#⟪Cutscene Commentary series⟫

[call-me-rucy]

Professor Layton spoilers are illegal

Great! Now I have your attention. It wasn't a lie though.

TL;DR: Level-5 legal document says they will take down videos that show just the cutscenes of the games and videos edited with the purpose of listening to the games' music, among other legal measures.

The official Professor Layton twitter account published this tweet: https://x.com/L5_layton/status/1872196972142366916

It links to something called "guideline". I thought "Hey, finally, a rundown of all the games so new people know when to watch ED and..." It wasn't that. At all.

It is a legal document detailing what images and videos of the Layton series can be posted online without risking Level-5 breathing on our necks. Anyone else feeling like L-5 got a lawyer recently?

To be fair, it is extremely unlikely that they will come check Tumblr of all places for copyright infringement content but Im assuming that you all have lives outside of Tumblr, like in YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Instagram or TikTok, and those places they will check.

So, here is what I understood from the rules:

Rule 0: These all apply to CV, DB/PB, UF/LF, LS/SC, MM, AL, LBMR, LMJ and PLvsPW:AA; all versions, including the trilogy on mobile and LMJ for switch and MM+. It does not apply to NWOS, which will have different rules explained later.

Rule 1: You can totally upload gameplay and still images from gameplay to social media, but if it's not directly captured from the console using console software they ask* that it has running commentary over, or opinions (basically something that makes it clear you're a fan and it's not an official video).

*This "ask" sounds like "we're not going to legally persecute you but please do us a solid".

Rule 2: Please put spoilers warnings before videos.

Rule 2.5: Don't post videos of the credits songs nor the first voice acting of LMJ. (The anime voice acting is fine).

Rule 3: It is prohibited to post videos that are just the animation scenes or videos and images that are just puzzles and solutions. If it's in gameplay it's fine, but the editing scenes together is not allowed.

Rule 4: Don't post videos or images to pages that you have to pay to enter. However youtube monetizing and similars are allowed.

Rule 5: If you post to a video sharing site you have to include a copyright notice like ©2007 LEVEL-5 Inc. The format depends on the game, look up the chart.

Rule 6: Third party rights are your problem.

Rule 7: Don't post anything that may make people think you are part of Level-5.

Forbidden things:

Anything that is ilegal

Anything that violates third party rights

Anything discriminatory

Anything that harms the image of L-5

Anything with cheats/glitches

Using the videos or still images to sell stuff (commercial purposes)

Editing movie scenes, audio, puzzles, or music from this series for the primary purpose of listening to them!!!

Using the images/videos for religious/political stuff.

And the kicker:

We may take measures such as deleting or suspending the distribution of videos, still images, etc. from this series that we determine to be in violation of these guidelines.

So yeah. Take care my friends! Enjoy the cutscenes and music compilations while they last and maybe don't look into Youtube downloaders.

[memingursa]

Todd. Todd the first game opens with an armed soldier killing a protestor for an Americana propaganda film. There is clearly deeper shit going on than “naivety” u can’t be this stupid. If you wanted to say “Fallout is a specific genre showing how Americana destroys itself and it doesn’t feel right to make that commentary on another country.” thats one thing. Todd. But naivete?? THE FIRST OPENING CUTSCENE OF THE SERIES YOU OWN HAS A WAR CRIME OVER AN AMERICANIZED PROPAGANDA FILM. THIS ISN’T EVEN GETTING INTO THE FIRST TWO GAMES. EVEN YOUR TV SHOW COMMENTS ON CAPITALISM AND- TODD.

THE AUTHOR IS LITERALLY TRYING TO COVER FOR HIM AND ADD WORDS IN HIS MOUTH AND STILL ISNT EVEN DOING A GOOD JOB. TODD.

[thydungeongal]

I'm really starting to think that actual play podcasts/series would be better served if they were just like, improv radio dramas instead of being centered on roleplaying games. Thoughts/opinions/am I stupid?

I do think actual play podcasts do still occupy an important place in tabletop RPG culture and we shouldn't dismiss the entire format just because some of the most well-known examples of it are cases of playing D&D while not actually playing D&D. There are many actual play podcasts that actually go out of their way to demonstrate what TTRPGs are capable of, along with actual gameplay and mechanical commentary.

And like even though I keep saying "these people should not be playing D&D" about lots of these podcasts that play D&D just because that brings in the money, even they do get something out of bolting D&D on top of their podcasts even though they only end up demonstrating the capabilities of the medium very narrowly (mostly owing to the fact that they are often run by people with a very authorial approach to running RPGs: people who want to tell a specific story and see their friends' characters walk through it). I do think these podcasts should be treated as highly dramatized instances of the medium (like what wrestling is to combat sports) but even though they only utilize the language of the medium very shallowly they are still in the same ballpark. Even though what you end up getting is like. Short bursts of D&D between basically improvised cutscenes, they still get something out of those dice rolls. To a very limited degree.

But having said all of that, if you like the idea of listening to strangers actually play an RPG and engage with the mechanics deeply while actually doing commentary on the gameplay, go check out @tinytablepodcast and @partyofonepod and many others.

[theeeveetamer]

A timeline of the evolution of my relationship with Vergil von Devil May Cry (for fun):

1) Played DMC 1 back in like 2015. Felt bad for the guy, but did not have a lot of context

2) Played DMC 2 back in like 2015. This has nothing to do with Vergil I just want everyone to understand that I have suffered

3) Played DMC 3 back in 2015. Thought “wow that guy kinda sucks” and moved on with my life

4) Browsed the internet for Dante fan art circa 2015. Accidentally saved a bunch of Nero fan art because he looks exactly like Dante and I hadn’t played DMC4 yet so I had no idea who he was. Researched Nero after I realized. At this point there was technically no official confirmation that Nero was Vergil’s son, but that was what the fandom seemed to have settled on. Thought “wow how did that dweeb loser manage to get laid?” and moved on with my life

5) DMC4SE came out in 2015. Played ten minutes but my terrible laptop couldn’t handle it. Vowed to get back to it when I got a better computer

6) The date is now October 2024. I finally got back to it. Laughed at the irony of Vergil having a son that acts just like Dante, but otherwise opinion didn’t change

7) Still October 2024. Played DMC5. Thought “wow this guy still kinda sucks”, but slightly more fondly. I am happy to see him and Dante getting along in the end. Still questioning how his -10,000 rizz self got a lady to like him for long enough to make a child

8) November 2024. Discover the Vergil Meme Economy. Find myself entertained by him immensely despite still thinking he’s a loser dweeb virgin

9) All of this happens basically in November from here on out. Resign myself to the DMC hyperfixation. Choose to replay DMC3. As I am replaying, notice that Vergil is much more like Dante than he lets on. Curiosity piqued

10) Finally listen to Bury the Light. Oh my god it’s an exploration of Vergil’s mindset and trauma. Also, total banger. Listen to it so many times YouTube gave me a badge for it (this is not a joke here’s the proof)

11) Rewatch the Arkham fight cutscenes a couple of times on YouTube. Someone in the comments notes that Vergil does a little grin just before he and Dante say “Jackpot”. Rewatch, confirm. Oh no. I have just realized that Vergil is a tsundere. Likability stonks rising rapidly

12) The evidence is piling up. I’m noticing more and more little things that endear him to me. I am now in my “I hate Vergil” *covers the walls with pictures of Vergil* era

13) Read Visions of V. The five stages of grief are not a straight line, but we have finally arrived at acceptance. I admit that I just like Vergil now

All in all I still don’t think he’s a likable character. He has the demeanor and temperament of a wet cat. If you offered to let me give him a swirly I probably would. However, he is a compelling character, and in this instance that’s arguably better than being straight up likable. It feels like I went on a little adventure picking apart all of his history and quirks and idiosyncrasies

Honestly I love that the community is so passionate about this series in general and Vergil specifically. I was like five years late to the party, but it was still fun exploring both new and old commentary on the games/Vergil’s character, and just seeing all the love and the excitement and the joy about it

[canmom]

Indika (title puns? sorry i got nun)

I played that game that got a bunch of hype a few months back! Created by exiled Russian devs Odd Meter and published by the absolutely on top of their game right now 11Bit Studios, it's a uniquely AESTHETIC orthodoxcore meditation on religion and nihilism that has more than a little Tarkovsky flavour. If you've seen any review of this game you probably know the score: splendid writing and blending of aesthetic registers, spaced out by rather more orthodox (ha ha) game puzzle design.

It's very much a setpiece driven game, leading you through a series of absolutely gorgeously rendered snowy, industrial environments of increasingly surreal size, all carrying a three-way dialogue between Indika (a nun who hears the voice of the devil in her ear and seems to be experiencing some kind of psychosis), Ilya (an escaped convict who's convinced God is leading him to some great purpose, if only he can heal his rotting sepisy arm) and the devil (who only Indika can hear, cutting in with sardonic commentary every so often).

So it's a story about becoming disillusioned with religion and shaking off moralism, about desperation, about ostracisation - and a very confident one at that, full of great presentation and acting choices and provocative events.

I think the interesting question with this is like, what does it gain from being a game, rather than e.g. a movie or even a play - or for that matter a 'walking simulator' game with no challenges at all? The puzzles don't really factor into it, they mostly function as a speedbump... except, of course, that running into blatant videogame puzzles adds to the sense of unreality that is given by the strangely towering architecture and giant fish and so on, acting consonant with the chiptune/EDM in the soundtrack, the 2D pixel-art flashbacks and especially the mechanical representation of Indika's faith as a pixellated point tracker which incrementally ticks up for every religious act, a device which pays off in the final scene.

So - much like NieR, it likes to play around with the imagery of previous eras of game as symbols. The benefits of being a game are then in a sense mostly aesthetic invocations - but it does make interesting use of them, e.g. a monster-chase sequence unexpectedly seguing into an argument with the devil about the different motives of humans and animals as the camera rolls to follow the defeated boss around a water wheel.

Honestly, the camerawork in this game is really something special - making all sorts of clever uses of curved lenses and striking compositions that really allow you to feel the weight of the environments. Besides the well-shot cutscenes, you can sit on benches in various places and switch through a series of striking camera angles. But equally, you get a far stronger sense of the moody setpieces when you are walking through them to figure out a path, compared to if you simply saw them in the background of an establishing shot.

There is also the matter of taking the characters and environment, which you might take for granted in a film, and drawing them into the realm of something constructed. To film a real convent covered in snow is one thing; to meticulously build snow shaders which respond to footfalls and perfectly convey the sparkling mushy texture of melting snow is perhaps a different statement, much as animated a movement and filming it conveys different emphases. Perhaps this is just the tech artist talking, but a significant part of the expression comes in walking around as Indika and observing the wind catching her wimple and the carefully designed ways she stumbles and fidgets. So yeah yeah, the medium is still the goddamn message.

Environment design and rendering seem to be real strong points for Odd Meter - sure, anyone can take the off the shelf engine features of Unreal, but it takes a lot of skill to really make it sing cohesively. Their previous game is a VR archery game called Sacralith, and while it doesn't seem to have the same artistic ambitions as Indika, I'm terribly curious to try it out now.

Definitely recommend giving this one a look. It's a pretty digestible four hours to play, so basically two movies. Which feels appropriate for this type of strongly narrative-focused game - very much for short focused games these days...

[nintendoduo]

Playing the Super Nintendo's Forgotten Home-Made RPGs of the '90s (Part 1)

Did you know that the Super Nintendo housing a family of tiny spiders in your closet is also technically a device for creating RPGs? (As in role-playing games; sorry, everyone who imagined their SNES shooting out rocket-propelled grenades.) This is thanks to RPG Maker: Super Dante and RPG Maker 2, the two SNES-compatible installments in the long-running series of games about making games. Although neither made it outside Japan, in 1998 a group called KanjiHack released their own English translation for RM2 and encouraged players to send in their creations, to be showcased in an extremely 1998-looking website called The Fantasy Maker's Vault.

How did that go? Well, four months later, KanjiHack announced they were fed up with receiving hundreds of half-baked, poorly-formatted games and were deleting all but the ones that were actually finished, which left them with exactly... one game. Shortly after that, the makers of RPG Maker submitted something of their own: a cease-and-desist letter. KanjiHack promptly shut down, and all those user-made SNES RPGs were forgotten forever. Or, well, until now.

Thanks to some digging on archive.org and a visit to an all-German Discord (shout out to Spatzenfärber at the RMArchiv & Makerpendium server!), we were able to find eleven English-language home-made SNES RPGs from the '90s. While playing through all of those historical artifacts across two livestreams, we were witness to things you wouldn't normally encounter in games with the Nintendo Seal of Quality, like crude jokes, ham-fisted attempts at social commentary, misspellings, underage substance abuse, and, of course, some weirdly horny stuff. Here's part one of our attempt to summarize each game, for posterity.

Note: These games can be downloaded at archive.org or rmarchiv.de (or archive.org’s archived version of rmarchiv.de, if it goes offline again).

Note 2: If Tumblr won't let you read the article without logging in (or keeps breaking the images), you can read it at Dreamwidth.

"Atonement" by RPG Advocate (05-08-1998)

Original description: A young girl sets out to establish friendly relations with an old enemy.

Right off the bat, the earliest game uploaded to the Vault (and, apparently, the oldest surviving RPG Maker user game ever) starts with a girl being told to strut her stuff in front of "important dignitaries" in order to improve her kingdom's trade relations. Emphasis on relations. The protagonist is Maia, an image-obsessed young princess who spends so long doing her make up in the opening cutscene that we seriously thought game had crashed.

It really dosen't, Maia.

Maia is told to go see her father, the king, who needs someone to travel to the neighboring nation of Yatari and prevent a war. Since all the dignitaries present decline to do it for various reasons (one guy says he's "allergic to Yatari food"), Maia volunteers to go there and "smooth things over." The way this is presented almost makes it sound like the start of a 16-bit porno. Fueling that impression is the fact that, if you snoop around the king's library, you'll find a flyer directing you to a website hosting what sure looks like erotic Final Fantasy VI fan fiction (we didn't read enough of it to find out for sure).

But, for better or worse, you never get to that part. After fighting some generic monsters in a field, you reach the city of Meese, which can be thought of as a sort of social commentary on recent changes in industry and commerce. We know this because as soon as you step in, someone comes up to you and says:

In Meese, Maia finds overpriced item shops on one side of town and people begging for money and complaining about the busted sewage system on the other (wonder what that's supposed to be commentary for?). There's also a guy who gives you a random series of directions with no context, which suggests this town might have a mental health problem, too. While on the poor side, Maia has to fight off a pack of "gangstas," who are represented as four-armed swordsmen wearing robes because this game has no "guy with baggy pants and du rag holding a machine gun" sprite.

Maia finds out that there's been a rockslide just outside of town, which means that in order to progress you have to retrieve some dynamite from a warehouse. Unfortunately, that warehouse also happens to be the place where this town stores all of its monsters and RPG enemies. Before going in, a dick named Kyle (such a far-out fantasy name) joins your party without asking because "a pretty lady like you" has no business going there alone. This game would be 1998's GOTY if you could just kick Kyle in the nads and leave him there, but sadly you're given no choice but to put up with his ass.

(Thank goodness this game's graphics aren't detailed enough to make it obvious if one of the characters has a boner.)

The "warehouse" turns out to be big dungeon that has to be navigated in a specific order, otherwise you activate the "security system" and get kicked back to the beginning. Once you figure out that you need to follow the directions that random guy in the town gave you (sorry for doubting your mental state, random guy) the main problem becomes that this poorly-kept building is infested with an enemy type called "TURD." You can't take two steps without stepping on a turd. As if dealing with Kyle wasn't bad enough.

Early on in the dungeon, you get a glimpse of a treasure chest at the other side of a wall. After a while fighting turds and other enemies, you can reach that chest, open it, and find your reward for all that effort: poison gas. Now, on top of all the turds and Kyle, you're also poisoned, which means you'll be taking damage with every other step and the dungeon will be unwinnable unless you're playing in dev mode and have infinite health. Even so, the screen-flashing "poison" effect is so annoying that you'll wish you could die. Hope you made a save state before spending the past half hour punching turds!

Three floors into this deadly, no doubt foul-smelling dungeon, you run into a human character who's just chilling there. It turns out he's the brother of a beggar who asked you for money in the town. If you gave the beggar money, his bro, who apparently has magic powers, will completely restore your HP and MP, remove any "bad status," and even let you save your game. We didn't feel like making a new save and replaying the entire dungeon to find out what happens if you cheap out, but RPG genre conventions lead us to assume that he turns into some sort of muscular demon who deals 9999 damage.

After that, you finally reach the dungeon's boss: a blue guy named "Medulla" who spouts gibberish words at you (presumably meaning "What did you do to my precious turd collection?!"). If you best him, he drops the dynamite you came here to collect and, at last, you get to clear the way out of the town! And then...

...nothing happens. There's no exit behind the "rocks" (which actually looked remarkably like barrels). In fact, if you use dev mode to get to the other side of this town in the overworld map, it's all empty. This is as far as RPG Advocate made the game. You got your hands dirty, in the worst possible sense, for nothing.

According to his Makerpendium wiki page (WARNING: German), RPG Advocate was a polarizing figure in the community who on the one hand helped translate various RPG Maker titles, but on the other was kind of a dick (was Kyle a self-insert character?). It seems that this SNES demo evolved into a PC game called Phylomortis: Atonement Gaiden, which later got two sequels called Psychopoltical Drama Phylomortis II: Triumvirate of Dystopia and Phylomortis: Avant Garde. Based on the gameplay available on YouTube, they are about as intelligible as their titles suggest. But Maia is in them, so we're glad to know she eventually made it out of that shitty town.

"Daxara" by Adol (05-16-198)

Original description: Geren travels from Castle Harmony to learn of the origin of appearing monsters who are robbing the world's Shards in order to end it.

Like 40% of RPG Maker games from this era, this one starts with a knight being told he has to go talk to the king, who is a kind man. We know this because not one but two people tell you "The king is a kind man," though they're both within the king's earshot so there's a chance they're only saying that to avoid being shackled in a dungeon.

King Kind tells you that someone has attacked a shrine for unknown reasons, so you need to go there and find out what the hell. As you leave the castle, some lady named Sarah says she heard about your mission and asks to come along with you, because she's just very passionate about shrine-related crimes, we guess. If you say "Yes," she joins your party. If you say "No," she also joins your party, but first she says "You're such a funny guy!" Way to be a Kyle, Sarah.

Once you reach the shrine, you run into enemies like "Thing," which look exactly like red turds (please consult a physician if this happens to you), and "Batling," which suck. That's their power: they suck.

There are a few chests around the shrine, some of which contain an item called "fluid" that you probably shouldn't be touching with your bare hands. Soon, you reach the end of shrine and find the mysterious attacker: it's some sort of dog-person called "?" who says you're too late, because his minions have already stolen the Shard that was in this shrine and will use it to "destroy this pitiful world!" Oh no! If only you hadn't been delayed by Sarah... is she an agent of "?"?

Anyway, once you fight dog-person "?" he suddenly becomes a fish-person called "Sinister." We are already witnessing the fabric of reality disintegrating due to his meddling with the kind king's shrine Shard.

If you manage to defeat Sinister ? the Dog-Fish-Person, he drops some more fluid (ewww) and some flesh that you're supposed to show the king as proof that you killed him. Does the king distrust you so much that he forces you to carry around the decomposing flesh of his enemies as proof? That's very unkind of him. The worst part is that once you get back to the king, he doesn't even acknowledge all the bloody flesh you brought him. Instead, he sends you to another town to deliver a note to some sort of mythical being named "Colin."

That sounds like a pretty urgent mission. So, naturally, as soon as you reach the other town, you get distracted by side missions. For instance, one guy tells you that "strange things" have taken over his basement, which is bad because that's where he keeps all of his coffins. If you agree to go into the coffin collector's basement, he says "You won't regret this!" Then you go down and instantly get ambushed by sworded skeletons that can kill you with one blow.

So that was a lie.

Once you decide to move on with the game, you can talk to Colin, who tells you that the rest of your epic adventure awaits on the other side of a door and gives you an item called "Colinkey." You might think you can use the Colinkey to open the Colindoor, but nope. You can't do shit. This is where the game unceremoniously ends: with a closed door and the disquieting certainty that you will never know what's on the other side. (Unless you check with dev move, in which case you learn that it's "some unfinished maps.")

"Forever..." by Kypdev (05-17-1998)

Original description: A boy heads off on a series of quests.

In this one, they don't even have to tell you to go talk to the king. Your character, Kyp, wakes up in his bed saying "Damnit! I am late!" and you instinctively know that the thing he's late for is going to talk to the king. Note that Kyp is so manly that he sleeps in his armor.

Before leaving the house, you can talk to your family: your mom, who tells you to dress warmly for your mission (I'm wearing clothes over an armor, mom), your dad, who wishes he could join you but says his adventuring days are over, your cat and dog, who bark and meow at you respectively, and your baby sibling, who magically vanishes as soon as your mom exits the room.

There's a church next to your house, and if you go in (maybe to seek solace for the sudden disappearance of your little brother or sister) the minister will confess to you that he isn't really religious. He's just in it for those sweet minister bucks and the tax-exempt status.

There's also a bar, and if you enter it you'll find that your dad has gone there to drown his sorrows and is already shitfaced. Now you have to live with the shame of being related to such a freaking lightweight.

The most sordid part of all this is that if you talk to the bartender, he'll tell you to "have a drink," even though everyone knows that alcoholism has a genetic component. Also, uh, doesn't the game's description refer to Kyp as a "boy"? He's just very bulky on account of carrying an armor around all day.

Anyway, after fighting generic monsters in a field, you reach the castle and... hmm, what was it you were supposed to do here? Let's see if anyone around can remind you:

Something tells us we're supposed to talk to the queen. Once you do, she says "Please talk to the king," so you do that too, since she asked nicely. The king, in turn, asks: "Wilst thou aid my kingdom and bring peace?" If you say "No" (maybe you'd rather investigate the case of the magical disappearing baby), he tells you to "Leave mine eyes, coward!" but he must be suffering from dementia because if you talk to him again, he'll greet you like the first time and ask the same thing. If you say "Yes," he tells you to... talk to the queen.

Kinda feel like we're getting jerked around here.

The queen informs you that thy task, should thy choose to accept it, is to rescue their daughter from a rogue knight. To begin the quest, she asks you to go search in a specific tombstone in the castle's cemetery, which would suggest that perhaps we're a bit too late to save the princess. But, before doing that, let's see what the diverse cast of characters has to say now:

After maximizing your luck stat, you go check out that tombstone the queen mentioned, which is actually the entrance to an underground passage leading to the island where the princessnapper lives in a tower. Upon climbing the tower you get to confront the evil Misaka, who laughs at you and calls you a child. Yeah, a booze-drinking, armor-wearing child who's about to kick your ass.

Misaka doesn't take being defeated by a muscular little boy very well. In fact, he's so embarrassed that he makes like a baby and vanishes.

The princess, Dana, is so thankful for being rescued that she magnanimously announces she's joining you on your quest. Wait, wasn't your quest to rescue her? That's not so magnanimous then. By the way, if you get tired walking up and down the tower, for merely 1G you and Dana can curl up inside a talking pot that somehow serves as an inn. A tempting offer, but we passed on the chance to spend the night together Chavo del Ocho style.

So, what's the game gonna be about now that you retrieved the princess? Nothing, because once you go back through the underground passage, you get a message saying "end of beta," followed by RPG Maker 2's default end credits sequence. We can find no evidence of Kypdev developing any further versions of this game, or any game. He's just Kyp now, presumably.

Did you know you can only insert 30 images in a Tumblr post? We didn't until now, so... to be continued in another post, which will hopefully take less than 26 years this time.

[velvet-gloom]

Persona martial artists in a Mortal Kombat game night tournament

(In a hypothetical Persona Q3 type scenario)

Akihiko: Has never played before but picks it up surprisingly quick, becomes a Jax main at first sight and goes on a whole tangent about how cool it would be to box with metal arms and that he needs to ask Aigis if she wants to learn. Gives commentary on the accuracy of the fighting moves as he plays, but the stuff he says is so interesting that no one finds it annoying.

Chie: Has put enough time in that she’s pretty decent, picks any ninja character and gets so into matches that she starts shouting. Will 100% break a controller if she gets angry, but she does it by dramatically tossing the controller in the air and roundhouse kicking it. Also loves playing/reacting to the story modes because of the insane martial arts in the cutscenes. Her favorite game is Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe because she gets to play as Batman and yell “I am the night” when she beats someone.

Lisa: Makes a point to play as every character and not pick a favorite, so there’s about a 50/50 chance she’ll either lose spectacularly or win both rounds in under forty seconds. She’s the biggest fan of the classic arcade-era MK but has a special love for MK11 specifically because of the Cassie Cage fatality where she kicks your spine out of your body. Gets so excited when she wins a tough match that she gets up and starts dancing.

Makoto: Has poured upwards of a hundred hours into the series specifically because Futaba kept kicking her ass on Phantom Thieves game nights, is proficient with pretty much every character in every game from the modern MK era. Rolls her eyes at the idea of playing a fighting game when they could all just fight for real, but gets VERY into it if anyone starts talking shit or a match gets intense. She’s also the one that brings snacks because she’s a good mom friend.

Ulala: Usually the one who’s shit-talking Makoto, also frequently thirsts over the characters. Will challenge anyone who beats her to a fistfight in real life. Despite this, she’s actually a great person to have in game nights because she gets so excited about playing that her energy becomes infectious, even more than Chie. She’s the one that can be at the tiniest bit of health and suddenly turn a match around, which always gets everyone else screaming like Americans watching the Super Bowl.

[penrose78]

Sup gamer

Saw ur bio, tell me about ur interests NOW

Oh god fuck I wasn't prepared for this

Pathologic 2 takes place in a small town on the steppe only referred to as the Town on the Gorkhon River, or simply "the town." The culture of the town is a fusion of 20th century technology and architecture with ancient steppe culture and traditions, which bring about customs that greatly affect the course of events in the town. Though the exact location and date are never mentioned, it is very heavily implied by character dialogue and environment clues that the game is set during the Russian Civil War.[6][7]

The world of Pathologic 2 leans heavily into the surreal, meta-commentary and symbolism, frequently making discerning what is fiction and what is "reality" difficult. The events in the town are framed as a play in the style of Bertolt Brecht's "epic theatre," where the player is an "actor" "playing the part" of the player character. The player's "reality" often comes into contact with this framing, with theater-like elements such as spotlights, "scene changes" between day and night and a disembodied stagehand-like voice appearing intermittently throughout the game. At certain points, such as during plays performed in the town's theater or after the player's death, the player encounters the mysterious and supernatural theater director Mark Immortell, who is often critical of the player's "acting" and frequently breaks the fourth wall, referring to the game's development, referencing the mechanics and inner workings of the game's systems and referencing events or aspects from the original Pathologic, both contextually and literally.[8]

The protagonist of the game is a surgeon named Artemy Burakh, also known as the Haruspex. The game begins at the end of a previous, seemingly failed run, on 'day 12' of the first Pathologic. The town is nearly empty, filled with bodies and the sounds of screaming. Artemy speaks to various characters and makes his way to the Cathedral, where he is able to speak to the mysterious theatre manager, Mark Immortell, and requests a 'second attempt'. This is granted, and time resets to the prologue of Artemy on a train, travelling to the Town. The player controls Artemy through a series of strange dreams and visions. Through dialogue with a character known as the 'Fellow Traveller', it is revealed that Artemy was born and raised in the town but has not been back in many years. His father, Isidor Burakh, is the local physician and a leading member of the Kin, the native inhabitants of the steppe. He sent Artemy to the capital as a teenager to gain an education in medicine, but has now requested that he return, stating that 'great difficulties' are coming.

Upon arriving in the town, Artemy is greeted by three locals who try to kill him. In a cutscene, he kills the attackers. Nearby strangers in plague doctor suits tell him that the locals suspect him of killing an important resident of the town and that the attack on him was an act of revenge. It is soon revealed that, in fact, two people have seemingly been murdered. The first is Simon Kain, a prominent leader of the town who had previously been assumed to be immortal; the second is Isidor.

Artemy is suspected of patricide and attacked by many of the townspeople, who have been driven to unusual violence. Young women are targeted in particular due to old steppe legends of a 'Shabnak-adyr', a creature with clay legs who brings death. A local gang of children known as the 'Soul-And-A-Halves' request Artemy's assistance with finding a boy who poisoned their dogs, while an old friend of his known as Bad Grief requests assistance with an injured local man. The leader of the town's economy and industry, a powerful man known as 'Fat Vlad', vouches for Artemy, and his innocence is restored.

At his father's funeral, Artemy discovers that his father died of a strange stab wound. He is urged to accept his father's legacy as a menkhu, a special caste of Kin folk with the right to cut open bodies. In doing so, he is given a list containing the names of seven local children, plus a strange steppe sigil that he is told means 'udurgh'. He learns that these are the children his father felt would be most important in 'rebuilding the town', and must be kept safe at all costs. Signs of an outbreak appear in the village, including a strange rot on the sides of buildings and a black cloud in his father's old bedroom. A plague known as 'Sand Pest' strikes the town, killing people within a day of infection and leaving the districts abandoned and rife with looters.

Artemy is required to perform daily tasks at the hospital in exchange for food and money, as food prices rise rapidly once the outbreak hits. It is revealed that the Sand Pest has hit the town once before, and Isidor managed to curb the outbreak by boarding up the infected district and leaving all those within to die. He encounters a young Herb Bride - a caste of Kin women who dance barefoot to encourage the growth of sacred herbs such as twyre - who seems to know him, and eventually tells him he is destined to kill her. Artemy is able to use his father's old equipment to create tinctures that increase immunity, and later use organs or blood to produce antibiotics and painkillers. He collects sacred blood from a crack in the ground in an ancient steppe village, and finds that this produces a panacea that cures Sand Pest; however, there is only enough blood for two doses.

An Inquisitor, Aglaya Lilich, arrives in the city. She has been sent to save the town at any cost, and Artemy is warned by others that Inquisitors are inherently manipulative and dangerous. He continues to search for larger amounts of sacred blood, eventually learning that the only way to get enough to stop the plague is to destroy a tower known as the Polyhedron. The mysterious 'udurgh' refers to the Earth itself, which is leaking out the sacred blood due to being repeatedly harmed and nearly killed by the Town's presence. Destroying the Polyhedron will produce enough of this blood to cure everyone, but kill the Earth in the process, causing many of the 'miracles' of the world - including many aspects of the Kin - to fade and die. It is up to the player which option they choose: either the tower is destroyed and the town is saved, or the tower remains in place and the Kin retake the Town.

I also like Bojack Horseman

Check out my pathologic blog @artemyburakhstormentousnightmare

[you-cant-fuck-megaman]

Thank you for this blog. I find old posts of Zero being cool and suave and having Sexual thoughts and actions when he likely literally does not know sex exists other than knowing organic life reproduces physically somehow. With how the x games ended up you could argue he has never met a human irl before other than Dr Cain. If the ambiguous consent argument is too much he might get scared and kill you (x9: WTF NEW MAVERICK VIRUS INFECTS HUMANS?)

if zero even knows what an intimate relationship is, i'll sit and fuck myself.

DID YOU KNOW, as far as i was able to dig, there is nothing anywhere ever that stated iris and zero were a couple? a lot of fandom perception is that iris is zero's girlfriend and they were in wuv, and that half the tragedy of X4 is that he was going against someone he loved. he killed someone he loved. so tragic. :(

thing is, that's kind of complete bupkis.

obviously Iris admired him a lot, and it's not like Zero hated her, but that's about as far as it went! it's one of those popular fanon things that cycles around, like samus being super-motherly to the baby the baby the baby metroid and wubbing her widdle babuu, or flandre scarlet being sealed in the basement to contain her massive power because she's crazy and could kill everyone with the drop of a frilly hat. but then you start digging for where it's from in the games and ????????????? where did it come from? where did it go?

the manuals?

that would be a nope.

the game script? you can look at both the japanese and english script for x4 at your leisure, and even go for the x5 japanese cutscenes, japanese bosses, and english script to look for mentions of Iris as well. iris' dialogue in Xtreme 2 is 95% the same between x and zero, too, but just for posterity's sake here's also the english and japanese script. either way, that would also be a nope.

what about encyclopedic material, like the X Official Complete Works or the Compendium of Rockman X?

兄のカーネルを失ったアイリスが、自らの姿を変身させてゼロと戦う。クリスタル状の本体とサイボーグ体に分離しているレプリロイド。/ Iris has lost her brother Colonel, and so transforms herself to fight Zero. She is a Reploid split into both a crystal body and a cyborg(?) body. (Most of the Japanese is difficult to make out, so apologies if this is inaccurate! I could swear that says "サイボーグ" / "cyborg", but that doesn't make sense...)

that would also be a nope.

the closest we get to this is that Zero Went On A Date, which is tucked away in the side of a Capcom Music Generation booklet for X1-X6

(Pieced together with commentary from the X Complete Works)

which is all fine and dandy, i guess, but a date can be anything. is it a hang-out date? a shopping date? a romantic date? a social date? a business date? a casual date? a competitive tournament-level date? it's difficult to argue the intent is supposed to be anything other than lovey-dovey romantic but i had to dig into page 5 of mini-booklet in a goddamn compilation album to find it and this is the only evidence they did anything other than vaguely acknowledge each other in the field.

it seems people just kind of hooked them together. and i can get that. i've got weirder ships. there's a couple reasons you could say why. you could be a sarcastic shit and say it's because they're a male and a female in a 90s anime and so get hooked by a red string of fate as soon as they look at each other because people had no idea how interacting with people work. or you could write better than capcom and say iris being emotionally tied to both zero and colonel, instead of just being related to colonel and hoping zero-senpai notices her new breastplate, is what forces her to get involved as an in-between rather than just jumping ship to be with repliforce from the getgo. or you could just say they're cute, in which case, yeah, that's cool

but the point that i am laboriously reaching around to make is that this is a consistent pattern with zero throughout the series. zero/iris is the most prominent of a companion bob capcom has pushed for him and he barely acknowledges she exists. you have to really dig for any indication that they're together. zero/layer comes next, but if you look over their interactions, she's just making anime girl blushing noises and zero has no clue what the fuck she's doing. is she overheating? zero/ferham? he wants to stab her. zero/leviathan? he also wants to stab her. zero/ciel? maybe if his preferred way of responding to a 12-year-old girl wasn't with "............" and i see you xzero shippers in the background, rubbing your hands and cackling and thinking you're getting off scot-free. zero's second favorite way of socializing with x is bailing on him. first favorite is attempting to stab him as well.

the dude is spaghettiman virgin prime, a buzzsaw with only two modes: "KILL" and "maybe don't kill". an intimate relationship? he's got a computer brain and he still doesn't even know what that means. a relationship is what you have when you fight someone, right? he's as smooth as a cactus rolling through a sandpaper factory. he's as suave as a can of worms used in spear-fishing. if you showed him a picture of sex, he'd think it was two humans attempting to strangle each other. the man installed titties on himself and he's still never touched a single one. and then he lost them in the future, so he's operating at a net titty-touching loss, which is honestly quite an impressive feat.

[kairithemang0]

Sorry for the weird/possibly annoying question but

A few years ago, I tried to get into kingdom hearts and I watched this video called a good enough summary of kingdom hearts. I don't know if you've ever seen or heard of it but I was just wondering if your take is someone could understand the series from a "watched an hour long video about it that appears to be at least somewhat accurate" point or if they have to play the games to get it.

Again, sorry if this is weird or bothersome or some other thing that leaves you upset

as a fan i adore that video. i've also watched the 7 hour video of the explaining the lore to the guy who made that video. turning into a boat is one of my favorite jokes from that video it's iconic

i don't think you need to play the games persay, but there's a lot that video misses out on. there are so many little character interactions and you'll never truly get the full scope of

kingdom hearts, for me, is about the characters. which is the main reason i suggest people to play the games. the story is fine, the gameplay is enjoyable depending on the game but i could understand not liking it, but the characters are absolutely amazing

you don't need to play the games to get into it, but those little hour long lore videos definitely dont go through the full scope of it. and you do miss out on a lot of little things that are important

personally, if you're gonna watch a playthrough and don't have the money to buy the games or just don't want to, i'd recommend the playframe playthroughs. they focus mainly on the cutscenes and it's how i first got into the series

some of the games (recom) don't have the best gameplay, so just watching someone else go through it is great. the person doing it also gives little disney facts throughout and i love his commentary. also all the games are in there! which is good, you're up to date on it after watching them

although. it's long. like 269 episodes. some are over an hour

the thing about kingdom hearts is that you can basically skip all the disney worlds. in kh1 for instance the other real important lore/story you get from disney worlds are monstro and neverland. you get bits of character in the other worlds but those are the ones that really help with the plot

so if you're looking to cut down on time, 2x speed the disney worlds or skip them all together in playthrough videos.

[lem-argentum]

okok here’s a bunch of dt commentary since i’ve gone through a good chunk more of the story <3 <3

FIRST OF ALL: SHTOLA AND RAHA ARE HEERREEEEEEEEWWW

^^^WE’RE GETTING THE BAND BACK TOGETHER 🎉🎉🎉🎉💛💝💞💛💞💝💝💞💛

I DID NOT KNOW!!!! THAT WE!!!!!!! WERE GOING TO ANOTHER REFLECTION AND I’M AAAAAAA. SHAKING MY HANDS AROUND LET’S GOOO <333 KR.ILE BEING **FROM** ANOTHER REFLECTION IS ALSO THE COOLEST THING !!!!?!? <33 i’m pretty sure they already gave a reason for why she was a suitable vessel for hy.daelyn but maybe that somehow ties into it too…..? who knows!!! either way AAA <333

i knew the Sudden Switch To Sci-Fi Genre was coming but EFNKSJCKD. i can’t believe they gave z.oraal ja video game powerups .

i really really enjoy that the focal relationships of dt are familial… dt is a story about siblings helping each other grow and also siblings having such conflicting visions for the world that they have to kill each other. i really liked the scene where wuk l.amat declares that she has to kill z.oraal ja. Augh </3. i do think his motivations are a little bit boring but let’s be real they’re never going to be able to write an antagonist better than emet-s.elch so fndjskfkg. we’re not getting another amaurot our expectations can’t be THAT high here

^^THE TWINE CREW???FROM SHB????? SHOWING UP???? BUT DIFFERENT?????!!!?? WHAT!!!!!!!!! i am so curious for the explanation as to why they have exact lookalikes on the source but waah…;; a world where magnus’s wife is ok :’) waaaahhh <33333

^rudyraha. :) <3 <3 <3

I THINK IT’S VERY CUTE THAT THE PAST THREE EXPACS ALL INCLUDE SIGNIFICANT MOMENTS OF PEOPLE COMING TOGETHER TO BUILD SOMETHING HUGE. the mt. gulg talos in shb, the ragnarok in ew, and now the train in dt hehe. <3 it’s funny that it’s a recurring thing but also very sweet because it represents how the mcs’ adventures unite all kinds of people & inspire them to pursue a goal that will better their lives. it’s about hopeee it’s all about hopeeee babeyy <33

THE TRAIN SEQUENCE WAS COOOLL HEHE. I ENJOY RAHA CONTRIBUTING HIS KNOWLEDGE FROM THE CRYSTARIUM THAT WAS VERY CUTE… and return of his vanish spell!!! <333

magitek is obviously a staple of the ff series but some of how it’s done here reminds me specifically of it in xv… i wonder if they took inspiration from any of it hmhmhm…

(flash warning below) VANGUARD WAS COOL i enjoy walking into a boss fight for the first time and being met with 1000 line aoes ⬇️ (/genuine). i think they have a good balance of dungeon mechs being more intense to fit w/ the expac progression but also not being too difficult as it’s still msq content. i’ve had fun w/ all the bosses they’ve introduced :> <3

(^he did not even apply death’s design until after his burst phase AND he was too distracted to even do it correctly FAKE gamer)

^the way they wrote this codex entry gets me directly in the heart . shadow.bringers is good did you guysknow that shb is good TT <3333;;;;

^raha *places my hands gently on your shoulders* everything reminds me of the crystal tower. 💛

^^^FF.IX REFERENCE !!!!!!!!!!!!! I FORGOT DT WAS GOING TO HAVW IX STUFF IN IT LET’S GO DAGGERHEADS WE WIN. HEHE <33

MEETING C.AHCIUA WAS A JOY. LITERALLY MOST ADORABLE CUTSCENE I LOVE HER???? <333 i also wish to be a silly spinny robot that goes O_O <3

^you are so cute raha. <3

^THEY WROTE LINDBLUM AS THE PLACE UTILIZING WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION WHEN IT WAS ALEXANDRIA DOING THAT IN IX??? HOW COULD THEY DO THIS TO MY MAIN MAN LINDBLUM

^^^SHADOW.BRINGERS FANS WILL BE LIKE HMMM GETTING A LOT OF FLOOD OF LIGHT VIBES FROM THIS FJNDKFNJFDK <333

i honestly wasn’t very into the alexandria stuff on initial reaction just because i loved seeing tural so much and the whole story just changed pace out of the blue, but i became interested when they began introducing the soul stuff i do think some cool things could come out of that….. i’m GUESSING the twist with s.phene is that she’s a robot….?? or like?? a soul with the illusion of a physical form question mark?????? i’m also assuming it’ll be revealed that alexandria put up the barrier way-back-when to keep themselves safe & claim the land’s supply of electrope for themselves or something, and she was probably involved in it somehow Who Knows i’ll find out. <3

[eldritch-elrics]

silent hill 2 remake continues to delight me. even more so, now that maria is here :D

i enjoyed blue creek apartments quite a lot. it seems like the remake has taken the opportunity to completely rethink what once were fairly simple puzzles in the original - things like the clock puzzle feel very intentionally designed. the souls-like nature of the level design shines through in this dungeon especially - finding each clock hand requires you to go out in one direction and then circle back to the save point by opening shortcuts, which i liked. i did not like dying a handful of times and losing quite a bit of progress... but i think that is mostly a problem with me no longer playing on emulator, lol.

speaking of the puzzles... i noticed that it's now pretty explicit about what objects you should be looking for:

i don't think i like this decision. the remake's new interact button already makes explicit what objects are important, and i think that one of the fun things about silent hill as a series is picking up random shit and going "now how is this going to be useful..." without knowing beforehand what you're looking for.

let's see, more blue creek notes. the expanded moth room was great! i liked the big moths! also, they added a few new shots to the angela mirror cutscene that i thought were quite cool. i don't thiiink they changed that cutscene much? angela's voice actor is good, though.

also.... toilet!!!!! plus the original "stick hand in strange hole" bit! wow, they upped the amount of weird places for james to put his hand in the remake. i love that the toilet is no longer optional.

look at him. he's having a great time.

and finally: pyramid head!! i was glad to have more space to do the fight this time hehe. honestly, even more than the fight, i loved the huge knife-gashes that appear in the floor at a certain point... even though i knew what was coming, that was such a great way to create a sense of dread. (also, the mannequins near the clock room that move closer and closer to you...)

i liked seeing this staircase in hd also. that was just a neat touch. (in general, all the glitchy memory-moments are very fun... a great sort of easter egg!)

speaking of pyramid head, i noticed that if you try and reload the autosave before his bossfight, it's listed as "red pyramid thing"! even though james doesn't say that line in this version :|

anyway... most importantly.... MARIA 💖💖💖

i haven't even seen much of her but i already have so many things to say! james seems more scared(?) than fascinated by maria in the remake; he has a definite Repressed Energy here. (the way he delivers the line "can't you just tell me where it is?" kills me, oh man, he's so breathless...) maria also seems more like a normal person...? she still has a playful and slightly weird energy, but it's way toned down & laid back compared to the "suspicious seductress" vibes of the original. i'm a lil sad about that tbh; i love how in the original she's coming onto james really hard. she's also more teasing/presumptuous in the og - i miss her line where she's like "oh so the hotel was your special place? i'm sure it was ;)" like that's so obnoxious... though i am glad maria keeps her flirtiness, even if it's a bit more subtle.

funny how maria rather than james is the one to think of the hotel as the second "special place"? maria's just kind of like "oh yeah i'll take you there, it's not far." i do like how this sets maria up as a sort of authority rather than a passive "following james around" figure, AND i really like how it foreshadows james's memory issues (to put it mildly), BUT in terms of the overall plot of the game i think it loses something significant by not immediately naming the hotel as the other potential destination. now, i'm only as far as jack's inn so it's possible that maria could say something at any time that will invalidate this entire thread of commentary, but i think something that makes the original sh2 feel so tight plot-wise is that for the entire game, you're always heading towards one of two destinations: the park, or the hotel. not having james immediately knowing that he needs to go to the hotel makes him feel less driven - makes it feel like the plot has gotten away from him a bit. unless... this is intentional? giving that power to maria is definitely interesting... it's a whole new way of making her a little suspicious! like maybe she's untrustworthy, but james has to trust her now!

also extremely fun to see the small changes surrounding maria's line where she's convincing james to let her come along. in the og, "i look like mary... you loved her, right?" seems deliberately provocative: she's giving him a reason to accept her. whereas in the remake, the one extra line ("is it because i remind you of her?") recontextualizes everything. here, maria seems more empathetic: she recognizes that her similarity to mary is a reason for james to hesitate, but she still spins it into a reason for james to care about her ("you loved her, didn't you. ...didn't you?") as another note, i like that second "didn't you?" a lot more as a sudden moment of doubt than the original line ("or maybe you hated her!"). the og one speaks more to maria's obnoxious/provocative streak that i enjoy, but i think the remake line, because it's less ridiculous/out of nowhere, works a lot better to subtly cast doubt on james's relationship with mary.

also this made me rewatch the original "meeting maria" scene and i have to note that i love the way james delivers the "oh yeah, three years ago... but i got a letter from her! :D" bit. it's like.. bro forgot she was dead..... (not like this doesn't also happen in the remake, just.. the original's voice acting is something special man)

okay ummmm i didn't mean to spend so many words close reading the minutiae of that scene. anyway. more maria things! GOD i love that she banters with james now while they're walking. just an inarguably positive addition to the game. it's always the best when two characters chat during gameplay - like 2B and 9S from nier automata! i fucking love how maria startles when james breaks windows (but also sounds kind of excited about it). also her checking out her og outfit in the one hotel room?? really good moment. also this:

finally:

silent hill 3 reference babey!!!!!!! very very subtle. i like this a lot.

my final thought of the night (unrelated to maria sorry) is that i think the game is reaaally missing a lock-on/target enemies button. maybe that would make it too easy, but idk... the original had that... and it seems like a good thing to put in if you're making combat a bigger part of the game...... not to be like "dark souls!" but even dark souls has a lock-on button......

[strawberrycola]

hello. i made a very long, very indulgent addition to the sam and max subreddit post earlier, and decided to make it its own post because i had way too many thoughts for a reblog. and the idea of clogging notes was eating away at my brain like mice eat a cheese. this is mostly just train of thought, so i apologise if it's complete nonsense. i've just thought a lot about sam and max's relationship, and the connection lgbt (and neurodivergent, for that matter) fans have had to the series, from my perspective since i was like 8. obviously that's gonna be tinted thru a tumblr lens, because ftmp that's where i see The Good Stuff. and i'm gay as hell, so there's bias. ok read more time kiss kiss.

anyhoozles, coincidentally i've been back on my sam and max bullshit recently, as i finally got a chance to play "this time it's virtual". and discovered vr is not my thing.

so to start, listen...i don't think sam and max's relationship is quite as cut and dry as i believe myself and perhaps many others would imagine/hope. i'm eyeing the "susan" gag from the aformentioned ttiv, in particular. but as your resident specialist in "complex and obscure knowledge of three series total or so", the question of sam and max's relationship has been here since the very beginning of the official comics. like. this has been a thing. pretending it's new is foolhardy. and wrong. obviously there's "like butch and sundance", the wedding toppers, hell, the devs of the telltale game trilogy lampshade their relationship a very decent amount, both in the game itself and in the commentary. at the end of 209, "chariot of the dogs", they directly bring it up during the final cutscene tie straightening maneuver max does. one of the devs literally gets excited about it, iirc. and one of my personal favourite examples is "do you find my warmth...alarming, sam?" from 305, "the city that dares not sleep."

that, in particular, is one of several lines directly from MR. PURCELL HIMSELF, that he gave to the devs each game as lines that must be in the game.

and speaking of season 3, i'd like to mention 305, "they stole max's brain".

(i am now holding "noir sam" so close to my chest, jsyk. that trope means the world to me. it has influenced SO much of my work, and i still use napalm's playthrough on youtube as a sleep aid. REMASTER WHEN.)

of course i and many others latched onto that shit, are you kidding me???? that whole episode was RIPE for hurt/comfort. minor spoiler warning for those that would mind, it's a roaring rampage of revenge plot. at least for the first 30 minutes or so. it's part of a long history between the two of freaking the hell out the second they're separated from each other in a way that doesn't end in like, five minutes. (305. if you know, you know. fkin brutal, man.) sam, in the second act of the game, has been affected by an alternate reality plot, and fully believes he has carried max's brain in a jar his whole LIFE and seemingly has no plans to stop doing so!! it's part of a season where the WHOLE PLOT revolves around the nature of their relationship and how it could change. you don't have to be a shipper yourself to understand how that could be incredibly compelling to the people that fancy them as a couple.

and it's a fandom that i give a lot of credit to lgbt people for revitalising in the mid 2010s~ (i was already a fan by then, and i'm still really curious as to why it blew up so much, but hey, who's complaining?), as well as in 2021~ in response to skunkape's remaster of telltale's season one "save the world" installment, and the release of ttiv. (obviously the actual demographic spread across platform to platform is a varied thing, etc. etc. i'd like to stay firmly in my lane, and i don't wanna overstate any particular demos in my discussion here, or hyperbolise too much.)

Obviously, you don't have. to be a shipper. completely fine. pretty common. Who Give A Care. and we're not even gonna get into the "not suitable" content. i can't fault anyone for not being cool with the actual sexualisation of childhood stuff they like. that's something i'm pretty "ambivalent with a leaning towards discomfort" about for quite a few things myself. and it turns out there wasn't even any "unmentionable graphic imagery" to begin with. shocking. HOWEVER. i'm fascinated but not completely surprised by the blatant homophobia and disgust towards the fanart of the ship.

like, to be nuanced about things, and it's not like the admin is extending the same courtesy here, this is clearly an older fan. like i think from around the same timeframe i was first introduced to it, give or take. maybe they missed a lot of the tumblr mid-2010s activity, or maybe that's going in to their Burning Disgust towards Yaoi Sam and Max Kissing Not Clickbait. i know the fanart had some level of cross-posting, at least on youtube as dubs iirc. OR maybe i'm a fool who is actively tricking you with my words and none of the above is true at all. however...pal. again, in my opinion, we owe those lgbt and neurodivergent kids and adults our whole rights as a fan community. you don't have to like it, but you do have to be respectful, jerkbag.

i can't be the only one who was devastated by the drought of content post "the devil's playhouse". we had a [1] singular whole webcomic to tide us over, with the occasional sketch on purcell's social medias. of course, there was a small community of fans, and some incredible stuff they made, looking at you Sam Dies At The End. i weeped. but it was slow and steady. and then, out of seemingly nowhere, people en masse suddenly REALLY CARED ABOUT THE THING THAT BROUGHT ME SO MUCH JOY AS A LITTLE GUY. like, fuck man...i first found out what autism was when i was real young because max's character description on wikipedia contained speculation as to whether or not he has it. (jury's still out, ...but we all have our little comforts. okay? also speaking of, "is max gay?" is like. one of the longest ongoing bits. like cmon dude.) now granted, by 2021 i was a little old for the new wave of shipping that sprouted up. tiktok edits are Not Always My Thing. but that's okay!!!! it doesn't need to be my thing. i'm really glad they're having fun. :] and i don't want to come across as like. infantilising in my discussion of the younger fanbase, so i apologise if my tone has come across that way. it really is simply the comforting thought that kids like me can experience what i had.

i remember how much fun my friends and i used to have when we were 16! (hi xavier, if ur reading this. miss you, buddy. :]) we got silly with it! we got angsty about season 3!! we wrote fanfiction, hell, an amazing fic my friend wrote that i beta'd is still the most kudos'd shipping fic on ao3!! the fanartists i liked had such an INCREDIBLE grasp on how to write sam and max's banter. it was a good time! and knowing these characters are giving joy to a new generation makes me giddy, dude. hell yeah! get "feral" or whatever the hell it is these days. find comfort in characters that don't really care about anyone's opinion except each other's, who get to be as weird and annoying and gross as they want all the time. that tend to punch up. that show love differently than what's seen as conventional. that end up saving the day, not even because they have to, so much as they genuinely enjoy each adventure together. max was my personal opportunity to feel comfort in all my weird freaky mannerisms i kept safe behind the polished exterior i had to wear as a kid. i found solace in the thought that those two were practically made for each other, as i stumbled through my own gender and sexuality crises. i loved how dry and dark sam was allowed to be. the banjo bits, the phone jokes, the repartee. so much of this series has influenced me, and helped me become who i am, as a creator and as a functional guy who Does Things.

so that's a small bit of why i think sam and max had, and still has, a lot of appeal to people that grew up like me. there's a lot of rough stuff i went through that made the idea of a couple of anarchist detectives completely devoted to one another that go around the seedy underbelly of america saving the day ("almost on purpose!") really, really interesting. steve purcell is unapologetic about how gross america can be, especially in the comics. at the heart of it, sam and max do what they do both because they enjoy it, and they enjoy each other. and i think, to overlook that, is to miss some of the whole point of the franchise. oh, i'm sorry, giant cockroaches literally everywhere is fine, streets crusted in various goos, totally chill, but gay kissing is the thing that Absolutely Nauseates you? plugging your ears and screaming gross seems like...kind of a weak move here, ngl. a work that doesn't shy away from how confusing and wild life can be has a decent chance to be compelling to marginalised groups, who often have to put up with the more disgusting aspects of reality anyways. at least these two odd guys are having fun with it. sam and max understand each other, each of their strengths and flaws, and choose to be with each other every day because of and in spite of them. they choose to love where they are, because of and in spite of its many, many, many flaws. they choose to be who they are because they love what they do. there's something touching there, if you like to think about such things. there are some occasions i find myself wishing sam and max's relationship was more...concrete. i wish we had an answer to Does Sam And Max Is Gay? but at the same time, being vague and obtuse is like. their whole shtick. so maybe it's just right how it is. and uh. obviously this is a fictional series. in the end, it's all how we enjoy it that matters, and it's not the end of the world. and as a final cherry on top, nothing beats turning to my husband and asking, "is sam and max queerbait", before delighting in the 3 hr conversation that follows.

and to get to the point. as the old adage unfortunately goes, it's...okay. to not like...ships. and i can even somewhat understand being frustrated by a subreddit you created being "flooded" by a thing you're not into. only somewhat, because a: we've always been here, and b: because you can. just not look at it? idk if reddit has a filtering system, but. the scroll wheel is free. to throw a tantrum and ban topics because you're personally offended people think they're gay? you might be missing out on some of the most fun you can have outside the series, and you're spitting in the face of the people who held this fandom up on their shoulders like atlas.

and you're being a dick about it.

TO CONCLUDE:

wah wah they're gay gay homosexual gay and they don't pay taxes. deal or die, fake fan.

[again-please]

Ooh I'll bite on the 500 word DVD commentary! My all time fav scene in the Mercurial world series:

 

Neve lets her mind’s eye fill with a particular image: Astarion in the daylight, bowing cheekily and brushing himself off from their tussle moments after they’d first met, slick and debonair even fresh from the wreckage of the Mindflayer ship. Then, hardly knowing how she even knows she can do this, she pushes it at him.

 

"What are you—" he murmurs, and then abruptly cuts himself off with a gasp.

 

It must be working, as his eyes have gone wide as saucers, fixed not on her face but somewhere just beyond. Focusing, she conjures another memory: Astarion’s pale features cast in jewel-blue, looking down at her in the moonlight, the merry glow of the tiefling party in the distance behind him as he takes her chin in his hand. I’ll take good care of you, he promises, with one of those dangerous, glinting smiles that tilts up on one side, looking for all the world like he’s going to kiss her again.

 

"I—You—" Astarion chokes, sounding almost pained. All at once the effort to keep it going is too much, and Neve relinquishes the connection between their tadpoles, pressing one hand to her forehead and gripping the side of the tub with the other, suddenly a little weak.

 

"Did it work?" she asks, blinking rapidly, trying to regain herself. "Did you see?"

 

"Yes," Astarion gasps, surging forward and seizing her upper arms desperately—which is quite welcome, as she suddenly feels that she could use the support. His eyes are wild as they search her face, his mouth looking as though it’s trying to form words until he finally manages some.

 

"Insane, brilliant little witch," Astarion snarls, almost like he’s angry about it—furious, even. But then he kisses her. Hard.

 

Neve almost yelps, finding herself being abruptly pulled into his naked lap, water splashing over the sides of the tub at his erratic movement. He releases her upper arms to help arrange her legs around his hips, still ravaging her mouth, and she tries to steady herself on his chest, her head now swimming for two reasons. She smooths her hands over his wet skin, and to her surprise, he hums into her mouth and slows the pace of his kiss, as if the touch soothed something in him. His hand trails up her back and threads into her hair as it cups the back of her head, his usually cool skin warmed by the water. Goosebumps erupt in the wake of his touch, so intense that she shivers.

 

Astarion finally pulls away at that, but he doesn’t go far. He rests his forehead against hers, eyes still shut tightly, as though he’s afraid to look at her in the aftermath of that reaction.

 

"Liked yourself that much?" she jokes nervously.

 

"Do you have the slightest idea?" he murmurs, voice ragged, not playing along. "The slightest notion of what you’ve given me? Two hundred years—two hundred—and I finally have my face back. It’s not just…just some dark shape in my past

Ty for biting! (...a common sentiment on this blog I fear)

This is a moment I can actually trace my exact inspiration for because I can remember the friggin DAY I got the "tell me I'm beautiful" mirror scene in early access and I was simply screaming at the computer screen because WE HAVE A PSYCHIC CONNECTION GOD DAMN IT LET ME SHOW HIM HIS FACE. Especially because many of the tadpole-connection meet-cute narrations explicitly say you're seeing out of the other character's eyes! And if memory serves this was the first? one of the first? Astarion cutscenes to drop in EA where he seemed legitimately vulnerable for a moment, which was a very important nugget for us Astarionmancers because around this time I think there was talk about how he was just an asshole no matter what and that there was obviously ONLY a Bad Evil Ending in store for him.

I think this is Neve at some of her best "you guys are making this way too complicated" problem-solving. She is definitely a Scholar and a Wizard, but I think the real beauty of her character and her situation is that she doesn't come from any kind of remotely respectable academic background, as we'll start to explore more, and so she comes at problems a lot more humbly and practically than might be thought to be common for wizards. She is the Good-Will-Hunting-working-class-local-library wizard to Gale's Harvard-Educated wizard (except in this scenario she's the one still on the hook for an exorbitant amount of money...RIP her credit score).

A fundamental Astarion/Neve dynamic is definitely his "mask" of suaveness that he never wants to drop (unstoppable force) vs Neve being almost legitimately incapable of not being herself (immovable object). In this scene, immovable object DEFINITELY wins.

The "jewel-blue moonlight" image of Astarion she recalls scene is from chapter 2 of A Little Further, and I come back to this moment a lot because, in spite of where Astarion is at that point in time (aka, still foolishly thinking he's just having a bit of fun for his own benefit), that's a moment Neve feels swept off her feet for the first time in a way she was really afraid that she would die without experiencing. And a part of her knows he's being Way Too Smooth there, but she also thinks that's something he'd like to see—the time it was all working for him, the time he was so perfect that even a self-conscious skeptic like her couldn't say no to him

This scene also becomes extremely important when we examine what she shares with him later from Astarion's POV—she didn't just send images through the tadpole connection, but the feelings she was feeling in those moments. And while he doesn't literally hear the words "I love you," in her mind or anything, I think it kind of ruins him forever to feel that sheer BLAST of genuine attraction and care and affection direct from the source. Sometimes I'm like, did he fall in love too fast? But honestly, it's kind of no surprise he's done for after this point. Psychic connections are cheat codes.

I just checked—this is also the first time I have Astarion call her "witch/little witch." I think this would kind of irk Neve if he ever said it in front of anyone else (because she is a WIZARD god damn it) but he gets away with it because this is...a name that absolutely does NOT get said aloud outside the bedroom.

DVD commentary ask game if you want to bite as well!

[greatwyrmgold]

Ten years of Noah Caldwell-Gervais

It's remarkable how little the video essays of Noah Caldwell-Gervais have changed over the last decade.

Obviously, there have been some changes.

When I went on a(nother) NCG binge last month, the only difference that stood out to me immediately was the audio—both that NCG has upgraded his recording equipment and that early NCG videos included audio from the background game clips, sometimes loud enough to drown out his commentary. It's a weird choice that I assume he made because he didn't want to speak over dead air and couldn't find any royalty-free music that fit the tone well enough; I'm glad he changed his mind.

When I started looking, I saw other little things. The pace of his dictation has slowed (I want to say by about a quarter?), making his feature-length diatribes easier to parse. Counter to this, his older videos would often play whole cutscenes to display his point. (Not just once in a blue moon, like with that RE5 scene; sometimes twice in a row, like in the AVP vs. AVP vs. ACM video.) While Caldwell-Gervais didn't delve into "traditional gamer complaints" about DLC and "lazy devs" and such very often, their density has decreased over time, as has his willingness to give questionable design decisions a pass for good intentions. Early NCG was less likely to research games he couldn't personally play (his CoD video from 2015 only mentions that he couldn't play CoD 3, for instance). The early videos also had an in-person introduction, while newer videos integrate the important parts of that introduction into the script.

And of course, Noah himself has changed over the past decade—it's been a busy ten years, his opinions about games, their place in the world, and that world have shifted in ways that influence his commentary.

But the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Caldwell-Gervais still writes long video essays about entire franchises, albeit now with confidence that his audience will watch a single video for 3-8 hours if he finds enough to say about a series.

He still weaves all those facts about the game in with what development details he can dig up and context from outside the video game subculture to frame his insights as narratives about the franchises and their creators.

He still talks about highbrow literature-class stuff like tone and theme, contrasted with an obvious love for the lowbrow thrills of shooty bang bang. He still accepts "dumb" games, criticizing them for being dumb only when it clashes with other elements/ambitions of the game. (Or when they really punch the boulder.)

With the exception of a few in-video callbacks, he still avoids in-jokes, irrelevant memes, and other elements which might make his work seem inaccessible to newcomers or dated to latecomers. He'll reference current events and recent releases from time to time, so the videos aren't really timeless, but they're not time-locked, either.

He still focuses on shooters and RPGs, with a strong interest in horror and occasional dips into story-dominated titles and the odd pure strategy game. (Also Western games, notable less for their prevalence in NCG's body of work and more for the fact that he's covered both Red Dead Redemption and Call of Juarez, darn near the only notable video game series set in the Old West.)

He still plays the action games with a level of skill that seems reasonable to me, but which comment section critics say is so abysmal that his opinions about action games shouldn't count (except where they agree with the critic's).

Caldwell-Gervais still references film and other media as comparisons to most games he covers. He still shows affinity for Americana, particularly the arid landscapes of the Southwest, and also Western movies.

He still has a largely positive outlook, focusing on games and series worth praising when he can and looking for the best aspects of even the worst games he covers. To this end, he still tries to find the game's level and meet it there. And yet, when a game fails on every level or aims well below its potential, he will still criticize it for those disappointments.

He still focuses on how the different elements of a game interact, prioritizing that over the sum of his parts. He still likes to point out when mechanics, aesthetics, themes, or plot points that work in one title undermine a very similar work—or contrarily, when things that sank one rescued another. It's all about context.

He's still relentlessly critical of corporate bullshit, whether that's publishers forcing Marketable™ elements into a context that doesn't artistically support them or executives maintaining and concealing an abusive work environment.

And of course, he still starts each video with a shot of some hand-written title card, set to thematically-appropriate music that almost certainly gets every video copyright claimed.

Some things are hard to quantify.

In an absolute sense, the filmography (youtography?) of the infamously hidebound Doug Walker has changed more over the years. But that's the kind of fact that conceals more than it reveals.

Walker adds new tools to his toolbelt and throws new ideas into his productions, but the fundamentals stay the same. He makes the same kinds of complaints, tells the same kinds of jokes, films the same kinds of shots. He doesn't try to improve his media literacy, or his writing, or his cinematography. Or his white-balancing.

Part of why Caldwell-Gervais's old videos hold up so much better than 2013 Walker videos (or 2022 ones) is that Caldwell-Gervais started at a much higher level of quality—fewer moving parts than even pre-Demo-Reel Nostalgia Critic, with every piece mastered. (Except audio.)

But part is that Caldwell-Gervais has improved, and not just with audio. I can't put my finger on it, but something about his writing has changed. His older videos feel more superficial, more focused on the games for their own sake and what works or doesn't work for a given genre or franchise. His newer ones feel like they're trying to be deeper, to go beyond individual video games and use them to say something about gaming as a whole, or even the world beyond.

And unlike Walker, NCG's efforts to Do More are backed by the skill, effort, and attention to detail needed to pull them off. I rewatch NCG's older videos out of a self-destructive sense of completionism, or a desire for familiar background noise. I rewatch his newer videos because they're interesting, even on subsequent rewatches.

[hollowwhisperings]

KH4 Spec: Disney Worlds & Emotional Vulnerability (for boys)

A key part of any Kingdom Hearts game is the use of Disney (& Pixar!) films as Microcosms to the greater Macrocosm of said game (& often the Series as a whole). The Disney Worlds act as easily recognisable Settings, toyboxes if you will, to convey concepts otherwise difficult to "fit" within the limitations of the JRPG genre.

(even then, KH does tend to rely on Monologue Heavy Cutscenes & Collectible Texts to direct players toward All Those Emotions & Reactions That Are Happening)

Societal Preconceptions of what stories can be told with a Young Male Protagonist actively sabotage the KH series in its efforts to show the emotional experiences of its young male characters: Sora needs the Framework of a Disney Princess in order to express and recognise concepts traditionally Denied to his gender. Players need Very Explicit Parallels and Dialogue, often repeated & rephrased across several Worlds, just to prevent their Dismissing Emotional Text (let alone Subtext) out of hand because "JRPGs/Action Heroes/Boys don't feel Scared/Sad/Insecure".

Emotional Depth is not "masculine", especially for Male Protagonists and Male Antagonists because "Feelings" are "feminine".

KH actively subverts this false perception of [How Brains Work] by very pointedly removing its "Token Girl" from the most Emotional & Introspective moments in the series.

Kairi's whole PURPOSE, in the greater scope of the KH series narrative, is to "Not Be There" when she "should" be: when Sora feels overwhelmed by the enormity of his quests or feels scared of Failure, it is never Kairi who magically pops by to do the Emotional Heavylifting in Sora's Stead. Sometimes Sora is able to articulate his feelings by recognising them in the Stories of the Disney characters (most of them Female) but as "Story" characters, the emotions and memories that are being Expressed are, by default, those of our Male Protagonists (Sora & Riku). The Disney Worlds act as framing devices for a Young person struggling to articulate whst they Feel & for a Male Protagonist to Recognise his own emotions even as his "own" World (the society he grew up in, the societies of We Players) has preconditioned Sora to "grow out" of Feeling emotions, let alone Expressing them.

Kairi the UnCharacter

Kairi's function within the greater narrative of KH ("the Coming of Age of a young boy named Sora") is to Be Female and to Not Be Where She Is "Supposed" To Be.

In most works with Male Protagonists, especially those of the Shōnen or action genres and ESPECIALLY in the videogame medium, a "Token Girl" functions as an Emotional Outlet for the Male Characters.

Has the (male) Protagonist just experienced something Frightening, suffered Loss or become Lost after the Peacefup Setting of the game's Tutorial?

The Token Girl will be there to Recognise and Express feelings of "something sad and scary" having happened to the Protagonist, of how "shaken and out of sorts" the Protagonist must be. The Token Girl will then act as an Outlet for these emotions, a Comfortable Vehicle to Focus on (to "redirect" the negative emotions to masculine "action") via becoming Someone To Protect or Someone To Impress. Or, if the Token Female is Dead By Tutorial, grief for "Her" is an Acceptable Emotion... to then be directed to the "more acceptable" method for dealing with Males Having Emotions via Monologues To The Setting ("talking at the scenery") or Promises To The Dead.

These emotions are, subsequently, Never Brought Up Again except as Character Motives or within the "acceptable" outlet of a Romantic Sideplot or an Epilogue Montage/Cutscenes. Sometimes games will use character commentaries in item descriptions or story logs to Remember The Plot Device but since these Expressions of Emotion are hidden within optional reading, players & the game's cast can Dodge any further acknowledgement of Having Feelings or anything resembling [Emotional Labour].

Kairi, the "Token Girl" of KH1, exists to "not exist": as the Designated Female in the lives of Sora and Riku, Kairi's absence is Glaring and, for some, Uncomfortable.

When Sora is at his lowest, when he feels scared and overwhelmed... Kairi is Not There to do his [Emotional Labour] for him. When Sora feels insecure or has a sudden understanding about himself or his relatio ships with others... Kairi is Not There to be Sora's ("Acceptably Female") Emotional Outlet. When Sora feels inspired or moved by his experiences... Kairi is Not There to say Sora's emotions for him, she is Not There for him to confide in, Not There to serve as a "purpose" for Sora "Having An Emotion".

Sora is a Very Emotional character: he is in a Coming of Age Journey, he is constantly put into the emotional stories of Disney films, and emotional introspection is a fundamental component of his setting's [combat mechanics]. Sora spends most of his games with Disney characters as his companions, his mentors, his confidants: when each KH game has its Emotional Climax, removed from the Disney settings & characters who had subconsciously prepared Sora (& players)... Kairi is Not There.

The emotions in Sora's Story are HIS emotions: his to experience, his to recognise in Others, his to express and articulate.

And, when removed from the comforting framework of Disney, who does Sora share his emotions be they positive or negative?

Riku, the OTHER Male Protagonist.

Kairi is Not There for Riku's emotional experiences either. Kairi, whose "purpose" in most works is to be Designated & Acceptably Female Emotional Outlet, is Not There. When Kairi is conveniently nearby either boy when they have an Emotional Revelation... Kairi is left in the background. The KH games COULD include Kairi, the Designated Female most "convenient" for its Male Protagonists to Emote At... yet, at every opportunity, Kairi is Not There. Kairi Not Being There is Deliberate, it is Pointed: it is the KH series saying "here is where you expect Emotions to come from & go to" and "we will not be doing that".

Kairi is Conveniently Female so that the KH series can Actively NOT USE THAT CONVENIENCE: Sora's Coming of Age Journey is emotional, as all such stories are, and it is SORA'S. Sora's to feel, Sora's to act upon, Sora's to recognise through Disney Parallels, Sora's to come to terms with, Sora's to express to whomever Sora most wants to express them to.

Now that the KH series has "retired" Kairi from her Role as "Convenient Female We Actively Never Use For Convenience", she might be allowed to have an opinion and perhaps even Have A Personality! I fear, however, that Players will need even more very pointed instances of Kairi Being There & Female and how Pointedly Unused she is when Sora needs to do something "feminine"!

Because KH is about deconstructing the "gender" of emotions: it is about exploring how feelings affect and influence our memories, our behaviour. How our identities, our relationships, require us to engage with our emotions. How refusing or ignoring what we feel leads to pain, isolation and sometimes tragedy. How each generation's relationships with emotional expression affects the generations that follow them, shaped by beliefs of predetermined suffering: how younger generations, if given the tools and context for such trauma-shaped beliefs, can show us all that these cycles of suffering are not inevitable or destined. That it takes all of us engaging with our emotions honestly, respecting each other's emotions as being as important to them as yours are to yourself... and, together, we can share our emotions (our Hearts) and find grounds for reconciliation (Connection). How we can only become stronger by embracing our ability to "feel" and by respecting how important and natural emotions are to us all. Emotions ("hearts") and the tools we use to understand them (stories, friendship, introspection) are not solely "allowed" to "children", to females or within the bounds of romance. Emotions are human and limiting who is "allowed" to express them or how they "should" be expressed? That harms us all. So open your hearts, connect with the hearts of others, and heal the hurts we have done unto ourselves & each other.