#i meant anywyas

[turnaboutdick]

oh my god they put them in the computer

[kittenninja14]

JUst some Zane doodles bc i miss drawing my ice boy lol

And also bc i miss drawing ninjago lol

https://kittenninja14.tumblr.com/post/731916269075480576/hey-yall-i-just-found-this-incredible-video-and

[nick-close]

So I realize I’ve totally been dead on this account for months, which has boring life reasons. Instead of all that you can take this tho sorry gang

[manipulatorkaleidoscope]

hello AvA tumblr. This is my first post (in AvA tumblr I mean-)

Anyways im going to begin by saying that victim is a fucking loser-

(/hj)

[soullessjack]

another thing that rlly gets me is that in almost every episode or episode recap throughout s15 they’ll shove in the fact that jack is a traumatized overwhelmed mess with unimaginable trauma from his actions and being in the empty for months and that he’s planning to kill himself and the more I think about all of it the less I trust the ending (which is less than zero but whatever) . Like why all the emphasis on jack being severely mentally unwell and suicidal and guilty when you’re never gonna follow up on it or give it any sort of closure. What are you planning.

[triple-pupil]

The whole gang is here.

[bellshazes]

my first two jobs ever, in order, were "board game teacher" and "university library assistant," so tho I've never formally studied games (I have been dropping out of college on and off since 2015, and was a freshman in 2012 lmao) I've been casually exposed to games and the people who make and play them in a professional context, as well as having the research skills to help close the gaps. i actually kind of hate playing board games but i loved GM-ing the coop arkham horror and watching my players, which i did for seven years straight.

my current fixation is the result of several years' fucking around on YT watching all kinds of game content, from LPs to specific game dissection to video essayists. jacob geller and folding ideas are kind of gold standards, but this week I've been really enjoying errant signals in particular. Sometimes I'm introduced to concepts this way - ludonarrative dissonance, ergodic literature, the magic circle, etc. that, and getting recommendations from friends or accidentally stumbling into game studies via other research (such as the paper i wrote a few years ago on theater-as-games in prison contexts). most of it though is having thoughts and opinions on things and letting it percolate until i am dangerous enough to find someone who's already explained a concept better than I could, and then running with that. find something that cites its sources, and then chase the ones that seem interesting.

my syllabus post is very much not a reclist, though i do in varying ways recommend everything on that list and it might be of use. here's some stuff I think would be great starting points:

Rules of Play - Game Design Fundamentals, Salen and Zimmerman. This book is an excellent resource, as it introduces a wide variety of scholars who you can dive into as it is relevant to your interests as well as providing tons of useful frameworks and vocabulary to go hunting. It's an easy read with concise bullet-point summaries after each chapter, and the PDF is hyperlinked for easy navigation. I might have found this via Wikipedia, honestly.

A Play of Bodies: A Phenomenology of Video Game Experience, Keogh. What I'm currently liveblogging - it is firmly a literary/philosophical work, rather than by/for designers, and correspondingly it's a little more difficult without at least passing familiarity with cyborg theory or any brand or offshoot of post-modernism, but still fairly digestible and a great read so far.

My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft, Nardi. Found this during my theater-and-games paper, and MMO anthropology is not really my thing, but it's a nice complement to the other books as an explicitly player-theorist perspective. Also provides a more approachable introduction to a variety of theorists and sources. (Open access on JSTOR!)

Draw Your Weapons, Sarah Sentilles. I'm biased because I discovered this book by accidentally attending an author event at my local museum, and the games portion is incidental, but if you can find it I think this analysis of the relationship between depictions of violence and violence itself is worth your time. Memorable re: games for its discussion of Press F To Pay Respects.

here are some videos which I offer as examples of channels you might enjoy diving into, looking for additional jumping-off points:

Playing as Anyone in Watch Dogs Legion, Errant Signal. I really appreciate Errant Signal's thoughtful, personal approach to analysis and especially his highlighting of buried gems in his Blips series as well as his non-self-deprecating reevaluation of some of his older analyses over his decade plus career making videos.

Controllers Control Everything, Game Makers Toolkit. Discovered via the Boss Keys series highlighting the souls games, and although I think his channel is (increasingly) geared toward devs, these are well-constructed, thoughtful videos about many aspects of game design. Even when I don't personally get what makes him enjoy Zelda dungeons in that specific way (I'm an outlier), I appreciate his analysis.

Mega Microvideos 2, Matthewmatosis. Perhaps better known for his extremely long-form essays, I love Matthewmatosis' series of microessays framed like Wario Ware minigames. They are brief but don't pull punches, and the format is uniquely delightful. (See also this microessay mixtape.)

Making Sense of Catherine Full Body, SuperButterBuns. She doesn't do much essay content, I guess, but I she loves Catherine and the Persona series, and this dissection of Catherine Full Body is an absolute treat.

Jon Bois. Okay, mostly not about games, but like - come on. 17776 and Breaking Madden, alongside everything else he's ever done, fit because I feel like they do. If nothing else, I think Pretty Good and his general use of Google Earth as a medium for storytelling have a lot of utility in talking about digital media. He's good for the soul.

The Future of Writing About Games, Jacob Geller. One of the gold standards for a reason - and especially if you're looking for further solid recommendations for other writing/creating about games. This video in particular discusses & links to some really great pieces, but his Big List of Other People's Video Essays is also a great way to spend the next month of your life. (You might notice some crossover between this list and his, only some of which is coincidental.)

if i have any conclusion, it's that my current fixation on digital literalism is me finally finding an outlet/academic match-up with a fascination i developed in 2015 when studying gonzo lit. i think the utility of academia and the long history of scholarship on a given topic, as a non-academic, is to help you express ideas or reinterpret beliefs or experiences you've had to others without having to reinvent the wheel. i always become most energized when i stop worrying about knowing all the bg and chase whatever is useful and affirming or enlightening to me. and you can get pretty far if you think about why you like what you do, and just - enthusiastically also consume non-academic stuff. maybe this is a note more for myself! but thank you for the opportunity to monologue.

[vampyrsm]

i have a question because im arguing about this

if someone sends you a picture of their tits in a bra, does that count as you seeing their tits or not

like do nipples have to be involved

[skrunksthatwunk]

oh the inherent autistic4autistic romance of harold and maude (1971). im gonna lose my mind

they. i. omg. look i've seen this movie 3 times and it always gets better. it's very good i love it dearly. im not sure what this post is im just gonna talk about them being autistic that's all.

sensory stuff (sensory seeking, in particular):

maude's scent machine (to "give her nose a treat"!!), harold's enjoyment of it

her "switch to the tactile" via things like statues, her encouragement to explore it in a variety of ways, which harold does in some unconventional ways, i.e. sticking his head in lol

when replanting the tree maude mentions a love of dirt for sensory reasons (i believe it's the way it feels but it might be the smell)

that scene where harold's like ooh the day's so nice i feel like somersaulting and she's like yeah!! go do it!! and he's like but id feel stupid and she's like everyone has a right to make an ass of themselves. and then he somersaults. very neurodivergent friend group of them that kind of enabling is literally me and my friends

in the above scene, maude declines harold's offer of a cartwheel and says she feels like yelling, then does so. vocal stim

maude's breath of fire morning routine could also be a vocal stim

arguably maude's fascination with art and them watching the fireworks and model trains could be visual stims, but that's a bit more of a stretch. still.

maude's clutter could also be kind of a visual stim. i like visual clutter for that reason; perhaps she doesn't mind it in her home

maude's focus on music and making sound, something she passes to harold via the banjo, singing (even if imperfectly), etc

they dance :) (harold's dance at the end particularly feels like stimming to me)

harold sitting upside down on the therapist's chair

harold's morning-after bubble blowing could be visual

maude likes stealing different kinds of cars for the variety. this, combined with how she comments on how harold's hearse drives, makes me wonder if it's a vertebral/proprioceptive kinda thing where she likes feeling the cars move differently, like the different leans to their turns and how they start and stop, things like that (mecore)

communication/self expression:

harold expresses himself through faking his death in a variety of gruesome and creative ways

harold drives a hearse!! and he likes it. even as his wardrobe moves from black and he stops going to funerals it's the one thing he holds onto

harold's affect is relatively flat. his smiles are pretty small and rare and he almost never raises his voice

harold makes little to no effort to hold conversation with others besides maude outside of performances (i.e. faking maude's death with uncle victor). a lot of this is because he detests the situations he's in (i.e. the dating service calls or speaking to the motorcycle cop), but even when speaking could theoretically add to the performance, he chooses not to, instead silently showing what he needs to, i.e. in the harakiri scene. in short, mecore

maude infodumps and overshares and i love her. it matches well with harold's relative quiet. like when she's walking to her house after harold drives her home for the first time and she talks about her friend who gave her the keys and tricks to car theft? unnecessary. but wonderful

not sure how to explain this one but when harold begins to cry when telling the chem lab story, maude doesn't say anything like, "im sorry, that sounds really hard", but instead talks about people backing away from life, and does her "give me an L give me an I" L-I-V-E cheer. it's not a typical response, but it's one that resonates with harold (not that saying the former can't be an autism vibe bc i for sure rely on scripts in situations like that Because they're unfamiliar, but it depends person to person yk)

harold falls in love and plans on proposing within a week, potentially suggesting very strong experiences of emotions

i mean. the whole movie is maude being like get weird be authentic explore and love life and then them being weird. unmasking journey starts NOW!!!!

harold knows that the only way to get people to leave him alone is to scare them away, or to make them think he's a lost cause that they can't make "more normal". he tends to do this instead of talking. obv faking his deaths, but also faking maude's murder, showing his mother maude's photo instead of explaining beyond exactly what's needed, torching the car his mother exchanged the hearse for, etc. he knows he won't be accepted and uses his weirdguy vibe to his advantage bc he knows they think he's weird anyway. and also because he doesn't want to talk much in general

when confronted by a cop about stealing a car she's like yeah i took it. and this tree. she doesn't bother lying bc she doesn't see a problem with it and/or because she isn't afraid of the cop

when harold goes to tell his mother that he's planning to marry maude he interrupts her even though she's on the phone multiple times because he Has To Tell Her Now

harold sending the hearse off the cliff at the end as a symbolic but ultimately useless gesture is another silent death he expresses himself with, but one he is rebirthed from

interests/beliefs:

harold's interest in death and destruction are kinda his only hobbies for a while, and are ones that keep him isolated

they go to strangers' funerals for shits. enough said (they also freely admit to not knowing the deceased like they do not care)

maude chooses to end her life at 80. she has a very positive, loving view of death in relation to life and change, and does not see this as sad, nor does she consider her relationship with harold as a reason to stay longer. she's made that decision, and he's just one beautiful component of an endlessly beautiful world she's leaving behind. her perspective is not common, but it's something that drives her throughout the movie, that search for life and whimsy

the romance itself is unusual, but the only ones who question it are outsiders. they both seem unphased by the age gap. the taboo doesn't matter to them at any stage

maude's past of protest could suggest a strong sense of justice, and her disregard of law could suggest an "im not gonna follow this rule if it's not right/doesn't make sense" attitude (she also explicitly ties her unorthodox behavior to her protest experience, saying it's her own, small form of resistance. just against social norms generally)

harold's rejection of normal social conventions i.e. dating, hanging out at funerals/demolition sites, etc. as well as his disdain for the military (particularly the way it manifests when he's tricking victor into not enlisting him by pretending to be bloodthirsty and screaming at maude that she's a commie pig, reflecting how he sees victor/those like him) show a kind of disregard of/distaste for hierarchy and norm (though he does feel those pressures to mask, as shown by the somersaulting conversation)

maude brings a yellow umbrella to a funeral, not even trying to blend in or seem mournful (her use of color is tied to how live flowers are used at funerals rather than dead ones. it's another joy and life thing. this logic of "i don't get why everyone does this. why should i not celebrate life here/in this way?" is straightforward and unaffected by/in spite of norms but IS affected by/because of her world view in a way that's real autistic to me)

misc

maude collects stuff

maude shows an unusual amount of empathy for the tree in town and moves to rescue it. this may be contrasted with her flippantness about the trouble her car stealing may cause people to show both an unusual amount of empathy for inanimate objects/non human beings and low empathy for humans

something so so very autistic to me about harold blowing up the chemistry lab at his boarding school and just. going home. jdjhsksg he didn't tell anyone he just went to bed im--

when maude says all the daisies are different she mentions all kinds of subtle details, which could indicate a higher level of observation than average

maude shows almost no sense of danger or fear. whether she's being questioned by cops in a stolen vehicle or telling her new lover she's poisoned herself, she seems carefree. that could be because of how much horror she's faced, or because of her knowledge that it'll end soon and she won't have to deal with the consequences for long. but it could also be autism

harold has a similar unusual relationship with fear. he's totally fine with the stunts that could easily go wrong and with maude falling into the ocean and with mixing random chemicals in a lab for shits but when it comes to other people putting him in situations he's upset

harold has no friends and is misunderstood and made to change to become more "normal" by everyone except for maude

just. the themes of societal oppression by demanding conformity. and resisting it by living authentically. they're Everywhere in this movie and that's inherently coded towards all kinds of marginalization, neurodivergency included (one way i haven't mentioned that this appears is in the implication that maude is a nazi concentration camp survivor, as evidenced by the numbers tattooed on her wrist. obviously, fascism and eugenics are heavily invested in removing difference, whatever it may be. nazis did focus on autism somewhat (hans asperger was a nazi doctor, after all), so that could be a sort of autistic coding, though it is (understandably) generally not used as such because they were not nearly as much of a focus to them. such coding is much more often for jewish people for that reason. it's more likely that she is/was jewish, or frederick was, or she helped others who were victimized, or resisted, etc. anyway, her drive to live fully regardless of convention could be related to seeing so much death and suffering firsthand, or to a complete rejection of the ideology that brought it and anything that resembles it. it seems influenced by that, at least.)

tl;dr harold and maude is about rejecting small talk and dating and the government and instead smelling things and rolling around in the grass and loving completely life and living weirdstyle. plus they both give me Vibes. that's all go watch harold and maude

[didsomeonesayventus]

find myself thinking about the emblem paralogues and like. really cute throwbacks to iconic chapters of FE history and all but when in the narrative are these supposed to happen and also like. man these are meant to be bond deepening faux skirmishes but if you're playing with permadeath on. woof if someone dies. and some of these are a bitch of a fight too I am looking at you Leif.

personally I think post chapter 20 pre chapter 21 is a good spot to like. narratively chunk them all in. something something alear wants to prove themselves something something pilgrimage spent further establishing and deepening divine right or whatever

[laauranenn]

I need to rewatch 3rd life, I feel like I may be neglecting the rest of the red army. I need to find out more about those guys.

Can't call myself a real dogwarts fan if I don't even remember everyone who was part of it </3

3rd life rewatch here I come!

[carcinized]

what if we were both wanted criminals freight hopping on a foreign planet, off to steal a spaceship and save the galaxy? oh yeah, that’s the plot of the cbeeduo fic im writing!!

anyways. C-17 chapter three at 12pm PST this friday!!! here’s a sneak peek of my favorite scene from it ^_^ also pls be nice i don’t draw usually (as in ever) and only have crayola markers. i am very proud of this anyway

also no im not colorblind. C-6 is just like that

[i-am-become-a-name]

We've only ever met once. You told me I'd been to your wedding. Oh, I do hope I was suave, and not wearing a cheap suit. I do hate cheap suits, don't you?

[vilnan]

got the raid the grove quest to work!!!! and holy shit, i'm so in love with minthara. that scene with her at the party was SO FUCKING GOOD, omg, it literally made everything so worth it

[ezlo-x]

Wow I love my au so much it’s a shame I don’t have much strength and motivation to make comics to tall my silly little story

[butchdykekondraki]

one of these days im just gonna start saying "in my studies ive found ____" about dsaf like im some kind of scholar . for the fun of it