baudshaw

[baudshaw]

Nevermind I was wrong. Time for Nesting 2.0!!!!!

ITS HERE. THE NEW SYMBOL IS THE ARAMAIC SYMBOL FOR *RESH*. RESH IS USED IN THE CONCEPT ART TO REFER TO THE EDEN ELDER. THE NEW SEASON IS TWO EMBERS AND SPECIFICALLY EDEN ELDER RELATED STAY CALM. OR DONT TWO EMBERS T-MINUS 2 MONTHS

[baudshaw]

I advise everyone to look at the Aramaic alphabet.

👀

(ps: please keep any spoilers and info from leaks away from this post -ymir)

[baudshaw]

ITS HERE. THE NEW SYMBOL IS THE ARAMAIC SYMBOL FOR *RESH*. RESH IS USED IN THE CONCEPT ART TO REFER TO THE EDEN ELDER. THE NEW SEASON IS TWO EMBERS AND SPECIFICALLY EDEN ELDER RELATED STAY CALM. OR DONT TWO EMBERS T-MINUS 2 MONTHS

[baudshaw]

The omori worshippers are gonna have a field day with this one, good luck

OMORI and Detroit: Become Human's Plot Twists - How A Bad Plot Twist Ruins The Story Instead Of Enhancing It

In the 2020 game OMORI, the story's plot twist is that the main protagonist's sister, Mari, didn't kill herself as the player was led to believe - instead, the main protagonist himself accidentally killed her in a fit of rage after an argument they had and his best friend subsequently covered that up by staging it as a suicide.

In the 2018 game Detroit: Become Human, the plot twist of Kara’s story is that Alice, the seemingly human child Kara took care of after the two broke free of Alice’s abusive father, was actually an android all along. 

What do they have in common? The answer’s simple - not only are they emblematic of their respective games’ shoddy writing, they detract from the story they’re supposed to elevate.

First things first - both twists don’t make sense upon scrutiny. OMORI’s plot twist in particular hinges on a huge contrivance - the fact Basil just so happened to be present in Sunny’s house (for reasons the game leaves unexplained) at exactly the right time to witness Sunny committing manslaughter and come up with a plan to absolve him of any blame. Furthermore, the twist’s insinuation that Mari overworked Sunny and didn’t tolerate his mistakes comes out of left field, as Mari was consistently portrayed as kind and flawless (both in Sunny’s dreams and in the real world via the photo album)  throughout the game up until that point.

Alice’s twist only works because the story lies to the player: Kara finds a magazine with a picture of Alice’s model at the beginning of the game, but it’s conveniently blurred. While there are some hints that Alice is an android, such as the fact that she refuses to eat even when food is presented to her, this clashes with one of the main levels of Kara’s story, which has her looking for food and shelter for Alice’s sake. This implies that Kara deliberately ignored Alice’s true nature, for reasons that will be elaborated on later.

Alice’s twist, however, does have some solid hints at the very least. That brings me to a problem exclusive to OMORI’s twist - the game spends most of its runtime hinting at the red herring of Mari having hanged herself as opposed to the twist of her having been shoved down the stairs. The only tangible clues to the twist are the prevalence of staircases in the brief cutscenes before Sunny fights his fears and the hands motif, but they are not enough. If the point of the reveal is that Mari didn’t kill herself, what’s the point in hinting she did?

Secondly, the twists’ linchpin characters are flat in terms of personality. Alice is the quintessential “little girl” in videogames: cute, small, withdrawn, barely cries (she doesn’t even go into hysterics at a concentration camp), constantly needs to be cared for and protected, at most steers you in the right moral direction if you do something “problematic”, even if for her sake. This, allegedly, is supposed to stem from her background, as she was abused by her father, but even the android that Kara spots and that makes her confront the truth has the same quiet, demure, sad demeanor, implying that it’s simply how Alice’s model is programmed to be. Alice is not a character: she is a pet you are supposed to find adorable. The twist that she was never a “real” human, therefore, falls flat on its face: she doesn’t prove anything about the depth of emotions androids can experience. For all intents and purposes, she is the doll racist humans see androids as.

Aside from a brief interaction with Hero in the first several minutes of the game (which is promptly forgotten as soon as it ends), Mari spends most of its runtime only as fuel for Sunny and his friends’ grief. She is given no personality beyond being the Team Mom, isn’t fleshed out in any objective flashbacks (as in, flashbacks not colored by Sunny’s perception of her), and if the vision Sunny experiences on Two Days Left is her ghost, she isn’t plussed in the slightest by her dear little brother profaning her memory by deciding to keep up Basil’s lie. The one flaw the game tries to give her - perfectionism - has no bearing on her character until the moment the game uses it to give Sunny a reason to lash out at her, and the negative impact said flaw had on her life before the argument is glossed over. OMORI’s point that her desire to be perfect was the reason for her downfall, therefore, falls flat on its face: for all intents and purposes, Mari is perfect. 

Finally, both twists are detrimental to the stories they are in.  Supposedly, the twist of android Alice is meant to make you question whether or not you, the player, are going to love her all the same even after learning that she’s not human (although the question should be moot since all three protagonists are androids and the most popular one in the fandom is the most machine-like one). What the game fails to answer, however, is why Kara refused to accept reality and deluded herself into thinking Alice was human to the point of endangering both of them for the sake of playing pretend (this, on top of everything else, makes replaying the game much more frustrating, as you no longer care to give Alice proper shelter as she doesn’t really need it). The implication is that she, herself, believes an android child is inherently less deserving of love as a human one, an interesting concept of internalized bigotry that is never explored. Even worse than this, what before could be seen as a touching relationship between an android and a human, who despite the hatred surrounding them can form a family out of natural love, is now nothing more than two androids following their programming: Kara keeps being a caretaker as she’s supposed to do, and Alice keeps being the perfect little child as she’s supposed to be. While they both rebelled against their abusive master, it means that, at their core, they didn’t even deviate in the first place, and instead forced themselves back into their pre-programmed roles. This is the complete antithesis of the message of the game, which is that androids are more than their programming and they are, instead, people.

Similarly, OMORI’s plot twist turns what could’ve been an interesting story about such topics as teenage suicide and suicide bereavement into a farce. It’s one thing to play this game under the impression Sunny and co. are struggling to live a life their beloved sister and friend unexpectedly removed herself from, but it’s very different to replay it with the knowledge that all the pain Kel, Hero and Aubrey went through was pointless since Mari never killed herself in the first place and stemmed from one of their friends desecrating her corpse. Without warning, the story turns from being about overcoming the grief of losing a loved one to suicide into being about grappling with the guilt of a manslaughter and a huge lie that destroyed multiple friendships - a lie Sunny directly facilitated by lying to his friends by omission to save his own skin. The only character in the game to call Sunny out on this is his suicidal depression (!!!), and its arguments are framed as irrational self-loathing so they’d be easier to dismiss; the game’s best ending, meanwhile, has him conveniently avoid the consequences of his confession by moving town, not caring anymore about the feelings of his friends (or the well-being of Basil, whom he leaves to bear the brunt of the consequences). None of this would’ve been a problem if the game simply focused on Sunny moving on from blaming himself for his sister’s suicide instead.

So, this brings me back to the post's title - not only should a good plot twist be properly foreshadowed, but it should enhance the plot when experienced multiple times. The twists in OMORI and DBH fail to do so, and create the impression they were haphazardly inserted into the plot for the sake of subverting the audience's expectations, with little thought given to how they retroactively affect said plot.

Unfortunately, the only expectation they manage to subvert is the expectation of a completent story.

[baudshaw]

Introducing the new and improved... Sky Research Poll! Fill out your various opinions on Sky here.

[baudshaw]

[baudshaw]

Hey baud, me again, do you remember that you wrote like 30 seasons concepts?

I was inspired by the one called season of pilgrimage, but I don't have a good reference for the spirits' names (i have some ideas for the designs), whenever you can (dont worry about answering if you dont want to), could you develop more about that season?

PD: sorry for beign a little bit annoying, but i LOVE the creativity you have for writing

(A bit of this is taken from my Gratitude 2.0 season idea, actually, but I think it fits here as well.)

It takes place “behind” the Isle of Dawn, in the ocean. The main structure of interest is a small raft that’s crash-landed on the island.

The quests involve repairing the raft and setting it out to the sea. Each quest has one spirit requesting a task from you. It can be done alone, but it’s a bit faster with multiple people. At the end, the spirits use the raft and go to the Isle of Dawn, thanking you for fulfilling their journey.

The items are very similar to the base game, but a bit expanded. These are poor children, after all, so their clothes are more basic.

Pilgrimage Guide: Slightly taller than the rest. For the ultimates, they have a fancy mini-raft prop, a long flowing hair, and a purplish mask.

Fish Whisperer: Has the Knifefish Call and wears a long tan robe with a dark brown hood.

Sturdy Sailor: Has the “rowing” emote and wears a short tan vest outfit with a brown oar prop and a slightly long hair.

Impatient Recluse: Has the “angry walk” emote and wears a short, messy hair with thick bangs as well as a large light brown cape.

Cracked Caretaker: Has the “reeling from damage” emote and wears a nearly destroyed mask, a short purplish-brown cape, and a curly hairstyle.

It’s a bit short, but I hope you like it!

[baudshaw]

imagine if like, instead if the events on sky being damn cosmetic focused where you grind tickets and like…. nothin else, they like added event special mini games you can play solo or with friends and strangers yknow :(((( dawg cus i dont wanna grind anymore gang…..

[baudshaw]

Moths are Hopeful Stewards #1 fans

[baudshaw]

the font... it's the font... that's fraktur... nazis love it bc it's associated with nazi germany & "tradition" or whatever the fuck. so yes a bald white man in a shirt saying PROTECT in that font can at first glance raise an eyebrow. it's not phsyiogonomy it's just knowing your shit

I don't think it's fraktur, rather just a generic Old English font. It is a common misunderstanding though. And again, why is the "bald white man" so important here?

[baudshaw]

@froggierboy , I don’t want you to misconstrue my post as “ragging”. I just don’t like the idea of judging a person’s ideology just because of their physical features. Otherwise, I think the post is good.

had a fun experience on the subway the other day

[baudshaw]

re: the trans-friendly shirt comic. i dont mean to be a dick but sometimes white men with shaved heads are literally nazis. I've met them, unfortunately, since I work with the public. op wasn't confronting them, just hoping it wasn't true; being a normal level of cautious when "protect x" is (at least in my neck of the woods) predominantly used with "protect our guns!"/"protect our [white] way of life!"/"protect our borders". Which is, yknow, a bummer. and most of the offline world thinks bald men are "allowed" to be masculine - encouraged, even. sometimes to the point of disallowing femininity, so thats somethin'.

I'm sure you're like a cool person with actual fun and interesting stuff going on in your life, and I'm just basing this off a single random reblog, so do hope you're having a nice day despite my comment lol

Thank you for responding, I rarely get these requests. But here’s my reasoning:

Basically any person can become a Nazi, not just bald white guys. I don’t like the idea of using physiognomy to automatically assume people are bigoted.

I understand it’s important to be cautious, but it’s not helpful to assume only visibly queer people can support trans kids. In fact, I don’t like the concept of being “visibly queer” in general, which I suppose is a similar concept to being “visibly Nazi”.

[baudshaw]

A classic "masculine guy= potential nazi" on this site

had a fun experience on the subway the other day

[baudshaw]

Truly Incredible Storytelling happening in the Omori manga. The entire Acrophobia scene has been cut to one panel. New viewers are getting progressively more confused ever chapter. The pacing is literally accelerating.

What are we doing here

[baudshaw]

hey Sky community, you have a racism problem

look at this

these are officially released promo art depicting the in-game spirits. I am also going to gesture at a few stills from the animations.

not even touching on that the spirits in-game are all various shades of blue, but yknow what, I will touch on it. they’re blue. the ancestors spirits are all various shades of dark blue, sometimes with darker brown wisps of skin or explicitly dark brown when portrayed as alive. likewise the skykids are various shades of brown or darker colors. I know y’all can see that.

so with that out of the way

why the fuck would you draw them white?

see, this has always bothered me for the year I’ve been playing Sky and interacting with its online fandom – seen it speckled in Skyblr, in the art channels of Skycord, throughout Twitter, disconcertingly prominent on Instagram – but given how immaturely the Sky community handles confronting any amount of discourse, I never wanted to say anything publicly cos I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of a deluge of harassment this oh so positive and kind playerbase is known for.

then TGC Twitter retweeted a piece of art that whitewashes the ancestor spirits.

deep breath.

I don’t want any of you racist shits to take this as confirmation that it’s somehow acceptable to make the ancestors and skykids white. sure, TGC says a lot of things in this game are “up to interpretation,” but it strikes me so strange that some of y’all look at these darker-skinned characters and immediately go against canon to give them light pink or paper white skin. why is it so hard to draw these darker-skinned characters with the dark skin they have both in game and as how TGC officially depicts them?

I’ve seen several excuses for this:

“I’m humanizing them.” okay and why does this humanization necessitate making them white? why do you have to make these nonhuman characters human? why does your brain immediately go to “white” when considering “human” and not any other palette for the many people of color who make up the majority of the human population?

“I’m projecting onto them.” you can’t project onto characters with dark skin? you don’t find characters with dark skin relatable? that’s quite racist. I, as a black child, often projected or saw myself in pale-skinned characters that dominate the entertainment media I watched growing up. surely it shouldn’t be that hard for white people to see themselves in non-white characters. surely.

“it doesn’t fit my artstyle / I’m not used to drawing POC.” then you are a terrible artist unwilling to challenge yourself or your own biases, unwilling to improve your skills or explore other palettes you may find favorable and attract a larger diverse audience. drawing with another color is not that difficult. if you do find it hard, there are a monumental amount of tutorials on illustrating people of color and darker skin tones out there online for free. you can even color pick from your reference! the only thing stopping you is your racism.

“they’re not human so it can’t be whitewashing.” true, the characters of Sky are not human, they likely don’t have human conceptions of race to them. I’ve been asked before “why are you bringing race into this?” as if I’m the one racializing non-raced characters. look, I wasn’t the one who drew them white. believe it or not, white is a race – it isn’t the “default,” it isn’t a non-race, white is a race. making these non-raced characters white is racializing them, putting race upon them that they do not have. it’s weird. for all you complain about “making everything about race these days,” why go out of your way to portray these humanoid characters with dark skin as white? fun fact: it’s still whitewashing even if the character is not a human being, especially if said character resembles humans of color.

however, I will add that is particularly insulting to see characters with explicitly black hairstyles drawn white. if I see another ancestor or skykid with an afro, afro poof(s), or dreadlocks with pale skin, I am going to bite someone. likewise, the Enchantment spirits take inspiration from Arabic cultures, Flight crew have influence from Inuit and other Northern American indigenous cultures. no, I am not invoking cultural appropriation to condemn your skykids with Lively Navigator’s hair or Cheerful Spectator’s afro or Fire Prophet’s short dreads or Indifferent Alchemist’s turban – that is perfectly okay. it’s the far too many Sky fanartists whitewashing skykids and these ancestors that is the problem.

I’m not demanding you to be canon compliant, I’m asking you to stop whitewashing, to stop erasing the little representation the players of color have overall. we do not often see people who resemble us in Western media very often, especially as the majority of the characters. it’s the same for those who ascribe gender onto these canonically agender characters, contributing to nonbinary erasure, though that is a story for another time.

and this doesn’t even touch on the afro chibi trend (how come this black hairstyle is only ever “cute” when it’s on an infantilized character? and for fucks sake do not call it clown hair or broccoli or, god forbid, cotton) or how Vault Elder’s headscarf is used to make “eggs” or “chickens.” why can’t you appreciate our hair and our headcoverings as just as fashionable as uncovered white hairstyles? why do y’all keep calling POC hair fucking food? if you do it as a joke, it’s still a racist joke. do you know how hard it is for me to exist without white people nonsense as a Black person with an afro irl? don’t get me started on the bullshit hijabi Muslims have to deal with. the best you could do is not mock their appearance.

now there are those of you who have been doing these racist things without really thinking about it. you just drew the ancestors with pale skin cos that’s where your mind goes or you’ve been a silly afro chibi for a while or you drew your white self as a white skykid. reading this, you’re doubling down now cos you don’t think you’re racist, you’re not a raging bigot, you can’t be a *gasp* bad person!

and, yknow what, I don’t think you’re a bad person either. I condemn the actions, not the person (unless you’re an asshole). like you, I grew up in a white supremacist society participating in racist institutions down to the micro level, not questioning what I was taught or socialized even if I was often on the receiving end of microaggressions. but I learned to confront the prejudices that have been socialized in me because they maintain an unjust world that hurts  people unnecessarily. even now I am still confronting prejudices that have been ingrained in me because I understand the harm they cause and the oppression they perpetuate, how bullshit have and continue to make the world a hostile place for people of color like myself. I stop doing bigoted things. it’s the least I can do.

surely, you can too.

and for those blokes who are aware of how racist you are and continue to do this shit anyways? fuck you.

sincerely, a Black Sky player

[baudshaw]

This guy needs to “put the fries in the bag”. It’s too clear he’s just finding whatever topics to get views. I don’t care about the creator troupe, but this nonsensical rambling (with a me shoutout!) needs to stop.

I agree that there needs to be more interesting discussion of Sky. But this is certainly not it.

[baudshaw]

I've been wanting to unleash this headcanon from my mind for too long. I love nesting guide

They don't communicate very well hehehe