Seven

“ Our thirst for blood satiates us, soothes our fears.  Seek the old blood, but beware the frailty of men.  Their wills are weak, minds young. ”

Stay safe dear Hunters! 💕

PS: it's "T" not "C"

When an English teacher, or reader, taught or picked up 1984, it wasn’t with the intention they were going to love the protagonist. They picked it up with the intention of reading a whole story and trying to grasp the theme or catharsis from the story. If the protagonist was a *shitty* person it played into the the themes or the story, because it wasn’t about morally judging the book or *liking* or feeling attachment to the protagonist. Sometimes and often times, books were just about gaining another perspective. 

No one read Lolita expecting to endear, or like, or be inspired by Humbert. You are supposed to be upset by his behavior, you don’t read Lolita with the intention of being inspired. You read it to learn more about what the fuck is going on inside someone’s head when they behave like that. How children get sucked into abusive situations. Or read “The Great Gatsby” not because they want to fall in love with Gatsby or Nick, but to better understand and analyze the experience of the 1920s or destitution of the American Dream. 

A lot of internet and fandom culture has changed that though. When we say something like “I love the Great Gatsby” it comes with the idea or association that means you must *love* or relate to one of the characters. And maybe you do, but the first assumption is not longer about the quality of the work or themes, or cathartic impact-it’s about character admiration. And with that character admiration, in tumblr stan culture, or kin culture, or exalting characters with fanart/romance/so on you don’t just ‘admire’ or find that character ‘compelling’ it now translates to ‘you LOVE that character’ or you ‘DIRECTLY relate to that character.’ 

You can’t say “I love how Humbert is written, it’s so fascinating and dark”, without it directly translating you somehow relate to a child abuser or condone his actions. Taking in media has become an act of worship and connection. We no longer watch meant to just see the story as a whole, we watch expecting to connect to a character and if we offer them our “worship” as it’s become, as opposed to just attention or interest study as it traditionally was, it means we are condoning the character or saying we directly empathize with all their actions. 

I think that’s why there is often now so much fuss over *toxic* characters or not. Or whether that classical novel is showing good or bad things anymore. We’re treating the characters as people we should love or want to draw or write about. Sometimes a story is just about getting the the theme or catharsis or learning another perspective. We don’t NEED to like the character. Or we don’t HAVE to like a character to be impressed by how they’re written or intrigued by their behavior. 

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition - Mass Effect 1 visual updates

Eurogamer article: ‘Mass Effect returns: BioWare talks trilogy tweaks and franchise revival’

This article has in-depth details on MELE. It also contains BioWare discussing the future of the Mass Effect franchise.

Legendary Edition due May, extensive ME1 work revealed.

[Highlights] Sitting down with BioWare to discuss the changes and look to the future, the fact Mass Effect is back on the schedule at all seems like something worth celebrating, considering where the franchise seemed to have been left a few years ago. For fans, there’s been an anxious wait for news on whether Mass Effect would continue, until the twin announcements late last year - of the remastered trilogy and a brand new (still very far-off) continuation of the series - let fans once again breathe easy. We talk to BioWare about all that below as well. […]

“Opening up editors and looking at the content the way it was, I realised just how impressive - certainly when you look at Mass Effect 1 - what we were able to achieve there [was],” Walters recalls, when I ask him what it’s like to be back working on the franchise again after a bumpy few years. “I remembered how innovative and kind of scrappy we were… This feels it’s kind of got that indie vibe to it, that we’re sort of scrappy, and we’re gonna make this work. Everyone’s wearing different hats, and we’re solving problems all the time, it reminds me of the development back then. “This feels it’s kind of got that indie vibe to it, that we’re sort of scrappy, and we’re gonna make this work.”

“When I was on Jade Empire and Mass Effect 1, we often [did that]. I was a writer but I was working with the music team, the cinematic team. We often sort of dipped our toes in multiple things. I love that and getting into problem solving. And that’s what this felt like again. I was excited about doing it. I wasn’t necessarily excited about being brought face to face with content that I had made back in the day, because all you see are the flaws, but overall, it’s actually been way more positive than any negative.”

On Switch, Walters doesn’t rule out Legendary Edition for Nintendo’s console down the road (perhaps when it has more powerful hardware to help show off the trilogy’s new visuals?) but said the remaster project had got off the ground on PC and existing consoles, and it was BioWare’s mission to get these working first. “Personally, I’d love it,” he said. “But ultimately, I think we had a path set and it was like, let’s finish that, then let’s see sort of where we’re at.”

The next new Mass Effect game is still a long way off - further away than Dragon Age 4, which itself isn’t coming before 2022 - but with the trilogy’s Legendary Edition on the horizon and the franchise’s future seemingly assured once again, I wanted to know how it felt to have the series back on a solid footing after years in the wilderness. Did Walters ever think Mass Effect might have just run its course? “You get to come back and obviously have some fresher eyes, and you’re not burnt out from whatever the last project might have been.”

“I try and go to a lot of the conventions when I can,” he says in response, “and if there’s one thing I know it’s this: there’s a passion for this franchise to continue both within the studio and with our fans. I never had any doubt that the franchise would continue to live on in some form or fashion. I’m pretty excited." 

"The momentum of the IP is not something that’s just going to stop,” Meek adds, “BioWare has these large IPs, fairly well-known brands. But sometimes I think people think we’re bigger than we maybe are. And if we have a handful of projects on the go, and we need the team to jump on to one project, maybe one of the IPs sits idle for a year or two. But as developers, that time just flies by because you’re busy working on something and then you’ve had that little bit of a break away from it, you get to come back and obviously have some fresher eyes, and you’re not burnt out from whatever the last project might have been. Those are the types of things I think people should be you kind of expecting every once in a while, right? And it’s not the end of the world.

"So, what about the future of the Mass Effect, I ask? Will there be hints to it in the Legendary Edition, even just the odd note left lying around pointing to a future plotline? No, is the short answer. "I think it’s easier for the future of the franchise to look back and take from that,” Walters concludes, “than for us to try to set a course for something that needs time to ideate, and flourish on its own.”