Don’t worry, it’s not like I’m being held at
gunpoint or anything. But I think it’d
be best if I got as much attention as possible via this post. Because it could very well decide THE FATE OF
THE UNIVERSE. By which I mean “this
blog”. By which I mean “yo, I could use
some reader input here”.
And to facilitate that…well, I’ll take the
low-brow approach and fill this post with pictures of Christina Hendricks. It worked once, so I figure it’ll work again.
Plus her classiness should even out the dirtiness
of my scumbag tactics.
It’s fine, though.
You’ll know I’m really scraping
the barrel when I fill a post with Alyson Hanningan pictures. She’s
the best.
So I’ve been keeping an eye on my file of
scheduled posts -- believe it or not, I actually do have one -- and I’ve not
only got a number of them set, but have (at the very least) a number of them
written out. I still need to plug them
into the Blogger dashboard at some point, and
find enough good pictures, but I’ve got a good head-start. Well, good enough; by the time you read this
post, I’ll have already made some headway into that head-start, so it’s back to
square one, maybe? We’ll see.
To be fair, it’s not as if I’ll have to worry
about writer’s block. I’ve got some
posts written out, but already I can think of even more that I want to
write. Plus my assumption is that
there’ll be some announcement, event, or random circumstances that’ll make me
want to interrupt a theoretical schedule with something completely out of the
blue. It
happened once before with a viewing of The
Lego Movie, and I’d bet it’ll happen again.
Whatever the case, I’ve got ideas for posts thanks
to -- as you can guess -- a good handful of video games. Some old, some new; honestly, my intent is to
someday start going through my old collection of them and see what I can glean
from them. I need to go back to Valkyria
Chronicles at some point (even if that means starting over), and a comment
on Destructoid reminded me that I have Valkyrie
Profile 2 and I should play that a little more than not at all.
Those are things WAAAAAAAAAY on the backburner,
though. There are more pressing things I
want to attend to first, because there’s a pretty good chance that I could pull
a LOT of content from them. Good content,
too. And since I’m in a position where I
have a little leeway, I want to take a little time to talk about some of the
things you’re probably going to see
more of soon.
1) Devil
May Cry 4: Special Edition
This is the one I’m leaning toward most. It may be another point on the list of
endless eighth-gen remakes/remasters, but just this once I’m willing to make an
exception for DMC4 -- the reason
being that it’s an artifact of a different time in the game industry. I’m not just saying that out of rose-tinted
nostalgia (which I’ll have to explain later); I’m saying that because it’s a
game-ass game that’s a reminder of how fun video games can be. And story-wise…could it be that it’s much
deeper than anyone expected? We’ll see.
2) Final
Fantasy 9
If I’m going to get typecast into being “the Final Fantasy guy”, then maybe I’ll
steer into the skid instead of trying to swerve off-course. Yes, I’ve actually started (or restarted) a
playthrough of the game semi-recently after much deliberation and delay -- and
to say I’ve enjoyed even the early section I’m at now would be an understatement. If I spent weeks running a fine-toothed comb
over Type-0, I could probably do it
again. Admittedly, that probably
wouldn’t be done (or even started) for a while yet, but there’s a fairly good
chance that it’ll happen. In the meantime,
I can see myself tossing up at least one post
on it in the near future. Since
apparently, people care the most when I blab on about this franchise. Or have posts with breasts in them.
Okay, next step.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’m absolutely going to
bring back I Hraet You, AKA that
thing that has that purple-haired guy in the header. As I’ve said before, I actually have started
on the next batch of chapters -- but I got sidetracked by other stuff, and
ended up putting it on hold. My intent
(if not promise) is to get back to it, but you won’t see any of it until A)
I’ve got a very large pool of
chapters to upload without interruption, and B) I finally implement edits to
the old chapters. Oh, and also B’) make
sure there are enough people reading the junk.
It’s gonna take some doin’, is what I’m trying to say here. But it’ll happen.
Once that stuff is locked and loaded, there’ll
probably be some slight changes to the blog.
The lightest change I can think of will be updates to the cast page; my
intent is to update the art and descriptions and add in some new faces, so if I can get that done at a
sufficient speed, then that’ll preempt the new chapters -- so you can maybe
think of that as a teaser of things to come.
The more pressing change? I
haven’t decided for sure, but I might change the upload schedule of posts. So IHY chapters
will go live on Monday and Thursday mornings, while everything else will go
live Monday and Thursday…evenings?
Afternoons? I don’t know. We’ll see.
Now let’s move on to one of the main reasons for
this post: what if I made a Patreon thingamajig?
I’ve seen a lot of these fairly recently. Spoony, Jim Sterling, and MovieBob all have
them -- and I’ve seen DeviantArt users as well as anime bloggers set up
versions to call their own. Far be it
from me to jump on the bandwagon, but I’ve been thinking: what if I actually
started one?
I mean, it seems a little presumptuous of me to
assume that people would pay to see content from me that they’ve been getting
for free. Plus, it’s more presumptuous to assume that I’d
even have enough support; I mean, are there even enough people who give a shit
about this blog to lay down money? The
behind-the-scenes numbers say “yes”, but that voice inside my head says “no,
you idiot”. So I guess the first step is
asking if there’s anyone interested.
I’m not going to start up anything -- not for a
good while, if at all. (More than
likely, I’ll toss up a PayPal widget -- if anything -- so that people can
noncommittally toss in a tip when/if they feel like it.) My intent for now is to build up a big
backlog of posts so I can get to other things without interruption. On the top of that list? Spreading my influence across the
internet.
I’ve done some stuff prior to this point, but I
know I can do better (that’s especially true, because I’ve been slacking on my
blog commenting and I need to fix that).
I know that there are sites and communities I can make use of so that
there can be people who give a shit
about this blog. I’m kinda-sorta notable
on Destructoid, for one thing, and I’ve had long-dormant stuff on DeviantArt
and Reddit for a good while. So the
first item on the list is to do a little networking.
But let’s say that right now, there ARE people
willing to contribute to a Patreon account.
What would that mean for me and the blog? Well, first and foremost it could (or would)
mean making pretty much everything related to it better. Sure, I can put out
posts like this, but there’s more that can be done. Maybe I could start up a video series that’s
genuinely good; I’ve thought about doing that for a good while, but my concern
is that what I have right now would make it pretty low-quality and hurt my
cause. So maybe the first step toward
having a bigger outreach and getting better content out there is via Patreon. Failing that?
I tend to deal in games, so it’d mean I could get more games. And there’s even more stuff that I want to
put out, buuuuuuuuuuut I think I’ll
keep the cards close to my chest for now.
I guess the big thing -- besides sorting out how
the Patreon is supposed to work -- is getting those patrons the rewards they
deserve. That’ll take some research on
my end before I even get anything started, but from what I understand now, I
might be able to make a couple of good offerings. Well, good enough. There’s only so much that can be done with a
blog and a bunch of hyper-obsessive posts -- but my plan is to do more than write
hyper-obsessive posts. Cross-Up will
just be a (if not the) platform where all of that is centralized. For now, at least.
And I suppose that’s about where I stand. Like I said, my goal for the next few weeks
-- even more so than pumping out more posts -- is making sure people actually
know Cross-Up exists, and that I convert them from virtual passerby into
dedicated fans. I can pull that off with
a little elbow grease, no doubt. It
won’t be an overnight success, obviously, but hey. Baby steps.
Also? You
can expect more than just posts on those games here in the time to come. I’ve got plans for some new
features/miniseries in the future, up to and including a proper explanation of
who that pink-haired girl in the header is supposed to be (FINALLY!). I’ve been messing around with a few programs
behind the scenes so that I can mix things up a little, so maybe in a few weeks
or months I’ll reach a point where I’m comfortable showing that stuff off. And
on top of all that? I’m leaning toward
doing a more thorough site redesign than a minor palette swap here and
there. When will that come in? Who knows?
Sooner rather than later, I hope.
So I guess that’s about it for now. I want to keep putting out content, but I
also want to make some changes -- not just for the blog, but for people out
there in general. If there’s a chance
that I can become someone with real sway -- if I can give a voice to the
voiceless -- then I guess I owe it to myself to give it a shot, huh? We’ll see what happens in the future,
then. I’m hoping for the best.
As always, anyone who reads this is invited to
leave a comment and weigh in.
Opinions? Suggestions? Preferences?
Have a funny joke in mind? Say
whatever you want. I’ll welcome it with
open arms. So till next time then,
I’ll…leave you with a mere glimpse of Alyson Hannigan being SSS-tier.
Simply the best.
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