Thursday, September 25, 2014

Entertainment needs more creative weapons

I don't know about you, but I am getting tired of seeing characters use the same kind of weapons in Anime, Video Games, Comics, Sci Fi and Fantasy shows. Mainly Swords and Guns.

 I've always found both guns and swords to be boring weapons of choice, and are very overrated. They are constantly used in video games, anime, and other media. I've always been one to like more unique, and original weapons, which is probably why I like boomerangs so much, you rarely see them in video games as a weapon!


Cherri, a character I made when I was in college. Her weapon? The Flier. Essentially, the idea was, the orange thing around her hand, would be able to fly off, and into an enemy, and fly back.



In the media, the hero and other characters almost always have a sword or a gun as a weapon, maybe even a bow or a magic staff.
Any character wielding a weapon that is seldom ever used is almost only ever used by a character that is either not in every episode, issue, chapter or in the game often. They're always that one guy, that gets killed in the only episode they've ever been in.
For example, there was an enemy in the tv series "Arrow" who used throwing knives as a weapon, he was quickly killed by the main protagonist. (This happens again in season 7, in the last episode. This time the person doesn't die, but just disappears.) The long running anime "Bleach" had a character who used a boomerang as their weapon, it was an enemy and he was only in one episode. The anime "Hunter X Hunter" had a cool character, his weapon were daggers that he could throw like a boomerang, he was easily killed by the series main antagonist Hisoka.
These three characters had such cool weapons, but they only had a very short screen time. Meanwhile, the main characters to those shows all had a conventional weapon (The Arrow = Bow/Arrow), (Bleach, most characters have swords) (Except Hunter X Hunter, the series protagonist uses a fishing rod, so that is indeed different.)
There are even video games where every playable character has a different version of the same weapon, which in my opinion is just plain and un-creative, and boring. (EX: Wild Arms 3 [Guns], The Last Story [Swords])

I don't mean to hate on bows,  I do like them. But seeing 80 characters with a bow, and or gun in an RPG, and no other long range weapons, is annoying for me to see. There's no creativity in weapons!
(Disgaea for example.)

Togari from Hunter X Hunter had curved knives that would come back like a boomerang when thrown. A spin on a usual weapon.


It's true that sometimes there is a show, game or other that has a main character with a unique weapon, or just a weapon that isn't very used. But it doesn't happen often, and plenty of times it's a series not many know about, such as Shangri-La. Which is one of three anime to have a main character with a boomerang as their weapon  (The other two being Inuyasha, yes a cult classic and Vividred Operation an anime with abysmal reviews. Shangri-La is in the middle of the two, ratings wise, as well as order of creation.). You might be able to count Daichi, from Captain Earth, but I haven't seen it, so I don't know the details.
Not to mention, the only time I've ever seen a knife thrower in an anime, was Merrill from Rune Soldier.

Plenty of people complain that shows and other forms of media have lost interest because everything has been done before, but I think that if you give characters different weapons, they could lead to different results. If characters have weapons that aren't used as much, we can get different kinds of battles, battles we haven't really seen that much of. It would be a taste of fresh air; to see something different in the world of swords, guns, bows and magic staffs!
The world needs more variety, and characters having the same weapon as usual is just not fun and gets pretty old, pretty quickly!

The following is a list of weapons that I think people in the entertainment industry should use more of! Beware, it's a big list! I have been writing down different kinds of weapons in a book of mine, to use for my own story purposes. They're both two pages with both sides written on!
Anything that has never been created, that I thought up will be a secret, but everything else goes!

Commonly used weapons:

Axe
Bow & Arrow/Crossbow
Claw
Daggers
Gun
Hammer
Magic Staff
Spear
Sword

Weapons that are rarely used: 

Blowgun
Bo-Staff
Book
Boomerang
Cards
Chakram
Club
Disk
Fans
Flail
Javelin
Kadenma
Kunai
Mace
Needles (Multi Purpose, stab or throw)
Nunchucks
Sai
Scythe
Shuriken
Sickle
Slingshot
Throwing Axe
Throwing Knives
Tonfa
Whip
Wrench

Weapons that are never used or rarely used: (You may have to look some of these up)


Anchor (EX Logg, Suikoden V)
Amei Piercers
Bag
Ball ( EX Wakka Final Fantasy X)
Banana Peel
Black Eggs
Bombs
Cannon
Chain
Doll
Finger Pointer (Welch Star Ocean)
Fireworks (See Panda King Sly Cooper 3 or Yoimiya in Genshin Impact)
Fishing Lure/Fishing Rod (See Chrono Cross, Korcha and Hunter X Hunter, Gon)
Flower (See Simone, Suikoden II)
Fly Swatter (Why hasn't anyone done this yet?! This would be good for an anime about a bug invasion!)
Forks and Spoons (Quina Final Fantasy, Leena Chrono Cross)
Meteor Hammer (Velvet from Odin Sphere uses this weapon)
Hooks (ARG e Matey!)
Jarts (Lawn Darts, they were banned because people were injuring themselves because of them.. great idea for a weapon if you ask me!)
Magic Seal (This can be seen in like ghost hunting anime)
Poison Powder (See Sango from Inuyasha)
Pots & Pans (Hai Yo, Suikoden, Leena, Chrono Cross)
Rubberband (To fling with my dear!)
Scissors (I believe Scissors were a weapon in a Billy and Mandy game on the Cartoon Network website)
Sling
Spiked Ball
Taser
Twin Hooks
Yo-Yo

Feel free to use these ideas to your own advantage!

Here are some characters from games, who do have very creative weapons!!

1. Welch from Star Ocean, uses a finger pointer as her weapon. She appears in several games in the series.
2. Riou, the protagonist of Suikoden II has a unique weapon known as Tonfa's. The only other character I have ever seen with the weapon is Elie from Rave Master, her Tonfa also doubles as a laser pistol.
Ironically, there are two characters named Eilie and Ellie in Suikoden II.
There is a character named Hoi in Suikoden II, his weapon is also Tonfa's, but only because he was impersonating Riou.
3. Fee from Atelier Iris II, her weapon is similar to Riou's, she can actually throw her weapon like a boomerang.
4. Tira from Soul Calibur has a giant ring as her weapon.
5. Quina from Final Fantasy IX uses an oversized fork as their weapon.
6. The anime Severing Crime Edge has the main character wielding Scissors, which is definitely different.
7. Characters like Serge from Chrono Cross, and Kyril, from Suikoden Tactics, have a cool weapon called the Swallow.
It's a staff like weapon, with blades on the ends. It's a really interesting weapon, and I've only ever seen these weapons in those two games.

To demonstrate, I'm also posting another character I made in college. Cherry, a twin of the earlier character, with a swallow type weapon!

Cherry

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Thursday, September 18, 2014

The Heterosexuals are at it again!

When a straight person says something like "Every Vi-KING needs his Queen", or when you're at work and someone just assumes because you're male, you like women and say something like "I think you could get a woman".

Not only are you assuming that everyone is straight until proven otherwise, but you're also invalidating someone's identity. In your world only straight people exist, it's like LGBT people don't exist to you. With comments like this, we just feel like we don't exist and don't belong.. it's really disheartening.

It's so aggravating when people just assume everyone is straight. What's also annoying is when I say something like "I want to play this game because you can be gay in it" and someone laugh reacts my comment in a random Facebook Group. For whatever reason they think it's soo funny, when this is something I really care about and them laughing at it, is like mocking it. Which is super rude. Like sorry that everything caters to the straight male privilege and we get boobs shoved in our face every five seconds...

But it feels so good when people are inclusive because then they feel welcomed. I love when people are like "Does he have a girlfriend or a boyfriend?", or that Old Spice commercial from years ago when they were like "Kiss the hottest girl, or kiss the hottest guy!". It makes us feel like we exist, because we do! It's nice and refreshing. 


 


Thursday, September 11, 2014

Millie appreciation thread

This blog post is for all of the characters named Millie or Milly.

1. Millie - Suikoden II

My favorite character of all time is Millie from Suikoden II, her weapon is a boomerang, she has a pet groundhog named Bonaparte who has an attack that allows it to EAT an enemy. She's really good with magic, especially summoning, and dark magic, she's just not good at water spells.





Suikoden's Millie isn't the only Millie! There are other interesting Millie's in the gaming, and anime worlds!

The following is a video I recorded years back of her special attack with Bonaparte.





Aside from Millie from Suikoden II, there is Millie from the first Star Ocean game (Which I have not played, so I am just posting a picture.)

2. Millie - Star Ocean
She uses a staff as a weapon, and is good with magic.

3. Milliarde/Milly - Baten Kaitos Origins

Milliarde or Milly, for short is a main character in Baten Kaitos Origins.
Unlike the first two, she is a fighter type character, and her weapons are two giant Mace's.

4. Millay - Suikoden IV
Let's not forget Millay from Suikoden IV, she's equally good with magic, and fighting. Her weapon is a sword. She later appears in Suikoden Tactics as a pure fighter character, she was one of my favorite characters in both games!




5. Milly - Trigun


There's Milly Thompson from Trigun, who is probably the most famous fictional Milly. She was my favorite character in Trigun. (It's obvious to me that I need to sleep because at first I said Milly was from Cowboy Bebop... =_=")



This can also be a shout out to anyone named Millie! Or Milly, Millregard, Millay.. etc..

Because of Millie from Suikoden II, I've always liked the name, and I plan to have characters named Millie in my own stories. The only one I have so far is a blonde girl named Millie, she's from a story I started a long time ago but never really finished. She has a boomerang, much like Suikoden's Millie.. but she made her boomerang out of a closet door.. I might change that part eventually, since that's pretty weird and possibly impossible?
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Saturday, September 6, 2014

Forgetting Thursdays post and evil Ebay sellers?!






 I have made a post every Thursday consecutively since last December, so this breaks the continuity!! But, I had to make some sort of post before this week ends!!




 I've been on ebay all day buying early Christmas presents, and let me say, you can get some pretty good deals! I purchased 5 items and only paid 1.49 for it. Ebay can have some pretty crazy deals, the only draw back is, it's cheaply made. I went a little bit crazy, and went to town on all of the items listed for 0.01 cent... Of course, I didn't end up with all of them due to other people wanting the items! People can get ferocious too, they'll pay double for something, even if they pay more than what the item is actually worth.
There's also this cheap shot, where sellers can bid up their items under a censored name "Private Bidder, Identity protected". It can be quite unfair, but you can always outsmart them some way!
The best way to outsmart the sellers that bid against their own items, is to not even bid until the last moment, if they see you bidding they will raise the item up purposely, but if you swoop in at the last second, they won't know what hit them!





I don't think it's fair that private bidders exist, if you look closely, usually they're accounts in china. They're selling stuff for 0.01 cent, they'll bid over, and over on an item to make it more money.
It makes no sense at all because they should have just made the price they actually wanted, rather than put out a fake bid just to raise it to their desired price.
It's especially unfair when they bid on the item to an outrageous number!
I was searching up Folding fans, and I found these two for 1 cent. I bid on them, and later I was outbid by a private lister. They raised the price over, and over. It went from .69 cents (My bid) to 1 dollar, to 2.00, 3.00, 4.00 and it went all the way to 20.00$! Even though there is no way it was worth 20 dollars, not to mention no one else bid on it except for them! People may deny that the private listers are sellers, but there's just too much of a coincidence. Since I had bid on literally over 30 items that were 1 cent, I lost 95% of them to private listers in one day.
 I was on one persons store, and bid on lot's of their stuff, magically a private lister just so happened to go on each one of mine and bid higher.
It can be frustrating that people get away with this! But, it's a nice adrenaline burst and it makes you want to kick some ass by winning!



The lesson of the story today kids is never forget to do your chores, brush your teeth and make sure to lock your doors, or the boogey man will come uninvited into your house and force you to listen to really terrible music that you don't like!


 Oh yeah, and that private listers on ebay suck and are terrible people!


I think everyone would love to just do the following to them...



I always post my blog on twitter, and the tweet I made linking this post was my 1000th tweet! See the tweet here.






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