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canon: they died

fanfic: fUCK YOU

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REBLOG IF YOU LOVE DOGS

9 million people fucking love dogs

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Speaking of media that criticises its own audience, I‘ve gotta give it to Crank 2, which hates its audience more than any film I’ve seen before or since.

For those who haven’t seen it, the premise of Crank is that the protagonist, Chev Chelios (played by Jason Statham), has been injected with a slow-acting poison that will eventually stop his heart unless he can delay its onset by keeping his adrenaline levels elevated. What follows is an old-school revenge romp in which Chelios repeatedly performs needlessly dangerous stunts in order to keep his adrenaline high going until he reaches his target. The film climaxes with a mid-air scuffle as Chelios and his foe fall from a helicopter, after which they both splatter on the pavement below.

Crank was reasonably well-reviewed, with many critics remarking that the only thing that kept it from being a literal video game movie was the lack of an on-screen life meter. Both the fans and the studio immediately began clamouring for a sequel (in spite of the protagonist’s apparent death), which the film’s creators strongly opposed.

The pro-sequel crowd eventually won out, and Crank 2 went into production. This time, the premise was even more absurd: having miraculously survived becoming street pizza, Chelios is kidnapped by the lackies of an elderly Chinese mob boss, who wishes to steal Chelios’ super-powerful heart and have it transplanted into himself. Chelios would then be forced to rely on a battery-powered electric heart, with the heart’s battery meter - i.e., the actual on-screen life meter whose absence the critics had remarked upon in the original film - featuring heavily in the promotional material.

In the actual film, however, the meter breaks just a few minutes after Chelios acquires it, and it’s never replaced. That’s your first warning sign.

The film goes on to deliberately frustrate the audience’s expectations even further by refusing to let us see Chelios fight. The first Crank film features a number of fight scenes with remarkable choreography, but there’s none of that here; instead, each time Chelios gets involved in a major brawl, some conceit or happenstance denies the audience the anticipated spectacle. In the first case, the camera remains outside in the street while Chelios fights his way through an entire house full of gang members. The effect is hilarious, but it’s not what the audience came for. In another case, a fight is depicted as a bizarre Godzilla-esque fantasy sequence featuring a stunt man flailing clumsily about in a giant rubber Jason Statham costume; again, it’s funny as hell, but again, the audience is denied the draw of Statham’s martial arts performance. In yet a third case, Chelios is prevented from participating altogether, and the camera remains focused on him as he ineffectually struggles to enter the fray; meanwhile, a handful of comedy relief mooks win the fight without him. Of course, that entire portion of the film turns out to be a shaggy dog story, anyway - none of it has anything to do with retrieving Chelios’ stolen heart. He’s unwittingly become sidetracked into a series of irrelevant conflicts, while the actual mastermind behind the theft - who’s steadily been built up as the film’s ultimate villain - appears only briefly, before being defeated off-screen by the protagonist’s sidekick’s girlfriend. On top of all that, there’s the matter of electric heart itself. It’s repeatedly foreshadowed that Chelios will eventually figure out how to “charge up” and become an unstoppable fighting machine, but when the time finally comes, precisely the opposite happens - he succeeds only in incapacitating himself and missing the climactic battle, showing up after the fight is over and proceeding to inadvertently set his girlfriend on fire before breaking the fourth wall and giving the audience the finger in psychedelic slow motion. It’s that finger that really sums up the film’s thesis: fuck you. You want well-choreographed fight scenes? Fuck you! You want threatening villains? Fuck you! You want a plot that actually resolves? Fuck you! The whole film is just gleefully, extravagantly contemptuous of its viewers, and revels in deliberately violating audience expectations at every turn - and to cap it off, it wraps the whole thing up by turning to everybody who thinks they’re in on the joke and going: hey - fuck you, too!

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Are you really…. not supposed to…. describe what your characters are wearing….

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Idk if you've played night in the woods but if you did do you have any recommendations for games that are narratively or tonally similar?

Could do. Night in the Woods has a lot of thematic ground to cover, and the framework of “visual novel/walking sim hybrid that sometimes randomly turns into a puzzle-platformer” isn’t a particularly common one (I’m guessing because it’s very difficult to do well!), so these recs are necessarily going to be a bit scattershot – whether any of them will suit really depends on what exactly about NitW grabbed you.

Donut County - Okay, this one’s actually just a Katamari Damacy style puzzler, and its only overap with Night in the Woods is the tone of its writing. I’m throwing it in because it’s my experience that folks who loved NitW often really enjoy this one as well. Don’t expect a similar story!

Kentucky Route Zero - An episodic walking sim with a magical realist bent, this one’s rather bleaker in tone than NitW, but may scratch some of the same itches. Fair warning: the release schedule is very slow, and the final episode has yet to be published at the time of this posting.

Oxenfree - Basically, take the background supernatural horror elements of NitW and dial them up to eleven and you’ll have something in the neighbourhood of Oxenfree. The real-time dialogue mechanics are novel, but can be awkward if you’re slow up the uptake.

A Short Hike - A 3D platformer walking sim where you play as a bird trying to reach the top of a mountain in order to get a cell phone signal. Non-violent and with no particular failure states, the gameplay is a nice mix of casual exploration and dialogue-driven interaction.

Thimbleweed Park - An old-school point and click adventure game about a small-town murder mystery. You’re not going to find anything so heartfelt was NitW here, as most of the cast are objectively awful people, but the story touches on many of the same issues.

What Remains of Edith Finch - While labelled a walking sim, it’s really more a minigame collection, with each minigame framed as the last day in the life of a different member of the titular Finch family; as such, the story is a series of vignettes rather than a single connected narrative.

Where the Water Tastes Like Wine - Like Kentucky Route Zero, this one’s a semi-episodic road trip walking sim, here set during the Great Depression. Shares a lot of NitW’s narrative focus on how economic hardship affects everyday folks.

The World Next Door - This one shares the basic premise of an ambiguously late-teens/twentysomething outsider getting caught up in a small-town conspiracy, albeit in a much more openly fantastical setting. Sort of a cross between a visual novel and a match-three puzzler.

In terms of titles not yet released, you might also keep an eye on Afterparty, Eastward, Elk, Get In The Car, Loser!, Genesis Noir, Necrobarista, Neo Cab and Small Talk.

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Leverage: Supers

They don’t have superpowers. They don’t. Or at least, they don’t have super powers.

Sure, Nate jokes that he’s psychic. It’s a con he’s played on more than one mark, not counting the times Sophie (or, memorably, Tara) picked up the role. The rumors of precognition floated around him as an investigator no matter how much he insisted otherwise. As his reputation as a thief grew, so did the rumors. Being assumed as a seer of some kind has been a help as much as a hindrance, really, but it deters more trouble than it attracts, so Nate’s let the rumor lie.

But there are times, once in a while, when Nate pauses. His voice will get raspy. Usually it’s just a word: duck, stop, run, wait. The team has learned that you don’t argue when he uses that voice, because he’s always right, and it’s saved their lives more than once. Nate calls it a feeling, or an instinct, and then changes the subject. One time, when he was drunk and pressed, he slurred, “It didn’t save my son.” After that, they stopped asking.

Sophie isn’t actually a shapeshifter, not like in that 1970’s footage of the person changing, one face after another sliding across their body like a slideshow. They know Sophie can’t do that, because she’s a good liar but they know she cares, and if she could do that, she would have, when they were in a few tight spots where a change of face would have stopped the violence.

But there’s something just slightly too good about her performances, sometimes. Even though it’s her skills that sell it, her features never betray her. Her skin is always just enough of the right shade. Her eyes are always just close enough to the right shape. It could be written off as the mind playing tricks, except that Hardison keep having to update his facial analysis algorithms, because they keep getting Sophie wrong. People who have met her before swear they haven’t, and vice versa.

Eliot is easy to pin down, if harder to prove. It’s just not natural for anyone to take that much damage and never need a hospital. He always waves it off, insists it’s not as bad as it looks, but that doesn’t explain why he has smooth skin in places where he absolutely should have scars, given the injuries he’s acquired during their work.

One day Hardison cracks the right server and finds a photo he recognizes on a list in a military database. After that, he notices the way Eliot reacts to mentions of super soldiers and government experiments. It’s subtle. It could be mistaken for the general dislike many army grunts have of superheroes, if he didn’t know better.

Parker also has instinctive reactions, though she denies them even while tensing, just enough for her teammates to notice, around large men in lab coats when they tower over her, around needles and syringes. She doesn’t know why because she was far too young to remember anything before the endless foster homes.

When she trusts them, eventually, they get glimpses of Parker dislocating joints that shouldn’t be able to dislocate and popping them back into place without blinking or bruising. It’s a bit too much for even the most limber double-jointed acrobats. Hardison thinks of cats, who can fold their collarbones to fit through tight spaces, and deliberately does not go looking for Parker’s past.

And Hardison? Hardison doesn’t think he has anything at all above baseline. Sure, he’s always talked to his tech. He names his computers, the vans, the robots. He whispers soothing encouragements or desperate pleas off-mic. Like any good programmer, he’s irrationally superstitious, but he doesn’t really, logically, objectively think much of it, until the day when Parker thrusts her phone in his face, cracked and probably irreparably dead, and tells him to ask it to turn on for just a bit longer so they can call for help.

He does. It does. Parker seems completely unsurprised. Haridison starts being more aware of how he talks to things, starts leaning how to feel the connections that he’s been tapping into unconsciously his whole life.

They don’t have superpowers. But then again, none of them ever claimed to be normal.

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Making Your Town: The Inn

So, your Players are starting a brand-new kind of adventure, and rather obviously, they’re going to start in a Tavern, as all good adventuring parties do.

And I’m here to help flesh out that Starting Town, like where the Ale comes from, where the Food comes from, and just why they should care so much about those Rats bothering the Local Farmers.

And as a Note, this is mostly how I build out Towns and Cities in my Settings, applying a bit of Knowledge and Logic to make them seem just a little more realistic…

Wood: Wood comes from the Forests, and so of course there must be a nearby Forest, because transporting giant trees and logs of wood long distances would cost far too much to make any financial sense. So, there’s a local forest, hurray!

Now we need people to cut up those Trees to make the Wood that’s being used to create everything.

So, there’s probably some form of Lumberjack-Style Group of people to cut down all those trees, and of course, some kind of Lumber Mill or place to process trees, strip them of their leaves and branches and ship the wood off to various carpenters and builders and etc, so there’s that.

Now we get to what wood could be used for…

So now we have a Local Forest, a Group of Rangers and Lumberjacks, a Local Lumber Mill, and now we have Local Carpenters, perhaps a Builder’s Society that makes a lot of the Buildings, and boom, you have several groups of people already.

Stone: If there’s stone buildings, then they’re made of stone! WOW!

That means many things, but let’s start off with some form of stone mine or quarry, perhaps near a local mountain range, where the Town gets all their stone from. Then the stone is worked by MANY stonemasons, artists, builders and more, maybe the Stonemasons are part of the Town’s Building Society…

So now we have even more establishments in and around our starting town…

Metal: Anything made of Metal in a Fantasy World almost always come from a Mine of some kind, probably somewhere in the local mountain range, hey, maybe even the same Mine that the Town’s stone comes from!

Maybe this is also part of the Builder’s Society…?

You’ve got people that work in these Mines, people that transport all the stuff like wood, stone, metal and more across the Town…

Now you need people to work the metal, blacksmiths and metalworkers of all kinds in and around this starting Town.

So that’s even more places, and now you have a reason to put a Blacksmith’s Place in your Town, hurray!

Dishes & Pottery: This may seem mundane, but Pottery is made of clay. Where does that clay come from? You decide!

Now you have people that work the clay, a pottery in town where you can buy dishes, teacups, fancy drinking flagons, whatever you want!

Food: Food comes from somewhere. Meat comes from animals, and so there must be people hunting those animals. Then there must be people who work on farms to plant, grow and harvest fruit and vegetables. And of course, there’s Cooks to cook the food.

Maybe there’s a Butcher’s Shop, a Bakery, and many more people selling foods of all kinds.

And of course, the Cabbage Cart, always have a Cabbage Cart…

Drinks: Wine, Ale, Water, they all come from somewhere. Wine will come from a Farmer-Type, so now there’s another Farm near your Town, and so does Ale, yet another Farm to add…

Water may come from a Local River, Waterfall, Stream, Lake, whatever you decide, but considering most drinks contain water, it’ll probably need to be a big source of water…

Beds: Your Adventurers need somewhere to sleep in the Inn, so beds need to be made. They’re probably made of wood, with a Tailor’s Shop of some kind to craft the Pillows and Quilts for the bed.

So now you have a Tailor’s Shop, yay!

Clothes: YA VILLAGERS AREN’T GOING AROUND NAKED!

So of course, they wear clothes! That means yet another Tailor’s Shop, maybe even a Leatherworker’s Shop to craft Hide and Leather Armour, and make some lovely Boots…

Money: Money comes from a Mine, and the Platinum, Gold, Silver and Copper needed to craft these coins must come from Local Mines and be transported to the Mint to be made into coins. So now you have another form of transportation service and a lot more mines…

But it’s kinda cool for the Adventurers to know that the Gold their paying for their Room comes from a Local Mine…

And all this is in your Starting Town just to explain how your Tavern and Inn works…

And there’s more to talk about, Magic Shops, Military Outposts and Barracks for the Town Guard, Religious Temples for the God Worshippers, Paladins and Clerics in your World…

Maybe I’ll talk about them later, probably in another Post…

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i love how Critical Role plays with tropes.

Mr book smart, cat loving, timid, made-of-wet-paper nerd is clearly harmless and doesn’t know how to get his hands dirty, right? Wrong. He will fucking blast you into oblivion and oh, he also used to be an executioner in training. Did we mention he’s the most likely to suggest torture as an option?

Punchy angry jock with douchey rich parents is like, a stereotypical bully waiting to happen, yeah? Clearly she’s the mean dumb one. Nope, she’s the most emotionally in touch member of the team and ALSO right up there with the nerd looking for libraries. She WILL know your shit, or figure it out, plus – first in the campaign to earnestly say “I love you,” bitches.

The second smartest character, you ask? Probably that put together, charming green man over there who’s always so polite – oh wait it’s the other green one, the manic three foot tall alcoholic goblin who has been known to claim that there’s only one planet in the universe. And she DOES know what the fuck is up. Nott “it’s just thermodynamics” the Brave.

That gentle vegetarian cow man who loves nature and heals people is probably a pacifist, right? Try again. He has no qualms at all with slam dunking you directly into your grave and making sure you stay there. He knows for a fact that corpses grow lovely tea. Yes, our calm and kind healer IS the judgiest person here.

That absolutely ADORABLE leetle bloo tiefling who has a safe, loving, ALIVE parent, paints lovely pictures, and just wants to make everyone smile is a happy go lucky waif who – second strongest member, you say? Oh, she’s beating everyone at arm wrestling. Shit, now she’s crying. She’s repressed her trauma and sadness. Can someone hug her? Thank you Beau.

Wild and muscular barbarian lady from an enemy land with a mysterious past who’s signature move is literally exploding into rage in battle? Gentle. Soft. Awkward. Loves flowers. Just wants to Rest. Has never raised her voice at another member. Please let her pet the purring kitty.

That charming, polite green man we mentioned earlier? He’s responsible, right? He makes good decisions, right? He seems an open and honest sort. What do you mean he keeps touching shit and getting sucked through magic portals. What do you MEAN he spent months talking to his friends in a fake accent. WHAT DO YOU MEAN HIS DEFAULT SETTING IS “LIE HIS ASS OFF.” Okay so he clearly has ulterior motives – he’s just insecure? At this point that tracks, I guess.

And that’s not even getting into the whirlwind of subversions in how they interact. You’d think the serious, grim scholar who wants to break reality would be irritated by the energetic, relentless ray of sunshine, but he loves her to pieces and is the second most likely to actively aid and abet her bullshit for absolutely no reason.

You’d think the amazing talker who can read social cues and manipulate them like no one’s business wouldn’t have any time for the absolute social disaster who has trouble smiling at people, but he considers her one of his best friends and was the first person to actually try to HELP HER with socialising. He’s literally never been anything but encouraging to her about it.

You can tell how ingrained these tropes usually are when one character offers another flowers as a gesture of peace, and it’s a plot twist when they’re appreciated. Because the muscle-y broody goth would OBVIOUSLY sneer at flowers, duh.

Wrong. Welcome to “we took your one dimensional character stereotypes and played jumprope, enjoy” with a strong side of “fuck your contrived interpersonal tension, actually they love each other.”

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I'm a little incoherent right now so sorry if this isn't really understandable, but I'm curious to know what your stance on mechanics in games has to say about people like the half a press guy, who sort of eschew actually playing the game in favor of breaking it?

I love ‘em.

Pannen’s stuff in particular is a stark illustration of the fact that how a game’s mechanics are intended to operate is often very different from how they operate in practice. One of the most important truths of game design is that the experience of play you’re trying to foster when you set up your game’s rules has no privileged status: the way your players interpret and engage with those rules can effectively produce a completely different game from the one you thought you were making. Granted, the gap between the intended experience of play and the experience of play your players actually end up pursuing is rarely quite so extreme as what’s on display here, but it’s important to bear in mind all the same.

(This is particularly important in my own field of tabletop game design, because tabletop games have even less ability to direct players to engage with the rules in the “correct” fashion than video games do. There are a number of notable tabletop games that are infamous for the breadth of the the gulf between how the designers clearly intend them to be played and how most of their players actually play them.)

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The monstrous knight crawls toward the ruler on hir knees, bottomless dark eyes weeping ichor. 

“Please - let me be yours, let me be your weapon, wield me, point me, use me, own me, just do not abandon me without a purpose, I could not bear it, my liege, please,” ze begs, and bends down to kiss the hem of xir cloak. 

The ruler stops hir, and xir eyes are wet. “I can’t own you,” xe says, and the knight keens, recoiling. “You’re a person, not a thing, I can’t own you.”

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I know discourse is the word of choice in fandom nowadays but I kind of wish we would have stuck with “fandom wank” because it carries the implication that the anger involved culminated into effectively nothing and that the act was wholeheartedly masturbatory in nature rather than for any greater cause.

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Tove Jansson’s invisible children

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Before I take off again, I wanted to dump some Caduceus thoughts on here, just so I can work through what’s been spinning around in my brain for a couple of weeks now.

It boils down to this: I don’t understand the way Caduceus treats Nott.

It’s been over a month in-game since Nott accidentally killed Caduceus with an exploding arrow, and last night was the first time that Caduceus brought it up. It has obviously been simmering somewhere in that galaxy brain of his, but it has never been discussed before. Sometimes it gets mentioned in passing, but there was never a moment where either Nott or Caduceus stopped and acknowledged what happened (I don’t think we even know how Caduceus found out what exactly happened since he was unconscious when the explosion hit).

I don’t think Caduceus is a particularly complicated character on his own, but I find his relationships and particularly who he chooses who to care about (and why) somewhat difficult to understand and follow. At times his focus on his own quest can come across as selfish and a little patronizing as if he viewed his companions’ problems as laughable compared to the very serious issue of the Blooming Grove dying.

Things shifted a little in my perception when he started taking interest in Fjord and his journey. It was the first time we saw Caduceus actually care for any of the M9 beyond his sense of duty of saving their lives during battle. I liked that Caduceus. One with a guiding voice, who used his high wisdom to be reassuring instead of condescending. But the more he showed to care for Fjord, the more it bothered me that he didn’t show that same care for Nott. 

(This got long, so the rest is under the cut)

Keep reading

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oh god I had a really big epiphany about love and personhood but I’m too drunk for words. hold on I’m gonna paint it.

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friendly reminder that nott the brave knows four languages and is second only to caleb "eidetic memory" widogast in intelligence

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It’s sad how much of what is taught in school is useless to over 99% of the population.

There are literally math concepts taught in high school and middle school that are only used in extremely specialized fields or that are even so outdated they aren’t used anymore!