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SPRING SEASONAL UPDATE!
🕑 Added 2021-03-30 15:52:38 +0000 UTCHappy Spring everybody!
I apologize that this update is a week delayed. Without getting into any details, Red and I have independently had to manage matters unrelated to OSP that have taken up a solid share of our focus and time in the past month. Once we roll into April, we're hoping to get back to normal and continue our livestreaming of HADES, because we had an absolute blast the last time we played that game.
2021 so far was pretty good for OSP. We've been having fun with the podcast, keeping up our regular Friday uploads, doing more OSP Animated stuff on our designated Tuesday-Bonus-Content days, and streaming semi-regularly. I had been going a little lighter on my videos for the first part of this year as I'm still somewhat recovering from the constant blast of work in 2020, so I appreciate many of you being accommodating and even enthusiastic about some of my recent videos being more in my comfort zone.
February was a big month for us, as we had the absolutely mind-blowing success of Hades & Persephone, getting enough viewership to even put Journey to the West to shame — and y'all really liked the pins too! We'll have three more pin launches spread throughout the year (next up is Loki on April 9 but I'll get back to that later), and starting the last week of November we'll be re-selling all of our 2021 pins, in case you miss them the first time around. We'll also launch a full re-run of all of our pins *ever* when we cross a special channel milestone, but that likely won't to happen until next year.
As for what's coming up this Spring, a few things. We're planning to get back to streaming soon (that once-a-week schedule was nice), we've got some more great guests coming up on the podcast (next up are Yellow/LudoHistory and then TierZoo!), and there's some fantastic episodes coming at you in the next few months — highlights include: The Loki Deep Dive (holy heck this one's wild), the myth of the Lindworm, Trope Talks on Timeskips and Sins of the Father (these three were patreon-requests from the old system, so sadly no TT voting this time around), the long-awaited tangent about Neoclassical Architecture (hype, but also, if y'all like it, there's more where it came from), a History Hijinks on Actually-Good Rulers, and Histories-summarized on Poland and Britain (finally closing out that series woot). Fun stuff!
We take pride on operating a steady ship, but we of course try new things from time to time. This spring we'll be taking a bit of a leap into a new kind of content that we're interested to get your take on. Essentially, you may have noticed that YouTube is rolling out "Shorts" as a pilot program for 1-minute videos. We've experiment with 1-minute content in the past with middling results, but this time we've got an idea we think you'll all really enjoy: Every few weeks, on our designated Tuesday-Bonus-Content days, we'll be running 1-minute shorts on topics related to our channel but wouldn't necessarily work as full videos. Specifically, we'll be launching a new series: City Minute!
City Minute will be a historical quick take looking at famous cities during their most powerful, formative, or transformational centuries. Whether it's 400s Athens in the golden age, 1800s Tokyo's rapid modernization, 1400s Tenochtitlan in the Aztec empire, 1700s Montreal torn between France and Britain, or 700s Chang'An in the Tang Dynasty, each video will look at how the city drove or benefited from larger movements in history. I'll look to address politics, economics, culture, technology, and other factors where applicable. We'll be revisiting some places we've seen in mainline History Summarized videos (because ya boy has his favorites), but this shorter format (and significantly more manageable work-investment-per-topic) will also let us go way farther afield than usual and get to new topics faster than we'd otherwise be able to — You should see my master-list of History Summarized ideas, it's almost 4 years long at this point.
We are really excited about this miniseries, and we hope you all enjoy them as well. We're also brainstorming some possible miniseries options for Red's side of the channel, but we don't have anything to share with you yet. It may take us a while to get to pace with these, or it may come very easily, we're going to just have to try it and see how it goes — and your support here on patreon allows us to take these kinds of risks! So, truly, thank you. We'll have more to share as we get moving with these, but for now, you can anticipate a launch sometime in the next month or so!
And that brings us to our seasonal poll! This time, we'd love to have your input on what areas you'd like us to cover for our early run of these City Minute shorts (with some topic examples), so please vote for your favorite(s) below, and we'll focus there. Additionally, please comment with your suggestions for Red as she's outlining the Summer slate of Trope Talks.
Again, thank you all so much for supporting the work we do, but also simply for watching and enjoying it. In circumstances like now, it's a great responsibility but also a deep reward to be creating content that's educational and entertaining and sometimes relieving. So thank you for trusting us to do what we feel is very important work.
Happy Spring!
-Blue
Comments
Steve
Goofy/humourous characters in dramatic narrative for a TT. I'd love your collective take on that.
Bitterblue55
My sibling and I just started watching your City Review videos. They're super fun and definitely one of our favorite non-normal content video series. This looks similar, so we're excited to see the final video!
Ebony Voigt
I’ve always been interested in Japanese history, so Meiji Restoration era Japan would be cool. I’d love to hear about cities spanning the ages though!
Stephen Hutchison
Once in each timeframe, but the same city please. (for each city where you can pull this off)
Rambles in the Rust Belt
I'd love to see videos on colonial Bombay, Calcutta, and Shanghai - the relationship between colonizers and locals in the largest colonial cities.
Pre-Columbian America is always interesting and fairly underrated in world history so I’m curious about Tenochtitlán
TakiPoints
Even if one of these categories does not win, could you think about including a "city minute" in some of your "History Summarized" videos about countries? I love your takes on historical events and it would be a cool inclusion :)
TakiPoints
Even if one of these categories does not win, could you think about including a "city minute" in some of your "History Summarized" videos about countries? I love your takes on historical events and it would be a cool inclusion :)
Tim Liersch
Here's a challenge for you: Melbourne - from invasive colonialism, to Lord Batman (no, I'm not joking), diversification in the Gold Rush and eventually the first capital city of Australia in 1901.
Hans Niemand
If you do Carthage, please focus in on the incredible naval/merchant harbor.
I second this it would be a perfect medium for those
Kenna
Ooh, I'm super guilty of this one. Would love to see Red's take on it.
Bill Lemmond
It can be inspiring if continuing to fight the evil keeps it on some restricted condition - "at bay." That's something we need. What if racism is genetic, an extreme expression of the natural selection for caution around strangers?
Bill Lemmond
Cahokia, highlighted and praised in Sid Meier's Civilization 6, is one example. I wonder if Firaxis would be interested in sponsoring city minutes for "city states" in Civ 5, Civ 6, and whatever comes after.
Bill Lemmond
Fridging needs to be examined as something evil that needs to be understood, in order to fight it.
William Milhans
For Trope Talks, I'm fascinated by stories that pit their characters against Unkillable Evil. Whether it's an elder god, an undying witch, or just a cycle of human cruelty, I think evil forces which can't be defeated forever raise a lot of interesting questions. How do you bolster yourself to keep fighting something, even after you've seen it come back again and again? How far do you have to go to convince someone to join what they see as a hopeless fight? How do you leave a legacy that ensures the fight goes on after you're gone? It's a dark premise, but I think it lends itself to inspiring stories.
Kaz
I see people commenting TT ideas, so, consider: Magic Schools
Your Librarian
Not sure if this is a trope or just common narrative sense, but "the setting is a character, too." (cities, rural areas, and wilderness)
Gillian Kinzie
ISTANBUL WAS CONSTANTINOPLE NOW ITS ISTANBUL NOT CONSTANTINOPLE-
Kenna
City Minute -- I'd love to see you cover pre-colonial Indigenous communities in the US & Canada, since they always seem to be forgotten.
Your Librarian
Just toying with a trope idea: Bitchy Bullies. Often the mean girl in a teen story or backstabbing co-worker/boss in an adult story. Romantic rival isn't necessary. Why are they mean? What's their beef with the protagonist? And why is psych/social tormentor almost always a female role? Cordelia in Buffy and Vivian in Legally Blonde are presented this way but they grow and develop, while others in the trope are static and the protagonist has to outgrow their petty feud.
Matthew Beine
As someone who played way too much Dynasty Warriors in his youth, you had me at Luoyang. I suppose medieval stuff is cool, too. Modern is overrated.
Chris Sifniotis
I went with Medieval, but honestly all of them are cool ideas. As for Red shorts, when the idea came out my original thought was it could be interesting to try out some DeVine Deities. The length of shorts seem to be advantageous for that kind of content.
LiannaBlanca
How you're going to fit all that info into a minute, I have no idea, but I look forward to it! I liked both the City Reviews you did a while back and the various "_ in a minute" speedruns, but I imagine this will be different. As for tropes, fridging and the long lost parent both sound good. I can't think of anything else off the top of my head.
A Trope Talk I suggested in a Youtube comment a while back was The Heart's Desire, although that could easily devolve into "every DC story involving the Black Mercy ever". How about a TT on Lotus Eater Machines? There is another Matrix movie supposedly coming soon, after all...
Amen!
Thanks for suggesting fridging as a trope talk. I didn't know this was a thing until I looked it up after reading your comment!
For suggestions for Trope Talks, how about The Treasure Hunt. I feel like there would be (pun intended) lots to dig into! I also like the above suggestion of discussing Fridging!
"Trope Talks on [...] Sins of the Father" Holy heck! I suggested that! Maybe someone else made a request for it, but I know I posted a comment about it! I'm going buck wild here!
Blue's Neoclassical Architecture tangent AND the Loki video? My crops have been watered this day. Potential trope talk idea: I'm not sure if this is strictly speaking a 'trope', but nonlinear storytelling could be an interesting writing convention to look at
J. MacGillivray
For trope talk a couple of ideas: The long lost parent trope (it use to be a lot of father figures but noticed mothers have been getting more common) or the prophecy trope in which the characters have to either fulfill or stop from happening, and perhaps maybe 'love at first sight' trope in which you believe you know love the person as soon as you meet.
Matthew Foweraker
More Mabinogi!
Roman Jerusalem... Muslim Córdoba... Por qué no los dos?
sethame bitch
How about secret villains for TT? (Hans from frozen, Bellwether from zootopia, that kinda guys) on paper they make a lot of sense and sound compelling, all with secrets and lies and getting under heroes skin and whatnot, but in reality tend to be not really good or convincing. What gives?
MABrock1980
Gone for Something Modern, just because it'll be something a bit different for the channel. As for Trope Talk: how about some fridging?
Trope Talk: everyone is secretly related. Ex: ABC's Once Upon A Time, Rey Palpatine
Hard to pick one option on the poll, all of those sound great! For a trope talk idea: (I'm not 100% sure this is a trope, strictly speaking) breaking the fourth wall!
Trope Talk Idea: Killing the companion animal. A common thing I see with directors or writers is they get one "killing the dog" and they have to make it good.
Philip Kruse
Han Luoyang sounds pretty cool. Coincides well with how much Total War: Three Kingdoms I have been playing as of late :)
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