#and it just really emphasized how awful going out with [redacted] makes me feel but i don't have anyone else to go out with usually

[nouveauxromantics]

last weekend was the most fun i’ve had in so long i wish my friend was always here i love her so much why does she have to be 4 hours away 😭

[keensers]

1, 4, 15, 18, 20! for the fic writing meme

you delight me, anon! (from here) this got... hmm, pretty long, so most of it’s going under a cut!

1. Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

back in december, after being wildly disappointed by tros, i thought to myself: none of this bullshit would have happened if they’d just let ahsoka and her irritating ghostly older brothers show up and train finn, who is in fact a [last name redacted] for reasons.

then i started actually plotting it out, realized my 50k concept (“Finn wakes up with a massive headache and, apparently, the ability to see dead people. Then the dead people in question start talking to him.”) needs approximately 300k of background to fully be what i want to be (an anthology love letter to the star wars universe, if it was nicer to my faves), opened a nice fresh word doc and started plotting the whole damn thing. it is called “ahsoka tano’s rules for rebels, rogues, and renegades.” in my head i call it atr4, and my tag for it is “death shall have no dominion” because, ghosts. it is very dear to me right now because i get to invent assorted relationships out of wholecloth between my favorite characters who never met in canon, which is my favorite thing to do.

so, i have two (2) actually in-progress WIPs in that universe:

the actual “Ahsoka trains Finn” headliner fic of this ‘verse, which is currently 6000 words of disconnected scenes i have typed in intermittent fugue states over the last six months

the “Obi-Wan is sad in the desert, but maybe not as sad as in canon, because, well, You Know” fic which is also the “wtf happened to Cody in this ‘verse” fic which is currently 1600 words of imperial!cody Suffering

and a list of ten (10) more that i swear are all connected. i swear it! (highlights from the list include “four almost-padawans of ahsoka tano + one who was” and “rex earns his jaig eyes at least twelve times over during the empire, and another five after.”)

the other (star wars) fic i have on my roster for codywan week (if i can swing it in time) is going to be shorter (why do i feel like i just cursed myself with that word) and the working summary (which has existed only in my head up until now) is: “fives, on the lam from the coruscant guard, the chancellor, and, worst of all, anakin skywalker, runs into cody and an unfamiliar trooper on his way to the meeting point. this has galactic consequences.” who is the unfamiliar trooper/Person In Clone Armor? 3 guesses and the first two don’t count. what are the consequences? well… we’ll see!

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

i first wrote this as a jocasta nu line in her cameo in hear me through the hum, but i liked it so much that i’ve incorporated it into atr4: “And besides, the Jedi are not made up of lightsabers and holocrons, are we? We are made up of the strength in our hearts, the deeds of our hands, and the Light which we follow.”

i think this is maybe the best way i've found of phrasing my own personal view of the jedi (not my own view of the jedi order, but my view of the jedi), which is that they’ve got access to this immense power but what actually makes you a jedi is what you do with it. it’s not the trinkets or the ancient wisdom or the code or whatever, it’s taking the power that lives in you and using it to do good even when the world is dark and the work is thankless. you can be a jedi without the order, but you can’t be a jedi if you aren’t striving for the light.

on a lighter (?) note, i’m also quite proud of the whole “obi-wan keeps trying to talk about the mission report while he’s slowly bleeding out. cody is losing his fucking mind” scene in there, because ah… that’s love, babe!

15. Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)?

aw jeez. titles, since i'm usually picking from a list of 10 lines from songs or poems (or, veeery occasionally, making one up) and a lot of the time the line that is my working title isn’t the line that ends up being the final title!  

18. Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations?) Tell us about them.

to be completely and honestly tbh, not… really? especially with characterization, i tend to write about characters who i have Very Firm ideas about who they are and how they would act in whatever given situation. this is good for writing (because i usually know exactly what a character would do, facing a particular choice) but sometimes bad for reading (because sometimes i'll read something and think, “that character would never do that!” even though, of course, that’s just like, my opinion, man).

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

a difficult question! because there’s so much. i include tons and tons of references in everything but for the sake of (relative) brevity i’ll say that especially in atr4 where i’ve got 2500 words JUST OF NOTES FOR THE ‘VERSE i am constantly thinking about the way everything is connected. for example, because of the comparisons i’m aiming to draw there, i currently have most of a duel between ahsoka, kylie renner, and finn written which is a close parallel of the qui-gon, maul, and obi-wan duel. (except, spoilers, ahsoka won’t get killed by a punk bitch like kyle, because reasons.)

part of this is that i love some aspects of the cyclical themes in star wars (“same eyes in different people,” legacy lightsabers, death-yet-the-force) and hate other aspects (i loathe that every sw movie is like “blood isn’t important, anyone can be a hero!” but then every freakin time it turns out that in fact, blood is important, and maybe the most important). so i tend to want to emphasize the ones i like and toss the ones i don’t.

plus, after years of writing, i have realized that there are a few well-worn themes i always circle back to, and one of those is the notion that family doesn’t define you, that it is more than blood, that you have agency over what you do and who you are and who you choose to surround yourself with. i believe in free will and have trouble with characters who think certain outcomes are Destined, but it’s a lot of fun to mess around with the concept of fate, especially in sw where it’s so ingrained in canon. screw destiny! write your own story! said every story i ever wrote.

[dysphoric-affect]

The End Of The Console Wars And The Dawn Of Unity

          Earlier this year, I watched in awe during the Video Game Awards as leaders from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo took the stage at the same time and delivered a joint address to those attending and watching at home. The platitudes were what you would expect and not in themselves groundbreaking - about what a great time it is to be a gamer and how exciting the future is right now - though not unwelcome and undoubtedly true. What was more meaningful in my mind is who the presenters were, what they represented individually and what their cooperating together - considering their background - to make that address symbolically represented: that the age of console wars is coming to an end and something else, something better for gamers and for the industry, is taking its place.

          The awe I felt stems from the fact that this is a far cry from the state of the industry not so long ago, when E3 press conferences, especially those of Microsoft and Sony, were not entirely dissimilar to war rooms. References to each other at that time were avoided at all cost, as if avoiding saying a vulgar word, with the competition only being invoked to point out how inferior what they offered was to the vastly superior console they had to offer. Hostility toward the competition was not only rife on their part, but felt encouraged to be had on the part of consumers loyal to their brand. And we took the bait.

          I’m embarrassed now to admit that I fell for this trap myself. I was an Xbox loyalist primarily, though because I grew up with Nintendo originally I had a soft spot for them as well. This made Sony the source of my own derision. With the original price tag on the PS3 and the eventually redacted “boomerang” controller design that console was initially slated to have, there was no shortage of fodder I felt given by Sony at the time to condemn their console. The trick is, criticism of those aspects of the console did have some objective validity, but there’s a fine line between making well-founded criticism based on rational thinking and deliberation from essentially accidentally supporting a valid negative position, but based purely from irrational, emotion-based brand loyalty which would have demanded I see what Sony offered as inferior regardless of the specific facts surrounding it.

          I feel especially embarrassed to have felt that way, because in life I have traditionally prided myself on being a rational thinker, but in that case, given my passion for the games industry I was easily led away from it. Thankfully that was as far as such sentiment ever got with me, but the capability was always there for that to spill over into applying such irrationality and emotion-based decision making in other areas of consideration about institutions in society. This was the great unspoken, and perhaps unidentified, insidious nature of what was going on at that time in the games industry: irrational hostility was being fostered, and once that’s been justified in one area of our life, it’s not difficult for such thinking to be applied and justified in other areas of our life, which in the longer term stands to have damaging repercussions for the society we impact. It wasn’t until I matured into an adult as well as gained a personal interest in philosophy that I became able to look back and realize the significance of the implications this toxic atmosphere stood to have.

          Real change in the industry in relation to these attitudes only truly started to occur however once those in the industry matured and changed their approach, as was probably always destined to be the case. As the negative culture in the past was brought out by those within the game industry in the first place, for better or worse it means the responsibility in turn had to fall on them to undue that kind of thinking and replace it with new, more positive vision. Thankfully, the effort to do so now seems to be in full motion.

          The advent of this finally began to occur with the advent of the concept of cross-play. We have taken if for granted for a long time that while we may be part of a fan base for game or series much larger than the player count of just those experiencing it on the same console we own, we can’t share in enjoyment of it with that larger community. Imagine, it was presented to us, those arbitrary barriers were now gone. Each fan could play with every single other fan of something they love, with community surrounding a game or series being built more within the actual games rather than without. It’s an extremely seductive concept, the seduction not due to any particular way the idea is presented, but simply intrinsic to the nature of the idea itself.

          Making the prospect all the more tantalizing was it being pointed out that it wasn’t a goal that needed to be worked for...the opportunity is already here. The backend networking for multiplayer or co-op between different hardware presents its challenges and necessary effort, but is entirely doable. Developers can make it happen and want to. Gamers, in one of the few cases of near universal agreement they’ve had, want it to happen, too. It remains only for those behind the different console brands to want to. The deciding factor preventing us from having a more connected and happier gaming community is no technical challenge: it is a simple act of will.

          Unfortunately, immediate consensus wasn’t to be, as Sony showed initial reluctance to the idea. The reasoning presented only served to exacerbate the general frustration at not making universal cross-play a reality: Sony was concerned about maintaining the integrity of the online experience of their brand. This explanation rang hollow to most, however. Microsoft has long been lauded for having the most solid and consistent online experience, though Sony has certainly improved dramatically in relation to their own, so the idea that connection to their service would be a liability rather than at least a non-concern and at most an asset even came across as fundamentally nonsensical.

          This being an issue was also compounded by a series of well-publicized hacks of the PlayStation Network that have occurred in the past; while Xbox Live has seen its on issues, the number and severity of the attacks in Playstation’s case create greater alarm. With this being the case, it would seem if anyone had cause to be concerned about connecting themselves to another, it would be on the part of Microsoft and Nintendo toward Sony, not the other way around. For it to be the other way around in spite of this felt like petty standoffishness stemming from the old days of the console wars rather than having any basis in reality or the interests of gamers...including PlayStation fans.

          That is one final point that rested against Sony’s philosophy of resistance, perhaps the strongest and arguably the only point that mattered: Sony’s own fans supported the change. It stands to reason there’s an impetus to make fans of the brand satisfied, so when the majority themselves are calling for that change, is it not worth considering its merits seriously rather than dismissing it out of hand? Add in the incident of the temporary cross-play enabling for Destiny, and the intensity of seeing that feature become a new norm in the industry became all the stronger.

          While Sony was making their decision, we saw the beginning of a broader change toward cross-play support anyway. Fortnite, Minecraft and Rocket League presented three of the more noteworthy examples of the cross-play concept manifesting as a reality, given the runaway popularity of those titles, but numerous other examples sprang up as well. Minecraft’s case was a particularly interesting one in that it saw the achievement of a different milestone, with Nintendo and Microsoft co-backing the production of an ad about their two consoles being able to work together. I’m not ashamed to admit watching that ad made me a bit emotional. I don’t even play Minecraft myself, but what it represented - about the gaming community coming together more - is really powerful to my mind and extremely encouraging as a gamer who always wants to see the industry get better not just in what it makes for us to play, but in the ideals it represents and promotes.

          Flash forward a bit, and we have the VGA’s mentioned at the start and a welcome change of tune from Sony, symbolically represented in the VGA presentation but more literally represented in a number of stories about them getting on board with the idea and even being in direct talks with Microsoft in relation to future ventures. Meanwhile, Microsoft has expressed an interest in expanding access to games that have traditionally been an Xbox experience beyond that console itself. They have candidly expressed their interest in making all future games of theirs available for PC simultaneously, which is certainly well within the realm of theoretical possibility given Microsoft’s ownership of the Windows OS most computers run on. And yet...even this isn’t the limit of where they’ve expressed interest in having their titles reach. Just recently, they’ve elaborated on this philosophy of expansion by emphasizing there is a more vested interest in people playing their games than in playing on the Xbox console specifically. For example, that interest goes so far as that they’ve expressed interest in bringing Halo: The Master Chief Collection to PlayStation.

          This is, in many ways, the best example of this industry-wide change in philosophy I’ve been discussing. I’ll admit, in the spirit of full disclosure, to being a long-time and avid Halo fan, but when I make that statement it isn’t about complimenting that franchise or Microsoft. What I am directing attention to is the fact that Halo, which has always been Microsoft’s flagship franchise for Xbox and closely associated with its success, is something they are willing to pass access to to players on their competitors’ console. This idea was so beyond inconceivable during that period not long ago I alluded to, that if you had presented the idea as a serious possibility, you’d have been considered an idiot, or insane. But now, it’s an idea that’s had interest expressed by Microsoft at the executive level.

          Those players on PlayStation are the key factor of note here, though. It isn’t about Microsoft and Sony becoming best friends, though they seem to be getting along better all the time, which is sure to be a boon for gamers in the future in as yet unknown ways. It is about simply letting players play the games they want. Gaming, like so many pastimes, can be an expensive one, and locking gamers out of access to numerous quality experiences deserving of being explored by all because they can’t reasonably justify - or literally can’t afford - the price tag of another console needed to access those experiences is a shame, and antithetical to the spirit of connectedness and community the gaming culture, at its best, strives to be about.

          Destroying these arbitrary and artificial barriers and instead working collaboratively on ways to bring the global gaming community ever closer together, as a family, is the rightful course toward which the industry should be directing itself. And, who knows...maybe in the process of fostering this spirit of inclusion, the game industry can get some of that positive spirit to rub off on those who play games and get them in turn to be more inclusive of others in the world outside of the games. And the world beyond gaming isn’t so different from the world of gaming in that one respect: both are much richer for getting others in on our fun. 

          So keep it up, video game industry. We all came to play after all, so let’s ALL play. Cheers.