#this isn’t just about video games

[dundeelemonade]

cause like there’s something screwy with my brain or whatever that makes dying in a game scary, to the point that i can’t even proceed far enough in botw to figure out how to handle my first guardian, and i have a long list of games that i own and haven’t played more than an hour of because i just really don’t like dying! and i just want to know how get over that hurdle.

[theloyalpin]

releasing 30+ versions of one album should result in you being sniped tbh

[chloesimaginationthings]

So why is Vanny so determined to get on Michael's good side?

It’s mostly because every one on one interactions they’ve had so far has been negative pff

[theminecraftbee]

you know the excellent quadruple life fan comic has me thinking about double life again. and MAN. thinking about the soul bonds mechanically. like, before I get into my meta-analysis it’s worth noting that non-diagetically the soulbond mechanic being based on how many hearts someone has is basically the only way I can think to do it in minecraft that’s sensible, but diagetically…

so do you ever think about how the marker of what made people soulmates in double life was pain?

like, soulmates share injuries/pain! that’s the whole premise! like, to the point that day one people were making up elaborate ways to hurt themselves so they could test for their soulmates! you met your (very romantic-coded) partner and confirmed they were the person you were looking for by hitting each other, generally!

being a soulmate in the double life universe isn’t about being compatible, it’s about literally sharing pain, and it’s just… I think about how for some pairs, they share the burden between each other, and it brings them closer. for some pairs, though, the only way they know how to communicate is by hurting one another. and the thing is, this isn’t just a literal thing. like, mechanically, the thing soulmates do is share pain and communicate with pain, but metaphorically, can you say desert duo doesn’t have trouble communicating because half of how they know how to exist is either sharing in pain or causing it for each other? can you say that ranchers’ strength wasn’t a pair of people who understood each other’s pain and desperation to be better than they’ve been before? can you say that divorce quartet isn’t, well—

so pearl wins after scott hurts them one last time don’t you ever think about that,

[princess-starscourge]

Obviously I want confirmed gay relationships in games but there’s also something special about the heavy subtext gays that I don’t wanna lose. Like we’ve built a community around it. We share in the screaming. We share in the pain and the confusion and the ecstasy. We share in the reactions over wildly fruity official arts. We share in the unhinged posts and the incoherent to everyone else but us explanations for why they’re canon.

[world-of-puppets]

I have conflicted feelings about the FNAF series in general, but seeing a movie where practical animatronic puppets are the primary focus of the film becoming not only financially successful but also well received by general audiences is pretty damn neat.

[girlfailurefelix]

is this a safe space to say i considered (and still do) the possibility that glamfreddy was the one that tore glambonnie apart

[dazedconfuzed]

You know a mlm ship is popular when you can’t look it up on twitter in public without the risk of seeing illustrated genitals.

[dekarios]

i really do believe it’s immoral to buy datv at all from official retailers and through official means (i think key resellers are the most ethical way to pay for it as long as you buy from one with a decent rep as many key resellers are dodgy, or getting a secondhand copy) and that piracy is the best or only way to morally obtain the game.

but i know not everyone views the triple a industry as i do and will wanna just buy it outright. i know not everyone is as passionate about this as i am. ok i can accept that with a heavy heart.

the least you can do is not preorder it. you wanna shill for the billion dollar publisher that hates game developers by buying it, okay whatever, if you think you’re supporting the developers best by buying that game full priced on launch, sure whatever. i won’t argue. but don’t preorder it.

preorder doesn’t support developers. it doesn’t encourage developers. it doesn’t improve anything for developers. it tells ceos and boardrooms of publishers and investors that you will shove money in their faces no matter what. that you don’t care about the quality of the game, the reviews, how it plays on your machine, how much they lock behind preorder bonuses and special editions, that they can give you a broken incomplete fuck of a game that can’t run at 60 fps on a 4080 let alone something worse, and you’ll pay. you’ll pay happily. because of the studio behind it, because of the franchise. you are a brand loyal dog to them that they’re gonna enjoy kicking.

do not preorder. you look like a schmuck.

[kiwinatorwaffles]

the hate towards amber in the invincible tv show is wild honestly because other than that one line (the one where she reveals she knew mark was a superhero) that was a slight fumble on the part of the show runners, she’s actually really excellent and excels at her narrative role compared to her comic counterpart who is just kind of there to be a placeholder date before mark gets with eve.

i admit that line was kinda poorly set up and could’ve been written better (like maybe her instead saying “ugh i expected it but that doesn’t excuse the way you treat me”) but like. Really? did that negate every single thing her character stood for prior to this point? how amber is actually really good for putting up with his bullshit for so long even after he flaked out on dinner with her parents? how she put mark in his place for thinking he could get away with neglecting his relationships just because he’s a hero? how it showed that he’s acting just like how nolan treats debbie? did One single line, said during a moment of anger and frustration, change all of that?

her character is a great parallel between mark and his dad in s1 and is even better in s2 at showing how mark physically can’t live a normal life no matter how much he wants to. like we know amber isn’t endgame and that’s what hurts a lot. they want to be normal college kids going through their awkward teen years together but i guess that one slightly weak line of dialogue made her character “terrible” and “ruin mark.” also even setting aside the myriad of… Other biases, a lot of people just seem to forget the fact that she’s a teenage girl sooooooooooo

(also i’m thinking about this one comment i saw on youtube where someone was like “i didn’t watch that scene initially so i didn’t understand the hate but after i watched it i hate her as well” and. seriously. are you being so serious right now.)

anyway i’m an amber defender to my death she’s amazing in the show and deserves nice things. if you are a video analyst who actually sees her as a normal character instead of calling her “the other woman” you immediately gain my respect

[spicyicymeloncat]

Idk if this is a hot take but why is it always “Kai slaved away and worked his ass off to raise his sister” and never the other way round or them working hard together?

Like, I know he’s older but in the show, does he really… act older? Like if you think about Kai and Nya’s dynamic yknow? Because from my understanding:

When Kai and Nya are introduced we see Kai fail at making a sword and Nya being the one to chide him for it. Kai makes an overconfident statement about wanting to be a better blacksmith than his father. This suggests that one, Kai is rather rash as well as inexperienced (something that lines up with the rest of his character arc in the pots and also generally), with Nya being the more mature figure in contrast

Also just a note but in the shorts: “I can handle it!” “No you can’t, stupid”

Kai frequently being very good at neglecting people or things: leaving Lloyd at an arcade whilst being focused on finding samurai x, not even knowing samurai x was Nya or that she only did it because she felt left out by him, completely abandoning both Nya and Lloyd in s3 (and Ik he was going through it at the time, but in line with the fandom’s characterisation of him)

Kai in season 5: “After I lost my dad, I lost my way. But I was lucky to have my sister watch over me”

Generally, their dynamic isn’t one where Kai really provides for Nya at all. In fact, judging by the fact that Nya can make entire mechs and Kai struggled to make a sword, Nya was probably busting her ass to provide for Kai. And judging by the s5 quote, that’s probably true. I’m not saying Nya raised Kai, it just rubs me the wrong way when she’s treated like a decorative flourish to a narrative that paints Kai as a burnt out child who was forced to grow up too soon especially since that is such a mischaracterisation of him in the first place.

[m1d-45]

You know, that would be ANGSTY COMICAL if we mixed that in the aftermath of the reveal of who is the real creator, since it could be taken as the creator REPLACING characters who hurt them.

-🥘Stew

that was the intent!

i think diluc would have it easiest. red is from a hateful part of his past, and he knows that he’s grown beyond that stage. if it weren’t for red’s temperament, he’d want to try and connect, if only to gain his trust. it still hurts, knowing that even after all this time he still failed to be what you needed, but it burns him the least.

fischl would be worse. night is everything she tried so badly to be, down to her own oz. to make it worse, night couldn’t care less about fischl, ignoring her monologues about who’s the real princess. the only one she needs the approval of is you, and she’d gotten that the second she was first summoned. she does fischl the mercy of letting her keep her name, but even that is mostly at your discretion. ‘fischl,’ ‘night,’ whatever. she just needs to protect you where amy failed.

and kaeya… my poor beloved. if night is what fischl wanted to be, shade is what kaeya has to be. night is a persona that fischl copied, shade is the very mask kaeya had put on for all his life. he’d entirely remade himself, down to the name he used and the way he treated his fellow knights, and it still wasn’t enough. all of his effort was poured into making himself something that could be accepted, that could be good enough. he’d thought he’d done a good job when he was first marked as a vessel, but now in the hunt it’s clear that his palatability only ran skin deep. shade is what you need, shade is what you want, and he’s genuine about it. shade’s entire life is yours, and he was rewarded for that devotion with your affection, earning a place at your side. and kaeya had devoted himself to the hunt instead, was so blinded by his own desires that he’d ignored the resistance of his vision. diluc may hate his past and fischl may hate night, but kaeya can only really hate himself.

[rooolt]

Not to like say “everyone should listen to naddpod” again, but everyone should listen to naddpod. I know it’s a more rules based dnd podcast with combat in honestly probably every episode, and that’s not some people’s thing, but it just doesn’t drag at all because 1) as I’ve said Brian Murphy is an encounter design god and 2) the players clearly love the game and are having so much fun throughout and it’s just such a joy to listen to and it just helps me fall in love with it all over again. For me, it has the perfect mix of knowing they’re an entertainment podcast and what that means in terms of pacing and in character decision making, while it still being clear that these people aren’t just doing this because it’s a hole they dug themselves into, but because it’s a genuinely enjoyable thing for them

[velvetjune]

idk if this is worded right but. It’s a shame there’s barely any academic lit or analysis around remedy games. the first thing that comes to mind is jacob gellers video involving control but I’d love more on the themes of these games and how they use different mediums to tell their stories

[tsuchinokoroyale]

[mildmayfoxe]

brunch was very good except towards the end we got to talking about elden ring bc my friend is a big fromsoft fan & i said “yeah it’s too bad it’s so hard for me, i should give it another chance but i don’t enjoy games that are that hard” (well-trodden ground, we have had this conversation before) and then she started lecturing me about how it’s not that hard, actually, people just say it’s really hard, and if you play it the right way (inscrutable rules known only to people familiar with the franchise) it’s really much easier, you didn’t try hard enough and should try again, it’s not that big a deal you can’t pause, you just need to find a save spot and here’s where they are (useless information to me), etc. and like the thing is that i was already saying that i should give it another chance. but i was also saying that i recognize that im not the intended audience for those types of games and KNEW that when i purchased it but wanted to give it a try because everyone else looked like they were having a lot of fun. im an EXTREMELY casual gamer. i barely play video games at all, let alone difficult ones. you telling me that im wrong for recognizing that something isn’t for me isn’t gonna make me play your game. i know my own mind. and this conversation actually makes me never want to play a video game ever again!