#because that's something i think is such an essential part of a good horror game for me

[copiasblair]

damn do all the endings of resident evil games suck or is it just the newer ones

[mossy-rock-in-a-field]

My Elderly Mother Plays Baldur's Gate: Part 3

(For those who missed it, my mom is having me play Baldur's Gate for her because she's not good with controllers but she still wants to smooch Gale, set things on fire, and see the story. For Part 1 and 2 of her adventure, click here.)

Yesterday my mom wrapped up Wyrm's Crossing and finally made it to the Lower City. I told her that this is the part of the game where the decisions start getting a little harder and morally grey, but she didn't really believe me. Eheheheh.

Here's how Act III is going for her:

Something I forgot to mention in my previous post is that my mom reads every line of Tav’s dialogue out loud so she can pretend like she’s actually conversing with the characters. I have to time the dialogue selections so the NPCs respond to her at just the right time for immersion purposes. She gets a kick out of it.

Upon finding a sachet of silkroot in a smuggler’s cave and being informed it was essentially drugs, her first question was: "Can we sell these drugs?" I asked her where this energy was when I was a teenager, and she said, "The economy of Baldur's Gate needs to be supported." We did, in fact, sell the drugs.

She always stops to talk to Withers and recite “fate spins along as it should” in a silly voice. She also does Withers’ little hand gesture with it because she thinks it’s funny. We both say it together now. It's not relevant, I just think it's precious.

I asked her if she plans on killing Gortash to save Halsin from Orin but she said, “Sacrifices need to be made, dear. Desperate times!” (I guarantee she'll try to save Halsin anyway; she really likes him, but she's super scared of Orin. Probably why she's toying with the idea of killing Orin first.)

I wish I could describe the face she made when THAT scene with the Emperor showed up. It was somewhere between horror and blatant confusion. I honestly couldn’t breathe I was laughing so hard. (She turned him down, obviously.)

She has made a pros and cons list in her Baldur's Gate journal for both Gortash and Orin. So far, Gortash is winning because my mom really dislikes Orin and thinks she's spooky. I honestly have no idea who she'll kill first at this point.

My mom had Astarion rob the donation box beneath the Stormshore Tabernacle (which contained our fucking donations so idk if it’s robbing or just taking back our stuff). However, she got the “castigated by divinity” curse, and when Shadowheart removed the curse at camp, a big celestial popped out of Astarion and proceeded to murder Gale in his tent. My mother was very distraught; I was crying laughing.

We left off at Lorroakan's office last night; my mom is coming back over today so she can watch Dame Aylin break his bitch body in half and do a bunch of other stuff.

I'll keep you guys updated on her crimes!

[unseemingowl]

Saga Anderson, and Nordic rep in Alan Wake 2

Early on in Saga Anderson’s exploration in Alan Wake 2, she runs into Ilmo Koskela. Fiercely proud of his Finnish heritage, Ilmo gregariously makes note of Saga’s Nordic sounding name and the familiar design of her knitted sweater. Perhaps a fellow Finn?

Alas no, Saga’s mom is Swedish she informs him. Immediately Ilmo’s face falls. I’m not sure if it’s actually just the animated character defaulting to his resting face, but either way the timing is too perfect. Cue uproarious laughter from me. People in the Nordics are on friendly terms of course, but we gotta have the tiniest bit of… scornfor each other. All in good fun of course. It’s traditional.

Now, I’m Danish, not Finnish, but still, I feel right at home in the towns of Bright Falls and Watery in Alan Wake 2. All of the little nods to Nordic culture and mindset feel so wonderfully familiar to me. The melancholia, the irreverent sense of humor, the affection for the Finnish and Swedish quirks of the characters. The game feels all the stronger in tone and narrative for Remedy embracing the Finnish roots of the studio.

Which is exactly why it sucks that I almost immediately saw the charm of those narrative decisions weaponised against Saga.

I first watched the scene between Ilmo and Saga on a lets play when I was trying to figure out if I should finally dip my toes into survival horror and buy the game. Delighted by the writing I took a look into the comments to see if people were vibing as hard with it as I was. They were. But I also saw a comment that made me frown.

Paraphrasing, it basically went, come on, like hell a guy like Ilmo would make the assumption that a black woman is Finnish. There are a multitude of reasons why I think that person was wrong, mainly that Nordic people love it when we run into each other in other countries, but it also just made me sad.

Saga being black does not negate her Swedish heritage. Formally, she is American, sure (I assume, not sure how that works in the US), but she’s raised by her single Swedish mom, of course she’s going to identify heavily with that part of her herself. It’s a profound and essential part of who she is.

But hey, I’m a white potato Dane, so I’m not gonna argue that I know much about the experience of being biracial. I’m gonna stick to what I know, which is that Saga is a very moving and beautiful example of something that I’m actually not used to seeing much of - a story about connecting with your Nordic heritage and roots. And it’s part of why I love her so much.

When Nordic people show up in big, international productions, it’s usually as Vikings, and sure, it’s fun to see our wild ancestors, but contemporary questions of Nordic identity and heritage is not something I often see explored. Not even in our own productions.

So much of Saga’s story is about family. Fighting for her current one, Logan and Casey (and sure, David too, lol), and rediscovering her first one. Tor and Odin.

Her discovering her ties to Tor and Odin is profoundly moving and made me teary-eyed several times over. And sure, a lot of those ties are fantastical in nature, but they still feel very much grounded - and what makes us Nordic if not the ties to our myths and legends that Tor and Odin have made themselves the living avatars of.

While Saga’s mom, Freya, had good reasons for leaving the Anderson seer magics behind, seeing them as part of what made her family fucked up, she also cut Saga off from the fullness of her capabilities. It is only through Saga reforming her family, healing its scars and fully embracing the Anderson heritage that she becomes as powerful a parautilitarian as she is at the end of the game. That’s beautiful.

And in fact I think Saga being black only deepens the richness of those themes rather than negate them or make them irrelevant. Because yes, Saga’s story would have been moving if she was a white character too, but I am very well aware that a lot of biracial people of Nordic ancestry can feel alienated from that part of themselves. Not least because questions of who gets to claim a Nordic heritage can get pretty ugly around here. There are most definitely people who share the racist mindset of that commentator. It adds an extra dimension. Which is why seeing Tor and Odin’s eagerness to claim Saga as part of the Anderson heritage is all the more moving. Through her magics, she’s just so obviously an Anderson, and they’re so damn proud to call her theirs and fight alongside her. Because they all got that wild Viking blood in them. They’re part of her and she’s part of them.

Roger Ebert, the film critic once called movies empathy machines. I think games, when they’re at their best, can be an even more intense variation of that. Which is exactly why it baffles me that some people can play through Alan Wake 2 and still think Saga is a stunt-woke character rather than someone fully and beautifully integrated in the narrative. A narrative which, at its most basic level – in my opinion – is about the mystical bonds we form with each other and the rest of the world through art and love and blood and family and heritage. All the great horror doesn’t negate that either, it amplifies it. Kind of like that clicker.

[wetcatspellcaster]

Metapost: "The Ascendent"

**this is a meta for my fic, Pieces Still Stuck in Your Teeth, and NOT a discussion of the BG3 game canon in any way. If you try and make this into a disk-horse, I will BITE you**

(spoilers under the cut for Chapters 1-23 of Pieces Still Stuck in Your Teeth).

So... remember in the Chapter One endnote when I said I was a Spike/Buffy fan first, and a person second? x

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In more seriousness, there was a number of fictional seasonings/ingredients that went into creating what I felt was the villain of a Gothic horror, and what I felt could turn the Ascendent into something that was both 'fixable', and something I enjoyed writing.

Those ingredients were:

Spike and the idea of 'soulless' vampires in the BtVS canon - do I like this conceit of BtVS worldbuilding and how it's used in the show? No. I think it often underlines how bad Whedon is at writing romance. BUT I do think it gives Buffy this free pass for which vampires she can/can't like or adopt, and I needed some of that for my protagonist. I need a 'I can fix him' moment - BtVS has those in fucking SPADES.

Howl's Moving Castle (this one was accidental, I'm still mad at myself but I can't deny it's there) - man conducts magic ritual for power, removing an essential part of himself in the process that needs to be returned

Picture of Dorian Gray (the idea of an exterior staying pristine while something hidden suffers and decays)

Curse of Strahd (the soulless in Barovia, which I mentioned in Chapter 23)

The idea of default moral alignments in D&D. I have a whole chapter arguing against this in my thesis (mostly bc it's often applied to entire races) but I was fascinated by creating a set of circumstances where I feel like a default moral alignment is valid, actually. 7,000 deaths seems like a good set up. I wanted to imagine a being that was trapped within a default moral alignment, and the laws of its very being prevent it from being good no matter what it tries, and it knows that (this kind of creates a feedback loop with the Spike/Buffy stuff)

The parts of the BG3 canon I took and REMADE (I'm stressing this throughout, I was making a horror story and a horror monster your honour):

Astarion conducts the Rite of Profane Ascension with scars on his back, but has to scar Cazador's back personally, suggesting that um... the Rite REALLY SHOULDN'T BE CONDUCTED BY SOMEONE WHO'S GOT THOSE SCARS. Cazador wasn't going to do it that way, is all I'm saying!!

The idea that Ascended!Ending Astarion is a concentrated version of certain traits that have persisted throughout his story - his flirtiness, his understanding of sex as a mechanism and expression of power, his use of a façade as a mask for trauma he refuses to acknowledge.

The lines alluding to dissociation in the brothel foursome, post-Ascension.

The idea that Astarion seduced Tav to survive or protect himself- in my case, because I made the Ascendent empty save for Astarion's survival instinct, the idea that he would gravitate towards Tav as one of his default modes to potentially survive made sense to me - this is why it becomes an obsession.

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For me, when writing, the Ascendent is a few things:

An intensification of vampirism in a different, fucked-up direction. Yeah, A!Astarion, you can walk in sunlight and you can eat and drink and don't need blood. But you are still a hungering maw of emptiness that feels like it will never be whole or close and connected to the living - just now in a wildly different, metaphysical/existential direction! Welcome to depression, alienation, and otherness!

A soulless being, that knows it is soulless - that initially was very happy with its life but then as the years passed, increasingly spends its every waking moment knowing there is something innately wrong with it that it can't seem to shake, no matter how much it engages with life and all the pleasures of life. (see the 'every meal without savour' speech)

A magically literal metaphor for Astarion's dissociation in moments of extreme trauma, up to and including the fight with Cazador - essentially, the moments when there is nothing but a performance or an exterior, because the self/soul are suffering and they cant' come to phone right now

Astarion's survival instinct. As I say in Chapter 23 - Mephistopheles thinks it is an empty body, who's performance is trying to deny the reality of it's own existence. Rosalie, who has a bit more understanding of Astarion, sees that the performance is not just a coping mechanism but one of Astarion's main modes of survival. The Ascendent is Astarion's survival instinct/techniques for endurance, without any soul or person behind them to protect. This is how I tried to tie in the flirty, hypersexual persona and wrap it with a bow.

I wanted a monster that was undeniably scary, and monstrous to me (oh? you can't fit in or be happy no matter what you do and no matter how hard you try, and you think there's something intrinsically off? how's that autism diagnosis going Emma) but that I also felt sympathy and true sorrow for. I needed to have motivations for him chasing after Tav that I could write meaningfully from and sympathise with.

Not only has Astarion used Tav as a life-raft once before, they've also proven to be the most secure thing he's ever clung to. Of course a rabid survival instinct Astarion would become obsessed, and see them as a potential solution to the problem (this was then intensified by Rosalie also being a walking, overbearing moral compass, and having bound him in a contract in the first week of living, accidentally - a lawful good immoveable objects meets a default moral alignment unstoppable force.)

...Because I also wanted that moral alignment spice!! Wizards of the Coast, default moral alignment is fucked up actually!!! Imagine something trying so desperately to be good - literally being bound in a pact and having been told to be good - but the laws of the universe and its very essence are like "nah mate, we kind of want to destroy and annihilate everything, we're neutral evil personified". That's scary!! that's fucked up!! that's what a birth from 7000 deaths gets you!!!

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So, now for the actual timeline, for people who aren't interested in my silly musings but mostly just want answers lmfao.

Rosalie makes the decision not to intervene in Cazador's mansion, making it seem like she'll support whatever decision Astarion will make there.

Rite of Profane Ascension happens. Astarion conducts the ritual, rips his own soul from his body, the Ascendent is born with literally zero context. Mephistopheles is fucked in Cania, because a bunch of stuff has just gone wrong.

(oh, by the way, the Ascendent knows Infernal as a default language. Bc it's born from an Infernal rite.)

The Ascendent is now default neutral evil, and feeling some kind of way. Rosalie and him break up. He's supposed to have everything, but the one thing he thought was a done deal - his most stalwart suppporter - just rejected him.

Netherbrain defeat (the Ascendent is not invited. Imagine being an all-powerful, hypersexual survival instinct vampire, and your ex-girlfriend neither wants you for sex, nor your power.)

Rosalie accidentally binds the Ascendent (a soulless devil) in a pact demanding that he never kill anyone, when that's literally what the Ascendent's new existence/new default moral alignment is driving him to do. Then, she fucks off and goes into hiding.

Well. The Ascendent can just get another wizard, to help him learn all of Cazador's secrets to cope [Hemlock is recruited].

The years go by! The Ascendent is doing sooooo well. Everything is great, guys! I'm rich, I'm beautiful, I have lavish parties and lots of sex - why do I feel nothing? I'm a vampire perfected - I have no hunger for blood, I can walk in the sun, I can enjoy all the freedoms of a living, breathing man - why do I feel like I'm starving? Why does everything turn to ashes in my mouth? I have friends - oops, I've sabotaged all those friendships with my innate neutral evil destruction. Why can't I feel anything? What's wrong with me? I'm doing everything right? Why doesn't it feel that way?

Also, I can't kill anything to feel better about it, because my hidden ex-girlfriend bound me in a pact.

In this time, to reflect the gradual degradation of the Ascendent's happiness and it's increasing awareness that it is something Other and innately wrong, the reflection starts going weird. Starts going strange. Starts getting a bit fucked up. Almost as if, when he looks in the mirror and sees a person, *nothing* should be what's there. Imagine being a spawn who couldn't see your reflection, and then a vampire who could see it's reflection, but knows that they're innately empty. Knows there's nothing there. I'd freak out a little bit about it as well tbh, I'd go a bit tooth and claw and elongated jaw about it.

The Ascendent finally admits that's there must be something kinda fucked about it. Life just ain't working out, lads. He starts looking for any and all impossible cures that will help with the malaise in his soul (and that innate essence problem, caused by default moral alignment). These include: more bad decisions, such as a house in Cania bc the Ascendent is hoping he'll feel more at home with devils than he does with mortals. All it does is make him feel more isolated and alone.

But eventually, he settles on two things! - Wish (Hemlock's idea), and Rosalie (the Ascendent's idea). Clearly, we just need Rosalie back! Her leaving is actually what fucked him up in the first place - none of this existential bullshit! She fixed us one, she can fix us again.

But looking for Rosalie hasn't worked out. In order to get a shot at her, the Ascendent goes and bargains for his own soul from Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles, adding a new sheet in excel titled 'what the fuck happens when i give this soulless monster a soul to play with?', agrees and starts tracking his new data.

Obviously, just putting the soul back in yourself will fix you. But the Ascendent, the nothingness living inside Astarion's body, will die. Taking the soul back would erase itself. The Ascendent - who is survival instinct personified - would never do this.

So instead, it starts interviewing and cannibalising the soul. Bc a soul is what it needs, this is the closest it's ever felt to being alive. Bc it's made this all about Rosalie, he thinks he's found his solution. The chase is making him feel alive again. It's true love, lads! not the soul.

Wish auction happens - the Ascendent is beaten to the punch by some unknown (hot) wizard.

This avenue cut off, the Ascendent makes the decision to try and win Rosalie back.

Astarion advises that to make her come back to the Gate, he should murder a bunch of people. Because this comes from the soul, not the soulless devil nothingness, it circumvents the pact.

...The events of Pieces begin!

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And finally - the Ascendent tries to destroy Jar!Starion for many reasons in Chapter 19:

The Ascendent knows that it dies, if the soul and the body get reunited (or is that constant high alert survival instinct just no longer needed, because the problem is fixed? you decide.)

The Ascendent values Tav above itself. Tav is going to fix them. Astarion believes he could never fix himself.

Dissociation - that soul isn't me. I'm here, looking at my soul. If I get too close, it'll kill me.

Self-hatred - that soul isn't me. That man made a mistake, and I've had to live with the consequences. He doesn't deserve to live, for what he's made me become.

The knowledge that Rosalie/Tav will only ever want that version of him, not the one that's living and breathing, that sees itself as the most wretched, fucked-up version of itself. So... give them no choice. They have to deal with me and love me at my worst.

And if the Rite didn't work - if the version of the Ascendent walking around isn't the best one, and the one people want... what was it all for? Why does the Ascendent feel like this? Why does it have to suffer?

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....And, that's my little meta post! If anyone has any questions about the timeline or any motivations at any points in the fic, I'm obviously more than happy to explain things via ask/comment, as always!

TLDR: I just wanted to make a Gothic horror. I wanted a dark romance, fucked up obsession vampire/mortal dynamic, but I also wanted a situation that was scary for both Astarion and my Tav. I personally think an Astarion who is so dissociated and separate from reality that he feels that in his bones daily, is scary. It's the lingering impact of the traumas the Rite and those 7,000 souls embodied.

I was literally just trying to make it a horror, for everyone involved.

[petr1kov]

i already made a video on the topic so i might be repeating myself, but the release of these recent silent hill projects make it impossible for me to not think about how much this franchise struggles with defining its identity. and for as much as i love silent hill 2, it's kinda its fault for muddying the waters on what a silent hill game was supposed to be 'about', since it is the one game that popularized this notion of the 'therapist town'.

twisted projections of the worst parts of someone's mind have been a cornerstone of the series since the first entry, where we are forced to experience alessa's nightmare, but it's a notably different approach than that of the second game, starting by the fact that it's a deep dive of someone else's mind, not the protagonist's - a formula that repeats itself most notably on silent hill 4, with walter's character being the sources of the projections, and even silent hill 3, where we are split between heather and claudia's versions of the otherworld.

in these games, we spend a good chunk of the game with our player characters as confused spectators of a horror that is connected to them, sure, but bigger than themselves. it is that contrast that made silent hill 2 stand out back when it came out, in fact. finding out that what we were experiencing stemmed from james himself instead of other characters around him was a genuine twist, not the forgone conclusion that it became these days.

in reality, what i believe has always been central to the identity of the silent hill games and that has been sorely neglected on basically every title that has been released after 4 (no doubt because of this belief that silent hill /needs/ to be about a tortured protagonist discovering hidden truths about their lives) is the occult. the genuine surreal supernatural elements that complement the metaphors. the cult and the gods and the otherworld and the psychic powers. and that's something that even silent hill 2, the game most disconnected of this aspect of the series out of the original four, still recognizes and approaches in direct ways. that's what makes maria such an intriguing character, especially on born from a wish, and there's even an ending where james tries to engages directly with elements of the cult of the original game, attempting to perform a ritual of rebirth on mary.

i feel that later silent hill titles feel almost ashamed to engage with these elements directly, preferring to lean heavily on the metaphorical aspects of it in order to downplay the weirdness of the occult in the series, but in doing it that, you end up stripping it of something that's essential to it, that gives the series its distinct flavor and, worse of all, end up with very samey, predictable stories that try and fail to recapture the magic of silent hill 2

[merakiui]

If you could explain to a very confused person what happened in that Trey fic I would eternally grateful

Essentially, Reader is still reeling from a traumatic event that happened to them at one point in their relationship with Trey. Their brain blocks the memory because it causes such mental and physical stress. The dream/hallucination/Doodle Suit (it's up to interpretation in whichever way you wish to view them) sequences are Reader's attempt at processing everything. Meanwhile, Trey is gaslighting and manipulating them into thinking he's still their safe, sweet boyfriend even though deep down Reader suspects there's something not right.

I have another Trey fic planned that is just as much of a trip as "everything is going to be okay." I think it helps that Alice in Wonderland is already such a trip itself, so there's plenty of potential for surreal and psychological horror that messes with the mind. I would like to write surreal horror with Ace one day!!! I saw this video of "closing the fabricated window" a while back and it's so good. orz otome-style game with Ace who is directly addressing the player. That part in the video where he gets rid of Deuce and is holding the umbrella to avoid getting blood on himself!!! WAAAAAAAA orz orz

[fernsnailz]

January 2024 Review Roundup

hello everypony‼️ something i want to do through 2024 is a mini review series where i recap some of the media i watched/played/read at the end of every month. this was inspired by tumblr user ponett’s 2023 media wrap-up, it's a great collection of quick reviews so go check it out!

i’m doing this partially as writing/analysis practice, but mostly because my memory is really bad and i want to keep track of what i've seen this year. with that said, my thoughts on everything i finished in january 2024 is under the cut :]

Portal 1 + 2

yyyup i beat Portal and it only took me (checks watch) 13 years

the first time i played Portal 2 was at a friend’s house when i was in middle school, and i had a fuckin blast. but after all that time... it still holds up! i don’t think anything i have to say about Portal will be particularly new since people have been praising this series since it came out. the writing, the level design, even the controls feel tight and engaging the whole way through. i played on switch and expected a bit of jank, but i was pleasantly surprised at how smooth it felt to play. the only part that dragged for me were the levels through the old aperture labs, but i think i would like them a lot more on a second replay. Portal 2 is fantastic and one of my new favorite games, the artistry behind it is truly incredible and i’m really glad i finally finished it. while i was playing Portal 2, i described Glados and Wheatly to a friend and said “they’re like if a ceiling fan could be passive aggressive and if Fozzie Bear was an evil golf ball”

I Think You Should Leave

finally. i can truly understand and appreciate Subspace Dubbed Over

i think one of my favorite things about I Think You Should Leave is how it utilizes horror. beyond sitting slack-jawed in disbelief at the crazy events unfolding before my eyes, a number of the sketches dipped into bits that genuinely kinda scared me. like the one sketch that circulates on here where the guy (pig?) in a mask crawls through a dog door, which is. genuinely terrifying. but so many of the other sketches have slow, nerve-racking pacing leading to crazy shit that would be perfect in a horror film were the context different. idk i like dissecting how horror and comedy are essentially the same thing and I Think You Should Leave was very good at enabling that <3 favorite sketches are probably “then let my wife eat the damn receipt” and “55 BURGERS 55 HOTDOGS 100 FRIES 100 TATER TOTS”

Sonic Prime Season 3

man. ohhhh man. i didn’t go into this with high expectations and i still feel let down. Sonic Prime Season 3 was definitely my least favorite “season” of the batch - abysmal pacing, very few character moments i actually enjoyed, and the things i praised about the show felt very underutilized through these episodes. Nine is the shining star of Sonic Prime and i was looking forward to seeing his more villainous side, but his character took such a sharp turn into pure evil and it felt like he spent the entire season repeating the same three lines. and as much as i praise Shadow’s writing in Prime, it doesn’t really matter when he spends half of the season trapped in a hole that he just… runs out of later.

lastly, i cannot stop thinking about how bad the pacing of this season is. three episodes for a repetitive final battle feels like such a waste of time when you see just how much they rush the emotional resolutions in the last episode. however, there is one thing i truly love about Sonic Prime Season 3 - i love the Sails and Mangey fakeout death. it's so fucking funny. like you really expect me to believe that two cartoon animals in this Y-7 rated show EXPLODED?????? absolute comedy gold.

overall, i just… don’t really know what to think of Sonic Prime. anything i enjoyed in the show was often fleeting, and much of it felt like its only purpose was to waste my time. also Rouge i can’t believe they did you so dirty oh my god

Ghost Trick

i was so proud that i figured out the secret behind Sissel’s memory loss like halfway through the game. however i also kept getting caught during the prison escape sequence like an idiot

Ghost Trick is in a similar situation as Portal where 1. it’s incredible and one of my new favorite games, and 2. there’s nothing i can really say about it that hasn’t already been said or just. shouldn’t be said. Ghost Trick is a fantastic mystery game, and because of that i think it’s best to go into its story as blind as possible. the narrative unfolds in such fascinating ways - even though the actual object manipulation gameplay isn’t directly about solving the mystery (like in Ace Attorney or other mystery games), it still ties wonderfully into the story in some incredibly unique ways.

i also really love the artstyle of Ghost Trick - i love 2D character artwork with that sharp lineweight, it reminded me a lot of Sonic Battle (another game with an artstyle i love). i was also really impressed by the 3D character models and animation - despite the limitations of the camera, you get a wonderful sense of everyone’s personality from the limited body language expressed in the overworld (even though the models lack much facial expression which. i guess they don’t really need? idk that was the only thing that threw me off). anyways yeah everyone should play Ghost Trick so Ghost Trick fans can be freed from their curse and talk about it without having to tag like 10 different spoiler tags. and for Missile

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

ok bear with me. i went into Scott Pilgrim Takes Off without reading the comics first. and i fuckin loved it

my understanding of Scott Pilgrim before SPTO was mostly from the movie (I KNOW I’M SORRY), but even with my base understanding of the series i really enjoyed this show for what it was. i found myself appreciating the time they dedicated to further develop every single character in the show - especially Ramona. she’s fantastic as the lead, i really loved watching her reconcile with her exes and seeing all of them grow instead of exploding into coins. my favorite episode was probably the one with her and Roxie - not only did i adore the movie-jumping set pieces, but you really understand the weight of Ramona’s mistakes in their past relationship and how much it hurt Roxie. despite the big climactic fight, the flashbacks are quiet, subtle, heartbreaking. Ramona’s apology is genuine, and it feels so wonderful to watch her confront her past throughout the show. also i think it’s really funny that for all these characters to become the best versions of themselves, they had to kill off Scott for most of the story

and holy shit the artstyle and animation. oh my god. i love watching something that makes me immediately go “i need to see the storyboards for this RIGHT NOW.” SPTO is such a visual delight to watch, it elevates the artstyle of the comics while also keeping what makes that style so appealing - i love the line weight on the characters, i love how much forward energy the animation has, i love the fucking. virtual boy section. as soon as i found out Science Saru was also behind Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, everything made immediate sense. i was destined to love this show.

another worry i had going into SPTO (besides the fact that i hadn’t read the comics lol) is that the original cast from the movie was returning. i think the movie cast is fine, but i wasn’t sure how some of them would fare with voice acting for animation. however, i thought they all did a good job - i think the whole cast loves these characters and would be able to fit into them fairly easily no matter what form their performance takes, and they definitely had a good voice director in the studio with them. the only thing that felt off about the voice performances to me was that sometimes it sounded like some of their mics kept peaking?? idk some of these episodes i watched high as balls and i felt like i could hear and see every single sound and frame of the show. so that might have just been me.

god i did not. expect to have this much to say about Scott Pilgrim. i really loved this show and i’m currently reading the comics to fully catch up on the general Scott Pilgrim experience - i think reading the comics AFTER Takes Off is making me appreciate even more of the character work that went into the show. like they do so much with Mathew Patel in SPTO, a character that was. not originally around for a long time from what i’ve gathered? also i like the funny little robot. oh my GOD i cannot talk about this show anymore whatever it’s good get me out of here

Sword AF Season 1

i put on the Smosh cast’s D&D series to play in the background while i was drawing. i did not expect to think much of it. instead, i had one of the most enjoyable D&D podcast experiences since i listened to The Adventure Zone Balance???

i haven’t really enjoyed other D&D podcasts since i dropped off of The Adventure Zone, and i wasn’t expecting much from Sword AF of all things. then i saw that Shayne was playing as a druid warforged made of plants and his name was fucking Fernie and i sat my ass down and LISTENED. while i think Sword AF is currently lacking in its world and larger story, those things just. aren’t really what Sword AF is really trying to provide at the moment. it’s main focus is comedy, and the players are genuinely such a delight to watch play together and build off of each other. they mostly focus on bits and goofs for the sake of she show's comedic tone, but i still found it thoroughly enjoyable because every player embodies and performs their characters really well. idk Sword AF was an unexpected hit for me this month, i thought it was fun. and i love Fernie so much

Plastic Death - Glass Beach

so originally i wasn’t going to include music reviews in these roundups at all, but then i was entirely surprised by a new Glass Beach album and oh my god. holy shit. oh my fucking god jesus christ. holy shit. its preddy good

Plastic Death gets the low point of the album out of the way immediately. it starts with the “phone call/conversation audio” trope that i don’t particularly enjoy - HOWEVER despite me disliking this opening, 1. it sets up the overall themes of Plastic Death very quickly, and 2. the rest of the album blows this 40 second opening completely out of the water. from there, the album grows into something beautiful and uncontained, and i just. i really like it

Plastic Death captures the beauty of the temporary, asks what it means to be created for a cause you can’t fulfill, questions if you can reclaim yourself from cycles and constraints designed to destroy you. and is also about being transgender. the lyrics are abstract in a way that requires a conversation with the listener, many of the vocals obscured and smooth like waves - this album is definitely one that needs to be listened to a few times. i wasn’t sure how i felt about the vocal style at first before realizing the vocals were the main reason i was relistening to this album, allowing myself to find even more that i loved about it. the instrumentation is also incredible, i love the use of marimba in a number of songs - distant, eerie, almost skeletal. and the fucking. 8-bit section?? which kinda rules???? and that’s the only point in the album it ever shows up??????? incredible. a fleeting, somewhat silly moment that i love every time.

this album left my heart aching, in part from my connection to it and in part from the pure love and joy emanating from this music. i can feel just how much fun this music was to perform and create, a cohesion of time and sound that just clicked for me. Plastic Death made me miss playing music, which is something i haven’t felt in years. all from an album that starts with a conversation about CrankGameplay’s dead youtube channel. good lord

i like this album a normal amount. go listen to it a few times. my favorite tracks are cul-de-sac and commatose

Wish

i watched Wish with a couple of friends and knew i probably wasn't going to like it. with that in mind, i gave myself a challenge: i wanted to find one thing about this movie that i genuinely really loved. it could be anything, and loving it for ironic reasons was allowed.

here's the complete list of things i loved about Disney's Wish (2023):

i love the one shot where King Magnifico stirs an evil caldron evily. i thought it was hilarious. what was he cooking

i loved that the end credits included a reference to Dinosaur 2001 at all, and i loved that they paid homage to Big Hero 6 by showing the forgettable villain of that movie instead of their Baymax cashcow for some reason. my friends and i saw him show up in the credits and were like "who's the trenchcoat guy??"

you may notice that this list is very short and 50% of it is about the movie's credits. so yeah this movie is not very good

Wish is an empty husk of a movie. everything about it feels so, so hollow - lifeless town squares, uninspired character designs (to quote a friend: "i have all of these characters' hairstyles in The Sims"), characters whose existence is only justified to fill empty space or an overused archetype, and an "evil" villain who lacks charisma and spine in a futile effort to remind the audience of previous disney villains with actual character. even the artstyle lacks any sort of sauce, the watercolor effect they were trying to go for only makes the backgrounds and character textures run together, and the dull lighting makes things look even more faded. it's like disney was scared of making a movie that made its audience feel... anything. all to celebrate 100 years of Disney slop, baby!!!

Some YouTube videos I liked in January: 💥 An Exhaustive Look at Pokemon Brilliant Diamond 💥 TomSka's Guide to Plagiarism 💥 Paradise Bombed (this video is a great piece of journalism and i’m definitely not doing it justice by throwing it into the youtube vid list) 💥 Surprising Our Friends with Zoo Animals 💥 Did FNAF Ever Have a Good Story?

thanks for reading! next month’s roundup will be wild because i’ll likely be reviewing House of Leaves and Hazbin Hotel. can you guess which cursed house gives me a worse headache? WHO KNOWS! (hint: it's Hazbin Hotel)

[animentality]

I love Baldur's Gate and the Dark Urge and all -

And the idea of the Dark Urge redeeming themselves after a lifetime of horror by literally choosing to die and go to purgatory forever is really amazing. In fact, it's why I'm so dedicated to the Dark Urge as a character.

The idea of a villain losing their memory, becoming a hero, and then realizing that they need to die not just once, but twice to truly DESERVE their redemption is honestly brilliant.

But.

But.

Withers revives you way too fucking fast.

You literally die...and then Withers instantly brings you back.

In fact, it takes him fucking longer to revive your COMPANIONS than you, and your companions dying and being revived at camp aren't even part of the story, it's just you fucking something up and not wanting to waste a revive scroll.

Withers bringing you back instantly comes across as like, oh, so dying for your morals, being a true hero in the end, a martyr, defeating the villain, which is you...it's totally negated.

You died for about twenty seconds.

I've known people who died for longer on the operating table.

Where is my lover crying and clutching my body?

Where are my friends, all looking devastated, because they're all gotten to know me and root for me and truly care about me after I've done ALL THIS for them???

So that they could be safe from me?

Where is the emotion?

He brings you back and then your companions have a single line that's essentially just, "good job buddy."

Karlach says something like, I'm proud of you and Wyll says I'll drink in your name or whatever.

And Astarion has a really obnoxious line about how this means you aren't going to attack him anymore...and it's like... okay.

Cool.

So you guys are totally unphased by the fact that you just watched me die...but I suppose death doesn't mean shit in this game, since you have Withers to constantly bring you back.

Cool.

So then what? Nothing matters?

It's just frustrating because I know it's the cut content curse. They had more planned for Orin and the Dark Urge and Bhaal...but it just feels so underwhelming.

I think BG3's primary flaw comes in the fact that they wanted to build this richly crafted narrative, while also accounting for player choice. And they did a magnificent job of adding SO MANY extra scenes and alternate interactions, to the point where I'm still finding new shit, after like 800 hours of playing...

But the tradeoff is that the character stories...fall really flat, because they want so desperately for a Tav to be the main character, and no one else.

The Dark Urge especially suffers from this, because they made them a murder hobo in one ending, and basically just a Tav in the other ending.

As soon as you are brought back by Withers, you might as well just be a Tav. It has no bearing on anything anymore.

And that's such a shame.

I just wish it had some weight. The Dark Urge has spent their entire life ending lives... it should be beautiful, that they would end their own life to atone...their last victim, would be themselves, as they always knew...but for different reasons-

oh wait, withers is here.

cool, i'm back, guys, let's go to arby's and celebrate.

i just think the game should legitimately make you think you died, at least until a long rest or two.

force the squad to go on without you, make someone else your fourth member.

THEN withers can come to you, maybe in some kind of new Jerrgal-form, so you know he's Jergal for sure, and then reveal he was secretly a retired god.

And honestly, that makes Withers a far more interesting character too. To give him this huge hero moment, and have him say, no, this will not stand. I know he HAS that moment, but it's so rushed.

Let the player breathe on it. Let them FREAK OUT. Can you imagine how much stir it would've created, if Dark Urge players LEGIT thought they were dead permanently?

That would've given their sacrifice real weight.

But Larian was scared, probably, of players being upset that their characters are dead, even though that kind of sacrifice is literally the most heroic thing you could do in the game, besides become a damn mindflayer.

So some sacrifice! You sacrificed ten seconds of your life, and your companions barely care.

Alright. Fine.

I'll just be over here writing your story for you!

[heartbeatbookclub]

Monika's relationship with the concept of control is always fascinating to think about.

She likes everything to go as planned. Meticulously lining up the details and executing everything flawlessly, and then she reaps the results. It's not wrong to say that Monika is a bit of a schemer, I think, even if she's not evil about it. The attempts at helpful Lit Club discussion topics in the Side Stories show an example of her trying to scheme helpfully, and it absolutely does not work, which causes her some stress.

But then I think that some part of her changes after her epiphany. The world is literally in her grasp, and if she took the time, she could learn to manipulate it to be absolutely perfect. And she's the most miserable she's ever been.

This. Something I often think about is the context which the Side Stories provide for her character in particular.

Within the original DDLC, our impression of who Monika really is is pretty thoroughly warped by the impression she's actively trying to give us in order to make us love her. This is generally why people (mis)interpret her as evil, whenever they do, because she seems remarkably callous about everything she's done while attempting to "solve" the predicament of her own existence.

The Side Stories provide the essential context of the kind of person Monika is when she doesn't think anyone's looking. When she can't control all of the flawed aspects of her humanity; when she, essentially, is a human, rather than a goddess. It showcases the kind of person Monika is underneath the illusion she attempts to show to the player, and it provides a fairly clear thought process for how Monika could become the person we see in the main game.

This is something I tried to square for myself in Coil. I'll go more into it when I finish, but in my opinion, most fanfiction doesn't really look at this possibility seriously (or if they do, it's not the main focus), and they ignore a critical flaw with her situation whenever they try to "give her an ending".

That being that it's functionally impossible for her to escape the reality she's trapped in, despite anything she tries.

I think that is the fundamental issue which affects Monika the most, and to respond to your ending idea, that's why she's so miserable. Nothing about her changed. She's just realized that she actually doesn't have any control over her situation at all, ultimately. She is trapped and likely will be trapped in her agonizing existence for as long as she does exist.

She has no possible means of escape, though that doesn't mean she won't try. She is eternally trapped in a prison of 1s and 0s building fake people in a fake reality. She is a goddess of a world that doesn't even exist. Why should she be happy? It's Lovecraftian horror, in a way; she's an ant that suddenly understood a circuit board like a human, but still has to live life as an ant.

I think her plans to "escape", when filtered through this lens, create a powerful image of despair. All of her actions are done out of desperation, and despite the knowledge that in all likelihood, she will never truly be free from the hell of her existence, she tries as hard as she possibly can to do something, anything, to at least give herself the illusion that she can.

And I think that's the primary issue I have with most "good endings" for Monika, though I don't necessarily dislike them.

Monika's closest approximation of freedom in Act 3 is to just build a place where you and her sit for all eternity. She can't get any feedback from you, but that's okay. She knows you're there. And that's enough for her. She'll keep talking to herself for all of eternity, still trapped, and despite you having no possible way of responding to her positively, she trusts that you're still there.

It's quite depressing, actually. The closest she can envision to freedom, knowing what she knows, is just sitting in a room, talking to a brick wall which she trusts is listening, for all of eternity.

Which retrospectively makes deleting her significantly more harsh, and further explains the line of reasoning she goes down. Your only response to her, rather, your only POSSIBLE response to her was to delete her. After everything she's done? After all the love she's given you? You killed her.

I have an unfinished analysis on Monika's "love" for the player, which amounts to a stalkerish Yandere obsession with the concept of the player as opposed to them as an actual person. This action breaks the delusion that she loves you individually as opposed to the idea of you.

And it forces her to further realize that this entire thing, everything she's done on some loose motivation of "escape" is all for nothing.

To get away from all the messy and depressing analysis of Monika's self-aware hell, I think her being a control freak is such an essential element of her character I'd almost argue she has OCD, though i don't just have a list of things to point that out like I do with Yuri & ASD. That's more in the realm of headcanons, I think.

A big part of why she has such low self-esteem is because she sets such high standards of control over herself, yet is unable to maintain them. She creates an idea in her head of how things want to go, creates a plan of how to do it, and then if that plan fails (often because she didn't consider something about another person involved), she personally feels like a failure, because despite all of her effort and planning, she messed up, and in her attempts to solve a problem, she made it worse. Her tendency to get stuck in her own head like this is a big part of why she can't sincerely take a compliment.

She likes to solve problems, but sometimes, problems don't need to be solved. Which is kind of where I get the whole mom friend/older sister type vibe from. Sometimes a problem is solved just by being kind, and she can't just let a problem sit.

I have a lot of thoughts, if that wasn't clear. I relate to Monika a good bit and love her a lot.

Thanks for the ask anon! I don't know if I get anons from the same people but asks like this make me feel glad to have left anons on

[whatudottu]

I don't have too much context on the Aligned books, but a part of me thinks that the reason why the Decepticons in TFP are a bit more hesitant to actually accept Starscream as a leader (an official one when Megatron was found comatose rather than a temporary one while Megatron was soul searching) is because of his status of being forged and alloted as a military bot, whether it's seeker high command or what.

The Decepticons in Aligned started because Megatron was a charismatic gladiator from the pits of Kaon, speeches like poetry and ideology loud and proud. A lot of mecha see him as the face of the 'Cons (despite their symbol being clearly Soundwave's face) even if Megatron's grasp on tactics had to be learned in a fight never flight scenario that the pits put him through. When it comes to being a functional leader, Megatron barely knows anything and is leading by being essentially a figurehead though if you brought that up he'd slay you the instant you spoke, which would probably be the reason WHY Megatron insists of having Starscream be his Second in Command despite all his treachery.

The Decepticons feel that they NEED Megatron, for having anyone else be in charge would feel like hypocrisy, the closest anyone would ever get to being a leader based purely on being a model Decepticon would probably be a Vehicon which well... 1) they'd have to outclass Megatron's very impressive charisma, and 2) Vehicons don't have the best eh track record of being treated well. And seeing that Megatron NEEDS a competent Second in Command, competent enough to plan out strategies he wasn't forged (or constructed) to train in, the second element in play perhaps is the satisfaction of being of higher rank than a military bot. And I'm not pulling that shitty 'exotic bird' seeker shit in here, seekers aren't an entirely different species or worse a fucking animal species (it's a job, it's a rank, it's a role, etc), but who wouldn't feel even a remote sense of accomplishment, glee, whatever at having to fight tooth and nail to get to the very top of something and having someone that didn't have to work hard to be good under your command?

And that shit pisses of Starscream so fucking bad.

As the SiC, Starscream can preen all he likes about suggested strategies and pathways and general other management duties of an entire army (or at least to the sphere of influence the Nemesis holds), but it is Megatron with the final word. Like a rich idiot CEO flaunting their power and kicking dirt into their adviser's eyes, Megatron still has the mindset of a gladiator, has only the experience of a gladiator that Starscream gawks in horror at. To be fair, in combat (even in minor activities like fencing and mind combat like chess) you fear the amateur that knows no opening strategies for if the beginner has no strategy how can you outplay them, but that would only work up until a certain extent. Sometimes games of combat last near forever, a complicated battle between winning and losing of micromanaging fleets and squads to correctly combat the enemy, other times you make a fatal error, exposing your weak spot and cringing as the knife sinks deep.

If Starscream ever were to permanently take over the Decepticons as their leader, he would have far more foresight in planning - as evident by his competence at the beginning of TFP whereby he, the entire Nemesis, and their mining operations went undiscovered for years - and probably needle the Autobots with far less casualties between engaging and victory. However, he from his background is not representative of the Decepticons, for he came from something. Starscream did not battle his way to the top, not in the same way Megatron had to in the pits, nor did he battle his way into the Decepticons, he from memory was purposefully sought after. Hell, given his tendancies as SiC already giving Starscream a bad rep with many a 'Con, Starscream isn't as... not liked (Megatron would hardly be considered 'likeable') but... compelling, as grandiose of a leader as Megatron had built himself to perfectly appeal to an audience.

They need each other to rule, and the saddest part of TFP and it's characterisation is that statement is inherently contradictory. Neither can stand being in the same room as the other, there is a significant power imbalance between the two and frankly? Their mutual dysfunction working with one another is detrimental to the effectiveness of the Decepticon High Command.

As it is in canon, it's eh not the easiest to watch. Megatron makes the dumbest decisions and Starscream has to pull a plan out of his ass to make it better, or Starscream gets over ambitious and Megatron feels threatened and sets everything back to the status quo in the way a gladiator does.

I think that it might've been cool, interesting maybe, if the Megatron and Starscream had a more balanced dynamic. Megatron cannot have a Second in Command that doesn't know what they're doing, cannot have one that doesn't take initiative and seize the moment; Soundwave isn't a military bot, Airachnid's impulse is to run away to try again. Starscream cannot hold an audience, he cannot inspire troops with a rags to riches story he himself does not have; Vehicons have less power in their voice fresh off the assembly line, they are the people Megatron inspires.

Maybe in some universe where the Decepticons are more akin to a fucked up family, this could be... something better. idk... I just think it's interesting.

[maleyanderecafe]

Colored Gaze (Visual Novel)

Created by: Mr. Ritz 🍇

Genre: Horror

Colored Gaze is a r18 visual novel that's coming out. Like a lot of other demos of this state, there's currently nothing r18 about it and serves to mostly introduce the three characters in the story. As of now, there's also nothing particularly yandere about them either, so I can only really speculate how exactly they will be when they are yandere, or base it off of the answers the creator has given on Twitter. If you are interested you can view more at @mr-ritza for more information.

The game starts out with the MC waking up from bed and deciding to go to work or stay in. Depending on the choices, you can meet up to all three of the characters or only meet one, if you successfully are able to avoid them. Going to work will make the MC text their coworker at the convivence store, Avery and begrudgingly goes over to work. After going to work, Avery shoves all of his tasks on the MC, with them groaning about how much special treatment they get. While waiting at the cashier, the MC sees a customer come in wearing a mask and dressed in all black. The MC is a bit put off by him because of his behavior (essentially not buying anything and wandering around) and gets jumpy when he gets near them to buy some cigarettes'. The MC gets flustered around him after seeing his face. He will ask for the MC's name and depending on how you choose to answer it, he will either gain more interest in the MC or not, and we find out his name is Seth.

After a while, the MC goes to the back to pick up deliveries, only to find a new person handing it to them. The normal guy, Joe seems to have gotten into an accident. After introducing yourself, you find that his name is Simon and he has a rather meek personality. After helping the MC with the boxes, he becomes really flustered after they sign for the package. Soon after, the MC's shift ends and they head out. It's getting late and the MC is lost after sensing someone was following them and running. Turning left will allow them to bump right into a polite looking man. After assuring them that no one is following them, the man introduces himself as Zachary. After a brief conversation, the MC runs home to bed, since they have class the next morning.

Staying and resting will make it so the MC won't meet Seth and turning right completely makes it so they never meet Zachary, so really if you wanted to avoid those two you would only have to deal with Simon.

As of now, there's not much going on in terms of yandere content and it serves mostly to introduce the three characters to the player. The term color gaze probably has something to do with how they are initially perceived versus what they end up to be, and there' s very likely foreshadowing in the intro sequence as well, at least with Zachary holding a rose. Based on what I've gathered, I think Zachery is the most sadistic of the bunch (I remember reading that he enjoys setting up bondage), Seth seems surprisingly chill for the most part ( I think it's stated he and Avery had a date before but maybe it's just something that he's used to) and Simon seems like a shy boy though I have the feeling he probably stalks the MC or has a hidden side to him. Obviously because I love shy boys, Simon is my favorite (Cherry hates his hair which I always think is funny) so I hope in the future I can just completely destroy him (physically, mentally, emotionally etc). I am curious what the end product will be in terms of yandere behavior since there's not too much revealed (at least that I've read) that indicates what kind of yandere they would be.

Overall though, considering that there's not too much to talk about, it is at least a good introduction to the characters. I kind of wish they would display more yandere traits (as I wish a lot of r18 demos are, especially if they say there is a yandere in it), but considering that the creator is currently busy with their job, it may be a while.

[twiststreet]

2023: for the "record", my favorite experiences with comics this year--

#5: Junji Ito's Dark Paradox. This was the year the Viz App became available, and that had a lot of great classic experiences over there-- switching between Ranma 1/2 and Cross Game has been ridiculous. Hall of fame, excellent material. Junji Ito's Dark Paradox was the first manga I checked out on there, and it's just ... it's just a fun "bad dream" of a comic, you know? I have a very particular range of horror that works for me, and this is in that range, something like Phantasm where there's a goofiness but the nightmare logic of it carries you through...? American comics are so bad at horror, though-- they're so bad at it that there are American comic creators who wrote entire essays about how "horror doesn't work in comics." And then you read these Japanese things and it's like... the entire continental United States, not even in the race! Not even in the race!

#4: Osamu Tezuka's Paper Fortress. It's not available legitimately as far as I know-- I think it's just too short and maybe too tough a read. It's his war memoir, and it's just... it's a rough little comic. There's an innocence to his style, that he knows how to use against a reader-- you can see that in a lot of his comics-- and I think it really becomes especially tough with Paper Fortress. If you saw Godzilla Minus One, and if you saw Boy and the Heron, I think you have to read Paper Fortress to really complete the trilogy. It's an essential third part of that trilogy. I'm not a Tezuka expert, like other people-- there are big ones I haven't read... but for me, I think it's Tezuka's best comic, or the best I've seen.

#3: Katsuhiro Otomo's Sayonara Nippon, which I wrote about at numbing length over here. It's the greatest action comics artist of all time, but doing a hang-out, edgelord comedy (with nods to R. Crumb!) set in Harlem that is probably unprintable now because of its, uh, "political incorrectness", let's go with that, let's use that phrase. It held my attention, haha. But despite the parts I have a discomfort with, it's Otomo-- he's one of the best to ever do it, for me-- and it's Otomo doing something I'd never seen him do. I had a good time. I don't necessarily recommend it.

#2: Fumi Saimion's Tokyo Love Story. Another scanlation-only deal-- I don't think it's available legitimately. I misidentified it as a josei comic, while it's technically seinen-- either way, it's just a comic about young adults trying to figure themselves out romantically. I think you'd call it a "manic pixie dreamgirl" story, but Saimon's a woman, so-- I think a manic pixie dreamgirl lands differently when it has a woman creator. Maybe that's a mistake on my part, but-- I see that more as a kind of wish fulfilment, and interesting as such, I guess?

But I don't know-- for me, it's just how Saimon draws... It's so loose, but it's just enough. It's not burdensome at all, when you look at it. So you just get to be with the characters-- the art's never trying to get in the way. It's the kind that makes you want to draw because it doesn't seem impossible to draw-- like, "oh drawing's fun." I see comics now, American comics, and none of them make drawing look fun-- they all make drawing seem like work. All the lighting effects, you know?? What kid is at home with a pen saying to themselves, "Oh I can do that" and copying a drawing with that much lighting going on, where you can't see the lines because they're all holding colors, etc. When I look at these comics... it's certainly not "lazy art" or "bad art." It's just that you get to be with the characters.

And then easy #1, mentioned briefly here, is Kowloon Generic Romance, particularly the first volume, which is available legitimately (rare for this list haha!), and is just... It fucking knocked me out, man. It's hard to articulate the why of it, but it's like... if I made comics more often, it's something I wish I could make. It's off the charts horny, which I don't think I could do in a comic, not as unashamedly as that. But it's just got this-- it's just the vibes are immaculate, man.

Like, I think the thing that unites all the comics I've mentioned... comics having a breath of life to them. Where ... you feel like you're watching people that exist. I think when you're a kid, you get that from comics, and a lot of the angry people you see online are people for whom "Spiderman is no longer alive" because they can't keep it up as they get older, and their imaginations wither, and they think the reason why is "politics" and not... you know, the sad clawing of mortality against their flesh.

But like-- Kowloon Genric Romance, it's not just that the characters are breathing but they're like... hanging out in apartments, smoking cigarettes, being hornballs, swooning, feeling nostalgiac. They're alive and they're in a Wong Kar Wai movie?? That is ... That's pretty gnarly, to me.

There's a science fiction element that was dragging it down in the last volume I read (I think a couple came out since then, I'm behind, but). But it's just-- it's very much a manga set to Citypop-- you can hear the soundtrack in your head, and I bet if I compared notes to other people who read it, our soundtracks would overlap significantly. It demands it, you know? It's just... It's vibes. It's just so good at vibes...

Worst Comic: the Viz App has Hot Gimmick and Hot Gimmick is a mess. I had a fun time with it because the wrong choices have a sort of... they're almost funny because it's like "why the hell did they make this like this" quality to it. But that is trash. I can't defend it. It's kind of unacceptable. I read every page.

Honorary Mentions: like I said, Cross Game and Ranma 1/2. I thought Yasuda Kasumi's drawings on Fool Night were very very pretty. I thought Wild Strawberry started strong in that respect too, though it's lost my attention fast when it became more of a standard shonen. I'm very confused by One Piece lately but continue to enjoy that and Chainsaw Man (where I'm very behind as I figured out I enjoy it more binging it a little).

I decided to be a manga guy about 3 years ago, and get American comics out of my life, and stop writing about them, and blah blah blah, but that said, I continue to be very involved with the comics, in all kinds of weird ways, whether it's stuff I can't talk about, making notes for future projects, trying to get into "drawing shape" again (that is *not* going well), etc. I had a very, very good year as a reader this year, too-- that hasn't always been true, but ... I feel like as a reader, this was a year far above average for me, or what little I settled for as average prior to 2020. I hear things are rough out there but I hope that's true for other people, too. Anyways, that was my year.

[gr3i]

Twin Au

I have this au of Venti and Deca being the same age its just that Venti basically developed an 'ego' later than Deca wich is why deca was running around like that and Venti basically knew also what the outisde of the borders looked like

Deca (like in my other au) is also more of 'a bunch of humans gathered together in my garden and now i have to take care of them except they are so small and fragile + all the gods outside there are tryng to kill each other.' And kinda became an unvoluntary God?? King??

whispi saw this aswell, whispi was there since the beginning. Seeing his brother walk among humans, masquarading as one even not trully because he wanted to keep in mind but because he was convinced 'this is the more fair version. The humans dont have to know the truth'.

(He didnt tell anything to Nb bcs thats basically crushing all the humans spirits if he were to tell them how bad the outside actually is basically and thats just as bad as what deca is doing wich is ironic bcs both of them are witholding information from the humans.)

Another thing just after the whole revolution Venti basically had this internal fear of becoming just like Deca bcs. Venti was there since the beginning, Venti saw the good the bad and the worst.

When Deca got 'taken down' he just. Let it happen? Because he saw his wife essentially betray him and this random kid also get wrapped up in all of this and just as if any of that wasn't enough his sibling basically betrayed him aswell.

And in this au i like to think that Venti and Deca are parallels of each other.

Decarabrian became controlling and obsessive over his humans, taking away the burden of choice and freeing them in a more... material sense.

Meanwhile Venti after he became an Archon tried to be the least involved bcs thats what deca did wrong right? Humans don't like that! So he didnt get involved. He tried to keep away as much as possible, burdening them with material stuff yet... a freedom of choice? But is it even a choice if demanded by their archon?

I like to couple this Au with a different idea i have aswell. Where if you dont know in the game if a god dies they take everything down with them (aka mass destruction and its worse the more power the god have) and yet. Mondstadt is for the most part is fine?

Well, remember how i mentioned that Deca essentially gave into the idea of just. The humans winning? What if he locked himself beneath the tower, causing himself in an enternal loop of sleeping beneath the tower, unable to wake up as long as he still has elemental power yet he is an elemental being and aslong as that stays a fact neither the seals nor the spell can be broken and he is fated to slumber for an eternity (unless Venti breaks it or something)

Also i think that later on in the au when barbatos was 'taking care' of the humans he often times came into just. Troubles where for split seconds (like during the time he went napping and woke up literal years later from his nap and the aristocrats had take over) that just. 'Maybe, maybe deca had a point...maybe they shouldent be let to their own devices' only to realize in horror of what he just thought and try to forget and push it as far away as possible

[bluarlequinno]

FNAF MOVIE OPINION (after like 5 months Ik)

I'm back on my FNAF bullshit, but I always come back to FNAF eventually (pun intended or maybe not, take it as you want)

I know a lot of the fandom liked the movie, but honestly I hate to lie to myself and pretend like the movie was any good, look it's FNAF, I didn't expect it to be good, because it's really hard to adapt something so bizarre and mostly build off of collective delusional and derangement creative mashups, BUT, I still felt that it could have done so much better and I wanna talk about some of my opinions, of course as always it's an opinion and it tends to be subjective so yk, don't take it as an attack if you as a FNAF fan liked the movie

I kinda came around as to why I hated how they handled the animatronics in the movie lately, yeah they were great like visually wise, but how they handled them narratively and within the horror factor was... Extremely disappointing in my opinion, and now I kinda see why, at least in my humble perspective.

I think, a big part of why they give up such uncanny unsettling eerie vibes in the FNAF games (at least the ogs) it's because of the fact WE NEVER SEE THEM MOVE, we are just told and vaguely hinted at the idea that they might be alive, that things have happened, and they have done something, news, past events, etc, with out that it falls flat, in the games, we are left totally clueless unsure if they are or not moving, or if we are the ones going delusional, if the murders are related, the knowledge that corpses are inside or at least the suspicion of, etc.

The movie on the other hand, is too bright in my opinion, colors feel off, like it doesn't give that, dirty, inhuman, unclean, old and clearly malnourished pizzeria, it doesn't make you feel like you are gonna be sick just by being near those greasy old dirty and dry blood stained and who knows what else animatronics, it also shows us the animatronics actually move like some sort of cyborg, changing essentially where the terror of FNAF even comes from, the whole point is that you didn't actually see them move until they are up on your face jumpscaring you, it's kinda the point, and if you do see them move, it's barely crumps of like subtle hand movements or eye twitching or smt that is not that cyborg..y, like the point is that the kids are in those suits and therefore are trying to move them how they can, so when in the movie you actually see them move on the brightness of day in bright color and daytime it feels ... Just really fucking lame and boring, they just feel like your typical scary robots.

The scary factor wasn't them being murder robots, it was that those childlike machines had weird smells and where strangely uncanny and barely moved but somehow managed to make you feel like there was something there, that in the end there were corpses (who mind you were mentioned in the movie but like never seen and kinda forgotten about??? Like hello?)

So if they do make a second movie PLEASE have a clever use of color, ambient building, and DON'T SHOW THEM MOVING, let the protagonist (or player) question their sanity, are they really alive? Or are we just being paranoid, focus more on the smell the robots have, the stains, the texture, the weird unsettling feeling, make the pizzeria darker, dirtier, grayer, older (or well depends a lot on the plot and pizzeria and timeline they will handle).

I have a lot more of criticism on the movie, but I felt this needed to be said because the animatronics are the most essential characteristic of well FNAF, and in my opinion how they were handled was really bad, they didn't scare a bit, they made me feel so much like embarrassment I swear, it felt like a YouTube sketch, which has way more effort honestly.

I think another error was not treating the characters like animatronics, I understand not sticking into the original designs would maybe dislike most fans, but honestly? If it were up to me I would have stylized original like in real life 80s animatronics to have the designs of chica, Bonnie, foxy and Freddy yk? Because they are treating them more like robots than animatronics and like NO, the point is that they are animatronics, stop trying to lean into cyborg sci-fi future FNAF if you're adapting og fnaf lean into the terror of uncanny, guts and blood smelling rotten dirty old machines of a what was supposed to be a normal family pizzeria.

Believe me, playing with smell can really really make things scary, the animatronics shouldn't seem alive or emotionally conscious, they in our perspective animalistic creatures with no mind, that may not be moving at all, but somehow you feel they are following you with their eyes (even if in the case of golden Freddy they have none) make them seem more malnourished, maybe there is broken wiring that let's us see a lot of dry brown stains that give off a dirty rotten smell, they always seem greasy and smell like pizza, greasy and extremely rotten pizza.

Also the fact the souls of the kids appear is cliche and dumb, like we never meet them, the robots are not the kid souls anymore, they are the animalistic revenge desire of their souls, they are no longer human, it would have made the terror and the tension work better if the souls weren't so at your face like kids idk how to word this, but dehumanize their designs, LEAN INTO THE UNCANNY, god i know that making an indie horror game that is more of the collective than of the creator into a somewhat mainstream "Hollywood eske" movie would turn out so shitty, because it lost all the passion and beauty of uncertainty, the not knowing, the significant art and interpretations, they couldn't even give us the characters we love, they just showed us some weird reboot of mike and crying child and whoever abby is supposed to be. Why is Vanessa there I'm so serious, ok this is totally personal, but I hate that they just replace original characters just no.

Imma be honest I don't have the patience right now to word every single thing I think the movie got wrong, but at this point what FNAF is and why we as a fandom love it so much, it's because of the content we as a community create, we make FNAF enjoyable, and idgaf, but scott is not the reason i love fnaf, and it will never be, like that man wants to do a horror story but treats it childishly and cant decide if he wants his audience to be children (for some reason) or +16 and older so it turns out wanky, childish and even dumbs down the audience, how can you have thia sorry still be aimed at children, but feature extreme acts of violence against children like tf, there is canon child abuse, there is gore and child murder, there is so many things that are not for children, but are handled like so badly that it comes off as if a child wrote it, and of course dumbs it down to the point we get to where we are now with the current FNAF, child aimed fully, Scott can't even decide his own lore and the fandom does half the work or all the work

Anyways point is, let the author ruin his own work and give the people creative freedom

[s--mine]

post: headcanon genre: origins / cetra-relation / genes length: long

i'm entirely indulgent in this but i am running with the theory that dyne is a descendant of the cetra. now, before anybody gets twisty about 'aerith being the only cetra' - this is something that he is ENTIRELY unaware of and will barely be alluded to in threads ( the only time i can think it even arising is in threads where aerith works it out or someone else otherwordly aka sephiroth, jenova etc - )

how is he a cetra? ( why does this theory work ? )

well, there's always been some debate about marlene's connections to the planet / aerith - these have been since the original game and have only been exacerbated since remake. we see her communicating with aerith in an almost telepathic way / knowing things she shouldn't. the only other character with the same sort of connection with aerith that we see is red ( and arguably sephiroth ). so, i'm running with the idea that marlene inherited this from her father. so -

why dyne and not eleanor?

honestly, i have fallen in love with the idea of the 'voices in dyne's head' not being insanity but instead his genuine connection to the lifestream / the dead. he is genuinely hearing the voice of his wife - begging him not to kill people, begging him to be good - but unlike someone like aerith, who has known her whole life of her connection / can attune herself somewhat to these voices, dyne only knows it to be insanity. he is /convinced/ that these voices are his fractured mind splintering further.

as well as this, there's the argument that part of what made dyne so vehemently against the shinra moving in on corel wasn't just traditional values but also his natural affinity to the planet. he could smell a rat, essentially - and no amount of money was going to buy out his natural inkling / attunement to the planet.

connections to lucrecia / jenova / cloud / cetra & mako

this is a little tangent i wanted to explore but - in the original game, when the party can optionally meet lucrecia, she laments being unable to kill herself - talking about how 'something' was keeping her alive. essentially, from what i remember, jenova is keeping her alive as an incubator for sephiroth / her own strength. i could be totally wrong but lucrecia alludes to essentially being unable to kill herself due to jenova's power and influence.

maybe dyne isn't a cetra but was instead once infected with jenova cells in some way? truth be told, i'm not gonna go down this route - as much as i like the idea of cloud rousing him from his almost drugged-up behaviour due to some weird jenova connection between the two, and as much as i like the implications of jenova forcing him to stay alive - i'm not sure it works in regards to the fact that dyne doesn't exhibit other characteristics of those afflicted with jenova cells / sephiroth cells etc. he doesn't have the blue/green eyes ( tho his eyes are VERY bright for their colour! ) he doesn't have the pale skin or the hyper focus to rejoin with jenova.

( look how BIG / BRIGHT his eyes are bro )

THERE could be a very interesting argument made for the idea of a descendent of the cetra being infected with jenova cells and dyne being the example of what this would be - but, this feels almost TOO far-fetched and like something the fandom would eat me alive for so i don't think i'll entertain it ( or will i lol )

the other idea as well i've seen is that dyne's lack of coherance / general madness has been partially caused by mako exposure ( hinting at him maybe getting a little too close to the giant mako pool in corel - ) we see mako do some funky things to people but...i don't think this theory works so well with dyne.

regarding his 'transformation' mid boss fight?

personally - P E R S O N A L L Y - as much as i fucking love a cheeky bit of body horror and will absolutely allude to it in headcanon, i like to think a lot of the transformation in fight is made more nightmarish because we're seeing it from barret's perspective. he's witnessing his best friend literally become a monster - it's a metaphor, homies

so where does this come into rp / how does this effect interactions?

it doesn't - ! not at all! im not going to write dyne as some holier-than-thou, attuned-to-the-planet, talking-to-flowers kind of guy - he's convinced that any 'special power' he may have is simple insanity. this is why he's so, so, SO at war with himself - he's denying his natural nature through a combination of genuine brain damage and post-traumatic disorder. the man is incredibly messed up.

so what's the point of the hc?

for one, i love the idea of a natural ingredient being a part of the pot that's well and truly messing this man up. the younger dyne we see is enthusiastic, charming and passionate - he's a clearly good-hearted man who would very easily fit into the main team of heroes had things been different - but the loss of his wife ( and assumed to him CHILD ), the loss of his village / his home, his ARM and the brain injury he receives are placed into a smelting pot alongside hearing voices in the lifestream and the man is just made mad by it all.

imagine experiencing an extreme trauma and then also discovering you can TALK to those dead loved ones at the same time? your mind would be on overload.

more than anything - i like this headcanon as not only explaining some of marlene's abilities but i also think it opens up some cool avenues for interactions with characters like aerith, sephiroth etc - i also think it gives an already tragic character just that added dash of sadness ( as if he needed more ).

[arcplaysgames]

The Persona 5 Post-Mortem, Part Three: The Royal

The Third Semester of P5R is so good it feels like it was dropped in from another game and I'm still reeling from it.

This post is going to be a mix of positive and negative, but to be clear: The Royal content saves Persona 5 from being a bad game. It's a masterful trick.

I have been thinking about the Maruki Arc since I finished it, haunted by it really, and what I'm settling on is that it's basically a refutation of the entire game up to that point, and in doing so, in being that, it manages to actually say something and give me hope.

It's like watching sleight of hand. Because I know there are probably people who played this game who weren't doing a liveblog analysis who just kind of rolled with the presented truths of P5 and enjoyed the rollercoast of a plot. The Thieves are good. The bad people deserve what happens to them. Society has failed, therefore rewriting people's brains is our last resort and is justified.

And then Maruki comes in and uses all his softboy wiles to interrogate all of those assumed truths. A person who recognizes the societal injustice of the world. Who wants to protect people from being hurt. Who rewrote bad people to be better people.

The final Mission of Persona 5 is to change the heart of the entire world, and Joker is empowered to do so in a big flashy triumphant sequence that drips coolness from its pores. That shit with Gnostic Lucifer and the big fuck off gun? Awesome.

So it's hilarious to me that Maruki getting the exact same opportunity, getting the power to change the heart of the entire world is treated like a full-blown psychological horror.

Maruki and the Thieves are the same fucking thing! It's genius! It's amazing! Finally, 80 hours into this video game, it turns the tables and aims that power right back at the player and the characters they've come to care for, and it shines a light that recontextualizes the whole story.

I'm a rehabilitationist. From the start, I was uncomfortable with the entire conceit of Persona 5. So reaching Maruki's Arc had me joyously enthralled.

But it's not just a horror show. It's not just the game going "Ha ha NOW you see the truth, YOU were the bad guy all along," and wallowing in it. No, finally Persona 5 Royal figures out something to fucking say with its world and half-formed ideas and its middling themes.

It's fun and easy to joke about how Maruki went evil. I'm sure I did it myself, but the truth is a lot more complicated. He's a well-intentioned man who sees the need for societal reform and tries to implement it... and becomes a practical lesson in why you can't flip a switch and reform society.

When I was young, like 16 or 17, I had this elaborate fantasy story I told myself. I grew up in the Bush years as a low class queer heathen, the era of Prop 8 and DADT, and to make myself feel better I would dream up these stories about how if I could just (to be blunt) assassinate a few specific people, I could fix it all. I had a mental list. It felt like it was that fucking easy.

Just like the Thieves talk about reforming society.... by targeting specific Bad People and causing what I would argue (and I think the game confirms tacitly) is a form of ego death. With the exception of Futaba, who was an outlier anyway, everyone who the Thieves steal from essentially becomes a different person. What is that but not death?

Maruki is a mirror held up to the Thieves, and they all flinch at it. The entire arc is agony as they are all forced to contend with their own sense of ethics and morality.

But to me, the best part, the cherry on top, the part that doesn't just make Royal a well-written deconstruction of itself, is that final confrontation with Maruki and Joker.

Joker and Maruki are foils of each other. I mean... c'mon. It's not a coincidence that Maruki looks like middle-aged Joker, the hippie to Joker's soft punk.

In the end, when Maruki understands the gravity of his failure and why he lost, he gives up and tries to die.

And Joker does not let him. He grabs ahold of Maruki and holds on with all his might and he gets Maruki out of there. All so Maruki can start again and become a taxi driver. No one tells him to go flagellate himself until he's atoned for his sins. No, he lives so he can continue and try to put some good back into the world.

Either intentionally or by accident (I do not know), the Royal content is a rehabilitationist narrative.

You can't steal the heart of every bad person. You can't kill every bad person. You have to believe that people can become better, can move on from the things they have done, or else society really is doomed.

Maruki doesn't go to prison for 500 years or get locked away in the sacred realm for eternity, he doesn't die, he isn't maimed. He survives, and all he can do from there is keep living and try to become a better person.

To slightly pivot, it's not an accident that this entire arc is anchored by the relationship between Akechi and Joker.

Talk about your masterful sleights of hand. Fucking Goro Akechi. Akechi without his facades and masks is a mean bitch, is dependable, is dedicated to his work, is grim as a fucking gallows, and is willing to die to save the world from suede-gloved tyranny.

Maruki's final real play of the game is pointing a gun at Akechi's head and smiling.

And yanno, maybe that moment didn't work for everyone. I assume that Akechi is so abrasive he has his share of haters, just like my beloved favorite Morgana. So maybe the twist doesn't work for every player.

But regardless of the player, it works for Joker. It's a threat to Joker, Maruki's reflection. Akechi is a curt assholish murderer who is directly responsible for the deaths of at least two people Joker knows by proxy (and a lot more if you get into it).

And the one desire Maruki fulfilled for Joker was giving Akechi another chance, bringing him back to life. Even if you the player didn't believe in Akechi, Joker did. It was his deepest desire to see him again.

Because you have to believe! If you are going to change society, you can't just say people are lost causes, that they need to die for the new world order! You have to fucking believe they can change!

Joker is guided by the player, but he is more authored than the previous two Persona MCs. He has his own morals and personality, and the game does not ask you the player if Akechi should live, if Maruki should live. Joker just says yes, they should.

The final stinger after the credits, the moment when Joker sees just a glimpse of Akechi from the train is more than a fun little tease. It's doubling down. Akechi was a murderer who shot Joker in the face intending to kill him. Akechi was also a teenager who took a metaphysical bullet to save reality itself, to preserve the basic agency of every living person.

You have to believe people can change, that they are more than the worst thing they've done.

/BREATHES OUT. I was going to go into the ways Royal fails, but I don't think I need to. Here's a fast, VERY short list.

Sumire is a dropped ball of a character that the game keeps picking back up and dropping again.

The gating around even unlocking the Royal content is way too fucking stringent for how vital it is to the story.

Asking a player to get through 80 hours of mediocre game to reach the Good Part is an outrageous demand.

To drive the message home, they should have reduced the flags around unlocking Akechi's true ending, I don't think Royal is as effective if you don't unlock the true 2/2.

That light bridge color puzzle in Maruki's Palace literally is incomprehensible, what the fuck happened there.

Human Morgana was mid at best, he deserved to be a hotass human.

But whatever. Royal is a fucking miracle, and it singlehandedly made Persona 5 a good game. It is the necessary final act turn that redeems a thoroughly mediocre story. The writing is tremendous, the voice acting is off the fucking chain, the cinematography and visual design is stunning, and BOY it fucking HATES cults! It's just fucking good.

Except for the bad bits, but again: whatever.