May Cry 5, Astral Chain and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and for some reason racing games made a bit of a comeback with Team Sonic Racing and a remake of the Crash Bandicoot racers all in one package. Fighting games in particular had a lot of titles throwing their hats into the ring. From the bloody Mortal Kombat 11 to the titillating Dead or Alive 6¸SNK also introduced a new generation to the Samurai Shodown series with a new installment, and Smash Ultimate slowly unveiled a stellar lineup of new characters as DLC throughout the year. Remakes seemed particularly in-vogue this year, from the previously-mentioned Resident Evil 2, to Final Fantasy VIII, Medievil, and Link’s Awakening. I feel that “games as a service” are starting to decline in popularity, however. With Anthem, Bioware’s last hope, bombing, EA had a bright spot in Apex Legends showing up out of nowhere and momentarily drawing players away from the likes of Fortnite, though Epic’s smash hit remains to be truly toppled. With the monetization of these games still under fire, I think the public is starting to wise up about the often-predatory practices put in place that come at the detriments of the games they’re attached to. While these titles continue to be popular, we’re well past the saturation point, and players have a limit to how many of these games they can fit into their lives. They’re called “forever games” but nothing lasts forever…

There was a steady flow of releases throughout the year, but for whatever reason, September was the month where it seemed everything was coming out, with a few notable titles in late October or November. No real droughts to speak of, really. While Hideo Kojima’s crazy new game, Norman Reedus and his Radical Fetus er…I mean Death Stranding caught a lot of people’s eye, and the Pokémon franchise continued to make bank, some smaller indie titles managed to stand out from the pack. Really unique titles like Hypnospace Outlaw, GRIS and Untitled Goose Game come to mind, as was the unexpected collaboration of Crypt of the Necrodancer and the Legend of Zelda franchise with Cadence of Hyrule. Not to mention a certain slipper-wearing skeleton got into Smash Ultimate as a costume. At this point, indie developers can stand shoulder to shoulder with the bigger dogs in a lot of ways. I mean, when indie-darling Disco Elysium can walk away from The Game Awards with four wins (including beating out Reedus’ Fetus), that shows how far we’ve come as an industry in many ways. Every time I stop to remember some of the more interesting games that came out this year, a lot of them come from smaller developers. Seeing how the bigger companies have embraced indie developers, when they were once shunned, is also pretty great, even if relations aren’t always perfect.

THE BIG THREE (and google)

Focusing on the larger companies for a bit, we’ll start with Microsoft…who were a mixed bag this year. On the one hand, Gears 5 seemed to be alright, and on the other hand, Crackdown 3 came and went without so much as a whimper. Then came the long-awaited reveal of their new console at The Game Awards, of all places. Introduced as the “Xbox Series X,” Microsoft seems set on trying to confuse as many people as possible when it comes to discussing their different consoles. Or maybe they’re rebooting the brand to just be Xbox. Whatever helps them sleep at night.

(Expect confused parents at launch!)

Sony largely got through this year without too many issues. They continue to underwhelm with their “State of Play” direct announcements, but in general they have several upcoming exclusive games to look forward to. Buying Insomniac and securing them as first-party is also a pretty big move on the whole, and they ended the year with Death Stranding finally seeing release. Nintendo, meanwhile, provided a bunch of unique game experiences throughout the year. A unique action game in Astral Chain, ghost-hunting fun in Luigi’s Mansion 3 and they even found a way to make exercise fun with Ring Fit Adventure! With fairly solid Directs throughout the year, they’re a lot more consistent in quality and general hype this year in comparison to last, when it seems like all hopes were riding on Smash, which has gone on to be the best-selling fighting game ever, by the way…

I suppose I should pay lip service to Google’s own attempts to break into the gaming scene with their release of the Stadia, a streaming platform that they swear is the future of gaming. It’s billed as a “work-in-progress,” and initial reaction to it seems mixed. Some find delay so bad that games can be unplayable, and there’s been several shenanigans at launch, but maybe by this time next year all the kinks will be worked out and it’ll be hunky dory! Or maybe Google will abandon it like so many other products. I’d be surprised if it’s still relevant by this time next year.

DELAYS, DOWNERS AND DEXIT

2019 had its highs, but a fair share of lows too. Delays seemed to also be common this year. Right as 2019 was starting, Nintendo had a fairly transparent announcement that the long-awaited Metroid Prime 4 was restarting development from scratch. Animal Crossing: New Horizons and DOOM: Eternal also ended up delayed into March of next year, though interestingly enough fans seem to take such announcements much better than in years past. Reactions to delays are often one of disappointment, but understanding, especially if it’s all for the game’s benefit. It’s perhaps for this reason that the DLC roadmap for Mortal Kombat 11 saw a massive delay in character release from the usual schedule, following reports of crunch at Netherrealm Studios. After 2018 shone a light on the often hazardous work environments of game development, it does seem that delays are being used as a way to take some pressure off of developers. It’s too early to say that things are genuinely improving across the board, but it’s a start at least. Not all stories have happy endings though, and the continued fate of Telltale Games remains in a strange limbo. With Telltale Games bought by LCG Entertainment, it appears at least SOME of the former employees have a new home and even a few of their games can live on, however at present it’s not quite known if things are going to be any better for the employees there, so let’s cross out fingers. As 2019 neared its end, it’s also unfortunate that Alpha Dream closed its doors, after years of producing some well-regard RPGS starring everyone’s favorite plumber. The industry can be pretty volatile, even when you often work with the bigger dogs.

For me personally though, the biggest downer this year was the fallout surrounding the Pokémon fandom. Following an announcement that the newest games in the series, Sword and Shield, wouldn’t be compatible with all of the veteran Pokémon, the fandom seemed to split in half, one side overly critical of the games and their apparent declining quality, while the other side seemed overly defensive, casting aside legitimate concerns. It got really ugly, and even though I enjoyed Sword and Shield for what they were, the discourse left a sour taste in my mouth. 2018 made a big show of how rough some game development studios have it, facing tons of pressure for sticking to deadlines and facing crunch periods that leave people battered and broken. With Game Freak having to kowtow to the demands of higher-ups at Nintendo and The Pokémon Company to hit that release window, delays weren’t an option for them, and they even cited various game development problems in interviews before the game launched. But people want their product and they don’t seem to care how they get it. If there’s something I hope the Pokémon fanbase can learn following all this, is that there’s a big difference between voicing concerns over something you love, and harassing people that are trying to make the best of a bad situation. Looking at the bigger picture, Sword and Shield’s “Dexit” debacle isn’t the biggest gaming controversy of the year, but it was the one that affected me the most and it kind of puts a damper on ending the year strong.

TO THE FUTURE!

I’d rather NOT end on a downer though, so looking towards the future, if 2019 is any indication, there’s a lot to be excited for in 2020. For starters, we already know of a lot of hotly anticipated games set to hit next year, most of which seem to be targeting March…g-great! From the long-awaited Final Fantasy VII remake (or…part of it anyway), to Cyberpunk 2077, we also have what are set to be the swansongs of the PS4, The Last of Us Part 2 and Ghost of Tsushima. At year’s end, the PS5 and uh…Xbox…will hit store shelves and while there’s still a LOT we don’t know about either machine, be it specs, features or launch lineup, a new console launch is always cause for celebration. New possibilities! Classics in the making! A clean slate! 2020 will likely be a year to remember just on that alone.

The world of gaming is one I’m always invested in; there’s a lot of grimy stuff I’m not partial to, but plenty of good sprinkled throughout. Every passing year I see many new, innovative games come out of small, passionate developers who want to keep pushing the medium forward. Certain larger companies have also started on a “redemption arc” of sorts, with Capcom leading the charge. The “Big Three” routinely have new and exciting things to show, and we’re at a point where the video game industry is fully ingrained into popular culture. eSports continue to grow and expand, we’re getting rare video game films that don’t suck like the Detective Pikachu movie, and looking back on the last decade, things have come a long way. The greater focus on online continues to allow us to connect and play with others, and the last few years have had more conversations surrounding Cross-Play between the major competitors. If Microsoft and Nintendo can work together, who knows what can be accomplished! We’ve seen the medium mature, or at least attempt to mature, and variety has become more important than ever. After years of dull, grey shooters littering the market, games are allowed to be colorful again! We see studios pushing for diversity, for games with greater focus on mature themes, and while we still have a long way to go in a lot of areas, progress is being made. If Kratos, the God of War, can learn to chill out and become a (moderately) better person, then there’s hope for the medium yet, and with a new console generation and new decade waiting for us, 2019 lets us end on a relatively high note.

Here’s to a great 2020.

-B