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maxwell-grant · 2 years

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Ask Round-Up: June

Hi there! Got some time to spare so I figured I’d kick this one off first thing in the month,. A couple of points, as usual

-Happy Pride Month!

-I posted a video on Twitter recently dubbing a comic Dan Schkade did, and I’m linking it here to announce that I do intend to use my Twitter for stuff soon (mostly when I do start “The Grim Screen” proper, which is the name of that big mystery project I keep alluding to, and where the characters in my profile pictures come from). I’m still figuring out how I wanna use social media to share and promote my work in a way that isn’t more grating than it’s worth, I need to start trying new things, this being one of them.

-It’s COLD-AS-SHIT here in Brazil, we’ve been getting hit with some of the absolute coldest days in the country’s history, honestly reminded me of when I spent some weeks in London during a winter. Getting raised in a tropical country absolutely does not prepare you for that kind of shit, especially when coats (and clothes in general) your size tend to be stupidly expensive. And COVID’s spiking again to the point most people can no longer pretend this pandemic ever ended.

-I picked a stray cat off the garbage over a month ago and, after trying every available option to see if someone could take care of her, running a ton of tests and taking her to vets and looking after her in our studio, we ended up giving up on pretending we weren’t gonna adopt her. Currently in the process of moving her to our home and getting our house cat to adjust to the new presence and it’s, a work in progress.

-Still massively busy due to musical theater, currently trying to get enough time to finish my resume and start looking for work elsewhere.

-Currently caught between several juggling acts that have only gotten exponentially worse and more stressful since the first draft of this post but nevermind let’s go:

@jcogginsa asked: So we just got a new Street Fighter VI Gameplay Trailer, with what seems to be a fairly massive change to the series' gameplay

If anything, the gameplay seems to be the least changed aspect of it, or maybe it’s just the one I’m noticing the least because, frankly I don’t care about gameplay that much, but, wow, color me genuinely impressed with what they’ve shown so far. Just, Christ, this is what a major step forward finally feels like, not some faux-Alpha soft reboot or all-stars compilathon, no, they really are serious about taking Street Fighter to the future. Ryu, I already remarked at being pleased with them allowing Ryu to mature and change his outfit and role, but I’m far more impressed that they’re clearly letting Chun-Li follow suit as well, getting a slight visual overhaul (sort of a lightly-colored combination of her two key designs, SF2 and Alpha, with a characterization that seems to be building off her Third Strike era and a handful of new details like the change in bracelets and more exposed forehead to cement her maturity) and getting to show off a little as a teacher in the trailer. It feels nice to have good things to say about the direction they’re taking Chun-Li as a character (and oh thank god she’s got a new voice actor, I never liked Laura Bailey’s voice for her, this game really is spoiling me).

They even got me onboard with having Luke stick around as the MC! Yeah, color me fucking shocked, but when he doesn’t look as much like Logan Paul a grotesque eyesore with a superfluous personality and he looks like a character that actually belongs in this world, and he gets a very neat-looking rival character to play off, yeah, I’m onboard with him. Really liked Jaime, too, I think he really sets a new standard for SF character design quite nicely, I like that just from a glance he pays homage to a lot of SF archetypes while very clearly being his own character (to a better extent than Luke, who seems to have been designed with the same idea in mind), love that he’s Street Fighter’s first take on the “drunken master” archetype except he’s not just a hokey old cliche but instead a fresh new spin on the archetype. This is what Street Fighter made it’s name on, this is what it should always be doing.

Also saw that most of the starting roster was leaked a while ago, a couple of comments on that: I love that none of the OG World Warriors are coming back without some form of redesign, in particular I love Blanka’s new clothes and E.Honda looks cooler than ever. Not a fan of them finally being cowards enough to give Zangief pants but, fine, they are clearly scaling down the cartooniness of the prior installments, I get why the speedo had to go. Glad they kept Dhalsim’s beard while reverting back his bald head and, changing his necklace? Interesting. Very interested in what the hell’s going on with Ken, fucker looks more divorced with every new installment, kinda surprised that it’s Ken who looks like he’s got his shit together a lot less than Ryu this time around / and uh, I wrote this post before it was apparently leaked that Ken actually is divorced? The fuck? Curious to see how that goes.

LOVE LOVE LOVE GOUKI’S NEW LOOK, holy shit this is what he should have looked like in SFV to begin with, fuck, finally they made a redesign for him that doesn’t suck. Love that they seem to have incorporated one of the concept ideas they had for him for SFV, which was to have him wear the fur of a bear he killed, into his main design, because that is 100% a Gouki thing to do and it works masterfully with the lion / wildman imagery he’s already got going on.

Funny, I was JUST thinking the other day if they were ever gonna bring Dee Jay back and if they did, they were definitely gonna have to redesign him and tone down everything that made him look like a grotesque racist caricature or, at least, change it so that he doesn’t stick out as much compared to the other characters, which it seems like they did, I’m actually kinda shocked over how much I like how he looks now, he’s like 100 times better. I always did like Dee Jay’s concept as a fun-loving musician who, unlike the other characters, really was just in it to have fun, and I like that he actually looks the part now. LOVE that they brought Rashid back and redesigned him to look sexier, actually, I like that they seem to be a lot more willing to let the dudes look explicitly hot this time around at a similar and show more skin while the female characters look like they were made with looking cool as a priority over looking like someone’s fetish (might retract this statement depending on how Laura or Mika look like if they make it to the game).

Juri was obviously gonna come back, but I definitely prefer this look over the SFV bodysuit, not surprised Ed’s back but am mildly interested with where they’re taking him lore-wise. The new characters look a little samey and, to an extent they kinda look a little more like Tekken characters (but then again the whole aesthetic of this game reminds me a lot of Tekken), but I definitely like their look, and I definitely think they are gonna make a vastly better batch of newcomers than what IV and V had. I’m particularly interested in Marisa, JP, Kimberly and Aki. So, yeah, I’m definitely on board with where this game is heading.

Anonymous asked: Do you have any interest in seeing other parts of South America?

Sure. Already traveled through quite a bit of it, but I always wanna travel more, traveling’s one of my favorite things to do. Unfortunately it’s also terribly expensive even besides the whole, cough, pandemic. But, yeah, I definitely miss traveling.

Anonymous asked: Excluding pastiche of the character like Swam, what is your favourite version of the phantom of the opera ?

Come to think of it I, don’t think I actually have one? My favorite Phantoms are the ones I make myself out of extensively curating and Frankensteining together the dozens and dozens of existing Phantoms, sort of like The Shadow but to a much greater extent since there’s hundreds of Phantom of the Opera stories out there and the character’s public domain. I guess for me it’s not so much particular “versions” of the character, so much as it’s particular ideas.

I love Leroux’s Erik, I think the resolution to his story is still pretty unsurpassed (except by the one depicted in the short story “Beauty and the Opéra, or The Phantom Beast” by Suzy McKee Charnas, that one has by far the best take I’ve read yet on the Phantom x Christine relationship), I find myself lately appreciating a lot how remarkably childish and darkly humorous he’s written to be, way more than you’d ever expect the original take on The Phantom to be. I like Lon Chaney’s Phantom likewise for the humor and classic villainy he has fun with, particularly in his final scene. I like Ken Hill’s Phantom for similar reasons and he’s probably my favorite of the on-stage Phantoms I’ve seen or heard (I have some more, mixed, feelings for the ALW version, I wrote like a massive report on it recently so I don’t feel like talking about it for now).

I love how BATSHIT HORRIFYING the Phantom of Althea Liu’s Christine is, I really like some of the ideas at play in the Charles Dance version (not a wholly satisfying take but, there’s some ideas in there I like, and honestly being played by Charles Dance does go a long way in at least getting my attention). I love how he’s drawn in the MAZM game (hadn’t had a chance to check it in full yet) and I have some other favorite artistic renditions of him by artists like Greg Hildebrandt, Kyu Ha and Anne Bachelier, to quote a few among many. I have a LOT of space in my files devoted to cataloguing Phantom media and anything adjacent to it as a reference point, I go through them every now and then whenever I start thinking about the kinds of Phantoms I want to create.

Honorable mention right now goes also to the Cosmos Takarazuka Phantom played by Yoka Wao. I’ve never been remotely able to witness this play, there’s no records of it I can find online outside of this terrific review penned by @ancientphantom, but reading that immediately shot this up into becoming one of my absolute favorite takes on the character to read about or imagine (reading that, during Christine’s debut, this version of The Phantom broke the 4th wall by actually going offstage to the orchestra pit in order to personally conduct the orchestra went a long way in making this my favorite show that I’ll never get to watch, seriously, what a brilliant usage of the character).

@thedeathalchemist asked: Since you are doing musical theater, do you have any favorite musicals (can be both stage and film)?

Actually not that many, especially when it comes to stage since music theater shows tend to be terribly expensive. This might seem weird coming off the previous ask, and the fact that I did this big writing assignment on it, but I don’t actually consider the ALW Phantom among them (it’s, weird, the history I have with that play, but I don’t dislike it though). Among the ones that come to mind would be The Lion King (I was a little young to “get” the worship people have for Lion King when I watched the movie, but the play definitely instilled that impression on me), and Morte e Vida Severina gets a very strong recommendation from me.

For film, definitely my number one pick would be Phantom of the Paradise, followed by Little Shop of Horrors and The Prince of Egypt, and now Descendants 2. I watched the whole Descendants trilogy recently and I definitely have a lot of thoughts on it, but Descendants 2 in particular is shockingly good, trust me, it’s worth putting up with the first movie (not bad but, not terribly interesting) to get to it. Speaking of Descendants, I also gotta put it’s older sibling High School Musical here, mainly for 2 and 3 (my favorites being, every number done by Sharpay or Ryan across all three films, the “Troy has a mental breakdown” songs, and “The Boys are Back”, which almost kinda redeems Chad for a second). I also really liked The Happiness of the Katakuris which is, kind of a musical, it’s kind of a whole bunch of things but I don’t remember enough of it to talk more of it. Otherwise I’m not terribly familiar with musicals enough to have a proper list. Get back to me after I’m done with musical theater and that might change.

@krinsbez asked: So, apparently, Dan Schkade has posted a list of "Batman Hot Takes" which includes Alfred being a retired Shadow. Thoughts?

Not something I would write personally in my takes on either character, but I like it primarily because Dan’s reasoning of “He goes from The Master to a servant, shaping the next generation” is a rock-solid foundation for where The Shadow should go as a character if he were to actually “retire” for real. I’d seen this idea of his a while back and actually, this was kind of a crucial puzzle piece that went into my thought process for my “The Shadow meets Cassandra Cain” post, I was wracking my head thinking of ways for these hardline incompatible characters could co-exist or work together and then I found this on his tweets and stuff just kinda clicked together. It made perfect sense.

I also like it because Alfred already kind of embodies a “prior generation” of crimefighter in how usually he’s written to reference James Bond, and because Alfred’s generally a character who already carries some kind of mystery and intrigue in his backstory, part of what makes him work as an all-timer anciliary character comes from us not knowing much about his life other than the myriad of skillsets he once had as the most awesome man on the planet and how that life culminated in him eventually becoming the right-hand man to the current most awesome man on the planet. The Batman crossovers even kinda played around with the idea of The Shadow effortlessly being able to become Alfred even without Bruce noticing.

You could make a very good point based on how well this gap in Alfred’s past fits with the existing gap in The Shadow’s post-1949 future, how seamlessly you could make it so one ends where the other begins, and besides, Alfred’s main vocation besides butler is often established to be that of an actor, which is almost 90% of the time in fiction code for “this character isn’t what they say they are / don’t trust everything they say”. Is it really that unbelievable that Alfred was just, one in a million other names in a lifetime of fighting against evil by adopting different monikers and identities?

Again, not something I’d go for or establish “canonically”, largely because I don’t want The Shadow to be tied down to Batman more than he’s already perceived to be publicly, but the logic and thematic worth here is quite sound.

Anonymous asked: Related to that last question, which fighting game franchise has your favorite lore, and/or the lore that you would most want someone to expand on in another type of work?

Besides the two big ones I already talk about on the regular (Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat), definitely Capoeira Fighter, created by Scott Stoddard (who you can see above in the line-up, as he jokingly inserted himself into the game as a character called “Maionese”, portuguese word for mayo, I was frankly surprised to learn he was North-American). I’ve known about it for a long while but it was only recently that I started doing some looking into it and it’s character designs, and I’m only just now discovering that the creator of this was also the creator of Mad Shark and Robot Unicorn Attack, and the only social media he seems to have is his Youtube channel. Looking up Capoeira Fighter and it’s creator company, Spiritonin, nets you basically just dead pages and zombie pages still up that don’t work anymore because the game was made for Flash, so, yeah, it’s hard to even call Capoeira Fighter a franchise when it largely consists of mostly tech demos and one game that is pretty much gone unless you look for it in BlueMaxima’s Flashpoint. Capoeira Fighter 3 does look a lot more polished and boasts a lot more than could ever be feasibly expected from a flash fighting game, including an interactive Arcade Mode where you can make choices that affect your character’s storyline.

I regret that I didn’t get to play Capoeira Fighter 3 before the death of Flash, because looking it up makes me frustrated. There’s quite a lot to like here. This is absolutely a series that I would love to see get a proper shot under the sun with a budget and some more polish (gameplay definitely could use some work still), there’s a lot of incredible stuff here.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fighting game, or even a game really, where I look at the characters and recognize not just the pop culture archetypes they draw from, but I also recognize people in them, real people I’ve met. Both of it’s main masters, Mestre Loka and Mestre Rochedo, are opposites and yet they both look unmistakably like real fighting masters and people I’ve trained under (Loka in particular). You see the Muay Thai girl in the image above, named Chompoo? Not only is she the 2nd woman in fighting games who uses Muay Thai, but she’s the only one who actually looks like it (King is by leaps and bounds my favorite of the SNK girls but she’s evidently not dressed for combat), but she actually kinda reminds me of my teacher’s wife (the absolute scariest person I’ve ever seen fight Muay Thai, not even joking, he loves talking about her and showing me videos of his tiny and lovely and terrifying wife tearing down opponents twice her size in the ring), I bring this up because this game's authenticity absolutely deserves praise as well as it's character design. Look at the other two characters above, Ramba and Buldogue, and I’m gonna post this excerpt from BigMex’s article on it that better summarizes the two and part of what is so great about this game:

The diversity of the characters could not be understated. There were 15 unique capoeiristas, in addition there were 13 other "World Warrior" type characters that represented other fighting styles like Muay Thai, Tae Kwon Do and boxing. It was not the sheer number that made the game unique but instead the showcase of figures.

In other fighting games, the playable characters were always roughly the same size and body type. They never had an ounce of fat on them, and were never too short or tall. Capoeira Fighter 3 had every skin color and body type that a person could imagine. The various tones and shades of skin suggested that several characters were of mixed marriages, mulatto or even native.

There was a character that reflected just about every type of gamer there was, including the young and old. None of them seemed feeble when competing against fighters in their prime.

Very few games, before or after, had put as many minority characters in the roster. Very few games had ever put minorities in prominent roles for the accompanying story. The lineup featured tall, skinny, fat, short, muscular and average build body types. Even the heroic Mestres could not have been more opposite

Ramba had actually been away from competition because she was busy at the university. She was asked by Mestre Loka to look after his students. She reluctantly agreed as it would be a good excuse to get away from law school for a moment.

Along the way, Ramba met Buldogue and offered her a better life. Ramba knew that Buldogue was a strong fighter, but had never been given an opportunity outside of the roda (fighting circle). Buldogue had been used as hired muscle by other characters in the game and Ramba wanted to get her out of that life. She knew that the bruiser was actually respected by the community, especially the poor that lived in the favela or ghetto.

If she were able to get an education and become known for something other than fighting, then Buldogue could become an inspiration for other women trapped by their situation. Players were given a choice whether to team up Ramba and Buldogue or to play solo. The purpose of Ramba in the game was not to beat the main villain, but instead to help guide those in need.

If players completed the game solo, then Ramba learned what she was really fighting for. She earned her degree, but decided to open her own firm to help the less fortunate. If she teamed up with Buldogue, she became a mentor and enrolled her in school, while still working double-duty as a lawyer.

Strong, positive, dynamic, interesting minority female characters that didn't need to flash skin to get noticed? There had been few and far between for over 25 years. Designers in Japan and the US had lost focus on how they could introduce new faces without relying on pandering or stereotype.

Characters could color the perception of gamers after all. When done in a positive light they could stop perpetuating stereotypes. Capoeira Fighter 3 had set a standard that would be hard for many developers to follow.

And, man, do I wish Capoeira Fighter 3 actually did set a standard to be followed by the bigger fighting game studios, especially in how they approach black or Brazilian characters. It’s hard going back to those now, seeing a different standard as to what they could be like. So many franchises these days are getting unexpected revivals or glow-ups, I would absolutely be onboard to see Capoeira Fighter get this kind of treatment or to even write and conceive stuff for it myself.

Maybe 2D fighting games have gone with the wind again (platform fighters seem to be growing more as the new rage) but, man, it would break my heart to see this be forgotten, and it very easily could have been. I absolutely do not want this to go the way so many other flash games did, I think Capoeira Fighter's truly remarkable and I would love to see it be revived in some form (or maybe I should just finally take a crack at game design already and make my own fighting games, who knows).

#replies tag #july #fighting games #street fighter #sf #sf6 #street fighter 6 #ryu #chun-li #the phantom of the opera #the shadow #capoeira fighter

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toystoryfan · 1 year

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Info on my edits:

I'm not posting in any particular order! I made a lot of these a while ago & already posted them on Instagram / Twitter (@/toyaccia on both, check them out!) so now I'm just occasionally posting them here too lol. Somewhat randomly and whenever I feel like it, esp bc it takes years for Tumblr to upload them to my drafts.

I don't know how to post things or tag stuff. I also don't know how to add the credits on it (also bc I keep forgetting) so I'm adding credits here! They are also all on Twitter & Instagram!!

Anyways I'll add more to this when I edit more!!

Stranger Things:

Willel - blinding lights

sc: strangermultisxcenes

ac: nhantaii

Byler - light switch