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you know what. part of my brain wants to reconsider my opinion of kotor2 now that i know what star wars is. because when i first played it, it was before i touched anything star wars it was an extremely underwhelming game and i kind of hated it. like "wow this sucks. this is an unbelievably bad game."
but the problem with many things StarWar is that many (many) things in it aren't really that good on their own merits. it's a franchise more inbred than the hapsburgs. so maybe i shouldn't.
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@spiderdreamer-blog said:
Oh man, you've got a FUN journey ahead of you. THE most influential animated series of the modern age not called The Simpsons.
tbh i'm having a blast. it's great to just see how much other things get from this series. i only wish i had more hours in the day lately so i could watch more than 1 episode a week.
first episode of batman TAS: actually a nice y-7 version of the micheal keaton batman film. there's a lot of beats and themes that seem to be directly inspired from there (the batman/joker both being insane, the gas plan, etc etc etc) and i forgot how "thin" this artstyle made wayne/batman look. pretty solid beginning to a series.
also i just really like the transitions. cheesy by today's standards but i like the style the lend.
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first episode of batman TAS: actually a nice y-7 version of the micheal keaton batman film. there's a lot of beats and themes that seem to be directly inspired from there (the batman/joker both being insane, the gas plan, etc etc etc) and i forgot how "thin" this artstyle made wayne/batman look. pretty solid beginning to a series.
also i just really like the transitions. cheesy by today's standards but i like the style the lend.
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one time i was speaking with a poet and he said, "yeah, when i was younger i wrote doorstoppers and wanted to be a famous novelist, but then i got bored of storytelling. i mean, it's very formulaic. you set up obstacles and that's pretty much it.
so many writers have a passion for storytelling so i am always intrigued by those who seem to be actively bored by it. and i don't think he was exactly wrong. there can be a tediousness to narrative by itself.
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when sabine showed up in ahsoka i was like "oh no she'll fuck things up like she always does." and behold. she's fucking things up. not in a cool badass way but in a pathetic "wow really?" way. she really hasn't changed!!!
anyways show is pretty mid. honest-to-god i wouldn't have watched this if chopper wasn't in it.
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@spiderdreamer-blog​ said:
Well said. Uncharted is about the EXPERIENCE as much as anything, which is why a movie felt redundant even if they hadn't made absolutely bizarre creative choices. I'm curious if you have any other major examples of this to dunk on besides TDP since we can make that a bit of a spectator sport, haha. I know you said you LIKED Arcane, which I haven't seen (tried the first ep and the aesthetic was decidedly Not For Me).
*seen fully, I should say.
honestly i wasn't thinking about tdp at first; my initial observations were that writers who wrote primarily for tabletop rpgs had a specific style of writing (a very popular internet sort is matt colville) and that a lot of modern pulp fantasy pulls from DnD, which has also had a very indelible effect on video games. obviously video game writing isn't exactly taken seriously, and often they just commission "normal" writers from traditional media, which can get mixed results. but i was wondering if there was any pull in the other direction.
mostly the most direct mark is honestly left on books. there's a lot of Lore and a lot of flavor text but the ongoing arc often isn't well-constructed. you can see this if you ever open a novelization of a game penned by one of the writers (particularly ex-bioware writers), where the prose is very very hard to get through and the overall structure feels like a bunch of quests.
most creators don't really explicitly talk about their exact role in the narrative so it can be hard to really understand where the video game writing ends and where the hand of the external writers begins. generally video game books and adaptations will also hire what i call "external writers"--people whose bread and butter is more traditional media.
and arcane seems to have some writers who are that alongside the riot guys (one of them worked on severance). there's a lot about the show that is undeniably videogamey; it's competent but suffers from a lot of the same things. it centers around the #iconic league characters first and leaves a lot about the general story and setting undefined, which doesn't catch up to it in the first season but on any subsequent seasons... i'm not really thrilled about that.
like there's a point where a character has to "navigate politics" and a montage where they shake hands with other characters, and obviously this is supposed to be them leaning into corruption to get what they want, but that's it. it just invokes the idea of it and there's not much beyond the broad brush strokes. the story is so fast and everything is so ill-defined that the themes/conflicts have a hard time meshing together.
surprisingly a lot of other videogame shows aren't really written by game writers. castlevania isn't to my knowledge. neither is dota: dragon's blood or even the dragon age cartoon. they just kind of have their own problems.
that said video games themselves are such a huge cultural juggernaut (compared to like 2000s they are very omnipresent) that i don't think you have had to be a writer from that sphere to see the effects of "gamey" writing. RWBY is a disaster in so many ways but its main writers were mainly capital-G Gamers and it shows: some of that is the charm of the show, but it does feel like you're watching a bunch of cutscenes that should have something between them--because it’s just Events that happen after characters move from point A to B. 
on a broader level i think a lot of SFF authors are definitely influenced by game systems; some things feel like they’re missing a HUD. i don't think things like an increasing obsession with "power level" is completely disconnected from just how much video games have taken over--even things like "tier lists," which are omnipresent, originally come from that sphere.
i will someday have more time to collate more thoughts on it. i think a lot of the stuff people complain about re: modern day hollywood were sort of augured by the video game industry for example. (ie. running art like a tech company, ballooning costs, "live services," etc).
a more common and common occurrence these days is me picking up a book or a show or something and thinking, "this is writing straight out of a video game." lo and behold, the writer(s) have a history of writing for video games.
a decade ago people would point out that writing for more traditional story formats doesn't work for video games. but the opposite is also true.
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@spiderdreamer-blog​ said:
Yeah that makes a lot of sense! I'd forgotten Giehl said that, which, as you say, is kind of nuts to say about a TV show that is the main source of the art. I don't even hate having to "do homework" per se, but I feel like major story and characterization beats should be in the main work, not ancillary material that you're not even necessarily TELLING me is that important.
Re:Uncharted, I think the main draw of that writing-wise is the snappy dialogue that lets the voice acting feel loose and improvisational. Which then endears us to the characters because we're experiencing the adventure right along with them.
it’s a more recent interview on the tdp discord (which i’m not a part of because i don’t hate myself, but i have seen it published elsewhere.) giehl is a little bit too interactive with fans and should probably not be doing stuff like this, but uh that’s besides the point. it does mean that it’s really easy to see her POV but ehasz and richmond’s role is a bit fuzzier.
and yeah, the main work shouldn’t really feel like a greatest-hits wikipedia summary with any characterization tucked into side stories. like side stories are great when the main work is compelling on its own, if i like something enough i will read extra content, why not, not so much when not only are they needed, but gated off for Hardcore Fans (TM).
i like uncharted! i think the dialogue writing is good and really fits into the type of game that uncharted is--something about snappy dialogue + navigating through levels is really fun! i suppose what i wanted to say is more “the writing would need more oomph if it was presented on audiovisuals alone.” people tend to underestimate how much investment the gameplay itself covers even in “cinematic experiences.”
a more common and common occurrence these days is me picking up a book or a show or something and thinking, "this is writing straight out of a video game." lo and behold, the writer(s) have a history of writing for video games.
a decade ago people would point out that writing for more traditional story formats doesn't work for video games. but the opposite is also true.
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addendum: i wrote about LoL as a dota 2 fan so i need to engage in obligatory LoL bashing. have fun rolling your heads on the keyboard instead of playing a real game league kiddies.
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@spiderdreamer-blog​ said:
Do you think this explains a lot of Dragon Prince's wonkiness? I know Justin Richmond was on the Uncharted series, even if that's more narratively-driven/"cinematic", and Aaron Ehasz did a lot of work for Riot Games on League of Legends. Maybe the latter picked up bad habits there after a long history of TV writing.
now as a disclaimer i don’t think a background in (video) game writing is necessarily a bad thing or even that video game writing can’t have artistic merit or whatever. i mean litRPGs are a genre after all. it comes with its own challenges when you have to account for players, which in some games means also being the game designer to an extent. you can do very interesting things with that stuff.  in the video game industry the worst-case scenario is: the execs might not give you time/money/etc or treat the writing as an afterthought, which means you are technically writing but don’t have much knowledge on how what you’re doing will interact with the final product.
as for the answer: yes, i think it does, and with tdp in particular it’s more than just the writing: the “business model” of wonderstorm feels very video-game-industry-ish--and not just any video game: it feels like the writing of a multiplayer video game. i think i’ve even tenuously said that interacting with the story feels like interacting with the story of, say, Magic the Gathering. i wasn’t even thinking of the writers’ backgrounds. that’s just how it felt to me.
now in riot games the type of writing that aaron (and devon giehl, who IMDB tells me also worked on LoL... there were people on that writing team who went by the names “harrow” and “runaan” so the connection is very solid) is going to be background lore and mostly supplemental media. maybe the odd story cutscene. you’re going to be writing character backgrounds and flavor text for abilities. i’m sure riot is large enough to separate the “creative” writers from the technical ones (who are the ones that write tutorials and explain like, how an ability works in-game), but in my brief exposure in the games’ industry (on the clicky clacky programming side), sometimes the writing team just does all of it.
so in terms of writing, you’re going to be on the back foot: anybody who actually pays attention to LoL lore is going to be someone who’s already invested hours upon hours into the game and already has some sort of bond to the setting/characters just based on the visual design, or is bored/will actively seek it out. you’re not actually responsible for coming up with a Story in the traditional sense and you don’t write a narrative so much as you are writing isolated beats and filling out vague lore.
i remember reading an interview by the lead writer (giehl) saying something that is insane to say about a show but makes a lot more sense once i realized her background at riot. i can’t find the exact quote but it was in response to people complaining about putting big story moments in the short stories, and she basically responded by saying that the team thinks about TDP in terms of audiences. the “casual gamer viewer,” and the “hardcore gamer viewer.” The casual viewer, according to them, will just interact with the story on the shallow level and all they need is for the plot to vaguely make sense, while the hardcore/invested fans will seek out the “deeper stuff.”
which is exactly how multiplayer game stories work. but this is not how shows, which are supposed to tell a satisfying and coherent story, work. the reason multiplayer games can have “casual fans” of the story is because the main draw is the game. the story is supposed to be the meat of the experience, not something you go out of your way because you thought ahri was super cool or something.
TDP’s story is mere “content” (similarly how multiplayer game writing exists to be “content” to fill up the game).but TDP isn’t supplemental content. it IS the art. it IS the point. you cannot approach a traditional long-form story like this. it will just be extremely shallow, because there’s no “main pillar” it’s supporting. the story is supposed to be the main pillar. but it’s written like it’s not.
and unlike an RPG or really any game whose writing is closely entwined with the gameplay, you don’t even really get the experience of integrating your writing with the main draw of the game, so everything is just odd an disconnected. i can’t say anything about justin richmond’s specific contribution; i’d say he’s pretty average as a writer. uncharted’s story is neither completely incidental nor completely integrated (think of a title like papers, please) into the game, and as you mentioned carries the most similarities to traditional film/TV. it’s still not great film/TV because the writing standards are lower in the “cinematic” type of games than actual cinema (and it can kind of afford it because of the gameplay/setpieces), but it’s probably much better experience.
a more common and common occurrence these days is me picking up a book or a show or something and thinking, "this is writing straight out of a video game." lo and behold, the writer(s) have a history of writing for video games.
a decade ago people would point out that writing for more traditional story formats doesn't work for video games. but the opposite is also true.
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a more common and common occurrence these days is me picking up a book or a show or something and thinking, "this is writing straight out of a video game." lo and behold, the writer(s) have a history of writing for video games.
a decade ago people would point out that writing for more traditional story formats doesn't work for video games. but the opposite is also true.
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うずまき
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skibidi toilet is about the escalation and horrors of war. how any character can die. it's about dealing with an enemy that adapts to your circumstances faster than you can innovate. it's about staying one step ahead of the bull that's about to gore you. it's about the evolution of media. imagine being an adult, a REAL adult, and not understanding the art that's on display. imagine that. can't be me.
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@spiderdreamer-blog said:
Oh, thanks for looking through my blog, man! Really heartening to hear someone I respect a lot read my writing. I actually liked the game show episode MORE than the Coran one since I felt like Bob was a wily adversary they were pitted against instead of just kind of feeling bad for Coran. And yeah, even with the flaws, it never becomes an outright disaster imo.
Netflix 'Vania, man, now there's a show I reallllyyyy liked at first and then s3 in particular just totally cratered. S4 recovered enough for me to at least like it again, but I'm glad Nocturne seems to be going for a tonal/setting shift to differentiate things.
that's very kind of you to say! i liked reading about various shows that i might have missed and trends in animation, and you give them a fair shake imo.
i actually am a bit baffled at the amount of love castlevania received. it had an extremely promising start but squandered it relatively quickly. actually one of the reasons i was so wary of checking out arcane, even though arcane turned out to be Fine (TM) writing-wise.
voltron: look shiro believed in keith the whole way through. that’s adorable.
also voltron, literally 5 seconds later: look our heroes got shrunk by alien farts or something. no this episode does not have a plot. 
also adam is such a shitty boyfriend. i think that’s what they’re going for. if so, shiro needs to get with… idk… maybe they will introduce a Hot Guy Squad for him. lance will not get with anyone from the Hot Girl Squad however if shiro gets with someone from a hypothetical Hot Guy Squad i will also be happy with that.
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@spiderdreamer-blog said:
*sees your comment on my opinion* Lol what can I say, I try to be an independent thinker as much as I can. Plus, as I've said on your previous posts, I've pretty much always viewed this as a bitchin' action show with good characters compared to...whatever the hell the fandom wanted it to be a lot of the time.
Like people can think what they want, and I've certainly never thought the show is perfect/there are some problems. But I just never saw this precipitous drop in quality that others did/it mostly stayed pretty consistent for me, especially on rewatches where I was like "Okay, they were headed this way the whole time, it makes more sense now."
And like, I'm incredibly fond of most of the people on this creative team, but I was also HEAVILY critical of a lot of their efforts on the previous show they worked on, Korra. So it's not a case of me just blindly accepting everything either (not saying that's what you said about me tho). I just think the fandom got weird and crazy and it made actual discussions impossible (as usual).
yeah, i’ve also taken the liberty of looking through a bit of what you’ve written about it on your blog. but so far the third season is pretty consistent with the second one, though i’m still more or less halfway through “season 7.” the comedy has so far missed more than it has hit in this one (the game show episode is not nearly as charming as for example coran’s showbiz episode). i wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of “stock episode” ideas made it to this last bit of the show.
it’s very clearly better than some of the shows people keep using it as a contrast to. part of me is disappointed that it’s not like. a rwby-level show. like it’s better than a lot of things people love to wank for. like i’m really surprised at the sheer level of vitriol considering it’s better than ex. netflix castlevania.
voltron: look shiro believed in keith the whole way through. that’s adorable.
also voltron, literally 5 seconds later: look our heroes got shrunk by alien farts or something. no this episode does not have a plot. 
also adam is such a shitty boyfriend. i think that’s what they’re going for. if so, shiro needs to get with… idk… maybe they will introduce a Hot Guy Squad for him. lance will not get with anyone from the Hot Girl Squad however if shiro gets with someone from a hypothetical Hot Guy Squad i will also be happy with that.
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i'm not like other girls. i don't like miguel because i feel sorry for him or because he's """attractive""" (lol). i like miguel because he bullies teenagers.
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@spiderdreamer-blog said:
See I'm the weird one because this is my favorite set of episodes/"season". I love that they go back to an S1 feeling of less resources, but keep the improvements in choreography and character development. In particular, Keith is really well done in how they show off his leadership skills subtly.
And there's stuff later in the season that introduces 1. some of my favorite supporting characters, 2. has the best action setpieces in the series.
hmm. that is quite a strange opinion from what i have gleaned from everyone else. i do agree that later in the second production block i was like “hmmm yeah okay” and that a soft reset and having to have the gang struggle a bit is a good idea. 
@non-plutonian-druid said:
fun fact! they patched together that episode from stuff they were originally going to put in season 2 (ie the flashbacks) but had held off on in the hopes they could convince the execs to let them be more explicit (adam be shiro's boyfriend instead of a friend) (this isnt one of the many fan conspiracy theories, they talked about this in interviews). once they were finally allowed to do that, they had to build another episode around it and voila, season 7 episode 1
that does explain why that episode is so choppy. the flashback sequences had a lot of care put into them, but the other bits/context really... did not gel at all writing-wise. 
voltron: look shiro believed in keith the whole way through. that’s adorable.
also voltron, literally 5 seconds later: look our heroes got shrunk by alien farts or something. no this episode does not have a plot. 
also adam is such a shitty boyfriend. i think that’s what they’re going for. if so, shiro needs to get with… idk… maybe they will introduce a Hot Guy Squad for him. lance will not get with anyone from the Hot Girl Squad however if shiro gets with someone from a hypothetical Hot Guy Squad i will also be happy with that.
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voltron: look shiro believed in keith the whole way through. that’s adorable.
also voltron, literally 5 seconds later: look our heroes got shrunk by alien farts or something. no this episode does not have a plot. 
also adam is such a shitty boyfriend. i think that’s what they’re going for. if so, shiro needs to get with... idk... maybe they will introduce a Hot Guy Squad for him. lance will not get with anyone from the Hot Girl Squad however if shiro gets with someone from a hypothetical Hot Guy Squad i will also be happy with that.
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