... and the sugar turned bitter.

Title: I got a credit card and some good company
Universe: Overwatch
Character(s): Song Hana/Lee Yuna
Rating: U
Warnings: N/A
Summary: “It’s not like you to get worked up over some girl.” She watched as Hana leant in close to the mirror, running the red of the lipstick over her lips, pouting slightly as she tried not to smudge it. When first she had met her future co-worker, her future girlfriend had asked her, ‘What kind of music do you like?’, she had simply shrugged.
Length: 778 words
Author's Notes: I can't afford skins so I'm writing fic! :p also: external link.



( I got a credit card and some good company )

To say that's Overwatch's recent "sequel" has had a rough launch would be an understatement. I have a lot of feelings about Overwatch, and I don't think I can really sum up everything I want to say about my time playing the game right now. Despite how I felt, how I feel about the launch of this sequel, I think it's fairly obvious to say that I'm the kind of person at whom new support character Kiriko was aimed, at least in terms of her aesthetic if not her kit, but what really got my attention was the announcement that she would be voiced by Amaki Sally of Akimoto Yasushi produced idol group, 22/7.



I first became aware of Tenchan when my friend, Shalimar, sent me a video featuring her character, Fujima Sakura. Some context for the uninitiated: the whole deal with 22/7 is that they are idols who are both "digital" and "real," meaning that the members of the group are all playing a role in promotional material—I mean all idols are playing a role, but still—so the whole set-up is somewhere between AKB48 and Love Live!, and you have to maintain an awareness of the difference between the members who play their characters and engage in their own activities, and the characters who appear in songs, music videos, streams &c. It sounds more complicated than it is, and I fear I'm not explaining it very well, but really the trick is to hold two contradictory views of the world at the same time, which... well, again, this is just being an idol fan 101, the idea that the people on stage are maybe not the same people off stage.

At the time of 22/7's debut, I didn't really get vtubers. I knew they were a thing, but I didn't really understand it—that wouldn't really happen until I suddenly got into hololive—but Sally instantly won me over with the playfulness of her performance as Sakura, something that has carried over into the vlogs on her own channel in which she effortlessly talks about being an idol as if it's no big deal, yet simultaneously says what I think everyone has always thought but no one in management is really keen on saying: you have to be a certain kind of broken to want to be involved in such a lifestyle. Whilst initially a lot of people were unaware of the fact that Tenchan spoke English, I think the sudden realisation during 22/7 SHOWROOM streams really caught the attention of Western audiences in a way that perhaps the group might not have done had management not been quick on the uptake with that introductory video Shalimar first sent to me all those years ago. I think it's fair to say that Amaki Sally made 22/7 popular in the West, and without her, the group is kind of a hard sell; I also think that through her activities and popularity, she prefigured the sudden explosion of popularity in vtubers over here, making hololive EN a much more inviting prospect for cover corp.

In my opinion, Tenchan really changes the conversation about the way we perceive idols, and I really, really like how playful she is and how dry her wit is. As Kiriko in the recent Overwatch animated short, she adds a depth to the character with her nuances that makes her instantly relatable despite the somewhat clunkiness of the unfolding story. It annoys me that players of the game maybe won't appreciate the fact that they have been blessed with the talent of such an amazing idol, but also, considering just how bad the launch of Overwatch 2 has been, I'm glad that people aren't talking shit about her just for being involved in the project. Hopefully, Overwatch will turn itself around and actually become a game worthy of its audience's time, and then many, many more people will come to appreciate Amaki Sally. I might only be playing bot matches because I hate the sweatiness of PvP modes now, but I think there's something really special in Kiriko's character, and a lot of that is Tenchan's ability to bring her to life via in-game dialogue. I'm also pleased that even in these low risk, low reward modes with a character I don't know so well, I can still have my moments.



tl;dr Amaki Sally is great. Let's continue singing her praises!

I am hopelessly, hopelessly excited for Sephiroth's arrival in Super Smash Bros.. I don't even own a copy of the game, and I am sad that I can't play the limited Sephiroth Challenge boss mode event, but I'm sure this can be recreated in the vs. mode when I finally get ahold of it in the new year.

Watching the update video that was first broadcast yesterday—and which I fell asleep in front of my laptop waiting for—I'm just so, so excited by all the space in which there is to build stories whilst playing this game, and the idea of those impossible dream matches; just watching Sephiroth facing off against Link and Samus fills my head with loads of questions, even more so witnessing Sakurai playing through the boss rush mode and pitting Sephiroth against Castelvania's incarnation of Dracula. Gosh, I never knew how much I wanted a Sephiroth vs. Dracula fic until today! I was also delighted by the fact that some of the character's stage incorporates elements of the Northern Cave in its iteration from Dissidia; this, in fact, really moved me, and I really felt like I could actually buy into the hype about Smash being a homage to all games in general, not just Nintendo titles.

Gosh, if only I felt the same way about the recent Overwatch update. I love how excited and heartfelt the sentiment behind the new Kanezaka map is, but I'm legit never going to see it because it's a FFA Deathmatch map, and who needs a support player in that mode? This year is probably the first Winter Wonderland event I haven't immediately logged in for, not because I'm a fan of the Yeti Hunter mode (I'm not!), but because it was always fun to play with friends, to experience those challenges as part of a community, but no one I know plays the game on either PS4 or Switch now, and I just can't bring myself to face how obnoxious strangers are in the game. I really want Overwatch 2 to have a genuine offline single player campaign, and for it not to be the price of a new game, but I know this wish is misguided. I'm dumb, because after the Blitzchung shit, I don't want to really buy anything more from Blizzard, but at the same time I am still emotionally invested in the characters of Overwatch.

Ah, maybe Mercy and D.va will one day make their way to Smash, and I won't ever have to worry about playing Overwatch again. :p

Dearest artificer

I might have missed the nom period for jukebox_fest, but I'm determined not to miss out on this one. In fact there are so many other characters/villains I thought of afterwards that I wanted to ensure a spot for this event, but, alas, such is life. Let's go with what we've got, I'm sure everyone reading can guess what the first one will be. :p

I also wonder if I still need to introduce myself in these? I guess I do as I can't really expect you to know this nonsense, so here's the short version: I write nonsense, this isn't my first rodeo, I like cute things, I like darker themes, I like it when these things go together.

That's that! Now let's talk about the problem of evil!

( Ringu | The Ring )

( Burzum )

( Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon )

( Overwatch )

( Dissidia: Final Fantasy )

So, what have we learnt today? That I'm in love with troubled fascists? Ughhh. Maybe? Whatever the case, I hope you have fun writing one of these scenarios, and I thank you in advance for entertaining my dodgy judgement calls about morality. I'll understand completely if you can't look me in the eye after this. Sorry.

your friend soon to be in gaol,
courtney
x

So, about that Nintendo Switch.

( are you with me? )

Surprise! Overwatch lore! And, as per what is now Blizzard's de facto method of interacting with its user base, there is no clarification about whether this implies a new mini-event as we have previously seen for Ana and Baptiste, or if it's just a story—a really, poorly written story.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm super happy to see Blizzard focus on Mercy, because, as a support main, she is by far my favourite character, and yet Michael Chu, the game's lead writer, left a lot to desired in his previous story for Ana, especially in light of Alyssa Wong's nuanced and detailed Baptiste tale. Valkyrie, a sort-of sequel to Chu's prior Ana tale, is basically more of the same alas, the same clunky exposition, the same awkward unfolding of events.

( examples and spoilers )

I understand, on one level, that Overwatch has a diverse audience of different ages, but I can't help but feel that this isn't the issue that is holding Chu back here, it's simply that he's not a very good writer. There's so much that could be done with these little ebooks, and I genuinely would not care if they came in tandem with a new skin announcement or not—though, for the record, Blizzard, it would be really nice if you could announce the timing of the event at the same time as the release of the story—but when you hold this work up in contrast, to say, the wealth and quality of stories offered by League of Legends, specifically the way in which it treats its events and champions, then I struggle to understand why it is that Chu's team can't be slightly more competent?

I know there's a familiar argument that can be made here, "oh, you shouldn't complain, this is free, after all," and, well, yeah, that's right—because I genuinely cannot imagine paying money for this.

Also: "Engaging the Valkyrie’s maneuvering [sic] system," is that a fucking super jump? Hahah, fuck you guys.

Title: Arcade Games
Universe: Denji Sentai Megaranger, Overwatch
Character(s): Date Kenta, Hana Song
Rating: U
Warnings: Spoilers for Megaranger episode 10.
Summary: Date Kenta is infuriated to discover that some girl has knocked him off the top score of Megaranger! Here comes a new challenger!
Length: 666 words
Author's Notes: Faint mentions of Stranger Things, The Last Starfighter, and Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei! also: external link.



( Arcade Games )

At the time of writing, it is Overwatch’s third anniversary, so, to celebrate the game, let’s talk about what a wonderful community of players it has—let’s talk about Overwatch and the community’s casual use of the ‘N’ word.

It’s easy to see why people might become frustrated playing Overwatch. Blizzard, forever sterile in their engagements with the community, seem consistently furtive about dealing with toxic behaviour, refusing to comment on these situations presumably for fear of excluding a player base that provides revenue, and yet, at the same time, we have the case of children like PacoHernandez7 on Playstation4, who seems to feel that use of the ‘N’ word is acceptable. For context, this scenario appears occurred during a disagreement between two duo queueing players, a Mercy pocketing a D.Va, and a member of our group. Young PacoHernandez7, one of the DPS on our team decided to make comment by sending another member of our group an offensive comment, which, to be honest, a day later, I am still trying to process.

Again, it’s easy to see why people might become frustrated playing Overwatch, it is, at heart, a game which provides little impetus for working with other people, and, more often than not, it is a game in which the player base is often young and often unwilling to evaluate their own gameplay; often quick to judge others for perceived flaws in their capabilities. I understand fully why people would be frustrated, in fact, whilst booped off the match during the same game by a winning play from the enemy Orisa, I expressed a degree of frustration myself—yet never once did I consider verbally attacking the other player. I want to suggest that maybe this is the benefit of being older, that maybe I am more patient even when tilted, and that maybe people like PacoHernandez7 are not so comfortably in control of their emotions, maybe it’s a puberty thing, but even though I can understand the reasoning for how this person came to act as he did, I struggle to understand why someone would actually decide that this is acceptable behaviour. The Overwatch forums tell me that, apparently, this type of behaviour will persist as long as we have cultural differences and that, apparently, such people are not racist but looking for the easiest way to cause offence, and yet, I feel I would argue that this is racist, even if misdirected: you can’t use racist terminology in a non-racist way and if you feel comfortable using a racist term in private messages then I feel comfortable discussing your usage of this kind of language in a public forum.

Celebrating this game leaves a bitter taste in the mouth right now. I find it hard to talk of the triumphs and rewards of a game in which cruel and thoughtless speech is continually passed over by a company that will not get off the fence in terms of putting its own house in order; I find it hard to want to engage with a game that continues to make excuses for players who persist in the use of this kind of language.