You may call me Marc.

She/her, twenty-something. The Red Knight.

[ladymarc]

So, I'm actually thinking about using Tumblr on a regular basis. Back when I did so, during this site's Golden Age before it was bought out by Yahoo or something, the main thing that kept me coming back was media analysis and theories and gimmick blogs. Most of the latter I really enjoyed are now inactive, but the tradition of essay and theory writing is still alive and well. So, if I'm going to be active here on a regular basis (and Reddit's voting system and structure places a high emphasis on groupthink that I am extremely tired of), I might as well post some of that.

I'm an aspiring writer of sorts, so hopefully you can bear to listen to me.

[fioras-resolve]

without looking it up, how do you distinguish low and high fantasy? if you don't know how others do it, your own way of doing it is fine. "i don't know" or "i don't have a distinction there" are valid answers.

[ladymarc]

Nobody has replied in at least an hour so I think it's about time I clarify why this question was asked.

Most people have been leaning towards the distinction between low and high fantasy being akin to hard and soft sci-fi, respectively. Low fantasy is grounded, often a little gritty, closer to earth. High fantasy is set in highly magical worlds where the impossible is more common than you'd think and everything is at least a little larger than life.

The truth of the matter is, however, that low and high fantasy include stories on both ends of that scale of overall magic level and tone.

According to the 20th-century literary analysts who defined the term, the difference between low and high fantasy is that low fantasy is set in the "primary" world, a world that appears to be ours on the surface but where the supernatural is lurking around the corner, while high fantasy is set in another "secondary" world where the supernatural is part of life.

Tone does NOT play into this. Joss Whedon and writers influenced by him are well known for their urban fantasy with a very particular brand of humor and off the wall action, and their work (barring the MCU) is low fantasy because it assumes a world that appears to resemble ours on the surface, with the off the wall stuff all being hidden. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Dresden Files are both low fantasy. Meanwhile, gritty, sword and sorcery-influenced fantasy works where magic exists but is terrifying and obscure like Conan the Barbarian and Game of Thrones are high fantasy.

The definition of low and high fantasy you're familiar with, where low fantasy is low magic and low on steroids while high fantasy is the opposite, was invented by RPG designers who were looking for a useful way to categorize campaign styles. That older, literary definition has mostly fallen into obscurity, apparently because it's more useful when categorizing books.

Except, speaking personally, as a writer, I don't even really agree with that. J.R.R. Tolkien was in the business of writing fantasy stories before there was even a word for them (in addition to being a linguist of course), and he vehemently disagreed that Lord of the Rings was high fantasy. Yet to these literary analysts, Middle-Earth was typal high fantasy. To J.R.R. Tolkien, he was writing realistic fiction that just so happened to have magic in it, and a lot of modern literary analysts agree with him and discuss how his work would be more accurately classified as low fantasy, albeit under this more modern definition that more accurately accounts for things like "tone" and "style" that both authors and readers tend to care more about when it comes to genre fiction.

None of you have landed on "low fantasy" being "intrusion fantasy", and yet I have gotten into long arguments about if Game of Thrones is high fantasy or not. Maybe it's just because this newer definition has supplanted the old one in terms of how well-known it's become, but we really ought to put the older one to rest.

[ladymarc]

Utterly baffled by the fact that "deboot" is not a more common term. What else do you call Devil May Cry 5 or Castlevania: Belmont's Curse?

[fioras-resolve]

i talked to @ladymarc last night about guilty gear fursonas, i asked what she thought bridget's would be and after some deliberation she said hamster. i couldn't argue. i tried to come up with counterarguments but i couldn't. i realized the problem i had with the idea of bridget being a hamster was that her cheeks aren't chubby enough. which is a problem with guilty gear itself. all women have the same figure, because arcsys are cowards. make bridget fat! now! you know it'd rule!

[ladymarc]

I deeply appreciate the mangaka of Blue Lock for figuring out that the way to get teenage boys nowadays invested in a sports manga is to make it edgier than Kagurabachi somehow.

[ladymarc]

In this house, we love and appreciate Chen Qianyu.

[ladymarc]

For context in case you don't know who the hell I'm talking about, Chen Qianyu is one of the three lead characters in Arknights: Endfield. If you've played Genshin, this game's competitor in the same genre, you're probably familiar with how that game has Paimon specifically so that there's someone who has a difficult time grasping the lore so that others can explain things to them.

[ladymarc]

Chen Qianyu is a bit like that, but less annoying as she's simply a very dimwitted adult. Because she's an adult, she's more easily adaptable to more serious scenes, which is a serious plus as Paimon was seriously out of place in those scenes. (Pun intended.)

[ladymarc]

I also think that in the context of the main trio, she's a nice combo of various "cast" archetypes, if that makes sense? The Endmin is the protagonist with super special powers who due to amnesia and getting depowered needs everyone's help, while Perlica is the leader, the smart one, and the one who is sensible enough for people to rely on.

[ladymarc]

Chen Qianyu is the muscle of the core group, but by Chapter II she's already getting physically overwhelmed. You can see that happen in the fight against Ruan Yi post transformation. But the thing is that she's also the most emotionally intelligent of the group (having a genuinely good eye for reading people) and the most optimistic and easy to get along with. Given that, while it's not obvious at this point in Endfield, the game still takes place in a cosmic horror setting, being the "heart" and plucky comic relief character should prove to be as essential as what the other two bring to the table if her character isn't squandered.

[ladymarc]

I really hope they don't squander her character.

[ladymarc]

In this house, we love and appreciate Chen Qianyu.

[ladymarc]

For context in case you don't know who the hell I'm talking about, Chen Qianyu is one of the three lead characters in Arknights: Endfield. If you've played Genshin, this game's competitor in the same genre, you're probably familiar with how that game has Paimon specifically so that there's someone who has a difficult time grasping the lore so that others can explain things to them.

[ladymarc]

Chen Qianyu is a bit like that, but less annoying as she's simply a very dimwitted adult. Because she's an adult, she's more easily adaptable to more serious scenes, which is a serious plus as Paimon was seriously out of place in those scenes. (Pun intended.)

[ladymarc]

I also think that in the context of the main trio, she's a nice combo of various "cast" archetypes, if that makes sense? The Endmin is the protagonist with super special powers who due to amnesia and getting depowered needs everyone's help, while Perlica is the leader, the smart one, and the one who is sensible enough for people to rely on.

[ladymarc]

Chen Qianyu is the muscle of the core group, but by Chapter II she's already getting physically overwhelmed. You can see that happen in the fight against Ruan Yi post transformation. But the thing is that she's also the most emotionally intelligent of the group (having a genuinely good eye for reading people) and the most optimistic and easy to get along with. Given that, while it's not obvious at this point in Endfield, the game still takes place in a cosmic horror setting, being the "heart" and plucky comic relief character should prove to be as essential as what the other two bring to the table if her character isn't squandered.

[ladymarc]

In this house, we love and appreciate Chen Qianyu.

[ladymarc]

For context in case you don't know who the hell I'm talking about, Chen Qianyu is one of the three lead characters in Arknights: Endfield. If you've played Genshin, this game's competitor in the same genre, you're probably familiar with how that game has Paimon specifically so that there's someone who has a difficult time grasping the lore so that others can explain things to them.

[ladymarc]

Chen Qianyu is a bit like that, but less annoying as she's simply a very dimwitted adult. Because she's an adult, she's more easily adaptable to more serious scenes, which is a serious plus as Paimon was seriously out of place in those scenes. (Pun intended.)

[ladymarc]

I also think that in the context of the main trio, she's a nice combo of various "cast" archetypes, if that makes sense? The Endmin is the protagonist with super special powers who due to amnesia and getting depowered needs everyone's help, while Perlica is the leader, the smart one, and the one who is sensible enough for people to rely on.

[ladymarc]

In this house, we love and appreciate Chen Qianyu.

[ladymarc]

For context in case you don't know who the hell I'm talking about, Chen Qianyu is one of the three lead characters in Arknights: Endfield. If you've played Genshin, this game's competitor in the same genre, you're probably familiar with how that game has Paimon specifically so that there's someone who has a difficult time grasping the lore so that others can explain things to them.

[ladymarc]

Chen Qianyu is a bit like that, but less annoying as she's simply a very dimwitted adult. Because she's an adult, she's more easily adaptable to more serious scenes, which is a serious plus as Paimon was seriously out of place in those scenes. (Pun intended.)

[ladymarc]

In this house, we love and appreciate Chen Qianyu.

[ladymarc]

For context in case you don't know who the hell I'm talking about, Chen Qianyu is one of the three lead characters in Arknights: Endfield. If you've played Genshin, this game's competitor in the same genre, you're probably familiar with how that game has Paimon specifically so that there's someone who has a difficult time grasping the lore so that others can explain things to them.

[ladymarc]

In this house, we love and appreciate Chen Qianyu.

[ladymarc]

In Fields of Mistria, Celine complains about how others regard daisies as weeds. This implies that there is a lawn care industry in the world of Fields of Mistria, and by extension modern capitalism. In this essay I will—

[ladymarc]

A quick proposition to everyone who liked My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic as a boy, but didn't quite pick up on why exactly you didn't like it the same way the bronies did until you realized you either weren't a boy or not the same kind of boy; Watch Hazbin Hotel.

You're probably familiar with the show's reputation for having hypersexual characters and a lot of violence, and it absolutely does, but speaking as a "brony" who later came out as transfeminine, the things that make Hazbin Hotel funny are the exact things that make My Little Pony funny.

Hazbin Hotel is funny because of the sheer disconnect between the lofty vision of redemption the hotel offers and the flawed nature of the sinners that end up in Hell. Charlie is woefully underequipped to actually carry out this vision, often using the same kinds of tactics a kindergarten teacher uses.

But she has friends that love her, and every single one of them is trying their best despite how human they all are. Nasty, deranged, often failing to address any problem they encounter or cutting straight to the quickest "solution," but nonetheless kind.

Hazbin Hotel is My Little Pony for weird queer adults.

[ladymarc]

I think the most interesting type of mechanic in video games is the variety of different ways in old school RPGs that they introduce some kind of risk to sticking around in a dungeon for too long. And no, I don't mean hunger or fatigue mechanics; those are everywhere.

I'm talking things that come in and out of nowhere and kill you. For example, the Reaper in Persona games (which also doubles as a late-game superboss), FOEs from Etrian Odyssey (and Metaphor now, apparently), and monster houses in Mystery Dungeon.

Oh sorry, did I say monster houses in Mystery Dungeon? I meant monster parties in Rogue. Somehow, that mechanic from the original Rogue that didn't make it into modern western roguelikes is still present in most eastern ones. Consider that if you're too rigid about the Berlin Interpretation.

The interesting thing about this is that it goes back to what is virtually the roots of the computer RPG. They were originally made by the kind of people who played D&D as a wargame, where an adversarial relationship between the player and the Game Master was expected. In fact, it was part of the fun. So this is the video game equivalent of "took too long, the monsters ambush you."

In the original context, this wasn't a purposeful design decision, but a quick fix by Game Masters who weren't using a ruleset that had any written-in way to prevent dawdling. But in the video game genre of dungeon crawling RPGs, it was imported wholesale. It's a bit like the "killer shopkeep" in that regard.

Most RPGs outside old school dungeon crawlers simply have hunger and fatigue mechanics or more traditional randomness as the main thing making sticking around in a dungeon too risky, but it's nice that these mechanics still survive in this very much extant genre.

[ladymarc]

So, a while back (like, 10+ years ago,) I had a hot take that the Pokémon series should have gone in a wildly different direction after Gen IV. My idea was that you'd basically split the Pokémon games into two things:

A narrative continuation of the past series, focused on the preexisting setting. These games would be more focused on worldbuilding and be significantly more experimental than the main series had been up to that point.

A mechanical continuation of the past series, basically functioning also as a spiritual successor to the Stadium games. This would refine the gameplay mechanics of Gens I-IV in a manner similar to many other multiplayer games, without introducing too many new Pokémon or mechanics to mitigate power creep.

You can imagine my surprise now that they're basically doing this. The Legends subseries is number 1, and soon enough "we have Showdown at home" Pokémon Champions is coming out and is basically doing the competitive thing the games really struggle to while bound to being a mainline Pokémon game. The only part I didn't accidentally predict is that there are still going to be mainline Pokémon games.

This was supposed to be a hot take. What do you mean Game Freak and I had the exact same braincell? Maybe this is just the obvious direction to take when most older fans and even Game Freak themselves have become fatigued with making the same game over and over. Legends Z-A certainly seems to be "for the long-time fans" in a lot of ways, moreso than just about any game (even Arceus).

[ladymarc]

So the global release of Uma Musume, a mobile game about horse racing where the horse girls are portrayed as humans with horse ears, just came out this week. I have to say, I'm not a fan of this franchise becoming super popular.

It's not like I've played this game or watched any of the animated adaptations, but the way in which I've heard others describe the appeal of this franchise is that it's a shonen-esque thing of how if you push yourself past your limits you can achieve anything. And the animated clips I've seen are largely about the horse girls gritting their teeth to win against impossible odds.

This is a very harmless and even positive message if we're talking about humans. It feels a little disingenuous when you're sponsored by an industry that has repeatedly come under fire for animal abuse. And I haven't really seen anything about the series sending messages about how you shouldn't overwork horses, which is a little difficult to do when the horses are being anthropomorphized.

For comparison, Pokémon is similar in a lot of ways, but I think it's a lot easier to separate from all these flaws.

It's been nearly three decades at this point since Pokémon's peak of popularity. At that point, when critics weren't calling Pokémon Satanic or talking about how it gave children seizures, they were comparing it to cockfighting.

Unlike Uma Musume, however, Pokémon was several steps removed from any real world blood sport. The actual narrative of both the games and their adaptations treated Pokémon battling as an innocuous exercise and continually decried any form of abuse involving overworking Pokémon or pushing them past their limits.

Pokémon also wasn't based on cockfighting, but bug catching. Presumably, there was also some inspiration from beetle wrestling, which as far as I understand was a nonlethal activity where captured beetles pushed each other off of platforms before being released back into the wild.

Even then, the battling component wasn't inspired by that as much as it was inspired by other JRPGs like Dragon Quest. Pokémon weren't insects, they were pocket "monsters" with fantastical powers like breathing fire.

Uma Musume cuts out all of the layers of separation. It is explicitly about horse racing. The races and the horses themselves are based directly on their real life counterparts. The explicit comparison to a real world sport means that it is also linked to the controversies surrounding that sport, but in discussions of the game, those issues go mostly overlooked.

[ladymarc]

Bringing this back since Uma Musume was nominated for best mobile game at TGA 2025. Please vote for Wuthering Waves instead.

https://thegameawards.com/nominees/best-mobile-game

[ladymarc]

A lot of Pokémon fans don't like Pikachu and think it's overrated, but the irony is that many of their favorite Pokémon would not exist without it as a precedent.

Nearly all Water-type Pokémon are based on aquatic animals, and Grass-type Pokémon must be at least part plant. This is the only conceivable reason why the Flabebe family isn't Grass-type. But the original games were even more rigid when it came to what Pokémon could be each type. All Fire-type Pokémon were based on folkloric creatures and all Electric-type Pokémon were partly mechanical, with the exception of Pikachu and Electabuzz. And even then, Electabuzz was based on oni, which are often associated with lightning in Japanese folklore.

Pikachu was, in Red and Blue, the only Pokémon that was "basically just a normal animal, but it has elemental powers." As a consequence, fan favorites like Torchic and Joltik are just following its example. It's a trendsetter.

Pikachu helped define what Pokémon are.