#post-true colors

[zondearts]

au au mizuena

[honehonn3honey]

Birthday boy 🎂

[gingerpines]

hi so i played true colors

[agentravensong]

thinking about how the extra area added on to a pacifist run of undertale, the true lab, is about alphys's past mistakes. how it ends with the story reaffirming that, despite the pain she's caused, the thing that matters is that she has now made the choice to do the right thing. she's still worthy of her friends' love.

thinking about how undertale doesn't expect the player to get a pacifist ending for the first time. how it's more likely than not that the player will kill toriel the first time they battle her, how lots of players don't initially figure out how to end undyne's fight without killing her, etc. what it expects — not even expects, really, but hopes — is that the player, if they care enough, will use their canonically acknowledged power over time to make up for those mistakes.

no matter how many neutral runs a player has done before committing to the pacifist run, the thing that matters to the characters, to the story, is that you've chosen, now, to do the right thing.

compared to alphys, the player honestly gets off lightly, in that you're the only one (other than flowey) who really remembers any harm you might have caused. and any direct guilting the game could have done about it is long past at this point. instead, as undertale often does, it makes its point via parallels: alphys caused harm, and she knows it. she has committed to being better. in doing so, she has unlocked for herself a better ending to her story. and she deserves it. she's forgiven.

those structural narrative parallels are all over undertale, if you know where to look. and that's one of the things that makes it so fuckin' good.

[thealexchen]

Why Dontnod's games feel original and inspired (and why Deck Nine's games don't)

So, I've talked at length about how Double Exposure feels much more like a corporate product than a playable piece of art entertainment [My initial thoughts on the DE trailer] [My thoughts on the early access paywall] [My thoughts on the weird marketing].

But now with the release of Lost Records, I feel like I have no choice but to confront the question: were any of Deck Nine's games truly original or inspired in any way? And honestly, I have to say no.

Objectively, I could say it's because Deck Nine literally has not produced any original IP's since their rebrand from Idol Minds in 2017. Their only narrative adventure games are all part of the LiS franchise. But even their most original game, True Colors, pretty obviously follows the first game's narrative formula (young woman with a superpower investigates a sudden disappearance/death in a small town with a dark secret, has two opposite sex love interests, learns about a twist villain, is nearly murdered, and goes through a psychological nightmare in the last episode) to a tee. But oh look, there's also a LARP!

But I believe there's more to it than that, because when I look at Dontnod's games, they are always inspired by other works. Life is Strange 1 plays very clear homage to Twin Peaks with the Pacific Northwest setting and Rachel Amber resembling Laura Palmer. Max Caulfield is named after the protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye, another novel about the fleeting innocence of childhood and superficiality of society. Life is Strange borrows tropes from Donnie Darko, Groundhog Day, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Stand By Me, and even Blue is The Warmest Color for its themes and plot points. Just take a look at its "Shout-out" page on TV Tropes. And the result is... something completely original, with riveting plot twists, memorable characters, and an ending that will make you cry.

This shouldn't make sense, right? You'd think this big soup of references would turn into an indistinguishable mess of cliches, but Life is Strange managed to be a synthesis of everything the writers loved and were inspired by, to become something completely new. Why? Because nobody had tried to take Twin Peaks, Donnie Darko, and The Catcher in the Rye and turn it into a video game before! And make it gay!

The point being, Dontnod consistently makes original material because they take creative risks. This is definitely not done lightly, since they still need to be a company that generates profit, but they still prioritize making art over selling out. Their stories feel inspired because they are inspired; when writers love what they're writing about, the result is a passion project that has loving, clever nods to all the works that are woven into it.

So perhaps a way to reword that first question is to then ask, "Have Deck Nine's games ever been inspired by anything?" And unfortunately, the answer is still no. Instead, they just copy what they hope will sell well. And a bland imitation for the sake of generating profit is never going to produce anything that feels original.

This takes me back to Lost Records, which is also clearly inspired by the same works: Twin Peaks, It: Chapter One, The Craft, The Blair Witch Project, The Goonies, Stand By Me. But again, no other game studio besides Dontnod has ever looked at these works and thought, "But what if it starred teenage lesbians instead?" Or, more specifically: "How do we capture the spirit of what made these media great and incorporate that into a new story for a new audience?" And those characters have so much thought and care poured into them too: while I've been disappointed that Double Exposure Max looks airbrushed to hell and back, I love that the Bloom & Rage girls have asymmetrical faces, acne, freckles, body hair, skin discoloration, and diverse body types. Double Exposure is marketed as nostalgia bait for fans, where Max is reduced to a prettied-up, polished-up, representation of nostalgia, not even her own character anymore, in a game that otherwise has no connection to the original. Her quips are reduced to "Hey! Remember our good ol', dad-joke cracking, dorky Max Caulfield??" and her grief is shoved aside for "Hey, look at that appealing new love interest! Because we knoooow y'all love your sapphic romance, right?"

By contrast, Lost Records has only been out for 10 days, but I already feel like the girls are some of the most memorable characters I've come across in gaming for the niche they fill. Swann seems like your typical Max-like dork, except she's also a movie buff and giddy about bugs, horror, and the paranormal; and has clearly been affected by her mother's fatphobic beliefs. Autumn is a level-headed leader who always stuck to her desire to help others, and her Blackness naturally informs her desire to feel valued and not cause trouble in a small, very white, conservative town. Nora intrigues me so much for going from a fun-loving rebel punk teen to a more gender-conforming, capitalist-leaning, influencer businesswoman. And Kat feels like an evolution of Chloe's cynicism, where her scrappy charm belies an almost unsettling obsession with the occult and a deep, tragic chasm of rage at having to confront her mortality far too young. They make sense. They feel carefully written, genuine, and like real people.

But most of all, Dontnod's games have never felt like products. In fact, most of their characters have historically gone against the grain of what traditionally "marketable" characters are. The first LiS took all these aforementioned stories about straight white men and chose to remix and retell it through the eyes of a young, queer, time-traveling girl instead. Tell Me Why is the first AAA game with a trans protagonist, and Tyler is voiced by a trans actor in all the language dubs. Lost Records decided that it would tell its story through four queer teenage girls, with women writers onboard, and fucking own it. As long as Dontnod keeps making games that stick to their creative integrity, I'll keep respecting their vision in whatever they decide to create next. Also, maybe I should finally watch Twin Peaks.

Thank you for reading!

[diazmaximoff]

Saw this on Twitter and tbh, I can't detect any lies🤷🏾‍♂️

[peoplesprincessgeorge]

txt posts + f1 = true 3.0

[vesna-v-irkutske]

What do you think Artyom and Nikita (mostly Nikita) would think of their "fans" ?

Oh, Artyom likes having "fans". Knowing that someone is interested in him, and someone sees him as something more, tries to understand him, shows him sympathy, must stroke his ego. Although Daphne said somewhere that he was still kind of shocked by it, that he didn't understand it. Two things can be true at once.

May 22, 2023. "Vlada, hi. Got the letter on May 5th. • To be honest, it's an interesting admission — the interest in Nikita's and my philosophy... O_O I'm being completely serious: this is the first time I've seen something like this. I'm very flattered. =)"

June 26, 2023. "The reaction to the sudden popularity was calm. Although I was wildly freaking surprised. But at the same time, remained calm =D"

Although I bet he'd have cringed at some stuff and tried his best to ignore it and focus on something else.

January 6, 2024. "How I feel about trolls on the internet. I don't give a hoot about the internet and everyone who lives in it =) I hardly ever go there, so I don't come into contact with trolls."

As for Nikita, it's hard to say. Back then, he wanted attention and recognition. I'm sure both of them had fun playing Among Us in real life. Law enforcement officials said that they kind of liked talking about their crimes, that someone listened to them, paid attention to everything they said. They got what they wanted: attention and being treated seriously. They posed a real threat, they felt powerful, they were capable of changing lives.

Later, I think, the shame and realization woke up. Half a year after their arrest, Nikita said that he no longer needed all this, and that he felt ashamed. In November 2012, he said, "I feel sick/bad when I think about what I have done."

In June or early July 2012, Nikita gave an interview to a newspaper: — Why is Anoufriev supported on social media, but you don't have any fans? Is he more ideological? — I don't really care about this idea at all.

What I'm trying to say is that Nikita only talked to his mom and gave interviews to a couple of newspapers and journalists because they asked him, not because he was particularly eager for it. In short, he wasn't looking for contact. Just like his whole life before that. So I think he didn't even know about his "fans", or he wasn't very interested. Who knows exactly why there's not a single letter from Nikita from prison. He had no one to write to but his family. And I'm not really sure if someone else knew his address to write to him. Besides, he was a very closed-off, anxious and depressed person, I doubt that he wanted to communicate with strangers. Who knows what they might have written to him? All kinds of threats and insults? He knew it himself.

I think he'd have distanced himself from it all and disappeared into the shadows. At the same time, I'm not denying the possibility that he would be interested if he found out about the "fans". Just a sizeable maybe. But I think that he, just like Artyom, would be extremely surprised, confused and wouldn't understand this. Maybe he wouldn't necessarily have thought anything about their "fans". Maybe he'd have thought it was weird. Perhaps he'd constantly wonder why people were interested in him, if there was any catch in it, if they were actully laughing at him? Maybe he wouldn't really care.

But he'd totally be weirded the fuck out because of some of you, especially if it had to do with his looks and something romantic/sexual in general.

Of course, he knew about TCC, but he suddenly found himself on the receiving end of that interest. And I think he'd have been very distant with his "fans". He was never a talker, and even less with a bunch of different people. Maybe, by some miracle, he'd have managed to make a couple of friends (hopefully better than those he had before, just someone nice and compassionate instead of someone interested in very dark stuff; however, Nikita was very deeply convinced that he was nothing good, and that he didn't deserve anything good; besides, all these positive and pacifistic things were alien to his mentally ill, disappointed in the world, people and himself brain; there's comfort in suffering and misery, if it's something you've been used to since an early age, because it's familiar, and getting better requires a desire to change, effort and energy, which depressed people have very little of). Anyway, who knows how it'd have affected him. Don't encourage mentally ill person's bad tendencies.

[flovoid]

♬ BUT I MISS YOU, C’MERE! ♬

‘Your Origin’ girlies gettin the special treatment nods x3 

[dahldahlbills]

he connected the dots

[mulwray]

[da-janela-lateral]

"Mob has black eyes" "Mob has red eyes" listen What If

[somegrumpynerd]

Actually it turns out I had more thoughts about that post that I forgot about lol

Would Nightmare actually give up his boys? Yes and no

If it was just a black and white situation of they're miserable, they don't wanna be here, they have somewhere better to be, then yes. He would leave them out to wherever they needed to be despite his own feelings and very quickly realise afterwards just how much he'd gotten used to the noise and company. I think he would get a little clingy with Dream about it, which I'm sure Dream would find very weird after everything but not unwelcome, he did miss his brother after all.

(If he couldn't attach himself to Dream's side for whatever reason, I think he might just sit in his castle and go insane. Or maybe he'd just spend all day at Ccino's trying really hard to project that he just likes the atmosphere and isn't lonely as hell)

But the thing is, most of them don't have somewhere better to be. Horror has his au, and Nightmare would keep up the supply of food even if Horror said he wanted to quit at this point, so he would understandably let him return home. Killer, Dust and Cross effectively don't have aus anymore though, and they tend to get into self-destructive habits when they're left to their own devices. (Obviously bringing Color and Epic into the mix to make sure Killer and Cross are taken care of eases matters, but Dust doesn't really have any friends outside their group he could go stay with - that Nightmare knows about at least).

The flipside of this is that his boys may not necessarily want to be given up. I think if Nightmare got really in his head about this he could easily end up convinced this is the right thing to do without ever asking them if it's what they want, with potentially terrible results. He's established such a pattern of always returning to find Killer when they get seperated, that if he never showed up Killer might just keep sitting there and waiting for him greyfriar's bobby style, refusing to leave because he's certain his boss is coming back.

[pomribs]

me when someone brings up the fact that sean diaz thought his life was ending at 16, little did he know it actually did and he would never feel normal again

me when someone brings up "finn is so fucking smart. if he wasnt such a fuck-up, he couldve taken over the world"

me when someone brings up cassidys letter

me when someone brings up how the group got seperated after the incident even though they only had each other

me when someone brings up how every character had so much potential but were just dealt shitty cards in life and will forever face the consequences of not being good enough to combat the struggles they never asked for (ESP sean, cass, finn and lw daniel)

me when someone brings up the fact that its implied that max and daniel meet in the pw ending, and they finally wont feel alone for the first time in their lives

me when someone brings up how bad seans writing and drawing got after losing his eye, and he would get a migraine whenever he tried to focus, stripping him of the one thing that ever calmed him down

me when someone brings up the fact that daniel quit drawing after lisbeth manipulated him, but started again after sean died because he told him to never stop

me when someone brings up what seans teen years in prison mustve been like and what daniels first meetings with him wouldve been like

me when someone brings up how sean never even gave a second thought about being straight before meeting finn, but after he kissed him he wanted to do it again and kept telling everybody because it was such a personal thing for him

me when sean had no one to talk about prev with because his life was so fucked up and he had no outlet for being a normal teengaer

me when sean literally dreamt about telling his dad he kissed a boy because it was so important to him and he never got to have that conversation before he died, and he imagined his dad supporting him endlessly because he was experiencing a lack of that irl

me when sean got awoken from prev dream to get beat bloody and bruised by a fuckass racist (he will never experience peace)

this post is already too long and i could still go on why is this game so tragic

[inkbirdie]

Might be a bit early but i'm confident we can make it though this y'all hold strong smoshblr

[purplesoup-lad-le]

did he make them? did he steal them? did he steal then modify them, i-pod style? who know.

@loveution @myfairkatiecat @radicaltorque @camelspit @sophiefostersno1stan @bleu-d-encre-poudre-d-etoiles @florida-preposterously @aurenflare