#video games just fulfill so many aesthetic dreams

[vendriin]

Brigmore Manor -

Dishonored: The Brigmore Witches (2013)

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Let's Not Go There

The reason it is hard to believe in the fantastical and unnatural is because you either always only hear of bizarre phenomena that other people experienced, or whatever you experienced was so strange that it is easier to bend over backwards in the effort of coming up with a rational explanation.

My experience defies every possible explanation, and it is why I have developed such a fascination with the concept of other-worlds, astral travel, and parallel dimensions. And I am not alone in this. I cannot chalk it up to mere hallucination. I cannot consider it a case of my mind breaking, for I have no history of mental illness diagnoses, nor have I ever experienced anything like it in the decades that followed.

It all happened in the 1990s. In a place that already feels surreal and otherworldly to begin with.

Of all possible places, it happened in a shopping mall.

Abundant optimism was something you could taste in the air back then. It smelled like bubblegum and stale air-conditioned air and tasted like buttery popcorn. Maybe this is just nostalgia blending with the idiocies of being a teenager, but these are the scents and sights as I remember them back then.

Gentle music underlined by mellow saxophones and sleepy guitars playing in the distance, escalators rolling along at a plodding pace, aesthetically pleasing fountains with their hypnotic water streams, and strategically placed plants that laminated an otherwise cool and heartless architecture, consisting of shiny floors and cubic intersecting spaces occupied by temples of commerce.

The internet was still around the corner, waiting to be discovered on a wide scale, and computers dwelling in blissful isolation of networks stood on display in electronics stores like some sort of technological marvel, even though they chugged and struggled just to spit out pixelated screensavers. While we are at it, try to imagine how almost nobody had a cell phone back then.

Storefronts displayed flashy fashion, an announcement in a melodious voice that I completely ignored echoed from loudspeakers every now and again, and the palette of garish colors and exotic shapes overwhelmed my senses but also always drew me back, luring me to return every week when I had time outside of school and homework.

A texture of voices and motions constantly thrummed in the air, somehow soothing and always vibrant; of many people speaking just loud enough that you could catch a word but never the meaning, and shuffling through these seemingly infinite hallways, in and out of shops, loitering around on benches, or where the smells of ice cream or pizza drew them in like flies to honey.

As much as it was a ritual to visit this wondrous world once a week, my allowance was limited, so I had to save towards certain things and just spent time here with friends, strolling about and admiring things and dreaming of owning items I would never need, but desired, nevertheless.

One of the bookstores at that mall belonged to my personal highlights. Something about the soft carpeted floors that swallowed loud sounds, the muted warm light, the red velvety chairs to sit upon, the rustling of pages, and the smell of freshly printed paperbacks and hardcovers alike, sliding in and out from shelves as people inspected their covers or flipped through their contents.

On that day, my friends and I—because I never went here alone—had already spent hours wandering through the mall, window-shopping, and staring dreamy-eyed at its many meaningless wonders, and our legs were all wobbly from all the walking about.

They had decided to spend the rest of our time at the arcade to get some pizza and play some video games, and I fully intended to rejoin them once I had doubled back to said bookstore to pick up a novel I had been thinking of plunking down my meager cash for.

A rare time and circumstance to be alone here, like this, but there it was. That was when it happened. Creeping and unfathomable, I felt my stomach knot for no apparent reason.

Bought the book I had been eyeing for weeks now, for a collection from the same author I had started reading almost a year ago, eager to uncover the secrets that would unravel once reading it, page by page.

Handing over the cash, hearing that register churn and clink as I received a few coins as change, the smile of the cashier’s friendly beautiful face smiling at me in a rehearsed but pleasant manner. Nothing out of the ordinary. All as it should be.

Yet some inexplicable tension remained even as I exited the bookstore. As always, I felt a little pang of buyer’s remorse, thinking that I might have saved every penny for something better, something more practical. As such, I stopped right outside the entrance to the shop, without apparent reason. Dead in my tracks, pondering if I had done the right thing.

With the water fountains nearby sparkling, people walking past me wrapped up in idle conversation, and the dreamy elevator music reaching my ears, I dug around in the thin plastic bag from the bookstore. Crammed around in it until I found the receipt and looked at it.

And that—that right there was what was wrong.

Only now did I realize how I had bought the book almost blindly. I stared at the flimsy piece of paper and ink in disbelief. The printed symbols on the receipt did not look like numbers or words I could comprehend. Or, hell, like any human being could understand. Just like alien writing that did not belong. The more I stared at it and tried to decipher any meaning, the more my vision blurred and a sharp pain, like a knife sliding right into the back of my head, started to split my skull.

A shopping mall being what it is, you can see motion all around you but just organically tune it out without thinking about it. Something needs to be special or highly unusual to grab your attention, but exactly that happened to me just then.

I saw motion behind me—right behind me—in the reflection of the bookstore’s front window. Eyes. Before I could identify any face to go along with it, the figure melted into the blind spot exactly behind me and only then did I feel a gust of warm breath against the back of my neck.

Terrified, I swiveled and found nobody to be standing immediately behind me. People passing me by gave me funny looks as I kept swiveling, and I am quite sure that I must have looked like I had lost my mind.

When I beheld my reflection in the storefront window again, as if I could possibly see that non-existent mystery person there, something else caught my eye.

The store brand logo on my plastic bag looked different. Similar enough in all key ways to not immediately pay attention: similar shapes, similar color, a typography that resembled the way it should look. But the words were all different. Instead of the name of the bookstore chain, it read, “Look closer.”

Shooting a glance at my bag—not in the window’s reflection but at the actual bag—it looked normal. Just like the logo should, reading the chain’s name as it should. I could feel the blood draining from my face once my gaze wandered back to the window and I could only see that phase again.

Look closer.

The saxophones leading the elevator music in the background seemed to swell while I stared. My own heartbeat in my ears drowned out the idle chatter of any people nearby, and I knew what I had to do.

I stepped up to the storefront window, oblivious to anything on display beyond its glassy surface. Focused only on the reflections, I held up that receipt to it. Sure enough, I could read something on it now, as if the window and its reflections served somehow as a decoding lens.

Look to your right. Step through the exit.

I had to read it multiple times to know I was not dreaming or hallucinating. But I remembered how I could never read in my dreams, and everything else around me just felt and sounded so normal. So real.

The sweet perfume of someone passing me by, the squeak of someone’s sneakers streaking against waxed floors, and a fuzzy something that resisted being compartmentalized into any of the five senses.

Real.

Look to your right, the message read.

As I followed that instruction, I saw the glowing “EXIT” sign, nestled in the wall in between two stores. It looked so unfamiliar in that moment, but also like it perfectly belonged. Had it always been there, and I never paid attention to it? Probably.

Step through the exit, the message had continued. Its words echoed in my mind, riding on the idealized reflection of my own voice.

I looked around but anybody nearby just went about their lives, ignoring me. So, I pushed, and the door emitted a chunky metallic sound as it yielded, letting me enter the fire escape hallway. Another chunky sound accompanied it closing behind me as I entered.

That dreamy texture of mall music and a multitude of people wandering around was muffled by the door, insignificant in comparison to the echoes of my shoes tapping against a rough concrete floor. This hallway in and of itself already felt like another world entirely, one that bled into the world of the shopping mall and vice versa.

Everything was much brighter in here, illuminated by fluorescent tubes running along the entirety of this narrow hallway. A cool air breezed past me as I wandered deeper down its length.

Just like in the fantasy and science-fiction adventure stories I loved so much, I felt like I was fulfilling some sort of prophecy and, hell, my dumb teenaged brain told me that I was born to do this. Meant to do this. Not once did I stop to question the madness of any of this.

Somehow, against all reason, it all made sense.

Yet even as I believed to be feeling the draw of destiny, suffused with purpose, my heart raced. Some other part of me instinctively knew that something was deeply—utterly—wrong.

As I turned a corner, I gazed upon my horrid destination.

A door, covered in black vines with leaves so thin and sharp in definition that they could have been razors. Worms wriggled on the floor around it, near where a crack should be. No handle or knob adorned the portal’s face. But it throbbed with a pulse of its own, out of sync with its own heartbeat. Vein-like tendrils, black, and pulsating, ran from the epicenter of this otherworldly door, entrenched in the wall around it, as if it had infested the plaster like a disease, spreading slowly.

I turned to run, but the lights on the ceiling at the end of the hallway where I had come from now flickered out, dead. One by one, they plunged the hallway into a growing pool of darkness, speeding up as they approached.

Any courage to explore the thin veil between worlds or whatever lay beyond, it now all melted away instantaneously.

Darkness, from which I could hear the mall no longer, and only imagine what things now lurked inside of it.

Or that dark door.

I fled forward. Nearly cried as I scrunched my eyes shut and heard the squelching sounds of things getting squished underneath my shoes, as I felt the delayed burn and sting of many little cuts—like papercuts—flaring up as I pushed against that black door with all my might.

It gave way more easily than I had expected and I stumbled forward into the unknown.

Still blind by own volition, I sensed far softer grounds underfoot, where grass rustled with each of my steps and wind whistled through alien leaves all around me.

When I dared open my eyes again, I found myself in a gloomy clearing, underneath a low, dense canopy of trees, with no door or any mall in sight. Another world. Pink birds chirped with foreign sounds, and insects I never would have dreamed of crawled in the dark dirt between plants.

Panic fully gripped me and dulled my senses to the point where my gaze swept all around me, full circle, multiple times, until I spotted a pair of eyes staring at me from beyond the gloom, swallowed by shadows cast by the foliage. Glowing yellow, and curious. Unblinking and oh-so-hungry.

“Do not look at me,” a hissing whisper came from those eyes.

Though I could see no mouth, I could hear the rows of sharp teeth through which those words traveled to reach my ears.

“Do not look at me,” it repeated. “Or I will eat you alive.”

More than anything, I tried to hold back tears, but they flowed despite my effort.

“I just wanna go home,” I pleaded with Yellow-Eyes.

Although I averted my gaze, I could feel a sinister smile creeping across its face as it replied, now adopting a melodious and mocking tone that seesawed between idle amusement and deadly threat.

“You look like a plump little beanstalk, yet you talk like one of us.”

I looked for places to run, but knew in my heart of hearts that Yellow-Eyes could run faster than I. And that no matter where I ran, I could never hide from such an abomination.

“You are not so pretty yourself, you know,” it said, as if it could read my mind. “But no matter. You fit right in with us. You could carve your own little kingdom from the mountains and the trees here.”

The tree trunks here all looked thick and ancient, yet they presented gaps in between them, wide enough for me to flee through. Not that I harbored any hope of making it. Every time Yellow-Eyes spoke to me again, it crushed every shred of anything even so remotely resembling hope inside its hoary maw.

“But you are afraid, which I understand. I have passed through that same door, before. Of strange steel, and cold, sleek surfaces; where odd squeals travel through the glass to meet my ears and mock me. ‘Open me,’ they screech! ‘Explore the other side,’ they demand.”

To blot out its damnable rambling, I covered my ears, but it was too late. The voice of Yellow-Eyes had entered my mind. I have a hunch as to why, but at the time there was no understanding why I suddenly felt like we were kindred souls, Yellow-Eyes, and me.

Averting my gaze for so long, and with the circle of trees spinning around me as I grew dizzy, I lost track of where this entity prowled. Another gust of warm breath hit the back of my neck, provoking every hair upon it to stand.

“I have glimpsed your world, and you have now glimpsed mine,” said Yellow-Eyes. “I can show you the way back if you invite me across the threshold.”

I wanted to deny it. Turn it down. Its words rang hollow, dripping with venom. In between the lines it spoke, I felt something dark and old and wicked.

“Thus, you need not deal with the things that dwell hither, like the Way King, or the Red Carpenter, or the Unbirthed Paddock-Watcher. The River of Lions, the Green Cairn, or the Castle of Thorns. I could show you such wondrous place, but would you resist their call? Would you survive their grinding teeth, their toxic breath, their maddening words?”

Maddening words Yellow-Eyes provided plenty of already. My heart raced, but those names and those places, they somehow beckoned me. I yearned to explore this world, to uncover its mysteries. It fascinated me as much as it instilled pure dread in my heart.

How alien it all felt, how wrong. Underneath it all, I did just want to go home.

“Please,” I whispered.

That whisper sliced through the air like a blade. The strange forest went silent. All I could hear was Yellow-Eyes breathing, faster. More excited.

I said, “Come with me, across the threshold. Just help me find home.”

That warm breath brushed across the back of my neck again.

“Oh, my pleasure. My leisure. Let us depart with haste, lest the Blighted Sparrow of Shadowy Waters return here to roost and interfere.”

Rubbing the tears from my eyes until my vision had cleared enough to see, the door stood there again—in the middle of the eerie clearing. Worms wriggling beneath it, the solitary door connected to no building, no walls, just wreathed in black vines, as before. Throbbing and pulsating as if alive.

Or had it been there all along? Had Yellow-Eyes hidden it from me somehow?

“Waste no time! Go! Open that door,” Yellow-Eyes hissed, making no effort to sound enticing anymore. Just exuding malice with each syllable.

And I did.

Once more, I cringed at the disgustingly soft grounds where worms squished under my shoes wherever I stepped to near the door, but I kept my eyes wide open this time. I gritted my teeth as I could watch the edges of those bladed leaves, almost translucent, cutting the surface of my exposed skin as I pushed against the door.

A dark void yawned at me from beyond the portal, not a gloomy clearing. I sensed something even worse than Yellow-Eyes, lurking in that deeper shadow. Then it retreated. Fluorescent tubes sprung to life, one by one, and bathed in light a long hallway of white plaster walls and concrete floor before me. I fled inside before the final lights flickered on and despite not hearing any sound to indicate it, passing that threshold of worms and razorblade vines, I knew the door closed behind me on its own.

And with me, this time, traveled Yellow-Eyes.

Greeted again by the chunky sound of the handlebar opening the fire escape door from the narrow hallway, I emerged into the shopping mall again.

Muddy brown discoloration clung to the edges of my sneakers, and I saw tiny streaks of crimson upon the sides of my hands where the leaves had cut me. The bag with my new book drooped lazily from my wrist, but the logo on the plastic looked normal now.

Had it ever appeared otherwise?

Of course, as I wandered through this temple of commerce in a daze, slowly shuffling my way towards the arcade to meet back up with my friends, I questioned my sanity. I wanted to tell them what had just happened, but I also did not want to.

I am surprised I am even telling you, now.

But someone needs to know. Because what you described—it reminded me of this. I can see the signs.

It reminded me that every time I look into the mirror, I see those yellow eyes flash. I see my own lips curl into a sinister smile that it is not my own but inhabits my face against my will. Well, that is not entirely correct, because I did invite Yellow-Eyes along.

And my fascination with the concept of other worlds is not some idle hobby.

It is an obsession.

So, if you know something I do not—if you have an even inkling about how you might cross over, then you need to tell me. Try to remember what exactly you were doing, what time of day, even what you were smelling or thinking. You need to tell me.

Right now.

Because both old Yellow-Eyes and me, we want to return there. See how much has changed in the past decades.

And if you don’t want to talk, well…

Let’s not go there.

—Submitted by Wratts

[imaginariumpod]

For the defense of slowing down: a study of slowness in cinema.

Leisure - Poem by William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows. 

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

 No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

For the defense of slowing down: a study of slowness in cinema. 

This article is one that I have been meaning to write for a while and that is very important to me in a lot of ways, but also I feel like with the amount of people staying at home and who have had to slow down their pace of life one way or another in the past months, it just feels oddly relevant. A lot of people have been forced to ease the pace of their lives, and have had the time, maybe for the first time in years, to spend on things they couldn’t before. People who have been trying to take care of themselves in any way they can, by maybe learning how to cook or bake bread, maybe finally having the time to just take a nap and not feel any guilt because they aren’t productive. 

This might be more personal than usual because I feel like I really do need to put this subject in perspective to myself first, and then in perspective to the general context and climate that is shaping our world. We live in a culture where productivity is valued more than anything, where you are expected to go above and beyond, and to run yourself to the ground in the pursuit of success, of money, of efficiency. If you don't have a side project or four, it might feel like you are a bit of a failure because don’t you know you have to take advantage of every opportunities out there to make a name for yourself ? This hustle culture that is becoming predominant everywhere, but especially in western culture, is definitely a byproduct of capitalism in a way it never have been seen before. You only have to take a look in the self-help section of a bookshop or a library to feel exhausted : The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, or Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done. 

While I think being a hardworking person and trying to be productive in order to achieve your goals, there’s definitely a point where it’s too much for one person to handle, and when this constant stress of needing to be successful all the time and to always go above and beyond what is needed becomes a societal expectation placed on all of us, that’s when it becomes dangerous. There’s a certain climate that is saying that we need to be constantly productive to be valuable to the system, or else, what is the point of you existing. 

And my friends. the only point is you being alive. And being content. and that’s what matters in the end. 

The point isn’t to further a corporation’s agenda, the point isn't to exhaust yourself trying to play the game of a system that is designed to fail you. The point is that, maybe, someday, you wake up a bit earlier than usual, and you drink your tea in a world that is still quiet and peaceful. The point is, maybe that you feel safe, that you feel content, that you feel loved, and you have the time to just breathe. 

And to just be. 

Take a breath. 

So most of my friends know this, but I feel like I need to share this to give my proper perspective on this subject. Before finishing my Bachelor’s degree in Art History, I had previously done two years in architectural design. It seemed like a good idea at the time, it was a creative endeavor that seemed fulfilling and yet also a smart move practically speaking. I wanted to be able to find a job after finishing university, and maybe continuing on to grad school to eventually become an architect. That was the initial plan when I was 20 and started university. Fresh-eyed, full of hope and determination. 

Those two years were a nightmare. 

To sum up really quickly, I was so stressed and anxious, I ended up having constant panic attacks and breakdowns for a whole month, every single day of that month, which made me take the difficult decision to give up on that degree. I had an actual burnout before my 22nd birthday and had to take a full year off to recover from this. 

I think it’s then, that I truly was hit by how dangerous fatigue and exhaustion could end up being, both mentally and physically. How, when pushed by the constant pressure to perform and to catch up to a standard that keeps rising, and to a speed that keeps getting faster and faster, one is bound to crack at some point. The stress and anxiety that this puts on people can easily get to be too much to handle. That year off, being forced to slow down, to reconnect with myself and with who I am and with what I wanted from life  really was one of the most beneficial things to me and I just wanted to give a bit of my story to make you understand where I am personally coming from, when it comes to slowing down, and to slowing the pace of life. Unfortunately, most of us have a story that resembles this in some way shape or form. I know I was incredibly lucky to be able to take that year off, and it's a privilege many of us might not be able to have.

So this is why  I think i can say, that for a lot of us, we are just tired. We are so tired.  I know I am exhausted. Life can just be so tiring, there’s this really fine line between being productive and having an active life and being run to the ground. It’s a fine line that a lot of us thread, and it can get overwhelming very easily.  Indeed, «life has become fast-paced, as people try to live up to these expectations. Yet, while many people might be materially affluent, their quality of life and work-life balance are often unsatisfactory, and potentially lead to stress and burnout (Schor, 1998).»  I feel that especially for the current modern life experience, a lot of us can relate to that, in ways it may not have been felt before in previous generations. Time has always been precious, but it just feels like there’s never enough hours in the day to be able to finish all the things you want to do. 

The luxury of time. Time to do nothing. 

It might seem that we have more time,  but  «that free time is used to cram more activities into the day and to travel further to work». Which means that we are all trying to  manage to do everything at once, whether it’s working, and trying to continue learning, and needing to keep yourself in shape, and to keep your space clean, and also needing to keep a social life, and sleeping well, and etc and etc. It feels like you always have to do this and that and the list of expectations and goals to meet is never ending and constantly adding up. Indeed, «it is not just free time that people desire, but more time for meaningful things».  You are just one person, and there’s only so much one can do before it gets to be too overwhelming. And in those moments, I think it’s important to just. Take a deep breath and Slow down. 

We need rest. we need fulfillment. I think there’s a lot of disenchantment toward modern life, by the dream that have been sold to us since we were young. Just work harder and you’ll make it. Work more hours, do more things, put yourself out there, run yourself ragged to the ground and then you will finally get what you deserve (money ! fame ! success ! love ! Family ! Friends!  ) and yet all we have is exhaustion and stress and anxiety and pain. I think this whole context has made it so that there’s a resurgence lately of an appreciation for  slower media, whether we are talking about movies, books or something else. 

I think it can be really interesting to mention the newest Animal Crossing game (Animal Crossing : New Horizons) that has been played by a lot of people since its release, which has been considered like  «the video game equivalent of a relaxing getaway — and we could all use that kind of respite right now.» Those kind of slower paced games where you have to build your own life and take care of a city, village or, in this case,  island (slow-life simulation games) let players exerce control in their island in a way they feel they might not be able to in their own live. This is a very wholesome game that players can get really engrossed into, and that can provide them with much needed relief and escapism from the troubles of real life, when things get really hard. Those type of games also need you to take things slowly, one step at a time, which I think is very interesting when we think about low-stress sources of entertainment.

 «In this, the game forces you to take it one day at a time. You can bypass this by "time traveling," or setting your Switch system clock ahead of time to advance quicker than the game intends for you to, but this isn't how it's meant to be played. You're supposed to feel a sense of slow, but meaningful progression throughout the course of your island adventure, and artificial time changes take away from that»

I could also mention the growing popularity of the cottagecore aesthetic on various social platforms such as tumblr, Instagram and twitter. While being predominantly a visual and aesthetic trend, cottagecore does reflect a  growing desire by younger people in their teens and early 20s to have simpler and slower life. Dreams of just living in a tiny house, with maybe a vegetable patch, and all of the time in the world to just bask in the sun.  As «[a]n obvious backlash to the hustle culture embodied by Fiverr ads, cottagecore attempts to assuage burnout with a languid enjoyment of life’s mundane tasks.» This aesthetic trend then seems an answer to the growing consumerism and rapid pace of life.

This seems like an unattainable fantasy to most of us, which is why I think a lot of people have been gravitating toward those aesthetics and ways of thinking and living. «It’s a romanticised idea that we could leave behind all the stress and craziness in our lives to go live off-the-grid, where emails can’t reach us and our only task is baking bread or making jam. » I know this isn’t something that everyone longs for, but to me, this sounds like a dream and something that seems like a distant hope. I do wish I could take some time off in a small cottage or mediterranean house, maybe not forever, but maybe spend a few months with the freedom of having the time to myself and using that time the way I desire. Just so one can breathe, reconnect with oneself and have enough energy to keep moving on. «Cottagecore is the perfect escape, it’s soothing and calming but it’s also relatively attainable. Maybe we can’t all go live in a cabin in the woods, wearing nothing but flowy dresses while tending to our garden of wildflowers. But we can learn to cross stitch, we can bake bread, we can buy some watercolours, we can have a picnic in our backyard.»

I am always so anxious about so many things and the only thing I want at any given moment is to have a small house and no responsibilities greater than doing the groceries and watering the plants in my garden. I think that life has gotten very hard and difficult to handle, what with the climate crisis, the political unstableness, the economical unstableness, the rise of the alt-right, and now the whole global pandemic going on, it’s easy to understand why people would feel drawn toward comforting things : « Rebecca Jennings ties a push for coziness in branding (and trends like cottagecore) to the feeling that "things are bad, and people are anxious about whatever ongoing horrors are metabolizing in geopolitics, the environment, and capitalism." »

 I want to be safe financially and fulfilled. I want to have the time and space to do the things I really want to achieve instead of giving my time away to a system that does not care about me.

I want to have the calm of heart that I have lost years ago and that I yearn to regain. 

nostalgia & aesthetic 

There's an aesthetic of nostalgia that is really present in a lot of slow living content and slow media. I don't think ANY of us want to go back in time where things weren’t better for any of us unless you maybe are a white straight cis man, and even then.... In my opinion, slow living and wanting to slow down is not a rejection of technology or modernity in itself, but inherently a rejection of capitalism. You do not have to be productive to be valuable, and to be deserving of happiness, of peace, of love and of dignity. You deserve all of that no matter how useful or not you are to the capitalist system. It’s not about going back to oppressive social norms, but moving forward from them. 

I also feel like slow living brings a self care as deeper than the shallow superficial and capitalist self care that's being sold to us.  I’m not going to deny that it feels nice to do an extensive skincare routine before sleeping, but there’s a lot to be said about a nightly ritual that makes you feel more grounded in yourself and taking care of yourself and the body you inhabit versus the gigantic capitalistic machine that is the Beauty Industry™.  The same way the simple acts of taking of yourself and taking the time to slow down can be a revolutionary act of self-love, they can also be taken advantage of and capitalized on by the huge capitalist industries that use wellness, self-care and self-love as marketing tactics. In our era, it feels simply impossible now to get away from the “treat yourself” campaign. Industries have tapped into the real desire of people to live a more meaningful and happier life by making it mostly into a trend, and not an intentional change to someone’s lifestyle to make it better. 

I am of the opinion that slowing down shouldn’t be a trend, but a very deliberate act taken in order to take care of ourselves, of our mental health and our physical health. I think it’s a very essential need that we have to not feel burnt-out and to not feel trapped and stifled by our own lives, and having the space and energy to pursue our dreams and desires.

 (Not to say the culprit is capitalism … but the culprit is capitalism) (also not to advocate for revolution on a public platform but revolution)

What I mean by slow media, and slowness in media is that content that tends to be more of the slice of life genre. They are peaceful, quiet. Maybe nothing much happens at all, but it rings very true and very real. Those moments of calm are soothing when maybe the rest of my life really is not. The way someone relates to art and media is very personal and can vary a lot, but the escapism that this sort of stories provides and I feel that with the faster pace of life that has become the norm, it might become something that we seek more often than not. 

To me, this sort of media feels like relief. 

slow cinema 

Cinema has long been a medium that is very efficient at communicating epic and grandiose stories. Movies that are jam packed with action and drama and heightened emotions and tension. And while those movies can be very good and entertaining, I think there’s also a place in the world of cinema for movies that are slower. In fact, there’s a distinct genre of movies where the focus is not on a very fast paced plot or extravagant action scenes and dramatic events, but where the importance is placed on the mundane. Where the slow moments of everyday life and the quiet emotions that we all feel take precedence. It’s possible to name filmmakers such as Yasujiro Ozu or Agnes Varda.

 We could also talk about movies such as the Before Trilogy by Richard Linklater (Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), Before Midnight (2013)), where each movie spans a very short period of time and consists entirely of conversations between two people. Those movies are slow, ordinary and yet extraordinary in the sense that it’s two people who have found each other and are speaking and connecting. There’s nothing much that’s happening in those films, and yet it’s impactful. 

The movies made by those directors who tend to favor slower cinema often showcases a simpler plotline, but a more complex emotional arc. They are full of slow and quiet scenes, which makes those movies soothing, calming and nostalgic. 

What is slow cinema though ? in the academic sense, slow cinema is often defined as «a modern cinematic production trend that emphasizes slowness and duration of time» Even though there’s a lot of more contemporary cinematic examples of slow cinema in more experimental movies such as directors Abbas Kiarostami or Tsai Ming Liang whose movies are very much in line with what is slow cinema. When it comes to slow movies, «Flanagan writes that the stylistic features of ‘slow films’ are “the employment of (often extremely) long takes, de-centred and understated modes of storytelling, and a pronounced emphasis on quietude and the everyday,”»  The techniques used in slow-paced movies will often communicate a romanticization of everyday life, of routine, of moments that are quiet and peaceful. 

There’s a lot of emphasis put on the passage of time, whether it’s a slow drag of time, with nothing much to do, the quiet moments that punctuates our daily lives or the years passing by and the plotlines in those movies spanning years, generations and even lifetimes. I think this is one of the reason why this kind of cinema can be really relevant in our times, where we feel that time is a precious commodity that isn’t ours anymore, and where time is filled with the pressure of being constantly productive, slow cinema poses itself as the antithesis of that. 

«Slow Cinema situates itself solidly within art cinema both in aesthetic and methodology: it is defined by authorship that hinges on the representation of reality. It carries with it a disposition towards the consumption of time that forces the audience to labour through and critically engage with the film itself.»

It’s possible to see that this type of cinema is something that’s very sought after lately, as proven by this letterboxd list The Absolute Beauty in Everyday’s Mundanity, which has been liked by a total of 6,092 people at the moment of writing this article (including me). Containing 209 movies that fit into what the list maker considers as being slow movies that showcase the beauty of everyday life, this list demonstrates that there’s a very definite space for movies that have a more deliberate pace and who, instead of trying to heighten the stakes and action constantly, do take the opportunity to just. Slow down. 

An enchanted month. 

Elizabeth Von Arnim (1866-1941) was a english author active during the early 20th century. She wrote both fictional and non-fictional books, and the ones I have read from her are very in this vein of slow living, taking the time to just sit in a garden,  and let time heal you. It's from her book  Enchanted April (1922), which  is one of my favorite books and that I wholeheartedly recommend, that the consequent 1992 movie, released by the BBC, was adapted from. 

                            Von Arnim made a point to give a prevalent place in her books to the spaces where one could feel at ease and free from the constraints dictated by social norms and what people might expect from you :  «In the garden, Elizabeth von Arnim could think, reflect, and distance herself from the oppressions and duties of the highly rigid and strict German culture that she had adopted through her marriage to Count Henning von Arnim. In observing the varying seasons of nature in conjunction with an active pleasure in literature, she perceived the garden as a metaphor of her life in terms of the development of her soul, and in this context, she believed herself to be in "the process of becoming".» I think it’s possible to draw a parallel between the demands of life that are growing increasingly harder to handle. While Von Arnim puts is mostly in relation to the social norms that were in place during the 1920s, it’s possible to see that the desire for slowing down during the 2020s stem mostly from a tiredness of the ultra-capitalistic world we live in. 

The story of Enchanted April starts during a dreary month of march. Grey. Tiring. We have all went through months like these where the responsibilities and list of things to do, and slow drag of the days gets to be unbearable. Mrs Lotty Wilkins sees an a journal advert to rent a castle in Italy for a month, and under the grey drizzling London skies. And she yearns for that moment of respite. Far from her obligations, from her nagging husband and being able to take time for herself for the first time in years. 

Eventually, four immensely different women will end up in this  castle in San Salvatore, Italy, for a whole month. Each of those women have a distinctive purpose in this book, but they all seem to be looking for something similar: an escape from their frantic and boring daily life, a relief from routine, from the lack of connection and intimacy that they feel. In the midst of those charmed italian gardens, you feel like they can finally take a breath, loosen up and rest.

«She moved about with quick, purposeful steps, her long thin body held up straight, her small face, so much puckered at home with effort and fear, smoothed out»

And just reading that, or watching the movie, gives me a similar respite. The sun lits all the shots, the wind blows gently in the tree leaves, and the clothes that are worn are looser, more comfortable. This movie is charming, humorous and delightful. But most of all, it’s slow paced and soothing. You have drawn out scenes where nothing much happens but the moments are peaceful and reassuring. I rewatch it every april, because while I cannot take a month off to spend it in an isolated italian castle, oh god I Yearn So Much For It.

Even though, this story is set during the 1920s, thus being a contemporary story written by Von Arnim, I cannot help but feel that this story is one that is still deeply relevant today, in the 2020s. The thoughts of the characters seems very familiar and relatable : «For Lady Caroline Dester, the process of change is longer, more involved, and more isolated. She approaches San Salvatore with a “dream of thirty restful, silent days, lying unmolested in the sun, getting her feathers smooth again, not being spoken to, not waited on, not grabbed at and monopolized, but just recovering from the fatigue, the deep and melancholy fatigue, of the too much”»

In Enchanted April, this month in Italy is a moment of quiet rest for these four women, bt also a time dedicated to oneself and to introspection.  «Initially, each woman desires to be alone for long stretches of time: Mrs Fisher in her room, Lady Caroline in a chair in the top garden, and Mrs Wilkins and Mrs Arbuthnot in the gardens and hills. Each is free to reflect on her life and begin to have a clearer understanding of herself in relation to others. »   

A late afternoon: 

Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963)  is one of the prominent filmmakers in Japan during the first half of the XXth century. His movies had a very distinct style and technique to them that made his work really unique to himself. A lot of filmmakers tried to replicate or imitate the stylisation of his work, but there was something in Ozu’s work that was very particular to the period of cinema he lived in. He was active from the later half 1920s until his untimely passing on his birthday in 1963. This means he lived through the Second World War as well as through a time of great change and evolution in the world. 

It’s possible to write a hundred pages on Yasujiro Ozu alone because there’s a lot to say about him and his movies, whether it’s about the narrative and the story he chose to portray or the techniques and stylisation that characterize what is an Ozu movie.  I thought it was relevant to mention him when talking about slower movies and slower paced media,  because of the impact that he had on film, especially when it comes to using the medium to tell stories of lost and quiet moments. 

With the increased modernity and a rapidly changing world, Ozu’s films, such as Tokyo Story ( 1953), Late Spring (1949) and Floating Weeds (1959) tried to capture the very modern life he and his contemporary were experiencing and the way they dealt with these changes. Even though Ozu’s movies were particularly specific to a certain period and country, it’s indeed impossible to disassociate Ozu’s movies from the fact that they were made in Japan, and that Ozu went through the pre-war, war and post-war era and continuously made movies during these times. 

Which means that his films do reflect a certain time in Japanese history which makes them incredibly specific and contemporary to the society he lived in. «However, I believe that the film is less about articulating the value of modernity against the challenge of tradition than observing the subtle state whereby the former unknowingly pervades the latter. In this sense, rather than the overt manifestation of free movement outside of the home, the trivial motion inside the confined domesticity are a more essential element in Ozu’s films. In other words, in Ozu, modernity exists within the everyday, a stable flow that undulates but hardly overflows.» Nonetheless, the issues and subjects tackled in those movies, such as intergenerational conflict, the difficulty that people have to catch up with a world with values that are rapidly changing, and modernity. Those problems are a universal experience, but were communicated in a unique lense through Yasujiro Ozu’s movies. 

The focus of most of Ozu’s films is centered around the familial unit, and the conflicts and moments that arise between them as life moves forward. The everyday moments in a world that gets harder to navigate each day. The story of a daughter who is pressured to married, and the dilemma and conflicts between the societal expectations that people have of her, her own wants and needs and also the desire to be able to strike a balance between those two elements. I think that this, while not being necessarily being a universal experience, can still be an incredibly relatable one. 

Once she gets married, she needs to move forward with her life and leaves her widowed father to live alone, which really showcases the simple and universal realities of real life. The plotlines of Ozu’s movies focus on simple and universal conflicts and problems, the stories he tells through those movies are nonetheless things that are universal and. the way he presents them are beautiful, quiet and, most importantly, real. «More broadly, Ozu’s omission of important events also speaks to his interest in the mundane, his desire to uncover the emotional nuances within small talk, daily routines, and other “boring” details of everyday life.» 

There are quiet moments of silence, of rain falling while someone is folding clothes or eating. Laughter and companionships. Tears and pain and love and hurt and all of the very important emotions that compose the human experience.   «the great filmmaker used to evoke a sense of melancholy and poetry in everyday existence.» which is something that truly is a balm to the soul in my own humble opinion. There’s a lot of vulnerability in this slowness, a very real sadness and emotionality that is very raw and yet mundane in its encompassing universality of the human experience.

The stylistic choices that Ozu decides to take all tend toward this one goal of showcasing the quiet movement of life, while hinting at the tumultuous feelings that people might feel, and the world around them. His movies were simple and slow but very meaningful as well. «Ozu’s films often violate the stylistic conventions of mainstream filmmaking. For example, one “rule” in classical Hollywood cinema is that every shot should clearly and obviously advance the narrative. Yet Ozu’s films frequently feature what commentators call “pillow shots” – namely, shots of landscapes, objects, or interiors that have no apparent connection to the protagonists and what they’re doing plotwise.»

His movies focus on the relationships between people and the world they inhabit, and the growing modernity, and also capitalism, of it. «As you’ll quickly come to see, Ozu is hardly a fan of modernity. In films like The Only Son, Late Spring, Late Autumn, and An Autumn Afternoon, he suggests, among other things, that economic modernization has engendered inequality, feelings of alienation, empty consumerism, and the Americanization of Japanese life.» Those feelings of alienation that we currently feel toward our own lives, our own time and our own time are very relevant for us in 2020. While I do think that those movies represent a certain time and a certain context, and you cannot talk about Yasujiro Ozu without really contextualizing both him and his work, I think it can be really relevant to today. Ozu made movies for himself and for the society he lived in  but that doesn't mean that those movies can’t still be important today.

Ozu did impact international cinema, as can be seen for exemple with the movies of Wes Anderson, as seen in this visual essay that compares their body of work.  both narratively and stylistically. I won’t go into more details about Anderson here, because he is  one of my favorite directors and i hope to write an entire article on him soon, but i thought it was relevant to mention this. Most importantly, Yasujiro Ozu left an imprint on  japanese cinema that can still be seen to this day in contemporary movies. I could mention filmmakers such as Naoko Ogigami, with movies such as Rent-a-cat (2012), Close-Knit (2017) and Kamome Diner (2006), all movies that have a decidedly slower pace and kinder vibe to them. Hayao Miyazaki and the movies Studio Ghibli produced also are an example of that slower cinema, but we’ll touch upon this a bit further down the line. 

(rent-a-cat [2012] d. Naoko Ogigami)

a little world of our own 

With this in mind, it’s easy to see that there’s a sub-genre of japanese cinema that really make a concerted effort at incorporating the concepts of slowness in their stories, whether it's the slower pace of the story or actual slow living principles. Those movies often address the fantasy of leaving everything behind (your work, your problems, your issues, your sadness) to go live in a small town or quitting your job to follow your dreams, or simply to feel like your time is yours again. This list on letterboxd which showcases many movies of that genre in japanese cinema (currently 157 movies on date of writing this article) 

A good example of this type of stories would be the duology of  the Little Forest movies, as well as the subsequent korean adaptation in 2018. These movies were both adapted originally from a manga by Daisuke Igarashi.  Little Forest : Summer/Autumn (2014) and Little Forest : Winter/Spring (2015) follow the story of a young woman who leaves her busy city life to go back to her hometown and decides to live in a slower way, taking care of her vegetables and living according to the seasons.  The two movies are infinitely slow, focusing on the main character cooking, resting, eating, and eventually resolving the conflict that she has with her mother. The life she lives in these secluded parts seems uneventful but happy and calm which seems all that she desires. She doesn’t need to contribute to the capitalist system of society to be deserving of being able to live in peace, and this makes her feel less alienated from the world she lives in. 

Spirited away

I also don’t think it’s really possible to mention slower moments of everyday life in cinema without talking about the movies that probably were the first introduction to this for many of us. The movies of Studio Ghibli, with Hayao Miyazaki at the helm of it, are little masterpieces of animation. The movies are intended for a younger audience but can be appreciated by everyone. Studio Ghibli movies are another example of filmmaking that manages to capture this slower pace in media. Between all of the adventures and events that are happening in those movies, there are moments of slowness. Of calm. Of quietness.

As Robert Ebert told to Miyazaki, during an interview with him « I told Miyazaki I love the "gratuitous motion" in his films; instead of every movement being dictated by the story, sometimes people will just sit for a moment, or they will sigh, or look in a running stream, or do something extra, not to advance the story but only to give the sense of time and place and who they are.» Miyazaki proceeded to explain what this concept was for him  «"We have a word for that in Japanese," he said. "It's called ma. Emptiness. It's there intentionally."» Those slow moments between the action are very deliberate, to slow down the story and to slow down the pace. Contrary to the generally accepted school of thought in modern Hollywood cinema, which is that every single scene needs to move the story forward, Miyazaki lets his story and movies breathe. This way of building the story gives it an added sense of calm and soothingness, but also it gives it another sense of realism. Instead of following a strict narrative outline, this fluidity makes the story feel more real and relatable.

Despite being an animated movie set in a very obviously fantastical universe, Studio Ghibli movies tend to be very realistic in the way they portray the characters, their complexity, and also what are the real underlying conflicts. For example, in Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) «The primary conflict isn’t about magic—it’s internal and invisible and wholly human: Kiki’s brief period of lost motivation and artist’s block. She gets it back when she wants to help Tombo, whom she loves. Simple as that. She doesn’t have to wage an epic battle to prove her worth»  The stakes might seem lower in this movie, very mundane and ordinary but I think this is what makes it so special. 

The quiet moments and details that might seem innocuous and useless at first and slower the pace of the movie in itself, are ultimately what gives it this feeling of genuineness. It lets the characters and the plot have the space to evolve and to grow. 

« Although these scenes may seem slow or unimportant, they give space to develop the characters and to heighten dreams or feelings the characters are having such as feelings of isolation, wonder, or anxiety. It is in these moments of stillness that the audience can contemplate with the characters and feel what the characters are feeling. These moments remind the audience the importance of stillness in such a fast paced world and highlights the beauty of a slower paced life»

Studio Ghibli movies insert those slower moments in between more faster paced and action packed scenes but also in the midst of world-changing events such as wars, as shown in Howl’s Moving Castle (2004). This demonstrate how people still live on during those crises, even with the danger looming over their heads. Which is something that I think can be very relevant in today’s time where the past twenty years have been increasingly more unstable and the … few months of 2020 were a Shit Show in itself, if you want my opinion. So this kind of media gives me hope that we can live through this, that moments of happiness and peace are still to be found.

A charmed life

Slower cinema is something that has existed for as long as cinema existed, but I do think that it’s a very current feeling to want to be able to slow down the pace of our lives, and be able to enjoy time in a more meaningful way. Personally, I know life has gotten ridiculously hectic for me in the past two years, and while there’s a lot I always want to be doing and I’m very happy about how my life is coming together, this doesn’t mean that sometimes, it doesn’t feel Very Overwhelming and alienating to constantly feel the need to be productive. What we can bring to the capitalist system isn’t what determine the worth and value of who we are as people. «"As speed is seemingly equated with efficiency and professionalism, however, slowness can become a way of signaling an alternative set of values or a refusal to privilege the workplace over other domains of life.”» I hope to be able to live my life on my own term and to be able to spend time on things that are important to me and feel like my time is my own.

Slow media is everywhere lately, whether it’s in cinema, books, games, but also in a more broader sense with the slow life movements, the minimalist trends, but also a general awareness of sustainability, the amount of mass production and mass consumerism in our modern world. 

In order to sustain that fast pace of constant production of things, you inevitably have to sacrifice on either the quality of the product, the work conditions  or on the materials in order to be able to keep up with the extremely high rhythm sustained by capitalism. It can also be compared to the fast work pace imposed on people who work on the sets of movies or video games for example. I think we all heard of the debacle with the Sonic (2020) movie as well as Cats (2019) and the pressure that was put upon the vfx artists to re-do the movie and complete it extremely fast, which brought poor working conditions on them.

Slowing down is, in my opinion, of the utmost importance for us to be able to live better, but also to be able to do better things. To have better working conditions, to be able to have a better craftsmanship, people having more time to do things and do them better instead of scrambling to constantly catch up to a production rhythm that is just simply way too fast. This ties in with the environmental aspect of slowing down, because if you take more time to make things that are of a better quality and that will last for a long time, there won’t be such a  need for a constant production of those things but unfortunately that’s capitalism Babey. 

a quiet respite

Ultimately, the act of slowing down and taking a stand against the fast pace imposed on us by the constraints of capitalism is a very personal one, but I think it's worth considering. And when it’s not possible to actually slow down, I hope those movies and these slower medias can give you a respite even if life isn’t giving you much of one. I do think that having the opportunity to meaningfully slow down the pace of your life, and taking the time to think, breathe, and reconnect with the more mundane parts of your life can be beneficial, especially when there’s a constant pressure to perform and to excel in this fast-paced modern life.

I just hope we can try to take care of ourselves deeply, connect with ourselves but also with each other. We need time to feel, breathe and actually live and not just beat to the drum of a corporation and of this sadistic capitalist system who will never care for you.  Corporations do not want you to slow down and they want to get your money by any means necessary, which we have obviously witnessed a lot during this Global Pandemic. Which is why I think there's a real pushback against this fast pace of life and the mass consumerism, by slowing down, 

On this note, i hope you appreciated the article, i hope you are taking care of yourself during those hard times and i hope the media you are consuming is something that makes you feel better, and i hope you don't put too much pressure on yourself. 

please just breathe. hopefully it will be okay.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Slow Life & Slow Cinema : 

Matthew Flanagan. 'Slow Cinema': Temporality and Style in Contemporary Art and Experimental Film. University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in October 2012.

ZEESTRATEN, J.  Strolling to the beat of another drum: Living the ‘Slow Life’, Master’s Thesis, Lincoln University, 2008.  <https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e0c6/f533e7d8f9254eddbadc0fe6dbb7d4a5ea8c.pdf > 

SCREENING BOREDOM THE HISTORY AND AESTHETICS OF SLOW CINEMA Orhan Emre Çağlayan. A Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Film Studies University of Kent February 2014

ELSON, Logan. Slow Cinema Modality: Applying Bordwell to Tsai Ming-Liang,  Trent University, JUST, Vol. V, No. 1, 2017

LAVIN, Mathias. Prolonger Ozu, avec Kiarostami, Akerman, Hong Sang-Soo.

FLANAGAN, Matthew. Towards an Aesthetic of Slow in Contemporary Cinema, 16:9, 2020 <http://www.16-9.dk/2008-11/side11_inenglish.htm>

RASSOS, Effie. Everyday Narratives Reconsidering Filmic Temporality and Spectatorial Affect through the Quotidian, A Thesis Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Media, Film and Theatre University of New South Wales August 2005

LETTERBOXD. The Absolute Beauty in Everyday’s Mundanity. Hungkat, 2020. <https://letterboxd.com/kun/list/the-absolute-beauty-in-everydays-mundanity/>

LETTERBOXD. A Slice of Japanese Life. Seraphimjc, 2020.  <https://letterboxd.com/seraphimjc/list/a-slice-of-japanese-life>/

Enchanted April:

BOLLARD, Jennifer Jane. The Felicitous Space of Elizabeth von Arnim,  Master’s Thesis, University of Canterbury Christchurch,  New Zealand,  1995 ,  <https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10092/11887/Bollard_thesis.pdf;sequence=>

VON ARNIM, Elizabeth. Enchanted April,  Waking Lion Press, 2008 (first published 1922)

YOUNG, Katie Elizabeth. More than "Wisteria and Sunshine": The Garden as a Space of Female Introspection and Identity in Elizabeth von Arnim' s The Enchanted April and Vera, Master’s Thesis. Brigham Young University, 2011. < https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4032&context=etd>

Yasujiro Ozu:

The Cinema Cartography,  Yasujirō Ozu - The Depth of Simplicity, Youtube video, 2015 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G7oeyOsfSg>

JOO, Woojeong, The flavour of tofu : Ozu, history and the representation of the everyday. PhD thesis, University of Warwick, 2011.

BETH, Suzanne. Destruction, puissance et limites du cinéma dans les films d'Ozu Yasujirô, Doctorate Thesis, Université de Montréal, 2015.  <https://papyrus.bib.umontreal.ca/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1866/13600/Beth_Suzanne_2015_these.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y>

EMERSON, Andrew.  The Beginner’s Guide: Yasujiro Ozu, Director, The Film Inquiry, 2019

<https://www.filminquiry.com/beginners-guide-yasujiro-ozu/>

Criterion. The Signature Style of Yasujiro Ozu. On film. 2015 <https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3836-the-signature-style-of-yasujiro-ozu>

  Thompson, pp. 19-20, 327-331; David Bordwell, Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 73-74.

CATLEY, Anna. Wes Anderson & Yasujiro Ozu: A Visual Essay, Youtube, 2015.  <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbXRpiVO1po >

Little Forest:

SREEKANDAN, Nikhil , Little Forest: Film Review , The Inkline, 2018. <https://the-inkline.com/2018/06/17/little-forest-film-review/>

https://snackfever.com/blogs/magazine/a-refreshing-cool-breeze-found-in-the-little-forest

Studio Ghibli:

EBERT, Robert. Hayao Miyazaki interview. 2002. <https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/hayao-miyazaki-interview>

The Magic and Artistry of Studio Ghibli’s Films, The Artifice, 2017 <https://the-artifice.com/magic-artistry-studio-ghibli-films/>

JAREMKO-GREENWOLD, Anya. The Low-Stakes Pleasure of Kiki’s Delivery’s Service. on Birth, Movies, Death, 2017. <birthmoviesdeath.com/2017/07/18/the-low-stakes-pleasure-of-kikis-delivery-service>

STEY, George Andrew.. Elements of Realism in Japanese Animation, Master’s Thesis, University of Ohio, 2009. <https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=osu1250700496&disposition=inline>

Cottagecore:

SKELLEY, Jemima. Cottagecore Is the Soothing Online Aesthetic We All Need Right Now, The Latch, 2020. <https://thelatch.com.au/cottagecore-aesthetic/>

HAASCH, Palmer. People online are flocking to 'cottagecore,' an online aesthetic that idealizes agricultural life, to calm their hyper-stimulated nerves, The Insider, 2020. <https://www.insider.com/cottagecore-isolation-aesthetic-tumblr-explained-social-distancing-2020-4>

SLONE, Isabel. Escape Into Cottagecore, Calming Ethos for Our Febrile Moment, New York Times, 2020. < https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/style/cottagecore.html>

animal crossing: 

VINCENT, Britanny. Find fulfillment in Animal Crossing New Horizons' slice-of-life gameplay, CNN underscored., 2020https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/cnn-underscored/animal-crossing-new-horizons-review/index.html

WEBSTER, Andrew. ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS IS A CHILL, CHARMING LIFE SIM THAT PUTS YOU IN CONTROL, The Verge, 2020.  <https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/16/21179238/animal-crossing-new-horizons-review-nintendo-switch-features>

[rpgmgames]

August’s Featured Game: Marinette

DEVELOPER(S): Teal Crown ENGINE: RPG Maker MV GENRE: Horror, Puzzle, Adventure WARNINGS: Sensitive Themes, Blood/Light Gore SUMMARY: A little girl named Marinette, in the wake of a splitting family and a change of homes, is having a birthday. But this, her eleventh birthday, will present a deadly opportunity to fulfill a special promise. On the night before her birthday, she is drawn into a strange realm; an unnatural dollhouse, populated with dolls who are not quite what they seem. A web of strings lying in wait, and threatening to ensnare the poor marionette; warping her perception, and twisting her every move. Will the strings attach, and force her to become an unwilling puppet, or will she escape this surreal web of strings? What will she have to do to avoid the dangers of the dollhouse, and set herself free?

Our Interview With The Dev Team Below The Cut!

Introduce yourself! *Mitty: "Hello, I'm Mitty! Thank you so much for the opportunity to participate in this interview. I'm the main developer of the game and I'm working with a team of friends to make this game a reality. I work mainly on the visuals and programming, and I'll be representing the team, alongside Third! I've been on the community for around two years, even though I tend to not be active very often." *Third: "Hoi, I’m Third! I appreciate you reaching out to interview us. I’m the main composer and writer of Marinette, and I work under Mitty to make the story and soundtrack what we want it to be. I’ve been in the community for little less than Mitt but am even less active in most of my developer discords."

What is your project about? What inspired you to create this game initially? *Mitty: "The game is essentially about a girl that gets trapped inside a dollhouse. A simple concept really can go far ahaha I've always loved themes related to creepy dolls so I wanted to create something related to that. What pushed me initially to start were obviously the inspiration of seeing other devs creating, seeing how far you could go with these engines and create amazing interactive stories, however the huge support from a friend was what made me actually start past the planning and dreaming!" *Third: "Marinette is a story about a little girl becoming entangled in the complicated family and supernatural landscape she finds herself in on her birthday. I enjoy writing short stories about this kind of thing so it’s fantastic to work on a larger project about one of my favorite subjects. My primary inspiration and introduction to this kind of game in general was Pocket Mirror, and I use it the most as a model for how to do certain things. However, I also draw a lot of inspiration from masterpieces like Aria’s Story, Ib, Witch’s House, and Alice Mare."

How long have you been working on your project? *Mitty: "The project has been in the works for around two years now! The first year was mostly planning and right now we are on the right track with the programming and asset creation for the demo, as well as music and sound design for later development. Planning isn't over yet though, especially for the final game." *Third: "I’ve been working on this for almost two years. The soundtrack possessed most of my earlier attention, but now it’s taken a backseat to writing, now that I’m actively writing the scripts for the game now. "

Did any other games or media influence aspects of your project? *Mitty: "Yes! The game has inspirations from plenty of sources, not only strictly RPG Maker Horror games, or games in general for that matter. If I were to mention those, of course games like Ib, The witch's house, Alice Mare, Pocket Mirror, Yume Nikki & .flow, Stray Cat Crossing, Mogeko's games...etc quickly come to mind. When it comes to the aesthetics and visuals, the inspirations come from several different places, including games like Alice Madness Returns, Dofus, Yomawari, The Legend of Mana, Little Nightmares...the list goes on; or other media, like Inu Curry's animation style or video creator nana825763, as well as some anime and music videos. Silent hill is also a huge inspiration for the atmosphere, and hopefully we can pull it off well!" *Third: "My primary inspiration, as I’ve said earlier, is Pocket Mirror, both for its masterful writing and soundtrack. The game’s soundtrack is the main reason I still play piano. Whenever I’m feeling musical, my fingers always hunt out the same kind of haunting, mysterious, and sometimes peaceful and playful melodies that Pocket Mirror is rife with. In the end, our soundtrack is probably going to sound like Pocket Mirror and Aria’s Story’s soundtracks were meshed together. Story wise, commonplace elements in this genre like demons, monsters, mean parents and puzzles that tell the story are commonplace for a reason, and certainly find their way into this one, in their own special way. Every other game I’ve mentioned involves them in some form or another. And young, curious protagonists are also a blast to write and do evil things to and put in difficult, dangerous situations. "

Have you come across any challenges during development? How have you overcome or worked around them? *Mitty: "We surely have! Many of them in different areas ahaha Taking away bug hunting, I am primarily an artist, so programming for me is a secondary thing. Because of this it's easy to get carried away and hard to realise what can and can't be done. I don't want the game to be visually boring if I can make things move and seem alive! The way I'm handling it is programming like an artist: I think in my head what cool things I can do with my art by not having it completely still, and then it's a matter of executing it on the engine. However this comes with a downside. I tend to tweak things a lot, and that takes quite some time, but I honestly think it's worth it ahaha Also I find it hard to start writing, but when I do, I can't stop orz. Other challenges are also finding plot holes. This is fixed with a lot of studying the story, gathering inspiration and talking with the team. I also struggle a bit with communicating with the team, but thankfully they are all very nice and understanding." *Third: "Main challenge is overcoming the sheer weight of how much I have to learn about music and writing in order for this game to be what I want it to be. I’m a perfectionist, and when I care about something, I can’t tolerate it being worse than it could’ve been. Also, writing is getting more and more complicated and there’s more things and details to keep track of so as not to create inconsistencies or plot holes, especially as we try to revise it and make major changes to the story (Mitt will know what I’m talking about). "

Have any aspects of your project changed over time? How does your current project differ from your initial concept? *Mitty: "It changed a lot, not only in terms of the story and writing, but visually too. The basic concept is close to being the same, though. You can check out old posts in the blog where I consider different styles of mapping and such. Actually, don't, please. It's too old...and my writing...oh god." *Third: "The writing has come a long way, but now that we’ve fleshed out and written down much of the backstory, it’s a much more complicated story than what Mitt first showed me when I joined."

What was your team like at the beginning? How did people join the team? If you don’t have a team, do you wish you had one or do you prefer working alone? *Mitty: "Initially it was just me, occasionally having Mia to talk about the story and help develop it. Rindre joined as a voice actress very early on and also helped in other aspects of the game. Then I also talked about it with two friends I know in real life, one helped with organization and the other with some concept art, but they aren't that active anymore, even though I still count them as part of the team (Thank you guys btw if you're reading this). Eventually I met Third, an amazing composer and writer, and I asked him to join in! He brought along a friend who is also an amazing composer and writer, Code, and these two are complete madmen of music and writing and I'm super glad to be working with them, as they are super passionate and it makes me really happy ahaha. Bruno is also a really dedicated composer that is helping with a few tracks as well! Miku and Luccinia are two super talented and kind artists that have also been helping a ton with concept art, and their ideas have certainly improved the game as well. We are welcome to more concept artists, though! More heads, more ideas ahaha Recently we got the voice actresses for a few characters in the game, when we did the auditions, and hopefully soon another friend will jump aboard and help with organization and writing! We are a relatively small team, and sometimes progress goes a bit slowly since we can get busy, but we are all doing our best! I’m glad that I’m not alone. Links for their pages and such can be found on the team section on the blog, go support them if you can!"

What is the best part of developing a game? *Mitty: "For me, personally, I love seeing what my team mates come up with, whether it is music or concept art. I also enjoy the love and support we get, and it makes me excited in the development. As for the creation part, I like programming challenging cutscenes and doing cool things with the assets. Progress updates can also be fun to make when I have the time." *Third: "My favorite part is showing Mitt what I’ve written and composed. Making her happy and excited with my work is extremely fulfilling. "

Do you find yourself playing other RPG Maker games to see what you can do with the engine, or do you prefer to do your own thing? *Mitty: "Oh, yes! Besides being a cool break from programming hell, it helps me make it less of a hell ahaha I like improvising, though, so I think I play RPG Maker games because I enjoy them for the most part." *Third: "Occasionally, not really. I don’t play many games and I’ve played the heck out of the ones I have."

Which character in your game do you relate to the most and why? (Alternatively: Who is your favorite character and why?) *Mitty: "Ah I don't know, honestly. I think I can relate to every character in one way or another, and it's hard picking one, especially since the game isn't out yet and I'd like to keep most characters hidden until the demo. Marinette is definitely one of my favourites, though, I just love how innocent and cute she is. Her cheekiness can be made super interesting ahaha" *Third: "My favorite character is definitely Pierre. He’s a complete blast to write, and gives me lots of cool things to describe and say through him, from his magic tricks to his killer lines and quotes."

Looking back now, is there anything that regret/wish you had done differently? *Mitty: "Hm...Having organized things better in the beginning would have saved a lot of time now, but I don't think it's been that big of a deal anymore. I don't have any regrets that I'm aware of at the moment since everything until this point was necessary to learn and get to where we are now."

Do you plan to explore the game’s universe and characters further in subsequent projects, or leave it as-is? *Mitty: "I'm not sure yet, it depends on the reception and how willing I'll be to continue the story. Even though I would find it fun to make comics, another game or a different midia, realistically I can't tell how willing I'll be to continue developing content about it after the game is finished. Honestly, I hope I can develop more projects on Marinette, we do have content for that, and I absolutely love it with my heart! But it's also equally important to move on to another story. Only time will tell!" Third: "I hope to, but that day is very far away for me. I’ll be gone for quite some time after Marinette is finished, and I hope I’m not forgotten by the time I return. Perhaps I’ll entertain myself with additional short stories exploring the various aftermaths of the game."

What do you most look forward to upon/after the release of a project? *Mitty: "I honestly just want to get the story out there. I'm hoping people will enjoy it if they play the game, and will have a special place in their hearts to keep it on. This project means a lot to me, and having it making people feel things is what I'm looking forward to. I'd love to see other people playing it, definitely. I imagine I'll eventually be relieved to have finally completed it, it'll be a big moment for me to sigh be proud of creating. I'll be able to move on to work on other fun things while I see how this little child of a game is going to do out there in the wild, and that's always nice!" *Third: "Fan reaction, 100%. Having people ask me questions about my work and telling me how much they enjoyed it is my favorite part of writing."

Is there something you’re afraid of concerning the development or the release of your game? *Mitty: "Yes, I don't want to feel empty with nothing to do when I finish the game. I know it will be great and all, but I've been working on it for so long that it's hard to imagine not working on it ahaha! It's a really fun hobby, but it's also engraved in my heart. I want it to be the best it can be, of course, so I'm scared of bugs, inconsistencies and overall it being clearly a bad game. I'm hoping that people will help with critiques on the demo, so I have a better outside perspective of where we are going. I don't want to drop the game, so I'm scared of having to take a long break from it during the development. I'm worried of being a terrible team leader as well." *Third: "I dread plot holes more than anything, and I dread a dull and overall unimpactful story. I want a tale that will punch the viewer in the gut, hard. I want to make them cry. I want to make them laugh. I want them to draw what I wrote, and explore it further in hopefully-not-too-sexual fanfiction."

Do you have any advice for upcoming devs? *Mitty: "Don't be scared to start. You're going to suffer mid-way if it's a long term project, but keep pushing through, you'll learn a lot and it becomes easier with time. Take breaks and take it easy, step by step. LIST STUFF AND MAKE BACKUPS. Learn with short projects first. Ask for advice from people you admire, but never hold them on a pedestal. It’s always helpful to be a jack of all trades! Try to think from an outsider perspective if you're not sure of how it's going, and if you can, tell people you trust about the game and ask for opinions. Always take criticism well, but don't stress too much over harsher or even meaner comments. Have fun and never forget your starts, the people you meet and the reason you're doing the project for. If you're also an artist, writer, musician, remember this is a great opportunity to add something interesting to your portfolio. Cool visuals attract people, but they are not everything that will keep them hooked." *Third: "The best part of making a game is the people you make it with. The story is the most important ingredient of your game. Prioritize it first, and everything else will fall into place around it. Otherwise, everything will serve some other aspect of your game, and that’s rarely a good thing. Always speak your mind; do not every not say something just because it’ll hurt someone’s feelings. Obviously don’t be a tool, but if you ever have to choose between hurting the game and someone’s pride, pick someone’s pride. It’s much kinder in the long run."

Question from last month's featured dev Froach Club: Have you ever had a moment where you got completely stuck or became intensely frustrated while using RPG Maker? *Mitty: "Yes I have, I think everyone has QwQ Despite silly mistakes, I've gotten stuck several times, but honestly it's usually either us doing something stupidly hard that can be done another way, or we are just not skilled enough yet, and it's better to come back later. You can usually do most things you wanna do if you have the advantage of knowing the programming language your RPG Maker Engine uses I think. Google is your friend always, and sleeping about it also helps. I once dreamt of a whole sequence to fix a problem, and it worked! ahaha Always take it easy and don't give up, but know your limits and the limits of the engine!"

We mods would like to thank Teal Crown for agreeing to our interview! We believe that featuring the developer and their creative process is just as important as featuring the final product. Hopefully this Q&A segment has been an entertaining and insightful experience for everyone involved!

Remember to check out Marinette if you haven’t already! See you next month! 

- Mods Gold & Platinum

[purplesurveys]

1014

What snack food could you not live without? I feel like “can’t live without” is pushing it too far, but Pringles is my favorite and I imagine I’d be pretty miserable if they hypothetically suddenly disappear or stop production. Can never get enough of those.

What/where is your favorite restaurant? And what do they specialize in? Yabu. It’s Japanese, but they mainly specialize in katsu so they don’t have sushi or ramen or sukiyaki or other types of Japanese food. I haven’t had my usual since February or March, so I can’t waaaait until I can finally order for myself.

How do you waste time when you are procrastinating? Looking for anything I can watch on YouTube. Once I’ve found a video it usually is able to send me into a black hole of other videos, so it’s been quite the effective way to avoid tasks or things I’m worrying about.

Do you follow any celebrities on social media? Who? I don’t, honestly. I never understood it about myself lol; I’m fascinated by a number of celebrities but the idea of being constantly updated about their personal lives just never seemed appealing to me. I guess I just like them for what they do and the celebrity that comes with it. The only one I follow on Twitter is Hayley Williams.

Who do you admire for what they have accomplished? Probably Arlan. Dude had like 10 orgs while in college, was in the college student council, and he got accepted to Columbia’s graduate program for journalism for the next school year. Idek how he even finds the time to sleep.

Would you like if you never had to work again? Lately I’ve been learning about myself that work gives me a sense of purpose, so even if I was offered all the money in the world, I’d take it but I would still want to work (assuming I’m in a job I like and care about). I never want to go back to how shitty I felt in September when I was neither studying nor working.

Are you a big sports fan? What team and sports? I like watching basketball and volleyball games, but only the ones played in our local university league – that said, I obviously root for my school lol. I like pro wrestling too, but they don’t work in teams.

Do you believe in following your dreams? Yes, but the way there is vastly different for everyone in that some people may have the connections and resources early on, while some will have to work and claw a little harder. The playing field isn’t always level, unfortunately.

Do you like to play board games? They’re fine, but I typically prefer to watch from the sidelines mostly because I’m terrible at following instructions and retaining them in my head as I play.

What were your favorites games as a kid? Does it have to be board games? I played outside way more often and my favorites were patintero, 10-20, and a game we called ‘ice ice water,’ which is really just freeze tag. I also liked pick-up sticks.

Would you like to be a “stay at home” mom or dad? I dunno if I would enjoy that, honestly. Like I said, I like the idea of working as it makes me feel productive...but who knows? I’m only 22, literally a fresh graduate, I don’t have kids, and it’s a long way before I can possibly become a mom. But my priorities could always change; I could wind up being a mom who is content with being a housewife. I really have no clue, and I’ll never know until I get there.

How are your “direction skills” when you are driving? Yeah, they’re nonexistent. I need Waze all the time if I’m the one driving, even if it’s going to a place I routinely travel to.

Do you need to be in charge or are you happy to let someone else take charge? It depends on how confident or familiar I am with the task at hand. I can handle being either a leader or a follower; but I do think that, for all tasks I’m involved in, I do like to help call the shots and decide on things on some level, no matter how little it is. I never just follow, if that makes sense.

Would you rather “talk it out” or “let it go” and hope it’s forgotten about? Talk it out. Communication is really important to me.

What celebrity have others told you that you look like? Anna Akana and Lucy Hale.

Do you like to dance? What kind do you enjoy the most? Only either when I’m alone or have had a lot to drink. I don’t actually know any types of dance.

Do you feel anxious right now? Eh, not really. I’m a little sad, but getting out of bed to sit at my desk has slightly fixed that for the meantime.

Do you like to eat breakfast for dinner? What are your faves? Sometimes my dad will make breakfast food for dinner, yeah. I’m never enthusiastic about it lol, but I don’t complain.

Do you feel like you will ever have enough money to make you happy? Sure, I think so. I know I definitely don’t want to end up being extremely selfish about money.

What is more appealing to you: a pub crawl or a wine tasting? Pub crawl, for sure. I hate wine anyway.

What classes or courses would you take to learn more about? International relations, biology, and anthropology.

Would you ever get a tattoo? What kind would you get? Idk if I would ever get one, but one of my ideas is to have Paramore’s lyrics “For all the joy that is to come / Just let the pain remind you hearts can heal” on my wrist, kinda like as a reminder that there are brighter days ahead. That’s not the correct sequence of lyrics, but combining those lines together was what spoke to me the most. 

How much time do you spend working out a week? (you can fib a little) I don’t work out.

Do you dress up for Halloween? What was your best costume? Only if my friends have something planned. I’ve mentioned this several times lately but my personal favorite costume was going as my old best friend, Sofie. It was so low-effort but everyone understood who I was and had a kick out of it.

How often do you like to shop online? I never really did it regularly before since I had been on a tight allowance throughout college, but now that I’m earning on my own I could see myself ordering stuff online 1-2 times a month.

Have you ever spent time “online dating?” No. I had Tinder before, but just to people-watch. Still not interested in it now.

Do you ever hang out with your parents? How about your siblings? No. We don’t do one-on-one bonding; we’re all emotionally unequipped for that lol. I hate that I missed out on family things like that; and my future kid/s is/are definitely getting a lot of solo dates with me.

What is the number one way that you like to spend your time? Probably going on YouTube. There’s always something to watch over there.

Is it easy or hard for you to be lazy all day? Easy for the most part, but if I know I have work to do I also like getting my ass up to wrap that up as quickly as I can.

How similar are you to your zodiac sign characteristics? Based on what’s been shoved down my throat from social media, Tauruses  love their food, hold grudges, are fiercely loyal, resistant to change, and annoyingly stubborn. Those things are all me.

What are you addicted to? I don’t have any addictions.

What is the last song that you saved to your playlist? Haven’t been using my playlists lately.

If you could listen to only one artist, who would that be? Paramore.

Who would you like to be president right now? We have a dictator of a president at the moment and the list of potential candidates for 2022 isn’t looking too great either, so...who the fuck knows. I’m hoping someone capable – and someone preferably younger – steps up to take the challenge before 2022. I look forward to the day we take to the streets to celebrate the same way America did today.

Were you popular in school? I mean in high school I was kinda on the radar, but I still liked staying at the sides and let my more popular friends take the spotlight. Besides, I was already linked with Gabie and I didn’t want teachers and staff to be on our asses. 

What is your favorite place that you have ever visited? Locally, Sagada. Outside of the country, probably Shanghai.

What places do you want to travel to before you get too old? Ideally I’d want to travel to as many countries as I can, to be honest. Doesn’t matter where. But if I can only afford to do so a handful of times, I’d spend that money on Morocco, India, Thailand, Egypt, South Korea, Iceland, Peru, and Spain (and then maybe go on a European road trip from there).

What is the perfect work schedule that you would love? I’m happy with my current 9-6 shift.

What was the best party that you have ever been to? Rita’s sister’s org’s Halloween party from last year.

Did school come easy for you or was it hard? High school was easy, but I purposely didn’t put much effort into it. I didn’t see the point, considering a) teachers have their established favorite students early on and I knew I wasn’t one of them and no matter how well I did I knew I wasn’t going to get recognized, and b) workplaces could not care less about your high school record. College was also easy, and I found balancing my academics, org life, and social life to be fun and fulfilling.

What language do you enjoy listening to? English or Filipino.

Would you take the time to learn a new language? Sure. I’ve done that with Spanish and Korean before.

If you had a personal assistant, what would you have them do? Make them do the phone calls whenever I would have to at work.

Who is the funniest person that you know? I have several people in mind, honestly - Andi, Kate, Jum, Aya, JM, Hans.

Who is the worst pain in the ass that you know? My mom. Sometimes Cooper.

Whose life do you look to as a “model” of what you would like yours to ultimately look like? Anna, one of the moms from the Korean reality show I watch. Her amazing attitude towards life, her parenting skills, cooking skills, aesthetic, and overall life is all I want.

How much money do you save from your paycheck? I have no idea how to budget yet. AAAHHHHHHHHH

Which is a stronger emotion, fear or joy? I think both can be felt strongly.

What types of people do you follow on social media? Athletes, Influencers? Mostly irl people. The only famous people I follow are AJ Mendez (though she’ll always be AJ Lee to me) and Hayley, like I said. OH WAIT I also follow the entire GMM crew! Idk why I missed that.

Would you ever like to work remotely and travel? That’d be nice, sure.

When were you the poorest that you have ever been? Quarantine.

[blessuswithblogs]

The Best Games of the Decade, By My Estimations

With only a good month (ACTUALLY LIKE A GOOD 24 HOURS HA HA I WROTE THIS BACK IN NOVEMBER) or so left of the 2010s (we are regrettably not quite far along enough to really start giving them jaunty names like "the Roaring Twenties" yet, but soon we will be free of this chronological no man's land) I find my thoughts turning to my enduring hobby slash interest slash everlasting shame: video games. While a decade is ultimately a fairly arbitrary point of reference, in the business of video gamesdom, ten years is a small eternity and some very significant games have graced us since the clock struck midnight on January 1st, 2010.

 I might still be too young for this kind of nostalgia, granted, but I can't help but think about the game experiences I've had in the last ten years that have been altogether Important to Me. I am less interested in ranking these titles than I am in exploring why they made such an impact on me, and why, if we were to borrow the esteemed verbiage of one Sid Meyer, they stood the test of time. ...or less so, if they came out more recently. Sometimes on these lists I sort of scrimp and scrabble to actually fill it up with enough games and I have to sort of cheat and put things on there I haven't really played, but fortunately I am not so destitute that I have only been able to play one new game a year since this decade began. To that end, this is more of a personal list than usual, that will have less to do with "well the game was kind of a Big Deal........" and more to do with "well the game was kind of a Big Deal to ME."

Dark Souls The First:

This game will likely find its way onto many such lists in the coming days, because it is such a singular thing. Honestly, I would put Demon's Souls on here too, but that was actually like. 2009ish? At any rate, its spiritual successor was a marked improvement in most ways, expanding upon the core design tenets that made the unassuming FROM software ps3 title such an unexpected success: deliberate gameplay that demanded players go slow and respect both enemies and environment until they were sufficiently skilled and experienced, boss fights against extremely memorable monsters and also sometimes trees, strange asynchronous multiplayer that worked in spite of itself, and a meticulously designed world filled with oddities, grotesqueries, mysteries, and tragedies. Dark Souls was a phenomenon. "The Dark Souls of _____" is dig at gormless games journalists that endures and is relevant to this day. It created a whole subgenre that remains fairly untapped because of how much of a gamble it is to really go in on what made Dark Souls good in a game without that kind of name recognition and marketing blitz, and it changed the way the zeitgeist thought about video games in a lot of ways.

Inscrutability is an incredibly important part of the Souls experience. Abandon all hope of transparency, ye who enter here, because you're not getting it. The games were designed with the intent of being a sort of collaborative community puzzle, where players who stumbled on secrets and treasures in the game could leave down messages for others to alert them to hidden prizes - or just try to bait somebody to jump down a bottomless pit. Patches does that. A lot. It's kind of this thing. There is a very specific mood and atmosphere that Miyazaki and company were going for with these games that creates a sort of artistic catch-all for complaints I would level at basically anything else. "These weapons are poorly balanced." Yep. It's not really trying to be balanced. "Half of these systems are unexplained and nonsensical." Oh boy are they ever. "A giant man-sized baby just invaded my world and tried to kill me with a ladle." Yes, yes he did. The bizarre, fever dream ambiance of Dark Souls is enhanced by all of this. It will put a lot of people off and I can't really say "oh you just don't get it." because like no in any other game this would be bullshit nonsense for idiots. Souls just kind of makes it work by being compellingly baffling.

This murkiness also serves to highlight one of the core conceits of the game: the simple joy of greater mastery. Dark Souls starts you out with very little. You have nothing, know nothing, are nothing, and all the npcs you meet are pretty sure you're going to fuck off and die pretty much as soon as you break line of sight. On your first time through, that's probably true, too. The skeletons in the graveyard are infamous. As you claw your way through the game, as you learn more about it, you start to see measurable progress getting made. What was once a bunch of very tired men in armor giving you unsettlingly sinister laughs is now the outline of a story, vague but extant, with more waiting to be discovered. Where you used to flail around and die to random hollows in the undead burg, now you dance circles around them and paste them in one or two hits with your fancy weapons (or enormous wooden club, depending). A world that was once borderline impossible to actually traverse gradually opens up and becomes more familiar. In Dark Souls, death serves a purpose, and that purpose is not actually to block your progress. Its purpose is to get you to learn the game and get better at it. It's actually very player empowering in a way a lot of 'press F to pay respects' theme park rides are not. I'm probably treading a very thin line between thoughtful analysis (ha) and "you cheated not only the game, but yourself." here, but I'm going to stand firm in my belief that the way Souls games endeavor to make you improve yourself over time is a legitimate and meritorious way to design a game.

Of course, Dark Souls the First is very rough around the edges in spots. The second half of the game is somewhat infamous for being unpolished and kind of slapdash. The online was questionable, the PC port was laughable until the community went in and fixed it, Lost Izalith is a whole fucking thing, the works. The fact that it's so good in spite of the rough spots is, I think, what made it such a singular game. I'm one of those hopelessly sentimental idiot bitches who thinks that things that are imperfect are kind of charming and compelling in ways that very cookie cutter, by the book, technically competent but aesthetically bankrupt things are not. Miyazaki had a vision when he made this game, and that vision created an enduring legacy. That's worthy of respect in a way not many games are. It's messy and flawed but those flaws are just kind of endearing because they're proof that the developers were trying to push boundaries and be ambitious and make something new and interesting.

Dark Souls The Second:

Dark Souls 2 has a kind of weird reputation in the online net-o-sphere. There are as many opinions about this game as there are people who have played it. Sometimes more, honestly. I spent a lot of time kind of convinced it wasn't that good until some things clicked and I realized it was HELLA good. That you kind of need the DLC to get the whole picture is... unfortunate, but such is the age we live in. Going into this game, I thought that a second Dark Souls was unnecessary. The first had ended satisfactorily, and I had no desire to see FROM get tied down to the world of Lordran. The quote B Team unquote that developed 2 seemed to agree with me, and created what is one of the most metacognitive games I have ever played. Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. When I say metacognitive, I do not mean it in the usual facile sense of, say, whatever Jonathan Blow has churned out recently that beats you over the head with the fact that you're playing a video game and you should probably feel bad about it or the way Doki Doki Literature Club does the Epic Subversions! of visual novels by trying to convince you that the game knows it is a game, but failing because it cannot overcome the limitations that it has as a static, unchanging lump of code. Dark Souls 2 aims higher. And you know me - I always try to aim high.

Dark Souls 2 deals with cycles. Most notably, cycles of futility. Cycles that are so enduring and perpetual that it matters not how you choose to resolve it, it will simply keep going no matter what you do. Drangleic is a hollow simulacrum of Lordran - and that is exactly the point. The familiarity and design consistencies between the two games is intentional. The curse of life is the curse of want. It took me a long time to really understand what Dark Souls 2 meant by that. The World of Dark Souls 2 is a sort of unending purgatory. Thousands upon thousands of undead have made the journey, linked the fire, perhaps chose to become the Dark Lord instead, only for some other undying fool to go and light it anyway. Each time, a new order is built upon the bones of the old, and in time, joins its forebears in the ashes of history. When I beat the game the first time and felt that the ending was unsatisfying, I failed to realize that was, again, the point. If the game had shipped with all endings in it, I think I would have been less miffed, but, well, the curse of life is the curse of downloadable content. If you choose to take the throne, link the fire, you have essentially accomplished nothing. Another age of Fire will begin, and then end, and so on and on into the ages, an unending litany of suffering and violence, because people cannot let go of what once was. They seek and scrabble to claim scraps of glory in a systemic nightmare of self-fulfilling prophecies and false dichotomies. When Aldia eventually arrives with the DLC packs, things really start to take shape.

Dark Souls 2 is a commentary on itself. An admission of the futility of trying to recapture the unique spark of the first game, and the necessity of doing something -different-. The playerbase hated it on release. It was both not enough like the first game and too much like the first game. It wasn't like, reviewbombing on metacritic hate, but the consensus rapidly became that 2 was just worse than the first game and kind of a bummer, a half-hearted cashgrab by a "B Team" while the really talented developers worked on Bloodborne. So, basically, they proved 2's central thesis completely correct. A hollow cycle of just repeating and iterating on what has come before serves nobody. In the words of Straid of Olaphis, "it is all a curse." That is the true curse in Dark Souls 2. An undead might link the fire to try and preserve their fading sense of self and memory, but it is but a temporary measure, a prolonging of greater suffering by bowing to an order designed to oppress. Before the Ringed City was ever a thing, Agdyne and Vendrick were here telling us about how Gwyn was so covetous of his own perceived right to rule that he cursed all of humankind into a twisted state of mutually exclusive ideas. Die as a mortal in the flame, or endure as an undead husk in the darkness, bereft of heart and soul. Or... does it even matter? All of this has happened before. It will all happen again.

Those who slave away eternally under this paradigm are doomed to never find peace or fulfillment, because it was not designed that way. Gwyn's fear was so great that he got entangled in his own karmic vortex, reincarnating over and over again with his other lord friends in slightly different forms and circumstances that would continue, eternally, to make the same mistakes in the pursuit of the same misguided goals. Aldia, the Scholar of the First Sin, is presented as one of the few beings in this entire misbegotten affair with an inkling of what is really going on. Both he and Vendrick knew that Drangleic was destined for the same dreg heap as every other civilization built upon the power of the soul, but all of their efforts to prevent this fall were for naught, because they were all confined by the same twisted system in which there can be no change or joy. It is only after Vendrick loses his nerve entirely and fades away into a mindless hollow and Aldia loses everything in his increasingly unhinged and ethically questionable experiments that he realizes that they were doing it all wrong.

I think I've probably gone on too long at this point so I'll try to be brief: the "true" ending of the game, made available after all 3 DLCs were released, involves gathering the power of truly mighty souls in a crown and using them as a sort of... loophole. The empowered crown does not cure the curse of undeath. What it does is prevent -hollowing-. The degradation of heart and mind. And after the final battle, you leave the throne behind. But there is a very important difference here from the Dark Lord ending of the first game. By finding this loophole, and rejecting Gwyn's order entirely, you and you alone have broken free from the endless cycle of suffering, and by doing so, perhaps gained the knowledge necessary to take the first steps into forging a new path entirely. Beyond the reach of Light, beyond the scope of Dark.

So yeah basically it's like Dark Souls the First, with some improvements and changes and what have you, so it's got the same fun to play deliberate explorey dark holey kind of thing going on, it just takes the concepts and runs with it to places I never would have expected a game to ever go. It is legitimately one of the only metanarratively aware games I have played (that I can remember, anyway) that sticks the landing, because it is not obnoxiously explicit about it. Undertale was fun and a worthwhile game by any reasonable metric, but it falls into the same trap as all the others: when you are acknowledged as the player of a game in anything more than a briefly comedic bit of 4th wall breaking, any hope of cleverness or thoughtfulness goes out the window, because it brings to light an ironclad truth of the medium: you, the player, are just as constrained in what you can do as the NPCs in the game, who are also fake. When they start haranguing you about about brotherkilling or being a cheating visual novel boyfriend or possibly girlfriend or what have you, it's just. Meaningless. It is a contrivance of the developer, specifically included in the game as a programmed possibility designed to be experienced.

Dark Souls 2 gets around this by not engaging with the player on that level of metanarrative. It deals much more in metaphor and allegory. It's not, like, especially subtle, but it is subtle enough to let your mind draw parallels without immediately blaring at you in comic sans "THIS IS A VIDEO GAME, KID" and taking you out of it entirely. It's a fine line to walk. A barrier between worlds has to be maintained for these stories to work. I'm the kind of player who will never do a renegade run of Mass Effect because I hate being mean and nasty for no reason, even to bits of code in a game, because I try to engage with it all in good faith and do my best to let myself buy into the illusion that these bits of code are characters with thoughts and feelings. When an angry flower man pops up and says "OOHOOHOO LOOKS LIKE YOU JUST RELOADED THE GAME BECAUSE YOU KILLED SOMEBODY" my first thought isn't "wow fucked up..." it's "oh well there goes my suspension of disbelief" because like. If you're going to call me out on that then fuck I can just go into the code and make you say "there is a frightful hobgoblin haunting europe, and its name is ligma" and like. Yep. Bow before my mastery. I guess. I don't want to get into a slapfight like that with Toby Fox. He seems like a nice person.

I don't know maybe this is just something unique to me, and other people can deal with these stories without immediately becoming depressed by the deeply artificial nature of it all. It's complicated. I will say that I like Undertale a lot, but the reasons that I like it come very much from the character interactions, spritework, and music, and not the time Flowey closed my game. It's just the same pony island bullshit as its always been. "OooOOoOOoh uninstall the game or you're actually just going back and messing with events for your own perverse satisfactionNNNnNNnN" fuck off dipshit it's all fake garbage for idiot children and I am not causing a cartoon skeleton existential agony by considering that maybe I could play this fun game that I liked and payed cash dollars for again. Now, all this considered, my next game on the list might be surprising...

Nier: Automata

Okay so let's just get this out of the way. Nier does a very famous thing at the end when you get the true ending where you are given the choice to forfeit your saved data in order to help another player get past the final boss, which is... the credits. So how is this different? Well, for one thing, it's not like the central narrative conceit of the game. The sexy android psychodrama functions perfectly well without it. It's kind of its own thing. It's... an expression of hope, kind of. An admission that you -care- about the fates of these characters, in spite of being bits of code, because their personalities and their world and the way they interact are all compelling and endearing, and you would give up something of tangible worth and importance to maybe give them a chance for a better outcome in somebody else's game, too. It's a very strange thing that I can think of no real equivalent for. You even get to put a little personalized message on the extra shmup ship you send over to help some other player get through to the end. It's an act that... kind of exists outside of the story, but also kind of in it. I think the important thing here is that the conceit is that you are making this sacrifice to help somebody else, not because a small goat child said something Foreboding. It's a confirmation that if a game makes you feel things, makes you think, maybe it wasn't just a waste of time.

So enough about that. What about like the other 99% of the game? A lot of people in my peer group are super sweet on the original Nier: Gestalt game. I played through it. It was... okay. Like it absolutely had very charming characters and story and all of that but it was just kind of a slog to play through and I kind of wished the entire game was just that segment where you're playing a text adventure. Automata continues to have very charming characters and story and all of that, but it also actually like. It's fun? To hit the buttons? Like, that Platinum pedigree isn't just for show. It's not the most technical game they've ever made, but it's fun and varied (shmups! shmups!) and there's some fun character customization and you even have a self-destruct switch which is always hilarious. The real attraction is the narrative, visuals, and gorgeous music, but it's also just a solid swordswingy dodgy robot smashy time irrespective of that. So like. Yeah.

The story and characters are very interesting and well done and goes to some very dark and uncomfortable places sometimes about the nature of memory, artificial intelligence, the often arbitrary labels we give ourselves, and the implications of sexy robot men with no junk. The nice thing about Nier Automata is that the events in game are fairly straightforward and relayed in a way that people who don't compulsively watch lore videos can understand without too much difficulty, so I don't really need to go into a detailed summary of why it's genius because of tHe AlLeGoRy. It kind of speaks for itself, for the most part. Does 9S want to fuck 2B or destroy 2B? Maybe some other verb entirely! We may never know. Well, I do know. He wants to fuck her. That is obvious. But it does not preclude the other, which is a salient and disconcerting point the game tries to make with that whole sequence. 9S has really had a rough time of it, you know? All that stuff in his own game and then he pops up on the First only to get his face caved in by the Warrior of Darkness. Rotten luck.

Basically, Yoko Taro sets out to say some things with his strange brainchild about androids with very big butts, but when you think about it, the attractiveness of the YorHa androids is also kind of a statement, too. If you're building something in your image, wouldn't you want to make it as sexy as possible? I would. Like, if you could make your machine children smoking hot, why wouldn't you? It's only polite. Nobody wants to be an ugly robot. Maybe the machine lifeforms would be having a better time of it all if they weren't put in categories like "short stubby." Anyway. Saying things. He says things. The game is thought provoking and evocative and at times very very sad. I love to cry. More on that later. I feel like I'm coming up a little short on this after my small dissertation on Dark Souls 2, but sometimes you need to fuckin. Get that kind of thing off your chest. Automata is challenging, but not Souls 2 challenging, where you kind of have to look in all the nooks and crannies and paid DLC packs to really get what it's trying to say. Though I think you fight the president of Square Enix in one of the Nier DLCs. That's pretty intellectually formidable.

Bloodborne:

It is no secret that I love the Bloodborne. It's very fun, very tight, usually works right most of the time, blood vials are shit but what can you do, and is one of the most visually arresting games like, ever. Ever ever. Behold! A Paleblood Sky! indeed. It's got the Souls pedigree to make combat fun and challenging, but its also very squishy and visceral and kind of grody in a good way because it ties in heavily to the themes of what really separates people from "beasts" and how more often than not we're just fooling ourselves. We're all rancid beasts. Hunger makes monsters of us all. It is this thematic strength, and the uncommon aplomb with which the game takes a hard left turn into "wait what the fuck???" town, that I regard it so highly. It's a game with a lot to say, especially about our narrow view of "intelligence" and the imagined "right" it grants us to subjugate and victimize those we deem inferior. The Victorian setting is no accident - a lot of the horror in the game draws heavily from classic colonialist sentiment and the erroneous conviction that all things are there for the benefit of Mankind (Glory to them, see previous) that commonly defines that era. Also that architecture is some spooky shit I tell you what. Even when there isn't a large spider man with a brain for a head hanging off of it. There are those, in this game, by the way. You thought you were gonna deal with werewolves? Bitch your eyes have yet to open, strap the fuck in.

Bloodborne is the coveted "what a twist!" game I so laboriously search for. A game that expertly leads you to believe some things, then gradually shows you that you are a fucking wrong idiot baby and now there are mushroom men from mars running around casting magic missile at you. It gets this right in part because the clues were there all along, if you bothered to search for them. The first part of the game is fairly expected of what the promo material was all about, save for some weirdness with dreams and cryptic mutterings of "Paleblood." Then, you know, some shit starts getting wacky. You start running into giantass monster men clad in the trappings of the church. The NPCs you talk to start becoming more and more unhinged. Sometimes you will be randomly lifted bodily into the air and die and it is fucking alarming the first time I tell you what. Strange men with bags start appearing in random spots, and if they kill you, they don't actually kill you - they put you in the bag and kidnap you, the only way to reach a certain area of the game early. This hidden area is filled with more bagmen and some very angry giant pigs, because those are in this game too. Then you finally enter the big cathedral at the center of town and its lined with really odd looking statues of aliens and you touch a weird skull and you get a vision from the Mothercrystal about how to progress, and you tell the password to the gatekeeper, and he's like "ok cool get in here" but actually he is a fucking dessicated corpse and this isn't Dark Souls there ain't no undead here. Maybe. Are there?

Then you get into the Forbidden Woods and there are like, the weird mushroom men, if you go looking for them, and snakes, and really BIG snakes, and men who are made out of snakes and kind of give you weird nostalgic memories of Resident Evil 4 and the las plagas sphagetti heads. And there are more statues and giant fucking gravestones? That are really unnerving? And also if you went poking around you might have also met Patches again, who is back, but also a spider, and he'll show you how to get into college, except the college is in a nightmare and full of slime people, which is actually pretty normal now that I think about it, and then you can go out into ANOTHER nightmare, which is just another obnoxious poison swamp but the winter lanterns live there and those things are a fucking trip. Anyway you get to Bergynwerth eventually and there are weird insect guys and weird disheveled looking fellas that literally eat your brains if they get close and this awful npc hunter (the real horror of the night i tell you what) who casts fucking megaflare and you FINALLY get to the center of it all and jump into the lake except it's not the lake, it's actually like a fucking pocket dimension and there's just a big spider chilling out. You have to kill it to progress. And then when you do things just REALLY go to hell. And this is to say nothing of the Old Hunters DLC. This game is a fucking nightmare and it's great. Easily one of the scariest games ever made, genuinely frightening and weird and it doesn't just lose its edge when you realize the monster is a big goofy man with a flappy jaw. You are the monster, and that monster is a tiny squid baby. You're a squid now! Because you ate umbilical cords! Why!? I DON'T KNOW! INSIGHT, MOTHERFUCKER!

So what I just described is probably sounding completely absurd, random, and borderline early 2000s era monkeycheese style humor, but you gotta believe me, it is only absurd. It's actually very deliberately absurd. A lot of people will say that Bloodborne is one of the only games to get Lovecraft right, but I have actually read some of that dreck and I will say Bloodborne really only shares some aesthetic DNA and nomenclature with the racist tentacle man who ate nothing but canned beans. The themes are actually very different. Lovecraft wrote of a paradoxical contradictory world where Unspeakable Elder Things lurked behind every shadow, ready to emerge and destroy everything, but they were also very apathetic and noncommital about the whole thing. They didn't actually care that much either way, but they were still Bad, because they were weird and alien and inimicable to human life because of that foreign aspect. Like Nyarlathotep was originally envisioned as a travelling black guy who would go from town to town and show people some awesome inventions and shit and that was supposed to be evil. The dude's neuroses about race permeated -everything- he wrote.

On the other hand, Bloodborne takes a different tack. One of the central theses of the game is that the Great Ones are -not- evil. In fact, they're rather sympathetic by nature and will do what they can to help, if asked. The horror of the game comes not from the actions of the alien monstrosities who are actually nicer than most of the humans, but from what the human characters do in the pursuit of knowledge and power. Atrocities are committed by the dozen in some vague pursuit of higher understanding, against both the citizens of Yharnam and the supposed cosmic horrors themselves. This point is driven home by the fact that a number of the more alien entities you encounter in the game aren't actually hostile at all. Rom, the Vacuous Spider, will just chill out with you indefinitely at the Moonside Lake if you don't strike the first blow, and doesn't even really begin to actively defend herself until you prove yourself to be a determined murder machine. Ebrietas, the Daughter of the Cosmos, is found minding her own business in an out of the way corner of the Upper Cathedral Ward, mourning Rom after you, you know, killed her in cold blood. Again, she is completely non-hostile until you start shit. In the Old Hunters, Kos (or some say Kosm) is actually benevolent sort of mother goddess to the people of a small fishing hamlet. ...until the "scholars" of Bergynwerth murder her in the name of science, too.

All of the evil and horror and stomach-turning cruelty in Bloodborne comes from corrupt systems of power run rampant, not something as facile as the supposedly intrinsic malice of beings different from us. The terrors of the cosmos are nothing before the vile, willful depravity of mankind itself. That's the idea at the heart of it all. The Great Ones, who exist on a higher plane of existence, seem to have largely left this cruelty behind. Even the Moon Presence, the principle cause of the Hunter's Dream, is trying to help Laurence and Gherman - it's just that it's so different from humans, its idea of helping is a bit. Strange. It's this really fresh and unique take on the genre, this byzantine tragedy of miscommunication, good intentions, and mortal greed, that creates one of the vanishingly few games at are actually frightening. It doesn't even have to sacrifice being a good game to do it! No hiding in closets from the scourge of screen blur and heavy breathing here. In terms of gameplay, it's probably the most refined of quintet. I'm unsure if I should count Sekiro with them or not. It's a much different thing. Trick weapons and hunter's garb are iconic, extremely stylish, original, and honestly just fucking dope as hell. You've got a hammer that explodes when it hits things, a giant pizza cutter, a katana you coat with your own blood to empower, a gunrapier and a gunspear, a giant... wagon wheel... because Miyazaki just really likes those I guess, a bow that is also a sword, a giant fucking ship's cannon you just carry around with you, a portable flamethrower, an... eyeball, that shoots space rocks, for some reason. Like the weapon design and selection alone is worthy of considerable accolade. Bloodborne is fantastic, play it if you can.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I was a little bit kinda wishy washy on putting this on here, but I think overall that it deserves a spot. In terms of story and themes, it's honestly a bit whatever. It's Zelda. Don't be an asshole to your genius daughter who knows like ten times as much as you do about everything I guess. Prince Sidon is a nice fishman. Link is like, distressingly, "this is a kids game!!" hot when you put him in certain outfits. I'm pretty sure every configuration of sexuality interested in the act of boning probably at least went "hoo boy" when Link put on the gerudo outfit. That is, of course, not really enough to qualify for such a prestigious position as one of the best games of the decade. Where Breath of the Wild shines is its world design, music, and the masterful layer of melancholy it drapes everything in. The ruined land of Hyrule is beautiful and sad in equal measure, the vistas enhanced by a fantastic soundtrack with an incredibly rich personal voice. It takes a very certain kind of design philosophy, in my opinion, to create an open world that is actually meritorious and worthwhile and not just an excuse to spend a lot of time hoofing it through vast expanses of nothing interesting. There is enough raw Stuff in the land of Hyrule, from enemy encounters to happening upon NPCs to just finding something really weird and inexplicable that you feel compelled to check out, to justify the massive open world.

I think the enemy design in particular is worthy of some praise. The game gives you a whole lot of tools to tackle any given fight. Sometimes you can just whack something with your sword until either the enemy or the sword breaks and that will work fine. Other times, you can literally do the Tao Pai Pai thing from Dragonball and launch a treetrunk into the air, surf on it, and land it squarely in the face of some unsuspecting moblin. This is a very popular speedrun strat. The sheer amount of Weird Stuff you can do in the service of ultimately saving Hyrule is a lot of lot of LOT of fun, things not many other games would let you do. There's also something to be said for the moments where you're exploring, minding your own business, and find yourself face to face with something fearsome and big and dangerous, like a Lynel in the frozen north or one of the big cyclops guys. It's heartpounding and exciting and really hits that "oh hell yeah let's fuckin FIGHT" button. And fighting in Breath of the Wild is a hell of a lot of fun! Probably the most its been in any Zelda game. Skyward Sword please go away you're drunk this was never a good idea. To me, Breath of the Wild is kind of the platonic ideal of an open world fantasy fuck around game. That used to be Skyrim, but BotW sort of made me realize you can actually have a functional game on top of all the aforementioned Fucking Around, too, and that sort of enhances the experience.

This might be a little weird and personal and I apologize, but I think the one thing that really sealed this game as something very special and significant to me was the moment I entered the Rito village for the first time. I was greeted with an utterly gorgeous piano melody that gradually unfolded into a soulful, excruciatingly bittersweet arrangement of the Dragon Roost Isle theme from the Windwaker. I admit that I was not in a good place in my life when I was playing Breath of the Wild. I was still reeling from some bad brain stuff. Be that as it may, Breath of the Wild is the only game I have ever played - hell, the only piece of art I have experienced - that has brought me to tears with nothing more than a song. When I realized what I was listening to, when the memories of a time when I was still a child with hope and trust and innocence and any faith that life would ever be something more than cruelty and suffering came flooding back, I had to put down my switch, go lay down, and just ugly cry for a while. It's honestly making me a little misty-eyed just thinking about. It was such a personal, intimate, keening feeling of... I don't really know. Nostalgia? Longing? Melancholy? Now, believe me, I love to cry. I am a crybaby. Things make me cry all the time. But not like this. This was something else. Something I still don't really understand, or can explain. All I know is that if a game can do that to me with just a few notes, it deserves to be here.

Salt and Sanctuary:

This is probably the most niche game for me. Even people who share some of my more eclectic tastes and sensibilities didn't like this game that much, but there was just something about this Metroidvania mashed with a Soulslike that hit some very primal notes in my soul. The art style, a weird mix of cartoony and utterly deranged, the enemy design, the bizarre way the world is put together, some extremely creative boss battles, and above all, some masterfully done atmosphere dripping with poorly understood dread and a sense of complete disorientation combined to create an experience that seemed to be made for me, and possibly me alone. It's not a flawless game. The music is fine, but somewhat lacking in variety. The character progression system is a good deal more complicated than it needs to be by any stretch of the imagination, as is the weapon upgrade system. The difficulty curve is uneven, and the raw inscrutability of the whole enterprise can make progression difficult in ways that it never really was in Dark Souls and Demon's Souls, which at least had the courtesy to point you in the right direction from time to time. The ending is a bit on the weak side.

Even now it feels difficult to really like. Elucidate on why I like this game so much. Maybe it's because it was the heartfelt effort of an extremely small team with more passion than experience? Because it's so unique and bold in ways other games are not, even while being a self-admitted derivative of Souls games? I just don't know. It's just such a fun and plucky thing, even if parts of it are kind of bad. It's not like, Deadly Premonition or anything where the badness is also the primary attraction. It's like, overall a good game? I believe? It's just that if it wasn't also kind of weirdly flawed and broken in some ways I don't think I would like it as much. God, I don't know. Just. Play it if you get a chance and see if any of this makes sense. One of the weapons you can use is a giant ass ship anchor, which is just fantastic, and you can start out as a chef, complete with a goofy hat and an extra helping of salt. Salt is important. Gotta keep those electrolytes up. You can also put a pumpkin on your head, and there's a boss called the Tree of Men which is just this giant torture machine that hates you and everyone else. It's so weird! The lighting is so moody and unsettling! The Queen of Smiles doesn't have a jaw! You have to brand your ass with a metal iron to double jump! ...hand, not ass, to be fair. But ass would be pretty funny. And horrifying. If you join the Iron Ones religion your healing item is just bread. And that is a fucking mood.

Super Mario Galaxy 2:

This one barely makes the temporal cut, but it was 2010 when it came out, I'm pretty sure. As a Mario game that doesn't have paper in its name, it's also going to be a bit fluffier and lighter on actual substance than pretty much every other game here, and I don't have that much to say. It's just this gorgeously realized and scored platforming adventure that's so tightly tuned you could play Smoke on the Water on it. It is the still the best traditional jumpy wahoo boing boing Mario game I have ever played. It just makes you feel good about space, and going to space, and seeing all the wonderful things in space. Though there most likely are not charming little obstacle courses themed around bees and and toy trains in space, the various cosmic phenonmenon on display on the map screen and in the background of some galaxies are close enough to what you might expect to inspire a sense of wonder and awe. SMG2 is like the purest expression of Let's Just have a Good Time design in games I have ever seen. It induces good feelings. Not everything has to be deep and troubling and thought provoking. Like, I tend to prefer it when they are, but there's always rooms for exceptions like this. Just fantastic. And the music though holy shit. Honestly I think the only game on this list that doesn't have a fantastic OST is Salt and Sanctuary, but it's still like. Serviceable.

Darkest Dungeon:

Let me start off by saying that Darkest Dungeon doesn't always hit the mark with its central conceit of stress management and the importance of mental health in your small army of adventurers. Nobody is going to start screaming abuse at their comrades or start stabbing them to death in a fit of paranoia because a skeleton spilled some cheap champagne on them. That said, I think that it -tries- to address these things is admirable, even if it is fairly easily boiled down into a simple matter of resource management and cost/benefit analysis. The reason I like Darkest Dungeon so much is that it is a game that excels at emergent storytelling. In terms of actual plot progression and character development, there is very little. You can have a party of four Occultists, each with the exact same backstory and with the exact same pact to the exact same eldritch entity, killing the exact same boss several different times. If you want. The dungeon crawling primarily serves as a vehicle for two things: the first and most obvious, the primary gameplay experience where you command your brave or at least foolhardy group of heroes to engage the ancient horrors of Grandpa's Party House. By itself, this is compelling and demanding. A bit like Dark Souls, Darkest Dungeon is a game that is fairly exacting in what it expects out of you, and it will not let you make mistakes without slapping you on the wrist and saying "no, bad." Similarly, it is a game where mastery is rewarded, but both in somewhat lesser degrees because DD is much more random and capricious in nature. The difference between a new player and an old hand is obvious, but sometimes even veterans can get completely dicked over by things out of their control.

That leads us into the second purpose: having the Ancestor narrate your constant struggle against Murphy's Law while completely hilarious bullshit conspires to send all of your highly trained and well equipped adventurers to the grave. Let me tell you a tale. I was fighting the Countess, the extremely powerful and dangerous final boss of the Crimson Court DLC. Everybody was afflicted with some manner of madness, and things were looking grim. She had shuffled my party around into a formation wherein some of them couldn't act without switching places. I ordered my vestal to switch places with Dismas, my highwayman. Dismas, however, was currently under either "selfish" or "abusive" status and simply refused to move. This meant that my vestal could not actually act that turn, and simply doing nothing incurs a penalty of stress damage. This stress damage was enough to put her gauge to the maximum, give her a heart attack, and kill her. Dismas literally murdered the healer by being too much of an asshole. I was beside myself at the time, but make no mistake - it was fucking hysterical. I later fed him to the final boss as penance for his crimes.

Darkest Dungeon is a grindy game that takes time and effort to complete. This is one of the biggest complaints leveled at it, and it's a fair one. On normal mode, though, you are more than capable of going at it inch by bloody inch, throwing corpse after corpse at the eldritch monstrosities until they at last drown in the blood and give up. No matter how grievous the setback, you can come back from it, unless you're playing on stygian/blood moon mode, which adds a fairly strict time limit and a hard cap on how many hapless adventurers you can send into the meatgrinder before the Nameless Thing That Ends The World wakes up and gives you an auto-game over. It's designed to be a long, bloody slog where shit goes wrong. Hopefully, in the upcoming sequel which I am very much anticipating not being able to play because I am poor, Red Hook can perhaps find a better balance with this. I am, for my part, fairly forgiving of grindy games, and at times even enjoy them. They were going for something with the way they designed DD, and I respect that. If you have the proper mindset of "whatever will be, will be" and learn to embrace the senselessness of death, your adventures in the Darkplace Estate will be both rewarding and oftentimes absurdly funny because your Arbalest was too depressed to eat anything, took more stress damage from starving, and then died of a heart attack, which then further stressed out the rest of the party. If that sounds more "oh my god that's awful" than "hahahaha you fucking dipshits" to you, DD might not be up your alley. But if it is, it -really- is. It's sort of the Dwarf Fortress principle, though Darkest Dungeon is far more user friendly and nice to look at. ...you know if you payed him enough the narrator voice actor would probably do a dramatic reading of Boatmurdered. Just saying.

Stellaris:

Stellaris is kind of the odd spaceman out on this list for a variety of reasons, but it shares the same kind of compelling emergent storytelling that Darkest Dungeon has. It's just less likely to be about how your alcoholic bounty hunter missed every hit against a fishman and went insane, and more likely to be about how you found this really cool Orb in space but it was in another empire's territory so you basically fabricated Space World War 1 to take it for yourself. Maybe that was just me. Much like the many habitable planets in any given Stellaris game, Paradox's grand strategy space game falls in the Goldilocks Zone of "accessible for mortal minds" and "satisfyingly complex." I'm not a huge fan of most Paradox stuff because I don't really give much of a fuck about kings and their crusaders one way or the other, but I respect them for what they are. Stellaris was kind of a proof of concept for me for that - given subject matter I actually liked (space!!!!), the various nitty gritty systems of planetary management and fleet organization and robo-modding and gene templates became compelling rather than overwhelming. They were, granted, still pretty overwhelming at first. The game still receives robust free updates and DLC even as of this writing, sometimes drastically changing the way the game is played (alloys! consumer goods! aarrrggh!) and making my 500ish hours of playtime seem a little less nonsensical. Look, a lot of that time was idling on the galaxy map while I did something else.

It's just really polished and technically competent and -enormous- and there's space dragons and sometimes you get to fuck a black hole. Stellaris doesn't really have a narrative, per se, save what you ascribe to any given game, but that doesn't mean the game doesn't have writing. A lot of very interesting, well written, and sometimes really funny flavor text can be found in the various anomalies and in-game events your science vessels will encounter as they uncover more of the galaxy, or sometimes a planet will have a mysterious portal to Hell on it, or maybe it's actually just a huge egg for a terrifying voidspawn. The game also navigates the usual 4X/strategy game dilemma of securing an early lead and just kind of chilling for the rest of the game by introducing midgame and lategames crises. It's not a perfect fix, but the ever-looming threat of a khanate space uprising, an AI uprising either from your empire or another, or ravenous space bugs from beyond the cosmos ensures that you have to keep at least a little bit on your toes. The presence of spaceborne aliens that range from "a nuisance" to "well gosh that thing is actually eating that sun this could be problematic" also ensures that you need to pay attention to both military and domestic aspects of governing. Stellaris happens in real time (though you can thank god pause whenever you want to issue orders) so there isn't really a Civilization equivalent of "oh the tiny pissant nations are declaring war, time to buy seven tanks with my enormous hoard of gold and run over their medieval knights" in Stellaris. Stuff always takes time to make, and it takes time to get in position, too. Space being exceedingly vast, and all that.

The lategame can get simultaneously get very overwhelming and very boring, but there are systems put in place to help automate the process of ruling a huge interstellar empire and one of the nice things about Stellaris is that you can kind of just. Stop whenever you want. There are technically win conditions, if you're into that sort of thing, but a lot of the time I will just play it through until I'm like "hmm okay im good" and then just either start a new game as an extremely different kind of empire or play something else for a while. It's kind of nice. The idea of "winning" in these games is always so weird to me anyway. I kind of like the framework where it's just kind of like. You tell a story, rather than try to win a game. Recent changes have made it much easier to actually achieve victory, however. Part of the thing that kind of encouraged my "eh i'll stop when i wanna" approach in the first place was how unreasonable some of the old victory requirements were. Occupy sixty percent of the galaxy? Excuse me???? Fuck off. Also, it's not like. A really salient part of the game like it is for most other games on the list, but Stellaris actually does have a pretty nice soundtrack. It's much more ambient in nature and there's not really enough of it for the amount of Game there is, but what's there is nice, even if you will probably end up turning it off and listening to your own music instead eventually.

============================= =Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers= =============================

Alright so if you've like actually looked at my twitter or talked to me or to someone about me for more than two minutes, it's probably pretty obvious that I really like FFXIV. An unhealthy amount.  I will cop to that. FFXIV is an MMORPG. Let's start with the basics. I enjoy the game's gameplay a lot. I would not have put 6 years of my life into playing it if I did not, I'm not a Dota 2 player, for Christ's sake. I like to raid, and have actively done it in every wing except for the Sigmascape. I even managed to beat the final encounter of the current Edengate raids! I'm currently sort of gathering my courage to try the latest Ultimate Raid, the Epic of Alexander. Ultimate Raids are fights that are absurdly difficult by any reasonable standard and further winnow the playerbase from "hit level 80->does endgame stuff->does savage raiding->clears savage raid tiers->does Ultimate Raids->.00000001% of the player base that clears ultimate raids". Ultimates are for a very specific kind of player. I'm just sort of mentioning it for context purposes, it doesn't really factor in to my overall evaluation.

Now, despite the fact that I personally enjoy the gameplay a great deal, it is not actually why I think this game is so good. This might puzzle you. What else is there to an MMO? Is the sense of community especially great? Well, I would say that I really enjoy the community of people I play with, but on the whole, XIV's community is about. Standard, really. Which is to say "a fucking dumpsterfire" by any human metric, but just par for the course for online video games. What keeps me coming back to the game is that in between all the endgame stuff and grinding and crafting and going to die in Eureka, there is a bafflingly compelling and superlative singleplayer experience. The game is actually like unironically the best mainline FF title since at least XII. I would personally say it's on par with IX as a narrative experience, which is no faint praise because i fuckin luv me some ffix. But how can an MMO have such a compelling story? It's kind of complicated.

History lesson for the ten people who still don't know: FFXIV actually launched way back in like. 2011 or some shit and it was -arrestingly- bad. "Embarrassment to the franchise name" bad. So bad that they decided to literally drop a meteor on the game world, bring in a new director, shut the whole thing down for a year or so, and then relaunch the game as A Realm Reborn in mid 2013. People really liked this version. It was nothing short of a miracle. It also layed the groundwork for something important: a real and genuine dedication to worldbuilding (and worldending, too). The destruction and rebirth of the realm of Eorzea is metanarratively (theres my favorite non-word word again) baked into the very DNA of the game as it is now. Learning about the people who lived after the Calamity and how they survived is a direct parallel to how the dev team had to survive and adapt to make this complete boondoggle of a game into something presentable. A lot of heart and soul went into the bones of the world the game takes place in, because it's an expression of that dogged determination to make it work. Yoshida and his team probably crunched like hell to get it all done, and that makes me really sad, but what's done is done. I wish it didn't have to be that way, but it is, and all I can do at this point is praise the team's hard work and vision and try to support them as best I can.

So there's this really weighty sense of reality to the game world, and all of 2.0 is basically spent just establishing Eorzea and how it works. If you were an early adopter of ARR, like I was (2.1 is early right. it's gotta be.) then you grew to genuinely care about the place you spent so much time in and looked so pretty and was kind of obnoxiously laid out but don't worry there will be flying in the expansion. The longrunning nature of the game sort of necessitated a sort of serialized story. It had much more in common with an episodic TV Show than a usual Final Fantasy story, which for better or for worse are usually self-contained little things until somebody decides its fuckin Nova Crystalis time. It created a really unique sense of anticipation and participation in an ongoing story and evolving world. I think this is where a lot of people find their attachments to MMO style games, why people are still faithfully playing World of Warcraft 15 years on.

So FFXIV gets two expansions, Heavensward and Stormblood, and they were very Good, and added lots of neat things to the game and advanced the story and introduced new and beloved characters and also Zenos yae Galvus I guess and the long-running nature of it all started forging a kind of personal narrative of necessity, if that makes sense? Like, your own protagonist, who is mostly silent, who you created and customized and further customized and maybe turned into a lalafell once just to see what it was like to be so short, has been an important part of this world for so long your brain kind of just fills in the gaps in spite of itself. What would my character think about this? What would she do? Why would she do it? That kind of thing. The Warrior of Light, as one is called, has had a leading role in the game's story since pretty much day one, but one of the things that compels me about the character is how much work it took to get where she is today. Like, it's not a Diablo 3 style "hmm well you killed those zombies really good so i guess you're basically stronger than god and also satan put together" affair. You start out as a newbie adventurer, you do newbie adventurer things, like helping orange pickers keep the orchard clear of bees or deliver packages for guilds or whatever sufficiently adventuresome task needs doing. You gain notoriety for doing things that are, well, worthy of notoriety. You really get noticed when you defeat the primal Ifrit in a pitched battle, get recruited by some organizations, and you keep steadily working your way up from there.

As of Shadowbringers, the warrior of Darkness is kind of stronger than god and satan combined, but it took a fucking -lot- to get there. One base game and two expansions worth of life or death battles against utterly intractable foes and also Zenos yae Galvus I guess. It is beyond the scope of this piece to just give you a full plot summary of six years worth of storytelling, so I will just cut to the chase and try to explain what I'm taking five million words to say. Shadowbringers did something I thought heretofore impossible: it made me care about my tabula rasa cipher avatar as a character in a story and not just as an expression of digital self that I had grown fond of. Don't get me wrong - Dazzlyn Reed the adventurer is absolutely an expression of digital self that I have grown -disproportionately- fond of. I figure I'm a few more patch cycles from becoming that girl in the Jack Chick tract about Dungeons and Dragons who had a psychotic break because her DnD character died. However, for the most part, that affection was more of... kind of taking pride in her appearance and the outfits I put together and the achievements I had accomplished with her and stuff like that. Shadowbringers made me care about her as a character in her own right, which seems borderline miraculous to me.

It's sort of hard to explain without totally spoiling everything. And even with spoiling everything. In vague terms, I'll try to express it this way: the game put Dazzlyn in a situation where she had failed. Like, spectacularly. Everything she had done in the course of the expansion had gone up in smoke, and her own life was in real and severe danger. When you play these kinds of games, your first instinct when things go wrong in the story is pretty much always to just flippantly say to yourself "okay okay just calm down and let me fix it i'm like level a billion it's fiiiiine". Shadowbringers turns that on its head. You went to fix things... and you couldn't. Despite good intentions, it's arguable that you only made things worse. Everything you worked for since arriving on the First was just utterly undone, and the game lets you see the toll that has taken on your character. It's weirdly heartwrenching in a really uncommon and compelling way. Dazzlyn had been on the outside looking in at this kind of situation plenty of times before, and she had always had a nice and encouraging thing to say as she helped shoulder the burden and get things back on track for Alphinaud or Lyse or Cid or whoever. The game has, since antiquity, given you much appreciated little dialogue choices that don't really matter much in the scheme of things but let you kind of carve out your own characterization, and the way Dazzlyn turned out was somebody who just really cared way too much about all of her dumb stupid impossible friends who kept fucking up.

One thing that longtime players of the game have complained about quite a bit over the years is that your NPC friends never seemed very. Like. Personally close to you, with a couple of exceptions like Alisae. Shadowbringers both fixes that by introducing the Trust system, which lets you take your Scion buddies into dungeons with you instead of other players, if you are so inclined, and sort of turns it back around to be a kind of poignant narrative point. After everything she had done for them, unconditionally and with a smile, none of the Scions could actually find a way to help Dazzlyn when she finally ended up being the one who needed it. And this -fucks them up-, emotionally. Like, bad. Alisae nearly has a crying fit over it in one of Shadowbringer's more affecting scenes. And just watching the whole thing unfold fucked me up, too. Like, I hadn't signed up for this. I was (relatively) safe in the knowledge that they would not have the gall to actually kill off the player character in an ongoing MMO, but it wasn't necessarily the fear of something happening to her that was getting to me. It was more just this feeling of "god, she deserves better. this isn't fair." The emotional pain that, well, everybody involved is going through is extremely real, even if the threat of genuine death is not. I know (mostly) (please god) that Dazzlyn is going to be okay, but she doesn't. Her friends certainly don't. And even when she does miraculously pull through, it's not like all of this grief and fear and anxiety is going to just vanish like it never happened.

I really have to stress how completely and catastrophically wrong this could have gone if the writers responsible weren't sufficiently skilled. I'm pretty sure if I idly suggested a BFA era World of Warcraft storyline like this to somebody who still plays they would have an apoplectic fit. It would have been so easy for this kind of exercise to ascribe character traits and emotions to a very personal interpretation of the Warrior of Light that they would never have, for any one person's vision of them. The FFXIV writing team avoided this issue entirely, probably because they knew if they didn't people would go ape, by focusing the brunt of the expressed distress on your friends and just leaving you yourself some time to take in the enormity of how badly things have gone wrong in customary silence. A subdued facial expression here, a dialogue option there. No more than strictly necessary. The game encourages you to draw your own conclusions about what your Warrior is feeling, how they're coping, if they even have any hope left, but it does not overstep its bounds and do it for you. It's just... really masterfully done. The overall arc of Shadowbringers can be described as "intriguing, well realized, and competently done." The overarching ideas presented aren't like, groundbreaking or anything. What is groundbreaking, at least to me, is this miraculous giving of life to a character that was originally intended as as simple player avatar.

At the end of the day, everybody rallies around you, as they usually do, but it is markedly different this time. It isn't some facile repetition of the idea that the Warrior of Light/Darkness/Pants-theft is this focal point of hope given form and life to everyone. Instead, it's this... oddly touching expression of friendship. Commitment. It's all probably going to end in tragedy. There's nothing anybody can really do. But they're going to stay with you until the bitter end anyway, because they care about you. If nothing else, they can't bear to think of you dying alone and in agony. Even the citizens of the Crystarium, with whom you do not share a bond that goes back literal years, show up to give you some words of encouragement. They show up to tell you that it's okay that you failed. It's okay that you got hurt, it's okay that you're in pain, that you're scared, that you're vulnerable, that you don't know what to do. After spending such a long time in the game's lore as being kind of invincible and infallible except for the occasional matter of pesky Imperial Viceroys and Old Kung-fu Men, it's just... affecting. It's not often done in games, at least that I have played and seen.

Does this one story moment justify making Shadowbringers the game of the decade? Honestly? Kind of. To me, art has always been about emotional reaction. This kind of reaction is something special, even for a crybaby idiot bitch like me. Moments like these are what make or break truly fantastic experiences. Finally finding Vendrick in the Tomb as that haunting, off-key melody starts playing. Realizing the true nature of the Upper Cathedral Ward. Hearing a beautiful piece of music in Rito Village and thinking about what that song means to you. Admitting that you care about your Warrior of Darkness more than you thought. They're all quite different, running the gamut from existential despair, stomach turning fear, a deep and abiding nostalgia and longing for what used to be, to a sincere, melancholy affection for a game world I've been a part of for almost six years. There's one unbroken thread: a cascade of genuine emotion. Something that goes beyond the simple pressing of buttons and jolts of serotonin as the numbers go up or the bad guys die.

Fortunately for my general credibility, Shadowbringers is also just really good in general. Soken's soundtrack is, as always, kind of spooky in how high quality it is. The presentation is top notch as usual. Encounter design is probably the best its ever been in terms of balancing accessibility and challenge and having mechanics that actually Work As Intended and not nightmarish garbage like Digititis and Black Hole Walking. Royal Pentacle! Server ticks! Server ticks! Uh. Sorry. Going slightly feral there. Anyway. Overall, I think Shadowbringers is the most polished expansion so far, in all respects, and its narrative quality in particular is kind of transcendent because of what it accomplishes in regards to how players see themselves in relation to an unfolding story. Also, it has an unfair advantage, because it's also a continuation of Nier Automata now! That's two games of the decade in one! Now, due to the serial nature of it all, I will allow that if something goes... like, inconceivably, catastrophically wrong with 5.2 - 5.5 I might be a little premature in my assessment. That said, 5.1 was just as fantastic as 5.0 and I don't see a reason to assume that the quality will so drastically drop in the coming months.

If you're somebody who really likes Rankings, here is a pretty noncommital list of them going from least good to best good but they're all special damn it.

10. Super Mario Galaxy 2 9. Breath of the Wild 8. Stellaris 7. Darkest Dungeon 6. Salt and Sanctuary 5. Dark Souls 4. Nier Automata 3. Bloodborne 2. Dark Souls II 1. Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers

And here's a couple of Honorable Mentions just because!

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

To be honest, this easily could have taken the place of like. Breath of the Wild or SMG2 if I was just a little bit more into Sekiro's aesthetic. It's easily the most technical and best-playing game that Miyazaki's team has put out so far, with a very simple to learn, difficult to master system of fighting based more around swordfighting than "shove large axe into monster butt" its predcessors liked so much. It also has a well-told story about a fairly down to earth conflict between an independent fiefdom and Japan's internal ministry trying to conquer it, with a splash of supernatural weirdness to give it some spice. There are monkeys with guns. Sekiro is just fantastically put together, and I really did end up loving Wolf as a main character, despite my initial misgivings about one of these games without a character creator. Wolf is kind of a lovable chuuni dipshit who tries his best in completely unreasonable circumstances and having him as an anchor lets Sekiro's story be more personal and self-contained in nature than the heady cosmological epics of the Souls games, which was a nice change of pace. Ultimately, though, I just find ineffably weird nature of the earlier titles to be a bit more interesting than shinobi and samurai, which is why Sekiro gets an honorable menchie and not a top spot. Don't get me wrong though shinobi and samurai are dope and Sekiro is not a -worse- game for their inclusion. It's just a matter of personal preference, and I could easily see this game taking a top spot on somebody else's list.

Pokemon X and Y

I am a Pokemon bitch. I play all of them, except for black/white 2 and ultra sun/moon, which seemed too similar to their predecessors to really justify spending my precious, jealously guarded money on them. I feel that in general, X and Y has overall, the best mix of available pokemon, world design, music, Fun Little Things, and general game flow of all of them. Sword and Shield excepted I am still in the middle of that one. Pokemon is absolutely kind of video game comfort food, and its kind of just. There's not a lot to it emotionally, though it does have some fairly in depth mechanics and shit if you want to look into it. I don't know I just really liked X and Y. I felt like it deserved mentioning.

Blade and Soul

This game is awful I'm pretty sure but I have so many fond memories of playing it with people I love and creating a ridiculous titty oil monster and having adventures with her sorry i'm trash

So there you have it. A very personal (sometimes maybe probably too personal) look at the ten games that I found to be the best that came out in the last ten years. Now, I usually consider my opinions on these things to be fairly well reasoned, but in this case, I did rely a lot more on the touchy feely qualitative things that are really important to me over the necessary but lamentable "yes i suppose this game is technically competent and plays extremely well" considerations a more objective list of this kind would entail. So you're free to disagree and think I'm stupid and wrong. I would prefer it if you did not think I was stupid, though, but the fact of the matter is I cannot stop you. Here's to another ten years of wonderful games that make us feel things.

[dizzydennis]

A long, in-depth review of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020

I remember playing the first Mario & Sonic game back on the Nintendo Wii. It was simple and a bit unbelievable that this was the first time these two gaming icons would be in a video game together. While the Olympics were literally nobody’s choice to have these heroes meet, it made for a fun albeit simplistic party game. I enjoyed my time with it, but it wasn’t until the second game, Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games that I fell in love with the series. The amount of variety and fan service was staggering and it was very clear that a lot of passion had gone into this game, but as the games moved to the Wii U, it was apparent that the creative was drying up as the game focused more on the typical Olympic events.

That takes us to 2019 where the series has returned on the Nintendo Switch. Considering the fact that this game was made to coincide with the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, I was very excited. Not only is this the home country of both Mario and Sonic, but it’s where I’ve been living for the past 4 and a half years. I was worried when the series skipped the Pyeongchang Olympics that we would never see them in Japan. However, fate would be kind to me. The only question was: does this new edition reach the previous highs that the best Mario & Sonic outings have reached or is it another missed opportunity.

This game has a very interesting premise too. Since Tokyo was the host of the Olympics back in 1964, there is a time travel plot where Sonic, Eggman, Mario, Bowser, and Toad get sucked into a video game world based on those events. It allows for a fresh idea presented with classic sprites of these beloved characters. With the 2020 Olympic events combined with the 1964 events, there are plenty of events to try out.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t describe how nice the game looks. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 is a very good looking game. In single player, the game constantly runs at 60FPS with highly detailed character models and lush environments. The crowds consisting of Toads, Shy Guys, Flickies, and more are still 2D textures that are animated well, but when inspected, they do not hold up. In Olympic events where the game is handled in splitscreen, the framerate can often take a hit. It’s nothing unplayable, but it is very noticeable. The menus are also very slick though a bit simplistic from past entries. Even so, you’ll be treated with wonderful character renders over the backdrop of various Tokyo locales. The only problem with the visuals come from the retro 1964 mode. While the sprites look fine, there is a huge clash between the Super Mario characters being 8-bit sprites while the Sonic characters are 16-bit sprites. It seems as this was done for broad appeal since Mario’s NES outings and Sonic’s Genesis outings are arguably their most well-known appearances. Even so, it doesn’t mesh together perfectly.

So the game looks good for the most part, but how does it sound? Honestly, it’s a mixed bag and a particularly odd one too. During story mode, characters do not speak in full sentences. Sonic may say “Hey” while the text box fills in an entire sentence of dialogue. This isn’t a problem, but what is a bit distracting are the voice samples chosen; specifically, the Super Mario characters. Mario and Luigi have no text boxes with their dialogue, but instead will only make small noises or words. It becomes increasingly annoying as their responses are so limited. You cannot skip or fast forward any dialogue boxes or animations either. There was no reason to keep them from talking as Bowser, Princess Peach, and Toad all talk just as the Sonic characters do. However, characters like Luigi, Daisy, and the Koopalings have the most peculiar voice samples. Daisy sounds like she’s about to cough up her lunch and the Koopalings have this odd reverb effect that sounds like a rendering error. Many of these samples just sound unpleasant and you’ll be hearing them enough that it becomes grating.

Now, the Mario & Sonic series has been praised by fans for their amazing remixes of classic songs. These remixes allowed some unique flair to be given to countless songs from Mario and Sonic’s catalogue. So, one may wonder how many remixes there are in Mario & Sonic Tokyo. Two. There are only two remixes from the respective series. Sonic’s side received a rather standard and unimpressive remix of Metropolitan Highway from Sonic Forces. It doesn’t improve the original song at all and feels a bit half baked. On the other side, Mario received a remix of Peach’s Castle theme and it’s frankly awful. Just sped up with synth-like instruments. When this has been a repeated highlight for these games, (even in the less-than-stellar Wii U games), it’s baffling that SEGA and Nintendo didn’t try harder here. It feels lazy and extremely disappointing. In past games, you could go back to any event and change the standard background music to whatever songs you have unlocked. It’s just not possible here. That means that during the events, you’ll be listening to original music. Thankfully, it’s mostly very good! I am a big fan of the tunes set to Rugby Sevens, a battle with Metal Sonic, Surfing, and Dream Shooting. A lot of the music has a Japanese flair to it and it’s very well composed. Some songs are extremely catchy and I’ve found myself remembering and humming them outside of my time with the game. However, during the lengthy story cutscenes, you may be cycling through the same 5 or 6 songs and it can become old very quickly. They are good songs, but even the retro music wears thin when it’s been playing for most of your downtime.

Sonic fans have always been passionate about the voice work of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Thankfully, the new voice clips (during events) are pretty good. Characters have interesting remarks when winning and some of them speak perfectly to their established characters. I believe that for the Sonic characters, most if not all of the voice clips are new. There are some baffling ones like Sonic saying “Ole!” and “Right through that wall!” at the most random times. Characters like Tails and Vector are very endearing in this game. Even so, it works well and as a fan, it was fun to hear. The Mario characters definitely have some new voice clips, but it’s hard to tell when their characters don’t vocally emote as often outside of this game. I’m sure there are some repeated clips, but there not all reused.

As this is a minigame collection, it’s important to question how the game actually plays. Overall, I think the Olympic events have been reworked in a significant enough way that it feels rewarding… though not perfect. For example, the 100M race, skateboarding, and badminton are a few events that are just too simplistic for their own good. They are just not as fulfilling to play through as other events. Rugby sevens, soccer (which is strangely called Football despite the fact that Japan calls the sport soccer), Karate, Archery, Sport Climbing, and Equestrian are a few of the events that are just exhilarating. Most of the events have done an admirable job allowing for motion controls with two joy cons, one joy con, or buttons. Since I have been gaming since the early 1990s, I almost always prefer button controls. Even so, I have to admit that the motion controls are fun… for some of the events. Archery is a blast with motion controls, as are the track & field events. The game seems to make a conscious effort to balance the less accurate use of motion controls to button controls. That’s great, but it can make some events feel unfairly difficult due to the handicap. For example, when using button controls, the Boxing event feels almost impossible to win without a huge amount of luck. If you’re knocked down while using buttons, you have to jam the A button to get up and it feels nearly impossible to recover within the allotted time. It’s something that was so aggravating that I found myself praying that SEGA would release a quality of life patch for this game to iron out some of the problems.

The 1964 events are pretty different from the 2020 events. Since they’re based on retro video games, they only allow for button controls. But with this aesthetic comes simplified gameplay. I found these events to be fun, but not too engaging. Shooting, 10M Platform, Marathon were pretty fun, but I wasn’t wowed by these. It’s 2019 and I think I can speak for many when I say that using retro sprites in your game doesn’t excite people as much as it used to. It sometimes comes across as desperate fan service. While these events are fun, I have to question: Has the game really benefited from going with this throwback? It has certainly increased the amount of events and didn’t hurt the overall package, but I also wasn’t blown away by their inclusion. Speaking of these retro events, it’s very saddening that it’s only limited to 8 characters. Classic characters like Donkey Kong, Metal Sonic, and especially Amy Rose are left out for seemingly no reason. This kind of exclusivity from the “classic” side of Sonic has been limited to Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Dr. Eggman for a long while now and it seems to ignore that Amy was part of that original crew too. Moreover, I’m sure fans would have loved to see more characters in this retro style. If SEGA/Nintendo had made more of an effort, we could have possibly seen more modern characters like Shadow the Hedgehog or Waluigi.

Throughout story mode there are also a number of mini games. In 2020, Luigi and Tails partake in many events. Whether it’s climbing up the side of Tokyo Tower, battling Shy Guys, or kicking a rugby ball to attack Metal Sonic; these events share their DNA with the normal Olympic events. Some of the ideas are creative, but they are over before they really begin. Again, they’re simplistic and through that simplicity is their downfall. I love the ideas on display, but I want them to be more engaging. One particular mini game that I was fond of has you searching for a particular Toad at the famous Shibuya Scramble. It’s basically a virtual version of a Where’s Waldo game, but it’s very fun and unique. The only problem is that it ends after finding three targets. If there was an option for this to be expanded into an endurance mode, then I think it would really have some legs.

The mini games for the 1964 world are a bit more unique, but are still overly simple. You might be sneaking into a museum, using Sonic’s speed to chase down a bullet train (shinkansen), or even using the biplane known as the Tornado to attack Eggman’s mechs above Tokyo. Interestingly, that sky battle is the most complex of all the mini games, but even it ends after three stages. What works so well with this mode is that the stage consists of numerous Sonic enemies with decent fan service throughout. You’ll battle Eggman’s first boss from Sonic the Hedgehog 1 as well as Mecha Sonic and the Metropolis Zone boss from Sonic 2. It’s so bizarre that this great amount of fan service is so hidden. You must re-enter this game a second time from a completely different menu to see this.

There are three Dream Events in this game. The first being Dream Racing which is honestly fantastic. It’s based on a stage from Sonic Forces and features a downhill race on hoverboards with Mario Kart-like items. It’s a bit clunky on certain parts, but it’s a lot of fun. The kinetic energy of the whole thing makes me want more than just one stage based on this. It’s definitely a highlight and if there was entire game based on a more refined version of this... I wouldn’t be opposed. Following that is Dream Karate based on the Mushroom Kingdom from Super Mario Odyssey. It’s a mess. There doesn’t seem to be any clear strategy and it favors chaos over defined goals. Also, it hardly uses the Mario universe. It’s just a square arena set in a Mario world with a bad remix in the background. Very disappointing. Lastly is Dream Shooting which takes place in a Japanese temple with each corner of the temple representing a different season. It uses the gyro controls of the Nintendo Switch and it’s very fun. A little clunky here and there, but enjoyable nonetheless. It has one crucial flaw in the fact that your character will laugh every single time they hit a target. It gets annoying quick when you’re constantly firing away and hearing them cackle nonstop. I don’t know how that sort of thing still gets by developers.

The story mode was heavily pushed with a lot of the promotion for this game. I can honestly say that this is not the type of game that needs a story, but it’s the kind of dopey thing that I am absolutely on board for. I was hoping for an over-the-top plot that had these characters doing ridiculous things based on idea from the Olympics. My expectations weren’t completely baseless either. Past games on the Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS have had story campaigns and they got wild with shadow clones of the characters to Dr. Eggman releasing giant robots. The games even featured some surprisingly well animated cutscenes too. You wouldn’t be wrong in thinking that I was hyped for this mode. What we got, however, was bare bones. I like the corny idea of the heroes and villains getting sucked into the retro game world. That’s wonderful, but unfortunately it doesn’t really get zanier than that. In 2020, Tails and Luigi work to save their friends by participating in regular Olympic events. In 1964, Mario and Sonic save themselves by participating in regular Olympic events. Yes, there are occasional mini games, but as I mentioned earlier, they are so simple and feel like they’ve finished before they’ve begun. Where’s the fun, the stupidly epic nature you can achieve when featuring franchises like Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog? Why can’t Eggman use the Gold Medals to make this fire monster that will compete against Mario and Sonic? Why can’t Metal Sonic cause chaos in Tokyo while Tails and Luigi stop him with a small platforming challenge? I know that there was an attempt with the mini games that are available, but it still comes up short and leaves me wanting a lot more.

This problem is completely related to the story as well. Meaning that while it has some genuinely great moments, it is a slog to get through at times. It has one formula and it follows that formula for the entire campaign. Every time, it’s a chore of: “go to this venue, talk to the character, face that character in an event, have them give you an item.” It never breaks off from this formula. Even the mini games follow the same structure. Again, where’s the heart? This is just running through the motions of a story. I’d love for it to really go wild with the Olympics and the characters at their disposal. One thing I couldn’t wrap my head around was the use of Luigi. This game really, really, really likes Luigi. He has the most mini games out of anybody, he’s featured in the story more than any other character, and once the game is finished, you are stuck using Luigi for any of the events within the epilogue. This includes the Dream Events too. Considering the fact that this game came out just one day after Luigi’s Mansion 3, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was intentional. It’s very odd that a game with Mario & Sonic in the title gives so much of the spotlight to Luigi. Along with his annoying vocal grunts that I mentioned earlier, I found Luigi got on my nerves throughout the story. The game also never lets you control any Sonic characters outside of a few events. Despite the fact that they are in pairs for the entire story, on the map screens, you can only control Mario in 1964 and Luigi in 2020. Not for nothing, but I’d like to control Sonic and Tails if I had the choice. This isn’t a huge complaint, but it’s something I noticed.

There are some positives to the story mode though. Certain character interactions are fantastic. I really loved bumping into Jet the Hawk, Wario & Waluigi, and Ludwig von Koopa during the campaign. Jet still refers to Sonic by his full name which was a bit of character consistency that made me smile. Sonic is also written pretty well. Since Mario doesn’t talk, Sonic does all of the talking for the heroes. He’s got a great mix of cockiness, heroism, and that cheesy factor that makes him so likeable. I was happy seeing how Sonic acted even if it wasn’t anything too mind blowing. Bowser and Eggman are written a bit more incompetent than usual, but it works well for comedic effect. There is also a moment in the climax that taps into that greatness I was hoping for. It’s a fantastic moment that I won’t spoil, but I enjoyed it and cared about what was happening to all of the character in the retro game world.

Throughout the map screens, you can find trivia pods. This seems like cheap filler, but I have to be honest… I actually found them very fun. There are 4 types of trivia cards: Olympic trivia, Japan trivia, Mario character trivia, and Sonic character trivia. I found myself learning a lot about the Olympics and Japan through this game. Often I became aware of things I never knew of. As a fan too, seeing Amy’s love for fortune reading or the game teasing that Wario and Waluigi are just two dudes who hang out together was a nice treat. However, being a big fan also means you know when they make mistakes. So when they say that Eggman Nega is Eggman’s descendant, I can’t help, but roll my eye. Yes, I know the Sonic Rivals games messed up the continuity, but the Sonic Rush games clearly established he’s from another dimension. His name is Eggman NEGA for crying out loud! In fact, his whole character is stated time and time again that he hates Eggman and yet he spends a vast majority of the campaign actively trying to save Eggman from the video game world. How many wires got crossed when they were making this game? Also, some pods say that Shadow being born on the Space Colony ARK is just a rumor... when we’ve had TWO games dedicated to that backstory. It just left me flabbergasted. Other trivia pods are just a waste of time though. “What color are Wendy’s shoes,” read one question that had a full body picture of Wendy attached to it. (Yes, you could clearly see her shoes). Were they that lazy with some of these?

One particular thing about the story mode that had me laughing while also sighing was how much this game praises Japan. It’s honestly hilarious. Talking to Toads or animals around the map screens almost always has them saying how amazing Japan is, how the Olympics are this perfect accumulation of everybody’s efforts, or how nice and incredible Japanese achievements and citizens are. I’m not saying that Japan is a bad country, but when you’re constantly being told this stuff, after a while it just seems like excessive. I’m not blind to the fact that this game was made to be a commercial of sorts for the 2020 Olympic games and for Japan too, but the game clearly has more love and more of a desire to promote Japan than it does the two lead stars of the game. Let’s be honest here, Olympic fans aren’t coming out in droves to play this game, Mario and Sonic fans are.

Online play has been included too. Honestly, there isn’t too much to say about it. If you’ve played Super Smash Bros. Ultimate or Super Mario Maker 2 online before then you know what to expect. Nintendo’s shoddy online service doesn’t do Mario & Sonic any favors. It’s functional, but button delay and occasional lag are very apparent and do hamper the experience. I enjoyed a few games of Rugby Sevens online, but I never felt like I had as much control as I did when I was playing solo. For games like the Javelin Throw or Triple Jump that require pinpoint accuracy, I don’t see how this is going to be viable. Nintendo can make some great games, but they are constantly behind in all other aspects.

Plenty can be said about Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. Mechanically, all of the changes to the many events have benefited how they played. There’s a lot to experience here, but the game shies away from using the potential of having such iconic heroes in their line-up. I don’t know if it’s incompetence or laziness, but this doesn’t not reach the heights that it should. It has less Dream Events, less music remixes, less fan service, and a less ambitious story than previous Mario & Sonic games. Many people come into these games knowing they’ll be simple, but also feeling that the fan service and winks to the source material will elevate it into something great. Nevertheless, it feels like SEGA and Nintendo believed that putting Sonic and company in cute outfits would be enough to excuse other lackluster elements. I worry that this review may have come across as overly negative. There are many things I love about this game and I find that the game can be a real blast to play! The variety of the events and the pure fun factor of some cannot be denied. There are many good qualities to be found in this product, but when it lacks that special shine and polish that is to be expected by now, it inevitably feels disappointing. I don’t hate this game in the slightest, but I’d be lying if I said it I wasn’t left wanting more as a fan. SEGA and Nintendo are big companies and they can do better than this; we should expect more from them. At the end of the day, I will definitely be popping this game in from time to time. The mechanics are fun and there are lovable characters in here. I just wish they were celebrated more than the Olympics themselves.

[emperor-uncarnate]

My Top 20 Favorite Video Games

(Listed in the order in which I played them)

Pokémon Red Version - Along with my matching red Game Boy Pocket, this was the first video game I owned that was purely mine and not handed down from an older kid. I still go back and replay this every couple of years on that very same Game Boy Pocket or on the 3DS Virtual Console. I know there’s FireRed and a whole series of more modern Pokémon games at my disposal but the original Red Version easily gets the most nostalgia points. Sometimes that’s what it’s all about, no? Banjo-Kazooie - Similarly, the N64 became my first home console that wasn’t a hand-me-down and it came equipped with both bear and bird (complete with “screaming about it on Christmas morning”). After going back and replaying this almost twenty years later I gained new appreciation for how goofy and colorful it is. Treasure Trove Cove is so fucking catchy. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle - From its kickin’ soundtrack to its satisfying controls to its random-ass virtual pet simulator this game has it all. Multiplayer was always pretty exciting too, I remember many an afternoon trying to one-up a friend during a grind race. No 3D Sonic game compares to this if you ask me, although Sonic Heroes and Sonic Unleashed come sort of close in their own ways. What I wouldn’t give for a proper Sonic Adventure 3... Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes - I remember playing this at my local arcade in my youth before eventually getting a port of it for the Xbox 360. The look of its 2D sprites are phenomenal and - if it will help you understand why I love this game - I’m singing “I Wanna Take You For a Ride” to myself as I type this. Metroid: Zero Mission - This was the first Metroid game I ever actually beat, and it was the game that made me fall in love with the series. I love Metroid Fusion and Metroid: Samus Returns as well but I like Zero Mission’s visual style the most. I was so thrown for a loop when Samus lost her Power Suit towards the end of the game but it only made getting it back that much sweeter.  Metroid Prime 2: Echoes - I started playing this one in 2004 but didn’t officially beat it until way later in 2017. For a while I had a pattern I’d go through every few years of “start playing, enjoy it for a while, get lost, and start over for some reason.” Took me thirteen years to get serious about it but it earned its place as my favorite of the 3D Metroid games. I felt so fulfilled once it was complete, like I was achieving a childhood dream. Kingdom Hearts II - I don’t think I would’ve gotten into this game if not for my friend’s suggestion but I couldn’t thank him enough for it. This is another one of those games you only vaguely understand when you’re a kid only to realize how complex and intuitively designed it is in your adulthood. After the long wait, Kingdom Hearts III proved to be pretty satisfying but I just have too much history with its predecessor for it not to win a spot on this list. Jak 3 - Though my interest in this series burned fast and bright, this game still sticks out to me as one of the best I’ve ever experienced. I played the third installment before Jak and Daxter or Jak 2 but that’s fine because it’s the best goddamn one. Driving around in the desert, swapping out gun modules, and taking flight on some janky wings made of light were definitely the highlights for me. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm - I got into this game during the latter period of Wrath of the Lich King but I didn’t feel like an official WoW player until this fiery, grim expansion. It was the first real online game I’d ever played (if you don’t count Neopets and Adventure Quest) that I started as a Night Elf Warrior in a PVP server and ended as a Worgen Hunter in a non-PVP server. Because fuck the Horde, that’s why. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - I got Skyrim on a whim because I literally couldn’t think of anything else I wanted for Christmas in 2011. There was no hype for me, I knew nothing ‘bout no Dragonborns, but I thought “heck it” and dove in anyway. After originally playing it on Xbox 360 and replaying it more recently on PS4 (with a slew of mods) I can say with confidence this game continues to blow me away. I always seem to find something new even though I feel like I know it like the back of my hand. I did get involved in The Elder Scrolls Online later on but Skyrim is still where it’s at. Soul Calibur V - I was first introduced to the tale of souls and swords (eternally retold, of course) through Soul Calibur II and only because you could play as Link on the Gamecube version. Fast-forward to 2012 and I was still on board with its story and cast of characters but its character creation was really what kept me hooked. Soul Calibur VI turned out to be a little disappointing but I definitely got the most out of its fifth installment and I’m guilty of having played for hours and hours on end. Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward - What began as a free trial because I was bored turned into a years-long interest in yet another MMO. While the base game was okay it really picked up speed with Heavensward and I was hooked from that point onwards. After a certain point I caught myself not skipping cutscenes and discovered - oh hey - the story’s actually really good. Star Wars Battlefront - I loved this game when it came out on PS4 and used it often to get my insatiable Star Wars fix. Aerial combat was my downright favorite part of the game and I loved smoking some TIE Fighters in an X-Wing or in the Millennium Falcon. Its sequel Star Wars Battlefront II could’ve made this list but EA was being a real dirtbag about it and now I find it hard to look back on happy memories of it the same way. The 2015 game is thankfully unsullied by those sour elements, however, so I’d say its gotta be my favorite Star Wars game ever. Overwatch - This game came to me at a time when I only wanted to play games that had character creation. I was hesitant to get to know all the characters and lore but I’m overjoyed I did since they’re so rich in personality and fun details. Once I got the hang of characters like McCree, Soldier, Reinhardt, and Widowmaker I was absolutely sold and I still play it two years later. Sonic Mania - The delightful trailer for this game got me all riled up but I wouldn’t know just how great it was until I was playing it myself. I don’t think I could ever truly enjoy my previous favorite 2D Sonic games (Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and Sonic CD) ever again because this game just feels better than all of them combined.  The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - I didn’t really grow up with the Legend of Zelda, only ever playing A Link to the Past and Twilight Princess, but I immediately knew I was going to enjoy this open world take on the series. Just the sheer freedom of what you could do and where you could go was enough to reel me in and its aesthetic still amazes me with how great of a mood it generates. Final Fantasy VII - I still remember going into a GameStop when I was in high school and naively attempting to buy a used copy of this game for the PS1. It was an “epic fail,” as I would’ve said at the time. But over a decade later I downloaded it on the PS4 and went to town, getting my full FF7 experience at long last and loving every minute of it. Very stoked for the remake; it’s probably my most anticipated game right now. Marvel’s Spider-Man - What a surefire hit this was. From the moment the first gameplay footage was out I knew this was going to be the must-have web-swinging, wall-crawling good time. I love that there are so many ways to play the same character and everyone can really embody their own version of Peter Parker. I’m also from New York City so seeing a digital rendition of Manhattan was a real treat (even though they changed uptown a lot and my old apartment doesn’t exist in the game). Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Nine of the other nineteen entries in this list feature a character who’s playable in this latest Smash game. I get that people like Melee for reasons and whatever but how can you not like SSBU, the game that has it all? I’m still riding the high of Banjo and Kazooie entering the fray and I absolutely cannot wait to see where things go from here. Never had more fun playing local multiplayer in my life. Red Dead Redemption II - Never cared for Grand Theft Auto and the first Red Dead Redemption was fun but damn, there’s nothing quite like its sequel. I’m still working my way through the story just because I’ve spent so much time out in the wide open world, taking my time and seeing the sights. I might be a city boy but I have a deep appreciation for the American West and if this game ain’t just the prettiest damn thing I ever did see... hoo-WEE! Top shelf.

[unassumingvenusaur]

Kingdom Hearts III Secret Ending, TWEWY, & FFXV

So, the Kingdom Hearts III secret ending dropped yesterday, and this might be the most bizarre and unexpected one yet. Further complicating it is the potential ties to other Square Enix properties. As someone who is a big fan of both Kingdom Hearts and The World Ends With You, and who at least has played Final Fantasy XV, I thought I’d have a hand at trying to consolidate various points people have made as well as my own observations into a simple* explainer. 

Honestly, this is as much for my own sake as for helping others who aren’t sinking headfirst into the deep lore of multiple Tetsuya Nomura franchises...This man is utterly ludicrous. 

*ugly sobbing

***OBVIOUSLY, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR BOTH KINGDOM HEARTS III AND THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU: FINAL REMIX UNDER THE CUT***

For people who haven’t seen the Secret Ending...Well. I’m not quite sure why you’re reading this, you should probably go watch that. But the basic gist is: 

We see Sora and Riku both waking up in hyperrealistic and visually distinct cities--or perhaps just different areas of the same one (the likely answer)

Due to the gradual reveal of the environment, it’s shown that Sora is in Shibuya, Tokyo--not quite the real one, which I’ll comment on later--and Riku is in Shinjuku, Tokyo.

As Riku walks through Shinjuku, we see Yozora--the protagonist of the fictionalized video game, Verum Rex, that we saw in the Toy Story world--observing Riku from a rooftop.

Lastly, we see a figure in the iconic black cloak looking out at the moon of this world--a normally shaped moon--and forming a heart shape within it with his hands. 

Really, the basic sequence of events is pretty simple to follow. What makes this complicated is what each of these individual pieces mean.

Verum Rex? Final Fantasy XV? 

The biggest elephant in the room to most is the presence of Yozora, and in fact the secret ending is named after him. This is gonna get into some real meta stuff. 

The entirety of Verum Rex--the fictionalized video game of which Yozora is the protagonist-- is a very, very thinly veiled jab at Final Fantasy XV. 

For those who do not know, Final Fantasy XV was originally developed under the title Final Fantasy Versus XIII, with Tetsuya Nomura, director of Kingdom Hearts, at the helm. He was taken off the project, and rumors circulated about his bitterness towards his brainchild being seized from him. Verum Rex seems to be complete confirmation of this, in a very public and hilariously petty way--the Final Fantasy XV that Nomura wanted. The similarities between the two games have been pointed out by many. To list a few as examples: 

‘Yozora’ is Japanese for “night sky.” Noctis Caelum, the protagonist of FFXV, is Latin for “night sky.” 

“Verum Rex” is Latin for “True King.” Noctis’s main character arc in XV is him growing into and accepting the role of King. This title could be Nomura asserting that Yozora is the true king he wanted to make. 

As can be seen in the in-game trailer, the aesthetics of the games are extremely similar, and a few of the characters can be identified with those from XV.

Yozora’s pose on the cover of the game is extremely reminiscent of that of Noctis in Versus XIII’s teaser art.

The main theme of XV, Somnus, is just kind of straight up incorporated into the Secret Ending at one point. Compare: Somnus vs “Yozora.”

What does this all mean? The only two things we can say definitively are: 

a) Sora and Riku as well as the black hooded figure have somehow ended up in Yozora’s world

b) Tetsuya Nomura’s pettiness levels are off the charts

I personally highly doubt any of this means that the lore of Final Fantasy XV itself will tie into Kingdom Hearts--it simply seems that Nomura is determined to see his original vision of his characters to their end, whatever form it may take. But who knows? Nomura is riding it ridiculously close here.

The World Ends With You?

So the other big Tetsuya Nomura property that is possibly wrapped into this Secret Ending is The World Ends With You. There is not as much concrete to go on as with FFXV, but regardless, what are the connections in this trailer? 

First, the basic premise of TWEWY: The protagonists are participating in something called the “Reaper’s Game,” a competition among the recently deceased to get a second chance at life.  The game is set in Shibuya, Tokyo.

Wait, that sounds familiar--Sora is in Shibuya in the Secret Ending! In TWEWY, the game begins with protagonist Neku waking up in the middle of the bustling Scramble Crossing in Shibuya. While devoid of people here, Sora wakes up in the very same Scramble Crossing. 

One could think that Nomura might just like Shibuya as a setting for his games and wanted to have a little fun--certainly possible. But what makes the connection to TWEWY especially striking is when the camera pans to the massive building with “104″ in big letters along the top. This is a building in real-life Shibuya, as well....sort of. The real-life building this is based on is actually called 109. 104 originated in TWEWY’s own version of Shibuya. 

This would seem to indicate that this is not just any Shibuya, this is the TWEWY Shibuya. It could be a reused pseudonym, yes, but 104 is such an iconic part of TWEWY that Nomura would know full well what he was doing by placing it in the trailer.

But what drives home the TWEWY connection even more is Riku and Yozora’s location. We know Riku is in Shinjuku, because after showing 104, the trailer shows Riku looking up at what is a distinct governmental building in real life Shinjuku. 

What’s the relation of Shinjuku to TWEWY? Nothing....Until the recently released Final Remix, that is. Final Remix reveals that a girl Neku keeps seeing visions of--the girl who will presumably be the protagonist of TWEWY 2--hails from Shinjuku. Additionally, Shinjuku is discussed by Joshua and Hanekoma in Final Remix as having been destroyed in some way--if I remember correctly, the entire city was “erased.” What the implications of this are isn’t really clear in TWEWY, but the notable thing is that the two main settings of the trailer are the two most important settings of TWEWY. 

This is not the first time TWEWY has appeared in Kingdom Hearts, either--characters from it appeared in KH: Dream Drop Distance, and at one point, Sora makes a promise to visit them in Shibuya one day. Seeing as he is in Shibuya now...Perhaps this promise is one that will actually be fulfilled. 

TWEWY’s relevance is potentially extended by what exactly happened in Kingdom Hearts III’s plot...which is what we’ll talk about next.

What the heck does this all have to do with the game I played???

Obviously, this is impossible to answer at this point, and can really only mostly be speculated. First, here is what we concretely know: 

It is made a point several times in the game that Sora’s vast connections to others, and specifically his repeated attempts at awakening them, have been causing him strain. Sora’s connection to other hearts has been waning, enough that he no longer appeared on the cover of Pooh’s story book, likely due to his weakening. Xehanort tells Sora at several points that he has doomed his heart. 

Right before the climax, Xehanort strikes Kairi with his keyblade, seemingly killing her. Of course, everyone also “died” earlier in the story, and Sora saved them as well, so this was never going to be permanent. 

After defeating Xehanort, Sora goes off to find a way to rescue Kairi. 

Later, we see Kairi and Sora back on Destiny Islands--however, Kairi is crying, and Sora evaporates into light. We have no idea what his true fate might be, but it’s probably not good. 

Some time after, Sora awakens in Shibuya. Riku is in Shinjuku for some reason but we have no hecking idea why so don’t think about that too hard. 

Of course, you didn’t read this far to have the plot reexplained to you, you came here for plausible speculation!! Here’s my take which will almost certainly be wrong since this is Kingdom Hearts, but it’s fun to think about. 

If the TWEWY connection is real--why would Sora awaken in Shibuya? It’s possible that in rescuing Kairi, Sora died, and now he has come to Shibuya to participate in the Reaper’s Game, to reclaim his life. Alternatively, he could not be dead but still have ended up there for some reason. 

We don’t know if this is Canonverse TWEWY or some KH AU version like they do with Final Fantasy--both are plausible. 

But wait, why is Yozora there? One answer is that despite all the similarities Nomura is just having some fun and this is simply the setting of Verum Rex. Another potential answer is that Verum Rex takes place in the same universe as this TWEWY. Or perhaps Yozora’s heart was set adrift like Sora’s, and he ended up in Shinjuku in a similar manner. 

There’s one thing that I’ve barely talked about at all, though--the figure in the black cloak. That’s because there is not much to latch onto there. A likely candidate for the figure’s identity is the Master of Masters--the originator of keyblades who is stated by Luxu/Xigbar both in the epilogue and the secret reports to soon be returning. By making his hands in a heart shape around the moon, perhaps he is conveying his desire to to turn this world’s moon into a new Kingdom Hearts? We really don’t know. But that seems a likely implication. 

Wait, you ask, what’s all this about Luxu and the Master of Masters? Who?? To which I say: It is exactly like Nomura to make the plot of a mobile game that no one plays the central conceit of the KH series going forward. That’s a whole other novel length post to explain right there and I only tenuously understand it myself sooooooooooooooooooooooo

you’re on your own 

tl;dr welcome to the tetsuya nomura cinematic universe

[blacktribbles]

Peaches 🍑 &

Anime Dreams ⭐️

I don’t think many people dream of growing up and living in the same city their entire life. Not being able to see different things outside their own world and limiting their world view. Unfortunately it happens, maybe far too often to count. I hoped and prayed that would never happen to me; as I got older and began to travel a bit more I began to realize how much I love the area I’m in, how much I love the Greater Philadelphia area. However, I promised myself that there are a few cities in the US that I MUST travel to and get a feel for, for when I eventually do leave the area that raised me (inevitable due to future career wants). One of those cities was Atlanta Georgia, and what better reason to go to the state where the players play, and people ride out like everyday, than to go to Momocon and celebrate a special birthday with some friends.

The crew that was riding with me were My homie Mike (aka the Wizard Tribble), his girlfriend Gabe (Director, Producer, and 1 half of the horror podcast “The Ghouls Next Door) and my girlfriend Kat (Producer and the other half of “The Ghouls Next Door). We flew in early Friday morning and hit the ground running when we landed in Atlanta. Things moved quickly in the airport. It was wide open, thoroughly organized with no real confusion, which I was not used to from the Philadelphia airport where pigeons would just sit and claim their spot to a seat right beside you in the airport. There was also this air of safety that honestly rubbed my Philadelphian grit in an odd way but I was very appreciative it was noticed. First time in a new city, the first thing anyone wants is some confirmation of safety.

Once we stepped outside, leaving the comfort of the ATL airport that safeguarded us with AC, we were blessed by the loving and excessive sun. Back home in PA the weather consistently flip flops, unsure of what season it wants to be throughout the day let alone the week. Here in Georgia though, in the city of Atlanta, it was bright and sunny all day and week long with a high of 95 and low of about 63 at night. It felt wonderful knowing that there was going to be a steady weather condition to prepare for. The sun was kissing my skin, invoking the power of my melanin–while burning some of my friends. They enjoyed it all the same luckily.

We arrived early to ATL, early enough to call a ride to the nearby diner to get some good southern breakfast in our systems. From the airport to the diner it felt like we were being taken on a small ATL tour. Passing by us was beautiful scenery, birds chirping, healthy, luscious green trees–adding a perfect amount of nature to the populated urban jungle. The letters GT were everywhere for Georgia Tech. A university that seemed to just keep expanding its territory wherever we roamed. The architecture of the city was sleek, not overly futuristic but reminiscent of Philly. It was modern with some buildings taking a design chance on aesthetics; adding in solar panels, wide open glass roof structures, inverted and curved buildings, the chances taken weren’t over the top and did just enough to stand out. Definitely caught my eye.

We finally arrived at a diner close to where we stayed—Silver Skillet Diner, a place that has hosted the likes of Samuel L. Jackson, and Dave Chappelle to name a few. It’s here that my friends and I are able to take Atlanta in more and notice that yep, this may not be Texas but things sure are thiccer (Yes with 2 C’s) down here in the south. We ordered our meals, with everyone of us making sure to get a bowl of grits–mine as a side to my chicken and waffles. Which, were so crispy yet tender. Only made better by the soft waffles and the sticky sweet syrup to combo it all together perfectly. We finish up and pay our bill. Finally we head to our Airbnb.

We get there and are blown away at the place. Nice balcony, modern furniture with a TV in every room, kitchen is dope and has a beautiful island for us to eat at and lean on. The bathrooms are HUGE and the bedrooms are perfectly fitted for 2. To top it off we had access to a summer lounge area that led to a nice pool and fitness center. Place was so good we had to take a instagram video of it. We were in prime location. Downtown Atlanta, right next to the expressway, walking distance from markets and other restaurants, clothing chains and if we didn’t want to walk we could scooter around wherever we wanted to. Yes, I said scooter around. Not like kick push scooter but motorized. Rideshare companies like Lyft & Uber have motorized scooters you can take by going through the same process as you would by ordering a driver except it’s cheaper and you scan a QRcode to activate the scooter. When you’re finished using it, you hop off, pay and just leave it. Drivers come around later in the day and pick up said scooters and recharge them for later use. It was the strangest but coolest thing to see. Definitely had too much fun bending coroners whipping the scooters like I was in rocket power.

After unpacking and taking more IG photos of our Airbnb, it was time to hit the scene and check out the hype around Momocon. What started out as just a “pick up my badge and go” operation turned into a full storm of fun and adventure. When we arrived at Momocon we took it like any other convention and didn’t pay it much attention, the jaded-ness of being a frequent convention goer showing. That is until we got our badges. We got them, so finally we had access to everything the convention had to offer. We rushed the escalators and slid down the rails to do so again until we reached the convention floor. The choices laid out before were the vendors alley, or the gaming hall. We chose the gaming hall for day one.

A concert of echoing laser sounds, dance taps, sirens, alarms, and winning shouts filled the floor and us with it, enveloped in its energy joined the fray. Game after game we played. Putting our bid to even win some the next day. New friends were made, cosplays were stellar, and I got to chill with one of my favorite Pokémon–Blastoise.

We caught wind of a very rare concert happening that night. One my close friend and I have been dying to see. It was the Bytes & Beats Nujabes Tribute concert featuring the NPC Collective, Richie Branson, Asheru, And our favorites–Substantial and Shing02. If you know anything about great anime then you know about Samurai Champloo. An anime that still stylistically, artistically, and musically, holds up and stands the test of time. Those who watched Samurai Champloo leave with a spirit of hypeness and angsty rebellion. That is if they’re the Mugen type. Those like myself who align more like Jin, feel the counter balance energy of flow. The subtle and instinctual vibrations of being in one's element–just riding the current. One of the biggest things to enjoy about Samurai Champloo is its music. Samurai Champloo had a lot of its music crafted by a Japanese DJ named Nujabes. In my eyes, Nujabes is a god among DJ’s. Shoot, a whole generation of young adults and older can thank him for all the music that inspired if not created the genre of chill-hop & lo-fi.

It was the type of music that could soothe the savage beast, could bring you to this place of perfect concentration like you took the limitless pill. The Beats Nujabes crafted was the type of music that makes you think of the perfect weekend drive by sunset cruising the city blocks or mountain roads or the plains of the countryside–windows down with your one arm doing the free flowing roller coaster motion. That feel good–I’m alive vibe. Then topped with the lyrical stylings of artists like Substantial and Shing02, enhanced everything passed the stratosphere and takes the listener to this otherworldly plain of profound worldly views and humbleness. Even with the uptempo joints it felt like every artist that blessed the track, and Nujabes blessing the beat, it just spoke humble confidence. In short, Nujabes was that dude!

Nujabes collaborated with many artists, but the two that he collaborated with and stood out the most were Substantial and Shing02. He worked on joint albums with both (that are historic for chill-hop culture and must listens) but it was with Shing02 specifically that the two together blessed anime fans worldwide as they collaborated on the intro theme song to Samurai Champloo–Battle Cry. A song so enigmatic that just the utterance of its name begins to make my head bop in rhythmic hip hop fashion. Needless to say, we were going to that damn concert!

It was Friday night, we were in Atlanta, we were looking fly, it’s our first time ever at Momocon and quite possibly our first and only time at this Nujabes tribute concert. We were gonna make sure we had a great fucking time. We did everything possible to make sure we got up close and personal to the stage. I may have stuff-armed a person or two….We made sure to take in all the ambience and to not miss a single beat nor lyric felt or heard. We expected greatness and would be damned if we didn’t have a chance to bear witness to it up close and personal.

The concert began and we were taken to a land of hip hop joy, geek excellence, and a dream fulfilled. The concert started at 11pm and didn’t end till about 3am. For those who waited and held out to the very end like my friends and I were treated to a very special rendition of Battle Cry. A new version with verses from every artist that graced the stage prior, and instrumental solos. This shit was absolutely BONKERS and I LOVED every single moment of it. I’ll add, it was made even better that after the show, the artists came out and interacted with the fans. A humble group of men for sure.

Friday was a blockbuster hit in our books. What happened on Saturday though put everything over the top.

Saturday was special. It was Kat’s birthday and all of us were doing our first ever group cosplay. We decided a while back that we’d do the teen titans in casual attire. This was based off the popular artwork of Gabriel Picolo. So, for me that meant I got to embody a character that I along with many others believe I emulate–Cyborg. I dawned the cybernetic blue and steel grey and white face paint, put on a DC Comics Cyborg shirt to rep him even harder, and topped it off with a colorful playstation jacket. Your man was looking fresh out here. To round out our cast of titans was Kat as Raven, Mike as Robin/Nightwing and Gabe as Starfire. Our rule was if we see a Beast Boy, we adopt him for a family photo; and sure enough we did.

We bursted into Momocon towards the backend of a DC vs Marvel Photoshoot. We got a couple pictures taken there then dispersed to get our own in front of the Momocon banner. That’s when it began to happen. It started off quietly by a singular person, then it built into a loud murmur from everyone I see, then it finally erupts into a loud “DOPE COSPLAY CYBORG” from groups of people. Wherever we went I was getting noticed, our team and group cosplay was getting noticed. I don’t think we ever knew it would become such a big deal. I know I didn’t at the time until it was pointed out to me that, every teen titans cosplay done by a group is ALWAYS lacking a Cyborg; everyone but ours. It was a moment that really struck home for me. It began to make more sense as the day progressed. Little kids were coming up to me saying “BOOYAH!” and singing the teen titans theme song. People loved us, they wanted our pictures, put us in videos, stopped what they were doing just to chat with us. It was major. It without a shadow of a doubt drove home the message to me that representation matters. I know some out there will say it’s not super important but after Momocon, after seeing little black boys and girls smile with joy and sing teen titans with me, after they get excited by the utterance of the word booyah by another black character, that families start showing me off to their kid cosplayers and other adult cosplayers of color pause everything because they NEED to take a photo with you...you just can’t ignore how important that is. To be able to see yourself as a hero. To see oneself as greater than for once, when most of–if not all of society says you can only fit into these certain boxes. To see someone else that looks like you in a positive light; that’s all it takes to break a negative cycle, that’s all it takes to create another hero. For a small moment in time, I was inspiring to those around me; and I hope that the sliver of inspiration that I sparked stays ignited in those I met. I know it surely will with me.

But I digress.

Beyond the massive success of our group cosplay, beyond the elation and fun had for Kat’s birthday, the icing on the cake was being able to meet a famous cosplayer by the name of KieraPlease. This was after an intense dance dance revolution session in which I sat and recorded video and got exhausted looking at everyone else go. It was pure happenstance, which resulted into pure happiness when we finally met. I don’t get starstruck often but I must say, words failed me for our brief interaction. I saw her, saw my friends, and shot my shot at a possible chat and photo opportunity for us all. I took the shot and it went in (KOBE!!). After the picture she hugged us all and had a nice conversation with the Ghouls (Kat & Gabe) which I’m sure made their day if the hug didn’t already. It’s great to note that as a team, we have this cosplay thing down well. When a pro says you got it, you freaking got it! More so, it was better to finally meet someone your used to seeing on a cellphone or laptop screen. A living breathing tangible person, who quite honestly is living her best life fully and truly can be looked at as a symbol of positivity; a role model even. Just like that, day two was in the books.

So, I think I brought you along far enough on my experience in ATL. Detailing 2 key days. Now let me change things up on you a bit and give you my overall thoughts of Atlanta and Momocon as a whole.

Atlanta itself is a hotbed of culture. On the weekend we went, that weekend alone had a bevy of major events happening all weekend long. There was Momocon, Caribbean festival and parade, a food festival, and Stone Mountain fireworks and light show to name a few. As one of our lyft drivers said, ATL is a hotbed of culture because it is made up of a lot of different cultures and people from around the US. Atlanta has its own swagger but it is the culmination of others that has shaped the way it is today. Atlanta is a Transplant City. Many people are moving to Atlanta because of the opportunities that present itself. From music, TV, movies, overall entertainment and broadcasting, the warm weather, the great food, the architecture, the various modes of transportation (ONE TIME FOR THE SCOOTERS), the cheaper housing, and generally you get more out of your earned dollar; why people move there makes sense. And like all major cities Atlanta has its issues, shoot the state of Georgia alone is a bit problematic depending on where you slide politically. But my time spent there will be one for the history books. It’s definitely a place worth traveling to again. Next time I go, I’ll be sure to do more exploring. I didn’t get a chance to travel the halls of Cartoon Network (IF ANYONE ONE IN THE HR DEPARTMENT IS READING THIS, HIRE ME PLEASE) so that’s reason enough for me to go back. That and I didn’t get to try some of Hattie B’s Nashville hot chicken or the slutty vegan sandwich. There’s always next time though.

As for Momocon….IN-FREAKING-CREDIBLE! Momocon has that extra something. That nudge to taking it up one more notch to make it great. No, it is not as big as DragonCon and maybe it won’t get the same recognition or acclaim but Momocon is a phenomenal con. Momocon brought me back to 2014, when I first started going to conventions. My first one at the time was Otakon and to this day I don’t think any other con will hold as special of a spot in my heart as Otakon. But Momocon, Momocon was dangerously close to taking that spot. Which lets me know and hopefully you, the reader, now that it’s just that damn good! The crowd size of the convention is comparable to say the Greater Philadelphia comic con. Meaning there’s a large crowd and over a thousand things to do but you never have to fear about missing out on something. You can and will get to everything you want if you have patience. The event staff from security to the PR and press team were absolutely amazing. All were easy to talk to and informative, helpful and never overbearing. What truly made Momocon as great as it is in my eyes, is that it at its core it remained an anime and gaming convention. It wasn’t a comic convention with anime sections, it was an anime and gaming convention that accepted comic lovers just as much as it did its anime and gaming fans. Anime and gaming is my bread and butter, it’s what got me into this geeky, blerd, pop-culture world I exist in currently. Momocon stayed true to that core value. The sheer fact they had Substantial and Shing02 performing live in concert said more than enough for me. Momocon you are in fact, a real one.

Atlanta….I’ll be back in the future. Whether that be for work or pleasure, or hell maybe to be a transplant myself and live there. All this kid from the burbs of Philly has to say left is…

Peace up, A-Town down.

Much love,

– Isaiah Luck aka Broku

Assistant Producer

Black Tribbles

[theywhoruntheworld]

Muse: Catherine

Name: Catherine

Age: In reality, many thousands of years old. (Apparent age dependant on who sees her)

Race: Succubus

Gender: Female

Occupation: Succubus and Daughter of the Plenipotentiary of the Netherworld.

About: The woman of your dreams, your once in a lifetime opportunity to have your desires fulfilled by the perfect looking female...

Except that Catherine is not a normal human female...

She is a succubus, with the power to cater to a person’s physical aesthetics and seduce them without fail, which so happened to coincide with another’s plan to herd the human population. Not that she cared much; it just happened to work out. What she didn’t plan for was falling for one of her marks and those feelings would interfere with her ‘work’...

But love, or no love, there are very few that can resist her charms.

HEADCANONS

Her ability to been seen as whatever is desirable to her mark is something she secretly calls the Eye of the Beholder Charm.

Gay men, straight women and anyone on the ace spectrum, should she show herself to them will be immune to her Eye of the Beholder Charm; they will instead see her in the same way Vincent (the game’s main character) does.

In private, she is rather lazy and sloppy, preferring to relax and play video games or board games.

Her Sexuality is fluid; just because her marks are mostly men, doesn’t mean she’s not open to same sex antics.

[shyeehaw]

Van der Linde Gang in College

Choice of degrees HCs

Dutch: Politics degree. He has the charisma and is well spoken. I would vote for Dutch! He’s dynamic and would succeed in the versatile politic setting, also many times he used his voice to motivate others. Although we don’t know if he would follow his Robin Hood days or will weight more to the outlaw side. Let’s just hope this time his plans actually work, for the greater good.

Hosea: he strikes me as a dedicated person to his studies. Calm and precise he would be a good architect. A visceral job like this would give Hosea a sense of fulfillment, his projects would actually impact in the life of many others.

Arthur: He would be one of those students that even when it’s midway through his course would doubt if that’s really what he wanted. I can see Arthur being torn between veterinary medicine or a design degree. At the same time he is excited to learn all about different species, he fears that his connection to animals might not be enough for him. Albert Mason would be his classmate in some classes, and so would Kieran. With a design degree he would feel more fulfilled as he would be able to create not only for him , but to the other’s benefits as well.

John: He lived a tough life and grew up on the streets, John knew exactly how the bad side was and he never wanted to get back at doing those things. When time came, he didn’t wanted to spend years of his life with his nose on a book, he found pointless to just memorize things that other people already knew. He wanted to actually do something meaningful. He got a spot at the police’s academy. Training for years in the hope of someday avoiding young kids fall in that kind of life he had before.

Abigail: She convinced John to live a decent life didn’t she? He woke up early every day to mend fences until his back was about to snap in two. Highly persuasive with her sweet words, she would do just fine with a marketing degree. Abigail has the right proactive attitude that this profession needs.

Bill: People never let him forget how bad he is with words. But he is actually pretty smart with numbers. What a waste would he be locked away in a room doing just that. Bill would prosper with a agriculture degree, with which he would be able both to work in the field using his strength, getting his hands dirty and using his natural aptitude for mathematics.

Javier: Fashion degree! Javier is very versatile and just like Arthur he second guessed his choice. He ended up picking a history degree in mexican culture, a way he founded to keep the love for his homeland always burning. He would be an active member of the political debates groups and be responsible for organizing collective acts to help improve life in Mexico countryside. He is a very engaged student. In his spare time, he will attend to music workshops.

Micah: In which field almost anything is valid? Where the competition is always ferocious? What’s the modern translation of a merciless lifestyle? Micah would have a degree in business and management. A title he got from his father, Micah was a prospect to inherit a big company built on blood and secrets. What could suit him better than being able to be rude to everyone “under” him without any consequences? He never cared for it before, and his not going to start now when his about to be CEO.

Lenny: This sweet boy wants a job that will allow him to help people but without having their lives at his hands. Lenny is hard-working and focused, so he would end up getting an English degree, in hopes to someday become a teacher. He is patient, kind and funny. The type of teacher he wish he had when going through college.

Charles: He is a deep and compassionate person, and I can see him choosing an physiotherapy degree. At first he thought about a psychology one, but being and introvert and sometimes finding being around new people too draining, he choose the next good thing to help others. He’s strength helps him lift his patients and aid them to do their exercises. It’s a long process that he finds so rewarding when it’s done. Being able to notice other’s improvement makes him genuinely happy.

Sean: All right, he will admit that he just needed to enter in a course, any course really. All his energy made a lot of degrees impossible, even game design, one of his options, required a level of attention he didn’t had. For some weeks, he even enrolled in a P.E course but the brodudes had their own little posse, and didn’t liked Sean, making fun of his jokes and skinny body. He found himself in the audiovisual communication course. Initially it was all a part of his plan to take over YouTube with his gaming videos, but slowly he started getting interested in experimental techniques, being able to go as crazy as he liked. People actually looked up to his carefree techniques.

Sadie: Sadie is not want to stay still and do boring stuff. With this in mind she kept seeking careers that would give her a sense of adventure and excitement. Archeology seemed good as any guess, she was lured by all the traveling she would get to do, but the job itself was too still. She then chose a crime scene investigation degree, solving those crimes and bringing closure to the victim’s family was something that kept Sadie going. Never a boring day at work, always something new to uncover.

Karen: A body positive queen, Karen pursued a esthetician’s degree. She is great at making people comfortable on their own skin, always looking forward to make young girls embrace their natural beauty. Her bubbly, talkative personality won over the hearts of celebrities even when she was still an intern in training. That brought her a status of beauty guru on Instagram.

Tilly: Ambitious and diligent with her studies, it was written in the stars that Tilly would have a bright future. Her dedication paid of by earning her a spot in a prestigious medical school. She has many traits suitable for this profession. Empathic and understanding, she is leaning towards the pediatric specialization, but not only that, Tilly is practical and good under pressure, which makes her stand out among her classmates.

Mary-Beth: A life among books was all that Mary-Beth could dream of. But she also knew how difficult the publishing industry is. So not only she now studies creative writing improving her already natural skills, and flirting with new genres, she decided to get a degree in library sciences. A way to secure her financial independence and be surrounded by the things she loves the most. The work as an intern at the library is lovely, she gets to meet new people who shares the same interest at her and contribute so everyone gets access to books.

Mrs. Grimshaw: Let’s go ahead and admit that Susan likes to be in charge. He was not born to hear others telling her what to do. When choosing a degree, she kept that in mind. The one that she showed more interest was in people’s management and Human Resources. Where she could delegate all she wanted. But not only that, Susan likes to analyze who is better suited for each task. Great at reading people, she will do great in her field.

Molly: Oh, elegant and classy, Molly! Her sense of aesthetic is on point and that lead her to a life of famous trendsetter on the internet. But she thinks that’s not a real job, so, looking to put her good taste in things at a use, she ends up getting a degree in Jewelry design. Uniting her passion of expensive, beautiful things with artistic talent. 

Kieran: All he ever wanted to do with his life is to be around horses. They brought such peace and joy to Kieran that he knew his life would have to follow this path. He started pursuing a Large-Animal vet, with a minor in equestrian studies. It was even better than he imagined, he was fascinated by every aspect from animal nutrition to the actual care of horses. Being a responsible, calm person made a lot of his teachers very pleased.

Trelawny: Captivating and a social butterfly, Josiah had no doubts about looking for a career in communication. His charming personality was very suitable for a journalism degree. He knows his way around words and the most terrible news don’t sound as awful coming from the charismatic (future) anchorman. I wouldn’t mind having his face on my TV every night.

Pearson: Truth is didn’t mattered if he loved cooking for people, as people didn’t loved his food. He didn’t knew if was the improvising or just the plain lack of formal knowledge, he was never taught, just jumped on it. Tired of people giving the food piece by piece for the dog, Pearson pursued a degree in Gastronomy. Finally being able to dive deep in the dishes he was trying to master for years. Pearson is a simple, rustic man and most of the students gave him a hard time for him not being sophisticated enough. He doesn’t mind, at least his foods fills more than the gap of teeth, like theirs.

Swanson: He was kicked out of his theology course, never showed up sober. That’s it. Currently studying philosophy instead and actually enjoying himself. Orville has many thoughts that can be deepened by getting this degree. He looks forward to a get a minor in counseling though, to help others there were in the same place he was a few years ago.

[apricops]

Please do elaborate! What gameworld does don quixote come from so that he'd behave like that?

Two quick disclaimers: first, for those who don’t know, ‘isekai’ literally means “strange/different world,” and refers to the wish-fulfillment subgenre of “a normal boring nobody finds himself plunked down in a magic fantasy world,” most often a very fantasy RPG-ish world. It plays to the fantasy nearly every lonely teenage nerd has had (self included back when I was that age) where they wish they could just live in their favorite video game instead of the shitty boring real world.

Secondly: Don Quixote is a fabulously complex novel. It’s very… cheeky. It gives off the sense that it’s stringing you along, yanking the rug out from under you in ways that can make you laugh, cry, or just lose faith in humanity. So this is just one possible interpretation out of many.

Right, onto the actual thought.

The “game world,” in this case, is the thing Don Quixote chases, the idea of chivalric literature itself – the idea that knights were loyal, strong, just, and honorable, rather than being their liege’s goons who’d show up to take your shit and burn your house every so often. (and even by Cervantes’s time, mounted knights were a distant memory and collection of aesthetics in an era where battles were now decided by disciplined troops using firearms and keeping formations, and in domestic times their ‘noble blood’ was less and less important in an era when any lowborn burgher could get rich in intercontinental trade)

The story of Don Quixote sometimes gets bastardized into the story of an unlucky schlub with big dreams, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. First of all, he’s an hidalgo, a member of the petty nobility, hence the massive collection of chivalric literature – books weren’t cheap in the early 17th century.

It’s a bit of a stretch, but you could say that the story of Don Quixote is the contemporary equivalent of a middle-aged dude living off the family inheritance, spending his waking hours playing World of Warcraft on a top-of-the-line PC, until one day he’s wandering around downtown wearing plywood armor, brandishing a foam sword, and insisting he’s a level 120 Elf Rogue. The ultimate tragedy here being that rather than getting to live in the “alternate world” of chivalry, he deludes himself into believing he’s already there, to the detriment of nearly everyone he meets.

[littleshebear]

Rules: answer 21 questions then tag 21 people you want to get to know better

Tagged by: @driftersmexicanbitch Thank you! 

Nickname: Bear, because of my online moniker. If you encounter a littleshebear around on the interwebs, chances are it’s me. I like it. 

Zodiac: Gemini.

Height: Just under 5′4

Last movie I saw: Ant Man and the Wasp

Last thing I googled: Random shit about Korean histroy. It’s a blank spot for me and I’ve been binge watching Kingdom. I realise Kingdom is far from a documentary but I like context. 

Favorite musician: Oh. Can I only pick one? John Williams. I saw him conduct the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican back in the day and it was spiritual. 

Song stuck in my head: Beneath Your Beautiful by Labyrinth ft. Emelie Sande.

Other blogs: 

Fuckyeahdavos (from when I was active in Game of Thrones fandom. I feel bad about never posting there. Haven’t for years. I’ll probably do a catch up binge-watch in time for the last season and start posting again. I still love Davos even if I fell out of love with the show). 

gimmiebackmysweetroll (Elder Scrolls sideblog)

Do I get asks: Now and again. I got an ask a while back that I never answered that I feel guilty about. It was about Amanda/Banshee-44 headcanons and I don’t know how to answer it. I’m still thinking about it. I should probably throw that one open to the peanut gallery. 

Following: 204

Followers: 474 (I like to think most of them are real people and not just porn bots. 

Amount of sleep: Six hours seems to be my optimum but I can function on four. Any less than that and I’m crabby as fuck.

Lucky number: Uh. Pass? 

What I’m wearing: Jeans and a Braden Holtby/Washington Capitals Eastern Conference Champions t-shirt. 

Dream job: When I was a kid I wanted to be a paleontologist. I’ve never been a big one for dreams since then. I’m paying the bills and I’m happy, so that’s as  good a dream as any to fulfill to be honest. 

Dream trip: Japan.

Favorite food: Sushi. 

Play any instruments: Tuba, kit drums, piano, bass guitar, recorder. I can get by on guitar and Celtic Lever harp. Voice to a point. 

Languages: English. I have a smattering of Welsh and I had been learning Polish but that fell by the wayside a bit last year. I should get back to that.

Favorite song: Couldn’t possibly choose one but hearing Winter by Tori Amos live reduced me to messy tears. 

Random facts:

I have a lot of degrees (Masters in Philosophy, another masters in Philosophy, bachelor degree in Scots Law, masters in Visual Culture). 

I like distance/through hiking. I’ve done the West Highland way twice and I’d like to do it again. The Cape Wrath trail is a big bucket list item. 

I get weird, random hyperfixations. I have deep knowledge of certain topics but I’m totally ignorant of so many others. It’s all or nothing for me. If something interests me, I’m all in. If it doesn’t, I ignore it. 

I wrote a master’s thesis on aesthetic theory and video games, using Journey as a case study. Out of all my writing, academic or otherwise, that’s the piece I’m most proud of. 

I adore animals. All animals. Yes, even the “ugly” ones. 

I used to be very good at Highland Dancing and gymnastics. Kinda pissed at myself that I got lazy and let that slide. 

I told myself I hated cooking until I tried veganism, then I actually learned how food worked. I love cooking now. 

I’ve been engaged for nearly ten years. We’ll get there eventually. You can’t rush these things. 

Describe yourself as aesthetic things:

I have no idea how to approach this. So. Uhm. I dunno. Singing in the shower. Sunsets over loch lomond. Sheet music. A desk strewn with notebooks and fandom paraphernalia. The smell of woodsmoke. Broken in hiking boots. Paperback books with broken spines. Evening wear covered with cat hair (because my cats > being stylish). Celtic knotwork jewelry. A can of Irn Bru.

Tagging: THIS MAKES ME ANXIOUS BUT HERE GOES @distant--storm @fubukimori @necrojade @toxicsofas @hellbent-huntress @yourspunkpunk @spookgeist @christopherbarrick @queenqueso @lileyx @bornandbredinsane @crazy-bone-lady @seigephoenix @varyen  That’s not 21 and I’ve probably forgotten people I should have tagged, this is why tagging makes me anxious. X)

[this-is-an-open-letter]

Tessa Virtue Is Ready to Talk about the Olympics

 The skater also dishes on her relationship with Scott Moir 

Tessa Virtue is like a Disney princess come to life. Maybe it’s the Olympian’s other-worldly grace, her anime-like green eyes or the romantic plot lines she and partner Scott Moir so captivatingly play out on the ice, but one can easily imagine birds helping Virtue get dressed in the morning. 

“Fairy tale” is a term that the London, Ont.-born skater uses herself in describing her and Moir’s journey to Pyeongchang, but rather than coming down to good fortune or fairy godmothers, their gold-medal storybook ending was the calculated apex of years of preparation.

“It was everything we dreamed of,” says Virtue, during a recent Toronto stop as part of her new role as  Canada’s first-ever Nivea ambassador. “I’m so fulfilled by the process of spending two years crafting a plan with our support team and executing the details of that plan every single day, culminating in that Olympic fairy tale. In a lot of ways, we knew that’s what would happen because that’s what we trained for, but there were so many other factors that had to come together in order to live that dream.”

Following Virtue’s lingering leg injury, the duo’s disappointing performance at the 2014 Sochi Games, a two-year hiatus from competition and a move from Michigan to Montreal to work with new trainers, the pair’s fiery Moulin Rouge free dance provided the perfect finale to their two-decade-long partnership. They claimed the gold ice-dancing medal and broke the world record for overall score, which had been set mere minutes before by their French training partners and rivals Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron.

Fans lost their minds. Suddenly, it seemed everyone knew what a twizzle was. Virtue’s mother, Kate, even recounted how a cab driver in South Korea, who barely spoke a word of English, exclaimed “ice dance” when she told him she was Tessa’s mom.

“I still haven’t watched the video because I’m sure I’ll critique it,” Virtue says of that historic performance. “I’m trying to hold on to that feeling of looking into Scott’s eyes after we finished and thinking about the 20 years that led to that moment and thinking ‘Wow, we did it.’”

Cementing top status in a sport where success is entirely subjective, where judges’ scores are the topic of conspiracy theories and wins can come down to minute details, presupposes a relentless quest for perfection. It also places a huge deal of importance on aesthetics, especially for women, as costuming, hair and makeup play a big part in storytelling. (x)

“It’s been really interesting because my career has been marked alongside a male, and we’ve achieved every single feat together,” says Virtue. “But, from a media standpoint, seeing the difference in coverage of how women are seen in sport, the commentary, the focus on appearance versus accomplishment has been a learning. You think ‘How are we in 2018 and this is still a thing?’”

For female skaters, the focus on appearance often includes scrutiny of their bodies. Take French figure skater Surya Bonaly, who came to prominence in the ’90s. Judges penalized her muscular physique, saying she didn’t fit the “ice princess” archetype.

“There’s definitely that ideal 
of the long and lean balletic 
frame, but I personally love seeing athletes that have a powerful attack in the way they approach their sport,” says Virtue, who remembers watching Bonaly at the 1998 Nagano Games. “I think people are coming around to that with the trend of overall fitness and health. Women aren’t as afraid to be strong. We don’t have to be these delicate little flowers. We can take on the world with grace and poise and a whole lot of muscle.”

“Women aren’t as afraid to be strong. We don’t have to be these delicate little flowers. We can take on the world with grace and poise and a whole lot of muscle.”

That’s exactly what the 28-year-old is doing, navigating life outside the rink with the same aplomb she displayed in the Gangneung Ice Arena. On top of her work with Nivea, she plans on completing her psychology degree and eventually pursuing an MBA. It’s an exciting albeit unfamiliar time for the athlete as she begins to branch out of that fabled partnership that’s enthralled so many.

“To be able to squeeze Scott’s hand or give him a wink or talk to him during our performances… I can’t imagine ever taking the ice without him. And I think that’s a testament to the partnership that we’ve worked so hard to build. But off the ice, we’re such different people, so it’s a natural evolution for me to pursue various ventures. We support each other in that way, but it is interesting. Like doing interviews, I’m used to turning to him and having us finish each other’s sentences. I miss having my partner in crime for that.”

Fans don’t have to mourn the duo just yet. They plan on continuing to train and do shows together for the next little while although not before a much-deserved break. Virtue jokes she hasn’t done anything physical since South Korea and has been enjoying a diet of chocolate croissants and champagne.

Before the Olympics, every moment of Virtue’s life was regimented, gearing up to that one fleeting moment. Now, she is figuring out what post-Olympics life looks like, calling it “chaotic but also really special.” Virtue, who admits that she prefers to work toward a clear goal, is drafting her next chapter and defining a new happily ever after.

Bare beauty

In training, as in skincare,

Tessa Virtue prefers a streamlined, results-driven approach.

“I have a very simple, minimal routine,” says Virtue. “I try not to use too many products. Partnering with Nivea has been such a natural fit because it’s been part of my beauty regime for as long as I can remember. And funny enough, when I travelled to Japan, fans would throw the Nivea tin on the ice. This was before I officially signed with the brand and I was sending [the Nivea team] photos and telling them ‘It’s a sign that this is meant to be!’” Virtue calls out the brand’s micellar water as a personal essential. Of the rinse-free cleanser, she says, “Going from the gym to the rink to a press event or on the plane or whatever, it’s so easy.”

photos by Christopher Wahl

[electroniccreatortragedy]

Still life photography

Paulette Tavormina - seizing beauty  

Juan de VillaAlba 

Instagram - Definitely Dreaming (Janet Broughton 

Aesthetic and conceptual analysis:  

The first picture captured my imagination on an aesthetic basis for a few different reasons – firstly, the bubbles, are they real? How did she make those bubbles so perfectly placed – was it edited in post-production or was she incredibly patient and had a good assistant who was able and willing to blow bubbles ad infinatum. I also really like the alternative view of the peony. Peonies are beautiful flowers and are often displayed or used in photographs in an isometric plane like a third person video game, whereas here, it’s lay on its side and photographed with the stamen pointing almost directly at the camera which is unusual for peonies.  

Conceptually speaking, this picture is based on the renaissance vanitas paintings looking at mortality and how you can’t take your things from this world into the next which is a quite interesting philosophically on its own. When you then add the temporality of the cut flower and bubbles that can be gone in a matter of milliseconds or over a few days and the fragility of the candle to symbolise how quickly and easily life can be extinguished, but equally implying that life can be incredibly dangerous, just like the flame – knock it over and your whole world could be ruined or changed from everything you once knew. The concrete plinth like table used for this vanitas could be argued symbolism for how sharp and ruthless life can be.  

The second picture just twisted my mind! It's so creative, it’s using the way water bends light to change how the chessboard background is displayed because of the basics of physics. Along with the light bending using water to distort the background, the mirrored surface used, creates another illusion in the foreground of the glass being taller or having a longer stem than it appears to.  

Conceptually, this image says to me that nothing is quite as it may appear. The distortion suggesting that when we look at things through a lens, we can become warped from expectations or reality - like using too many filters on selfies on Instagram! For me, this is a conversational art piece, not just a well-executed still-life of some fancily stacked glasses – Leaning back to that appearances theme, suggesting that nothing’s quite as we first imagined or thought depending on perspective  

The third picture grabbed my attention conceptually more than it did aesthetically because it’s a play on portraiture for me. It’s a faceless receipt of a flower. Perhaps this suggests a thankless task, or an expectation within the world that certain roles must be fulfilled, like an unwritten rule that all women want to receive flowers or that the fingerless shape of the hands of the artists mannequin requires a gently gently approach to receiving the flower. Maybe it’s black and white to show the monotonality of how the photographer feels towards flowers as a gift because she’s either tired of receiving them or feels obliged to gift them to her partner because that’s the done thing as per society.  The focus point of this image being the middle, where the mannequin is either giving or receiving the flower is also an interesting choice and perhaps is used as a message subliminally regarding giving or receiving flowers.  

Speaking aesthetically around the third image, I do like the vintage feel to the image, and I like the fact it’s black and white to show the mannequin’s implied interaction of the image more than I think it would if it were in colour. Further research revealed that this image was taken using a vintage Russian Helios lens from 1969 which explains that vintage feel I got when looking at this image for the first time.