August 20, 2015

SOS! URGENT! Attention-Grabbing Title!


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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