Gaming Wednesdays: Gaming in the 90s

A few weeks ago I wrote a rant about how gaming during the 80s was great because each system had its own personality as shown through different games, as opposed to today where all the systems have essentially the same games with a few exclusives. I left it at a hint that I would later write about THE Console Wars, and then disappeared. I apologize for disappearing, but here I am now!

Tadah!

So... 1990s... 16 bit...

Have You Accepted [Insert Fandom Name Here] Into Your Life?

Image by Rancyd. Buy the T-Shirt here.

“So V, Have you ever watched Supernatural?"

“I think you’d like Doctor Who.”

   Once upon a time these were statements said to me by both, friends and family. Often when we are surrounded by people who share our love for something, it tends to lead to other fandoms. Harry Potter might lead into Percy Jackson. Supernatural might lead you into Being Human and Doctor Who might lead you into Torchwood. We become involved in our fandoms and try to indoctrinate our peers into them, hoping that we can convert them.

Valentine's Day and Our Fictional Crushes

   With Valentine’s Day taking place this week, it seemed appropriate to me that we speak about romance. Since Pop Trends is run by three people of the single variety, I asked my two other collaborators who in the fandom universe is their fictional crush. Some of the answers might surprise you while others may not, but in the end you’ll notice something a relevant trend in the people chosen below.

Gaming Wednesdays: Gaming in the 80s

8 bit wut?

Young kids on the internets these days run around putting their X Box Ones and Playstations Fours on a pedestal screaming at the top of their lungs the glories of their favorite system and calling those who like other consoles "Noob". They think they're so entrenched in their "console wars" talking about which version of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag is slightly better than the other. Ah, these kids. They don't know what a REAL console war is about. All them fancy gizamadoos and multiplat games... they're pretty much the same console with a different logo on the front. That's not a console war. The REAL console wars happened back in the day, during the 80s and the 90s, when gaming, like a GLORIOUS phoenix, rose from the ashes of the Great Crash of 1983 to become the large blob of sameness that it is today. Join me, now. Let me tell you a story. A story of a great industry that fell, and then rose, and that at war with itself grew exponentially, until it forgot what it had originally been, to become what it is today.

Young Adult Literature: Random Musings, Inspirations and Dreams - A Reflection on the Genre

All my life I've wanted to be a young adult fantasy literature writer. I don't remember which Young Adult literature book changed my life but I do remember many that at some point in my life have offered guidance, advice or inspiration to me. The genre is especially dear to me, since it's one catered to audiences often ignored, underestimated and with just as many problems as adults. 

Whenever I write fiction I tend to go out. Parks, malls, coffee shops and the occasional restaurants often provide me inspiration but when I really need to connect with my fiction I turn to libraries. No matter where I sit, I think of the Young Adult section and things just seem to flow together in harmony, almost as if the words suddenly decided to dance unto the paper or screen. 

This is what YA Lit does to people

A bookshelf YA BOOKS YEA

The editor set today's topic for the special significance that Young Adult literature has to each of us. In my case, everything I am, professionally speaking, I owe to YA literature. In an oversimplified description, I get paid to tell people what I think about stuff I read and play. That's the popular perception anyway. The truth is that I teach students critical thinking skills, writing techniques, reading strategies, and analytic approaches that they can use in their quest for personal and professional growth.  Yes, I lecture at a university. And how did this happen?

Unique Love Stories: Finding the Needle in the Haystack in YA Literature by Miss Jay Gray

   Let’s be honest, the Young Adult genre is saturated with love stories. From books like the Twilight series, to even books that are not romantic stories like the Hunger Games series – they all include, at the very least, hints of romance and, most frequently, the dreaded love triangle. One could argue that the entire YA genre itself is saturated, since most novels seems to be following in the footsteps of the more ‘original’ and ‘popular’ novels in the genre. But every once in a while, one finds a treasure amongst the mounds of copycats – a needle in the haystack. Rainbow Rowell is one of those hidden gems.

   Not since J.K. Rowling have I found such a wonderful and entertaining writer. I discovered Rowell when her YA novel, Eleanor & Park, was chosen as the best YA read of 2013 on the reading site Goodreads. At first I was hesitant because the summary sounded quite general – like any other YA romance novel, awkward girl meets the guy of her dreams. As I started reading, though, I quickly realized I was in for a very different kind of romantic story.

First of all, the novel takes place in the 80s, a completely different setting from the present and future worlds typical to the YA genre. Second, and most important, our main girl Eleanor is not your typical love-struck Mary-Sue; she is an overweight girl trying to get through high school while at the same time living through a lot of serious – very serious – problems at home. Park comes into her life at just the right moment and their relationship doesn’t develop overnight, there is a slow buildup of emotions that makes the reader fall in love with these two strange characters and their odd relationship.

   Moments after finishing Eleanor & Park, I knew I had to have another hit of Rowell’s marvelous writing and amazing characters, so I quickly turned to her other YA novel Fangirl, of which I had heard amazing things as well. I did not disappoint. If I thought Eleanor & Park was a unique love story, then Fangirl was one step ahead, because it didn’t feel like I was reading a love story at all. Partly because it was so well done and mostly because I was too busy wondering how Rowell had managed to write a novel about my fanfic-writing, yaoi-loving, Harry Potter-fanatic self. Cather’s love story is not only about a boy (whose name I won’t give away for the sake of SPOILERS), but also about the books series she loves and her twin sister. Like Eleanor, Cather also has many serious problems at home, but through her various love stories she is able to find herself as a person and her place as a writer.

    Rainbow Rowell has truly been an amazing discovery. Not since Suzanne Collins released The Hunger Games back in 2008 have I been this excited about an upcoming YA author. So I encourage you all to discover the magic within the pages of her books – the needle in the YA romance haystack has been found.

Miss Jay Gray

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Miss Jay Gray is one of our experts in Young Adult literature. Not only does she specializes in this genre, but she's also an avid fan of everything anime, gaming, and cosplay. Her love for this type of literature has given her an opportunity to study it from an academic perspective. Expect great things form Miss Jay Gray, because here, at PT, we'll be looking forward to more collaborations with her.

Comic Book Thursdays: Close Minded Adults, Open Minded Teens

 

Astonishing X-Men 51, variant cover

When I was a teenager, I bought tons of comics. Teen Titans and Young Justice immediately come to mind and even X-Men occasionally graced my shelves as well though I never got into it. Most of these stories were watered down versions of the regular, more adult titles and some were downright silly but occasionally they touched on serious issues. It was the 90’s after all and even though some subjects weren’t taboo, it still shocked people when things like drugs were in teen oriented stories.

  Considering how politically correct the world is nowadays, it’s strange that teen oriented storylines touch on issues adults avoid. Even more intriguing, is how open minded teenagers are to these sorts of issues.

  Let’s take an overused (and by overused, I mean everyone has posted some opinion on it) hot topic right now. Homosexuality in comics isn’t new, yet every time a character comes out; it’s cause for a moral panic. In 2006, Batwoman was announced to be a lesbian and people went ballistic. As a subtle joke, both her identities shared a name with a female Batman character designed to dispel gay rumors in the 50’s. Before the book was even out; people criticized it on every level. The same thing happened with Northstar and Kyle's wedding issue of the X-Men. People actually objected over the marriage and sexual preferences of fictional characters, citing them as immoral.

Gaming Wednesdays: Young Adult Gaming (for Young Adult Week)

YOUNG ADULT GAMING?!?!

Young adult literature is kind of a big deal. Steadily rising in popularity since the mid 90s and reaching massive appeal with JK Rowling's Harry Potter series, young adult fiction has become one of the best selling genres (broadly defined) to date. Young adult fiction is often characterized by exploring multiple themes in a single book, having memorable characters, and using clever writing that makes for intriguing reading experiences. Furthermore, the major themes explored in young adult fiction are those specially relevant to people in their mid to late teens, but that are also pertinent to people of all ages. These include issues of identity, sexual discovery, depression, drug and alcohol abuse, family struggles, bullying, friendship, and love - among others. But what does any of this have to do with gaming? Well, I thought it might be interesting to ask ourselves if there is a videogame equivalent to young adult fiction, so let's do that: can games be young adult fiction?

A Very Brief History of Young Adult Literature

Young Adult literature is becoming more and more prominent these days. You can't go to a bookstore, movie theater or even the internet without hearing about the latest young adult book in some way or another. Many people dismiss it as a new thing to market to impressionable teens or that it surged about with Harry Potter. Truth is, this genre has existed for quite some time.

And by quite some time, I mean more than a few centuries back.

Sci-Fi: I See You Hiding There, Little Genre

  

Sci Fi YA

When I was in college, my girl friends and I would meet everyday for lunch. Like the Sex and the City girls, we’d pick a place and discuss whatever we wanted that day. Unlike them however, our conversations mainly revolved around literature and television rather than sex. As single lady nerds studying literature (library sciences for me though) in college, conversations about literature and pop culture came normally to us. During one of these lunches, a close friend of mine said something that has stuck with me. She said that she loved Sci-Fi and Westerns because they were, in her opinion, the only two genres that went well with everything. I agreed completely.

   Sci-Fi may not be the most popular genre in the market right now. Often, it gets misclassified or lumped in with regular fiction because of secondary elements. But it is still very present in all media. If you can dream up a genre and a medium, odds are you can find something that has somehow melded with it.

Today's Fiction is Tomorrow's Science

I find myself again in a bit of a whimsical mood, so rather than writing some sort of analysis of some science fiction series, I'm going to write about how fiction pushes reality forward by encouraging real life innovation based on fiction. On 1968, Arthur C. Clarke wrote in his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, bout the Newpad, a tablet device that, even in outer space, had access to encyclopedic texts on almost any topic and could in milliseconds give all the headlines of every news publication. Of course, the popular "fictional iPad" that everyone is familiar with is the Star Trek: Next Generation tablet. This TV show, featuring one Captain Picard, began its run on 1988, a year before the first commercially accessible pad-type device, the GRiD Pad, was released on 1989. All of this is, of course, the foundation of the tablet or cellphone you are reading this from.

Supernatural: The Anime Recap - Episode 2 "Roadkill"

Join us this week as we continue recapping the Supernatural anime as we move on to episode two: "Roadkill".

 

So this week we start off with Jared Padalecki telling us that this episode is based on the season 2 episode of the same name "Roadkill", but that this version has a surprise twist at the end. Great, let's see what happens.