#it was bringing up complicated feelings

[shiroikabocha]

favorite part of talos principle??????

I procrastinated forever on this ask, sorry. The answer’s kinda sad. But it’s also, like, deeply true and important to me as a person, so.

My mom died at the end of 2013, concluding a truly impressive any% cancer speedrun. Less than 90 days from first symptoms to last. I loved her a lot. It was a bad time.

2014 was the worst year of my life. I became convinced that human consciousness (or at least, my own human consciousness) was not an inherent good. Not an inherent bad, either, just… the nature of the human brain is to want to continue existing, and to be incapable of continuing to exist. It’s not a system that’s designed to function without pain. It’s not a system that’s designed. Consciousness hurts. Being a conscious, physical creature in an unpredictable physical world that has no obligation to make coherent narrative sense hurts.

(I miss my mom. It’s a problem with no solution.)

And then there was this video game. And it had this guy (gender neutral) in it. And this guy was like: you’re so right, bestie. Making sense of existence? That’s a loser’s game. Can’t even get to I think, therefore I am without coming up against some truly gnarly logical conundrums—almost enough to make you wanna invent a big invisible sky-friend who gives you all the answers and reassures you that you’re important and good, right? But that’s stupid. You don’t want to be stupid, do you? You want to be smart. Like me. Smart means you’re better than the people who need happy little answers to all their silly little questions. You don’t need them. You don’t need anybody. That’s the great thing about nothing—it’s so beautifully consistent! When nothing means anything, there are no contradictions. Trying to understand your place in the cosmos—asking the question “I exist; what should I do with that fact?” and expecting to arrive at an actual, functional answer—is a sucker’s game. The only winning move is not to play.

I can’t really explain what it felt like to see my own feelings repeated back to me so clearly, so accurately, and at such length—and for my reaction to my own worldview to be seething fucking hatred. When I started playing The Talos Principle, I was a pessimistic nihilist. I did not perceive myself changing into something different until I was screaming at my keyboard FUCK YOU, my existence has meaning because I CHOOSE to imbue it with meaning and I do not FUCKING CARE if it doesn’t make sense, some things are more important than being flawlessly logically correct and ME HAVING A REASON TO LIVE is ONE OF THEM

(when your internal logic answer to Why should I stay alive? starts out as My life is a precious gift given to me by God and it is not mine to throw away, and then your understanding of the world changes in a way that no longer incorporates an ontologically-existent God, sometimes you wind up with: Why should I stay alive? Answer: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And that answer really only works as long as nothing terrible happens. It does not hold up well under stress. When you take god away you do have to put something else in its place, and it’s not easy to find something else that can hold up under the weight.)

Like… it would be an oversimplification to say that The Talos Principle made me want to live again. But it wouldn’t be too much of an oversimplification to say TTP forced me to acknowledge that I didn’t currently have a good reason to want to live, and that felt bad, and I owed it to myself to fix it. And that if I could hate this fucking asshole librarian so so much (because he was me), and still feel so much compassion for him by the end of the game, then maybe I could figure out how to feel compassion for myself, too.

Also I really like the puzzles where the solution is to zwoop around all over the place with fans, those are my favorite

[videogamelover99]

Guys Chuuya's feelings toward Dazai must be so absolutely incomprehensible right? Right??

Like, you meet this kid who insults you and acts all intellectually superior and then turns around and defends you in front of your friends. Is like "Let's kill this dude together" after which you demand him explain why he's so gung ho about living suddenly, and seem to be satisfied with his answer?? So you put your life in this asshole kid's hands and he comes through. You did it. You defeated the bad guy.

Then this kid turns about and reveals he was playing you and your friends the whole time, and blackmails you with your friends' lives (friends who stabbed you literally in the back like 10 seconds ago, it was a really shitty day). You join the mafia but you pretend somehow you did it of your own volition and not because of the manipulations of this kid.

Fast forward a year later, you make new genuine friends who die immediately by some French asshole trying to control your life, and the shitty manipulative kid is back, saves you from imploding on yourself and carries you all the way to your dying friends so you could say goodbye, running off before you can stop him. Goes completely AWOL when you need him for your plan to kill the French asshole, shows up AGAIN to the place you'd just been tortured in. You decide the only reasonable way to deal with this is to tie him to a pole and spin him around until he's sick, and he 100% agrees. You come up with a plan to finally beat the French asshole. Oops the plan backfires. Now you gotta trust the shitty manipulative kid with your life so you can save the city and maybe the world. Somehow everything works out.

Oh, not to mention the horrible hallucinations you had of this kid claiming you're just like him.

He caused your friends to abandon you. He plays arcade games with you every Sunday. He is the worst version of yourself. He is a menace. You trust him with your life. He claims to want to brainwash you into being your maid. He drew you into the mafia only to ditch you three years later. How Chuuya doesn't have an aneurysm every time Dazai is mentioned I don't know.

[wildstar25]

What physical part(s) of Arsay does her partners find the most attractive! Is it the same for all partners or does it differ between them?

(also optional bonus ask of what part(s) of/about Arsay generally do they love the most, physical or not!)

Meanwhile, if you were to ask the same of Arsay:

[mugentakeda]

So because your the lu ten expert I wanted to ask how you think lu ten would feel about the avatar coming back and the threat of the fire nation? Would he take the avatars side against the FN? And how so what would he do

WELL ANON. i am SO glad u asked. lu tens slow but sure road to dissent is my fave thing about the dai li au. so short answer? well YES!!!!! my lu ten at least. going by the #Lore that i came up with for him. hes a blank slate so by all means anyone can imagine whatever they want with him. but i go by the logic that as soon as zuko started free thinking he became a fucking traitor, and i highly doubt iroh (despite his many, many other parenting flaws lol) would try and forcefully shape lu ten in his own image, and i like to think that, despite the fact that their relationship goes sour before lu ten "dies", iroh and lu ten were capable of disagreeing over things and being fine. its just that as lu ten gets older, the disagreements go from apples vs oranges to agni didnt breathe life into me and bless me with an inner flame for the purpose of burning people alive. maybe that's what you do, but its not what i do! its something he stirs on for literally ages but never actually like. fully crosses the line. its like a simmering. but he eventually hits a boil at the climax and just goes full traitor on impulse cus hes at this point of desperation and pettiness and bitter rage where he feels like he has nothing to lose. sadly it lasts about two hours and then he ""dies"". but its the effort that counts????????? idk. i do want to backtrack into The Before and talk about the parts where he stirs on it though cus its soooo fun to just talk about.

[laesas]

The hands holding yours are not clean either.

VegasPete + Hands || KinnPorsche (2022)

[crayonurchin]

[satanfemme]

I had a very very long fixation on owls when I was a child for like, idk, 7 years straight probably it was my whole life. and its not something I've really thought about much since becoming an adult, but my dad just sent me an audio clip of an owl vocalizing and was like "identify this species for me" and I responded with an answer immediately, with full confidence. so yeah I guess u could say I've still got it

[sonknuxadow]

Twitter takeovers should either have the rule that no ships are canon or ALL ships are canon, either we all win or we all lose no in-between.

Not like it matters, Twitter takeovers are dubiously canon at best.

ehh my problem isnt "nooo theyre teasing ships i dont like instead of the ships i do like".. i mean yeah i Dont like knuxouge and thats part of the reason i found that answer annoying but the main reason is i just dont like it when they bring up ships or intentionally hint at ships in general. its annoying and unnecessary especially if m/f pairings are gonna get stuff like "the gang teases knuckles about how he may or may not have a crush on rouge" and the only mentions of a gay ship ever were just "EWWWW sonadow is so GROSS!!!!!!!!!" which is just... weird.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

Me, when Sebastian joins my party for the first time: Okay, this time I'm not going to forget about you, Sebastian. I'm going to make an effort to use you a lot this playthrough so I can better understand you.

Also me, immediately forgetting about Sebastian while finishing Act 2 and making it halfway through Act 3 before I finally notice his Faith quest: ......................Oh. Right. My bad.

[lollitree]

You know I was against Giovanni taking over all the villain arcs (save for Sinnoh's) in Pokemon Masters until the Kalos one because now there's a possibility his aim is to start up Rainbow Rocket again and how cool would it be to see the half redeemed villains have to fight against alternate, more evil versions of themselves who succeeded in their original plans

[lith-myathar]

.

[future-crab]

I’m such a person who doesn’t care about blood relations that any time a storyline focuses on a character grappling with the realization that one of their relatives was evil and worrying that they’ll go down the same path it SUPER doesn’t resonate.

“The sins of the father will be passed down to his children” Skill issue. If I’ve got a problem with your shitty dad, I’m taking it up with your shitty dad.

[bylertruther-moved]

will says that el has a book of letters from him because he’s just pointing out that they kept in contact regularly whereas he and mike didn’t but somehow mike interprets that as if will was implying there should be something romantic between them too and it stumps will bc that’s not what he meant at all and he doesn’t realize yet why mike is actually so mad or who he’s mad at, and while we clown mike for being oblivious i think will is oblivious too bc this isn’t the first time mike’s done that and yet. will doesn’t question it. he never does and they never talk about it. he just continues with what he’s saying about how they used to be best friends. they never talk about the fact that when will fights to salvage their friendship mike talks about it as if it was more than what it was and as if continuing as they were would get between his relationship with eleven. which implies that he himself feels that their relationship is inappropriate if he wants to date eleven concurrently and explains why it’s the only friendship within the party that seriously falls apart and why will is the only party member that he completely changes his behavior n actions towards and why he’s the only party member that he no longer touches once he dates eleven. which again also explains why after they start dating it’s only when eleven isn’t around that he allows a softer, more open and present mike to reappear around will. it’s just like. why would he do any of that if he’s not projecting? will is literally the one with a canonically confirmed interest in him and yet he’s mad at the roller rink because will is ignoring him [or so he thought at that point]. he’s not mad that eleven lied. he’s not mad at what those bullies did to her. he’s mad that will didn’t talk to him. he’s so mad and hurt by will that he doesn’t even console his girlfriend who was encircled, taunted, and had a milkshake thrown on her all on tape. he stays by will’s side despite everything, even when she’s fidgeting and crying to the side of them. to top it off he even makes a passive aggressive bitchy little comment at dinner afterward because he’s still. mad. at. will. will is the one that ruined his day. not those bullies being cruel to el, but will. it clouds his vision so much that he can’t even pretend or begin to attempt to entertain the idea of being there for her when she so clearly needs him. how does anyone fucking watch any of that and not get what’s going on. HOW????

[featherymainffins]

Now this might be because I have issues but is it just me or does Slay The Princess feel like an allegory for a relationship?

[kyouka-supremacy]

---

[insidejupiter]

jingliu is a perfect example of "if this female character was male, shed be universally loved instead of heavily criticized"