#GIVE US A FEMALE PROTAGONIST WHO HAS NO MALE OPTION.

[jason-todd-is-a-real-mood]

THE TAGS 🤌🤌🤌 SO TRUE

Let her be a femme fatale let her be a nerd let her be strong, ressourceful, vulnerable and naive. Look at emma frost look at felicia hardy in spiderman this is what we want ! Create a new fighting style and weapons that suit her personnality and physical abilities ! Do not recycle animations from male protagonists !

GIVE US FASHIONNABLE OUTFITS TOO ! EVIE AND AYA'S ROBES ATE JACOB AND BAYEK'S THERE I SAID IT !

Evie had 1000000x more drip than jacob while walking and running around !

After basim i need a female assassin.

No more " you can choose" . Give me a woman born in the brotherhood like the frye but let me see her grow up in it. Childhood training mission. First kill. Introduction to the council and the creed. Being "brainwash" in believing she is doing good.

Or make her a commoner, a child brought into the creed and who realize that all the people at the top of the brotherhood are often aristocrats who never had to let go of their freedom to live the next day.

Let her be devoted to the cause let me see her be even a bit naive in what she believes.

Then let her grow like you let ezio and altair do. Make her cocky but also wise. Not just a living punchlines machine or a disapproving female figure. Do not make her relation to a man the core of her story.

Show her question what she is doing. Make her afraid of being shun by the brotherhood, the only thing, the only rules and life she ever knew. Let her fight for what she knows is a good cause but not what she believes in anymore. Let her loose and get hurt.

Let her rebuild herself. Let her be friend with historic people who are more than cameo and merchants npc and show her what fighting from freedom can mean. What living for yourself can mean.

Show her habits. Show her discovering small pleasures in life that are seen wasteful as an assassin : Her favourite food. Her favourite book.

Make her assassin robes evolve as her fashion tastes and identity evolve too.

[yarrayora]

i like how falin being a maiden to be saved, a reward to be coveted, isn't a point to criticize in dungeon meshi. because we have various other female characters who are written as having their own agency

we have marcille, of course, whose story can be observed since chapter 1. how she's not depicted as the "girl team member" but "part of the team". when you're writing a protagonist group where there's only one female character among the male cast, you can always feel this sense of alienation in the writing, like she doesn't belong in the group as the story focuses on the rest of the boys. the way masashi kishimoto writes team 7 is a major example

but marcille is still allowed to be a "typical girl" who doesn't want to eat gross things and enjoy feminine clothing without forgetting the fact that she's a multifaceted person. she's a researcher who isn't afraid to get dirty when it's something relevant to magic and her goal, even though she's also grossed out at the idea of feces being used as fertilizer for crops

and when falin comes back as a monster who can't speak, it's still not a point to criticize. oftentimes stories involving female characters losing their speech (or, well, becoming disabled in some way) is meant to make her vulnerable, a fragile 'something' to be protected. but this is not an argument about how chimera falin is super strong, because that's a shallow way of thinking that ignores the fact that being a Girlboss doesn't ensure your female character is written as a fully realized person. this is about the fact that almost right after that Izutsumi joins Laios' party.

She joins late in the game, so it'll be easy for her to only be tacked on as an afterthought. A notable example would be Okumura Haru from Persona 5, where her character gets overshadowed a lot by the other party members' more colorful personalities, as if the writer wasn't sure how to integrate her into the already developed dynamic.

there's also how she's written as a sweet and shy girl yet the way her school uniform is designed betrays that image. it's heavily customized even compared to the trendy girl like ann which means it's impossible for her outfit to not go against school regulation. not something an obedient girl would have done. which makes me wonder if they couldn't decide on her writing until last minute.

but Izutsumi is different. her involvement and her own personal story arc eventually intertwines to the overarching plot. she hates having her options limited. she hates having responsibilities to uphold. she hates eating veggies! she hates that people expects her to do things their way! she wants freedom to do whatever she wants!

but in the end she learns that to have the freedom to choose, she has to uphold her responsibilities. starting from the simple things like taking care of her health by eating balanced meals, not just the ones she enjoy. she has to do work to get enough money for her food and travels. and she has to learn how society works so she can live independently. she has to learn which desire she has to prioritize that she can balance out with her responsibility as a living being.

her own self-realization culminates into her giving advice to laios that leads to him steeling his resolves to become king.

so you have Falin, who gets turned into a monster that cant communicate her desire and needs while under the mad sorcerer's control, and in exchange you get Izutsumi, the 'beastman' who knows exactly what she wants and throws a tantrum about it without shame, not understanding that what you want isn't always what you need. i think it's a really cool parallel!

this is a prime example of how tropes that get associated with misogynistic writing can be used as a proper tool that serves a narrative when you have more than multiple female characters having their own character arcs

in fact, you can apply this to pretty much every other things. when you're writing gay characters, having only one of them and they act camp can make people raise an eyebrow at whether this is meant to be a caricature of gay people or not. having two of them and one acts camp and one acts normie can be read as a bias against gay people expressing themselves. writing multiple gay characters, all with different personalities and desires will avoid accidental stereotyping.

even the minor female characters, be it the canaries or namari, help show that the way the narrative treats Falin isn't born from thinking that women are an alien breed compared to men. that her lack of agency means something for the themes involved.

[majycka]

Megumi stans....we won, I guess? maybe just for now..

JJK 266 THOUGHTS AND SPOILERS AHEAD!

Aight megumi enjoyers, at least one of us has been in the trenches when Megumi was getting SHOVELED PILES OF SHIT ON for losing his will to live when he's a traumatized 15 years old boy having a valid reaction to a death of a loved one (aka who may I repeat, HEAVILY REITERATED in the manga is someone whose his entire desire to live hinges on). As of from the currents chap, I'm considering Yuuji's acknowledgement/understanding to Megumi's actions a W for us or idk maybe that's just me because he gives Megumi the empathy and understanding he needs in his crazy ass suicidal life, and it raises the question of whether this is gonna fully push Megumi for his comeback moment?

More yapping under the cut

In order to explain why the magnitude of this chapter is such an important development for Megumi, his trauma needs to be discuss first and, there's four people we need to go through to reflect his stages of life. Toji, Tsumiki, Gojo, aaaannd Yuuji! :D

TOJI, the dad who left for milk.

Although we barely see any interaction with these two (only one fight scene from them), Toji no doubt kickstarted the trauma of Megumi the moment he decided to left for milk and never return again. He's traumatized by the Zenin's which explains why he acted out in that way and abandoned his child. All he's life he's treated as the outsider for being the odd one out. He lashed out from it as he got stronger, calmed down when meet Meg's mom who then died, and went back to lashing out again, forgetting that he has a tiny son waiting for him at home. Big L for Toji.

I know that Gege reiterated in his interview that he wants to craft a story where there's no right and wrong people, but I'm gonna proceed to be harsher towards Toji here because he's the ADULT situation. Yes, a traumatized adult who's fucked up and not perfect, but I still hold him accountable in perpetuating Megumi's trauma because Toji proceeded to repeat the cycle of trauma that moment he decided to leave, thinking that turning over Megumi to the Zenin is the best option cuz he got The Ten Shadows Technique. From Toji's perspective, it seemed the better option because he was raised knowing his no cursed energy made him an outcast in his family. It's drilled to him that cursed technique was everything for Zenins, so of course, he thought that his son with a valued technique will make the Zenins, olympic gold medal holder of abuse, treat him better. But, heck no! Just look what happened to that Naoya, who despite being raised differently as Toji or Maki and Mai, ended up as a piece of shit. In the end though, I gotta give him the bareeeessst minimum because he kinda pushed Gojo to interfere with Megumi being sold off to the Zenins(which has another set of problems discussed for the later part of discussion).

I try to stay true in including Gege's intention in writing here, and also other nuanced perspective cuz that's the type of series JJK is that yes, Toji DID care for his son in the barest minimum and in his most emotionally stunted way.

However, the damage is done, and Megumi is left with no prime adult caretaker to protect/guide him with only an older sis to have any resemblance of it .

2. TSUMIKI, the manic pixie dream girl sister.

To define the term (as I've stolen from Google) , manic pixie dream girl (MPDG) means "a type of female character depicted as vivacious and appealingly quirky, whose main purpose within the narrative is to inspire a greater appreciation for life in a male protagonist." They are often associated as love interest in movies, BUT I AM NO WAY SHAPE IN FORM ENDORSING MEGUMI SEES HER THAT WAY. Instead, I am using MPDG as a loose term to describe Tsumiki because like most MPDG, we barely know ANYTHING about her actually and we only saw her through the eyes of Megumi which is being pretty and dead.

Not essentially dead and not essentially just pretty because Megumi described her to be the model of a kind person and someone that Megumi wishes to protect, aka his greater purpose of life, which is yah, great, but we are stuck with this perception of Tsumiki. We don't know her, and I think the closest thing we got an unbiased perception of her is when she chucked a cartoon of milk to Megumi (she will call out his BS). This connects back with Megumi's trauma because who else are you gonna hinge your will to live on when the prime adults in your life failed you? He sees her in a brighter light in order to survive. A way of coping mechanism even.

AND YET, despite all his talk appreciating her kind traits and killing people in the culling game to get back to her, you would be surprised that instead of apologizing to her that he was all emo about, he was a dick to her when they reunited. 💀💀

And in fact, the narrative punishes him for this flaw.

To the point that when Sukuna took over his body, he "killed: Tsumiki in his hands which didn't just left Megumi the guilt and shame of being a dick to his sister before she dies but also the impression that Megumi was the one who "killed her." This makes Megumi an active participant to his own tragedy, and it serves a big slap on his face that he's also at fault here.

3. GOJO, the traumatized bro who tried his best.

This is definitely the raging hot debate of the fandom which is their dynamic, and my take breaks this perception of the uwufied Gojo a lot of the fandom seems to like. Yes, I do see Gojo as another perpetrator to Megumi’s trauma, another adult that failed him but not in such of a black and white way thinking of Gojo’s the wholly bad guy here. Believe it or not, he’s still a part of the chain of generational trauma, being a "chain" as in he's a victim AND perpetrator of the system. I called him the traumatized bro who tried his best here because as much as Gojo knows how cruel the jujutsu system is for the kids, he still unintentionally passes over the core mindset of such cruel system to Megumi since Gojo still did grew up in this system normalized in his eyes.

"Jujutsu Sorcerer is an individual sport."

I say "unintentionally passes" because no, Gojo doesn't have the same intention as Zenins/majority of the system who drills "strength is everything" in the most fucked up way possible. Yes, he enjoys Megumi’s company and treats him nicely. Yes, he sticks his neck out for him. Yes, he wants them to be strong so they can change the system. But this isn't about Gojo. It's about Megumi who still undeniably suffered from the accumulation of the few adults in his life failing him which includes Gojo. Gojo offers protection to Megumi. KEYWORD: Offers. It’s in exchange for Megumi working under Gojo as a jujutsu sorcerer. Now, for smol Megumi here, who truly going through the horror show of abandonment from his dad, agrees to it because apparently, according to Gojo, it’s the only way to protect his sister.

"I'll take care of things! But you're gonna have to work extra hard. I'm countin' on ya."

Annnd thus the cycle repeats! Although it wasn’t as bad as Zenin’s abusive environment Toji was raised, Megumi is still pushed in the same cutthroat environment of the jjk world that Gojo believed he can survive just because Megs has a valued powerful technique if only he himself fullfills his potential, like Gojo’s Six Eyes. BUT Gojo, who delights in his power, forgets a crucial part that…..Megumi isn’t like him!

Check out what Megumi has to say. (aka bud doesn't want any of that sorcerers shit and just wants a domestic life)

So the thing is, was Megumi ever asked his input in choosing to be a jujutsu sorcerer? Well, yah….and all it circles back to just protecting his sister and people like her. There’s a set of problems that comes with this mindset though that Gojo was valid to point out and that is Megumi doesn’t think about himself enough. “It’s ok to be selfish!” Gojo said in the context of being a stronger sorcerer.

But at the same time, he also gave Megumi the idea to that if he doesn’t work as sorcerer, then he won’t be able to protect his sister when he was a mere 6-7y/o boy.

You know that circulating meme of Megumi pulling Mahogora for minor inconvenience? Well, guess what that tells his suicidal tendencies in protecting anyone but himself. Kid got no sense of self-preservation because his self esteemed has completely tanked itself due to his abandonment issues, and now that he’s expressing how it emotionally and physically paralyzes him, he has every valid reason to do so.

Why, yes, Gojo was 19/20 at the time he first met Megs, still a kid, doesn't know shit, and has unaddressed issues being treated as The Strongest Weapon(here’s a dedicated gojo-centric meta I wrote previously about Gojo and his issues cuz he's one complicated fool). I describe this whole situation as an unaware traumatized kid taking in another traumatized kid which is not a fun mix to have, and I understand that Gojo ain’t exactly prepared for that kind of job.

HOWEVER, I’m way harsher to point out Gojo’s failure as an adult in Megumi in the later part of the series because at this point, Gojo's a grown adult, he waxes poetry in being responsible for the next gen , and we get to see his priorities throughout the series especially with the Sukuna’s fight, like seriously he had one legitimate fun fighting someone on par with him.

Gojo DELIGHTS in power no doubt, he chooses kids with most potential, he gets excited finding those kids, and this is the type of the closest dependable adult Megumi has in his life.

Yes, financially supported but Gojo isn't around much when he's working and on demand sorcerer almost 24/7. That's why growing up sure do sucked ass for Megumi especially when no one’s really there to guide and to keep an eye on your development AS A PERSON AND NOT JUST A SORCERER which the latter part is what unfortunately Gojo’s more eager to do.

4. YUUJI, the guy who just wants Megumi to know he matters to him as a person.

Yuuji and Megumi were definitely the highlight of this chapter because in the bleak world of JJK where everyone seemed to be succumbing to the repeated fuck ups of the previous gen (like that Yuta-Gojo situation), this chapter actually offers that THERE IS HOPE that the new gen can do better like what Yuuji just did that the adults in Megumi's life are too emotionally stunted to do. Yuuji take the time to listen to Megumi's emotional thoughts, what he feels as a person, and not just listen, but to understand and empathize. It even took lots of attempts for Yuuji to make Megumi open up.

He responds to Megumi's vulnerability with care and love, and Yuuji understands the pain Megumi is going through from losing his sister. With someone in pain like that, Yuuji knows he can't just go around saying "just live" to someone who's practically suicidal.

The treat of this all is when this scene comes next. Yuuji also shows his vulnerability and expresses that Megumi matters to him!

"It's lonely without you..Fushiguro."

This scene clearly parallels Gojo and Megumi's first meeting, so I'm gonna try to throw my two cents here and explain why Gege choose this direction. Remember what I said about Yuuji giving us the hope of the new gen escaping from the shackles of generational trauma? Well, I think this parallel is a way in saying that what Megumi needed when he was so young was someone to see him and his pain who's just a kid abandoned and forced to fend for themselves because the prime adults decided to to dip out. This is Megumi we are talking about here who's unaddressed issues stays hidden beneath all the pressure of him being The Ten Shadows Technique. He's valued for his technique. That's why Gojo showed up to meet him in the first place. That's also what the jujutsu system looked after for their child soldiers. Yuuji tries to break this chain of trauma their mentor unknowingly repeats. He'll show up for Megumi again and again because he's his dear friend even if Megumi's being difficult to be pulled out of Sukuna. And the beautiful thing is Yuuji didn't had some grand inspiring speech or grand offer to convince Megumi, he wasn't even sure Megumi will be up for it. Yuuji simply want to say that he matters to him. That understands him. That he's important to him so much he'll be sad when he dies, and it mattered.

"This is...Fushiguro Megumi's...!!"

And now that Megumi is showing signs in taking his body back, it's now his turn to save himself. Yuuji did his part, and for someone whose future has been controlled by everyone but himself, this time Megumi gets to decide what comes next.

[felassan]

Article: 'The Industry Is Divided On How To Write Video Game Romance', by Kenneth Shepard

Baldur’s Gate 3 is the latest big game to follow an inclusive (but divisive) trend in video game courtship

excerpts from the article are under a cut due to length and mentions and discussions of queerphobia, biphobia etc.

(note: I have censored the term "pl****sexual" throughout these quotes).

Some excerpts:

"In 2011, BioWare’s Dragon Age II portrayed its four main romantic conquests as bisexual, allowing them to be pursued by either the male or female version of main character Hawke. At the time, I was a young, mostly-but-not-completely out gay high school student, and I spent hours each week on the BioWare forums, hoping for some information about which men I’d be able to pursue as I ventured through the fantasy city of Kirkwall. When the game finally came out, much to my delight, there were no restrictions. I wasn’t forced into one choice like I was with the roguish elf Zevran in Dragon Age: Origins, or excluded completely like the first two Mass Effect games. The approach was met with predictable pushback from bigots, and Lead Writer David Gaider responded to criticisms that the game neglected the “main demographic” of the “straight male” in what became a core text about who deserves to be depicted in video game romances. He wrote: “The romances in the game are not for ‘the straight male gamer’. They’re for everyone. We have a lot of fans, many of whom are neither straight nor male, and they deserve no less attention. We have good numbers, after all, on the number of people who actually used similar sorts of content in DAO and thus don’t need to resort to anecdotal evidence to support our idea that their numbers are not insignificant... and that’s ignoring the idea that they don’t have just as much right to play the kind of game they wish as anyone else. The ‘rights’ of anyone with regards to a game are murky at best, but anyone who takes that stance must apply it equally to both the minority as well as the majority. The majority has no inherent ‘right’ to get more options than anyone else.” The idea that romances could be “for everyone” stuck with me, and with the video game industry. Dragon Age II was an early example of what has become colloquially known as “pl****sexual” experiences, in which every romanceable character is pursuable regardless of your character’s gender. Everyone got an equal piece of the pie. Queer people weren’t relegated to table scraps while straight people got to have a feast. But it turns out, giving everyone all the same options brings its own baggage, and in the years since Dragon Age II, developers are still struggling to find the best approach. The mother of invention According to Gaider, while Dragon Age II’s love stories have become a model for inclusive romance design, they originally took this form due to the sequel’s breakneck development timeline. “We were working on far fewer resources compared to Dragon Age: Origins,” Gaider told Kotaku. “The whole game was gonna be done within a year and a half. So when it came up to how are we gonna do the romances, it was really a matter of economy. We’re gonna have four romances. If we decide to make them sort of a spread of sexualities that are immutable, then there’s no choice for the player. They have one character available to them, and we didn’t like that idea.” Resource division and lack of choice remains a cloud that hangs over even the biggest games that feature romance."

-

"When every romanceable character is pursuable regardless of who the player is, it creates a perception that these characters’ identities are defined by the protagonist’s presence. Gaider likens this to treating characters like a “toy” just meant to be romanced. This is part of how the “pl****sexual” moniker came to be, as it implies that characters weren’t bisexual or pansexual, but adhered to whatever main character they came across in any given playthrough. Dragon Age II has a specific plot beat that added to this: If the player chose to play a male version of Hawke, Anders would be forthcoming about his past relationship with another man, but that conversation doesn’t come up when playing as a woman. Gaider explained this was meant to distinguish how Anders related to male and female versions of the same character, with the BioWare team believing he might keep a past relationship with a man “close to his chest” if he were interested in a woman. In retrospect, he says he understands how it could be read as something only real in one version of the story. “Unfortunately, we just didn’t have enough time to get enough feedback and iterate on those situations,” he said. “We would hit a particular interaction, we would make a judgment call either as a group or the writer on their own, and that was it. There was no time for anything more than one gut-check, which is probably not the way to go.” Room to explore While Dragon Age II was written to accommodate any pairing because of the economic realities of its development, it’s become a recurring blueprint for several romance-driven games."

-

"As Dragon Age II has been pivotal in discussions around the pl****sexual design philosophy, its successor Dragon Age: Inquisition has been hugely influential on relationship systems featuring more defined identities. Gaider said the decision to tweak the approach came from a desire to decenter the protagonist in each of these character’s lives. “We didn’t like how [pl****sexual] made the characters feel like they existed in service of the player; like they were there in the game to be a toy. [...] We felt like that wasn’t why those characters existed. That wasn’t the kind of game we were making. These characters were characters first, and they had their own stories, and the player could interact with them, but it wasn’t always about the player.” The result of this shift is characters like Dorian Pavus, a mage from the land of the Tevinter Emperium, who is a gay man. His backstory involves nearly being put through a magical version of conversion therapy, an abusive and baseless real-world practice reliant on mental and often religious conditioning. Dorian’s parents planned to use dark magic to make him straight and take part in an arranged marriage, prompting him to run from his family. His story touches on real-life experiences of queer people, and fills in Dragon Age’s world in the process. “Dorian’s story could not be told if he was in a game where pl****exuality was the rule of the day,” Gaider said. “When I say that it opens up different types of stories, Dorian is the best example, because his story is about being homosexual and that doesn’t work in any other context. So that was very special. [...] it meant a lot to me as a gay man that I had this opportunity.” Defining Dorian as a gay man is intrinsic to his story, but sometimes the effects of this approach aren’t as grandiose. Cassandra, the first party member you get in Inquisition, is a straight woman, and if you flirt with her as a female protagonist, she takes you aside and tells you…well, straight up. Whether that’s a fun wrinkle to your story or feels like the game is gating content is in the eye of the beholder. “For players who just wanted to romance whoever they wanted, they would do something like encounter Cassandra as a female character and get turned down and be like, ‘that’s not the game I wanted,’” Gaider said. “But then you had other people who were like, ‘that was really cool that Cassandra has her own identity, and it has nothing to do with who the player is.’ I think that makes for more realistic characters, and a more coherent world, and allowed us to create characters that were more self-realized.” The middle ground between opting for pl****sexual romances and representing the queer experience is making sure those bisexual and pansexual identities exist whether the player is there or not. Baldur’s Gate 3’s party is a solid example of this. Characters like Gale, Wyll, Astarion, and Shadowheart have established relationships and flirt with others of different genders, regardless of whether the player romances them. This ensures their identity doesn’t come off like a switch to be flipped depending on which protagonist shows up at the beginning of the game. Gaider points out that part of circumventing the weaknesses of the pl****sexual approach is adding “a metric ton of content” as Baldur’s Gate 3 did. Overcoming those hurdles is “possible, just very expensive.” Howard-Arias cited Dorian from Inquisition as an example of a story that could not be told in a pl****sexual game"

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"When you’re on the outside looking in, it’s tempting to assume developers are intentionally snubbing certain groups of people. The Mass Effect series pushed the envelope for sex and romance in its time, but it was deeply dismissive of queer men, and BioWare’s explanations of Commander Shepard supposedly being a “predefined” character weren’t satisfactory considering the series’ emphasis on choice. Breaking down choices to numbers isn’t telling the whole story, but it does ultimately leave some people feeling burned. “[Some players reacted to limited romance] like it was unfair that I didn’t get more options, as if in-game romances were a matter of social justice,” Gaider said. “Like, in terms of how fairly you allotted them to players, like candy being divided. It’s such an awkward conversation to have because it’s so removed from the realm of game development. But still, game developers do need to stop and have that conversation.”"

-

"Even the word “pl****sexual” sounds like it’s an identity, which can be problematic. Gaider points out this is especially touchy for bisexual and pansexual people, who often face erasure in the real world, so labeling characters as something other than what they actually are sours the discussion before it even starts. Hunter echoed the sentiment, saying having characters “flip flop” felt like a betrayal. “The difference between a bisexual character versus a pl****sexual character really is a matter of context,” Gaider says. “By calling a character ‘pl****exual,’ you’re sort of erasing the fact that they are bisexual, but, the part where having a term for that becomes useful is when you start to investigate, like, why is this character bisexual?” So these two distinct approaches aim to be inclusive, but both can carry a perception of unfairness to either queer identity or queer experience. The sentiment from everyone I spoke to was that both approaches are legitimate; they just have their own pitfalls that anyone making a game should be aware of. Sometimes you just have to accept when one game is aspiring to something different than another. Gaider says the key to making either approach work is to stop trying to please everyone. “Say something with your writing, with your game, with your romances. Because if you don’t say anything, if your goal is to make it inoffensive, then it’s gonna land like a wet fart. It’s not gonna have any substance to it,” he said. “So say something and just be aware of how it can be interpreted and stand by it. That’s all you can do as a creator.”"

[source and full article link. the full article also discusses and covers other games]

[daily-rayless]

15 Years of Minako

It's time for another character appreciation post – the last of 2024 – and we've come down almost fifteen years to the day for a very, very special character. I first played Persona 3 in 2008, and I enjoyed it, but it was in 2009 when Persona 3: Portable was announced that my interest in the game rocketed up through the roof and into the stratosphere. Because, guys -- we were going to get a female protagonist.

September 2009

I don't know what my earliest art for Minako/Hamuko/Kotone was, but this is the earliest I could find. She had no canonical name yet. Her game hadn't been released in the States. As you can see, I wasn't even quite sure what her hair was supposed to be doing back there. But I was still excited.

December 2009

I've talked before about why having a female protagonist matters so much to me. The short version is that in an ideal world, where male protagonists weren't such a continuous majority, maybe it wouldn't; but that world doesn't exist, so it does matter, it matters to me. Minato has always been a fairly take-him-or-leave-him character for me. Minako? I was into her before the game was even released.

March 2010

I was intrigued by her design, her bright red eyes, her fluffy curls, the way her vibe was so different from Minato's. And, actually, her vibe is somewhat at odds with the game itself. P3 is a game of sad blues and sickly greens and grungy reds. Minako is all bright reds and pinks, tropical orange, soft yellow, warm brown. They could have taken the easy route and just done a gender-flipped Minato, a blue-haired girl, quiet, rather closed-off and antisocial. They didn't. They gave us someone new, somehow who visually contradicts the status quo.

September 2010

And, once I played the game, I saw that not only was her design very different, she had a different personality – different dialogue choices from Minato, a different mood. As far as the major plot points went, she did the same things as Minato, but she felt like her own person, not a gender-flip. She does change the status quo. You can diverge from Minato's narrative in some small but significant ways, but even if you choose not to, playing as Minako still feels different from the original version.

December 2010

And, miraculously, playing the game lived up to my own dangerously hyped expectations. Getting new insights into the female members of SEES without the tropey baggage of being a male hero romancing them; Social Linking the male members while getting the option to romance them or not. The original Persona 3, with Minato, is a great game, but Minato had to romance all of the girls and he couldn't even Social Link the guys. Minako's route gives you a deeper, broader experience when it comes to the core cast.

February 2011

Her being female adds nuanced conflict to her rivalry/friendship with Junpei, brings introspective weight to Akihiko's protectiveness, complements rather than undercuts Yukari's attempts to assert herself and not be dependent like her mother. Mitsuru doesn't have to step down as SEES' chagrined leader and cede her authority to this new boy – she cedes it to another girl. Tropes can be done badly or well, and these aren't inherently better than Minato's route, but Minako's tropes are often less typical, thus they feel more original – thus, to me, they're more interesting.

May 2011

I want to make clear that while I prefer Minako over Minato, I'm not arguing she's the better character or should be the default. And I'm pausing to say this because, unfortunately, ever since Minako first arrived on the scene, she's brought her own tension to an often already combative fandom.

December 2012

“She's not canon!” You used to hear that. As if the protagonist of a game that had been made and published and could be played wasn't canon. “Yeah, but she's not really canon!” It felt like there was a push within parts of the fandom to devalue Minako as a character, delegitimize her.

February 2013

Unfortunately, it feels as if this attitude is somewhat shared by Atlus itself. While Minako got a game route, a stage play, and is featured in promotional art, her absence in the Persona 3 remake is glaring. I'm not sure what I think Atlus is trying to say by omitting her, if anything. I'm just so disappointed that Minako's route, the route that gives you the most variety in plot points and character exploration for the main cast, wasn't deemed worthy of remaking.

January 2014

Minako, that brave, funny, smart, defiant protagonist, wasn't deemed worthy.

January 2015

Like many silent protagonists, Minako's a character open to a lot of interpretations. Broadly speaking, the game allows you to pick dialogue options for a reserved Minako or a more forceful Minako. But whichever way you go, if you've played the game, you know she's a character with pain buried deep inside her.

November 2016

Her fandom, her specific fandom, often sees her as a girl who smiles and sparkles and fights to cover that pain. Looking at Minato, you wouldn't be surprised to learn he's troubled. But Minako will make you believe she's confident and happy for a very long time until something breaks that illusion and you realize there are secrets in that smile.

August 2018

Minako is passionate, enduring, stubbornly brave.

October 2022

But she's not canon, right?

June 2023

She's not really a character. She's just a theoretical scenario Persona played with briefly, then discarded.

September 2024

Too bad for us.

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

Something I noticed as a young adult and budding trans woman are that games with character customization, or at least character building in some way, are very overwhelmingly two different options: men only, or men and women only. Very few of these games were women only, and I kind of jokingly refer to them as "games that would have cracked my egg".

Now I want to preface this with two things: one, this absolutely could be a matter of the genres I was in; and two that not every game that has male AND female options is doing so in a way that is lazy and there are several which make the gender choice impactful in meaningful ways. I want to refute these to a point because I know they're going to be brought up.

First, I mean as a kid I typically played RPGs. I wasn't the type of person who absolutely was only in the "macho" genres that were out there, and I mean I played a shit ton of Final Fantasy 6 and 13. RPGs with female protagonists are very real (and was a big reason why FF13 failed with the Youtube reviewer crowd), but there are basically none with a customizable female only protagonist. In addition, even despite this, why the fuck does genre matter? If your video game genre makes sense for a customizable character, it can make sense to have a female only game in that genre!

Second, this isn't necessarily a point about whether customizable female characters exist in the space at all, but this is a point much rather about how male protagonists are considered the default, and a male protagonist default usually informs A LOT about the game design and the world built around that character. In addition, for every game that gets this right, there are usually five more that don't, and the female character is treated functionally identically to the male character except they have to Ctrl+F all the times they use "he" in the game's script. This is why you get games that are aggressively heterosexual but because they did relatively zero work integrating a female protagonist, they accidentally give off big lesbian vibes. It's the same principle for why the representation for your game shouldn't only be paper-thin bisexuality.

Games with female main protagonists are often notably less common than ones with male main protagonists, and many times, this is buffered a bit by the addition of an ensemble cast. What makes FF6 and FF13 notable amongst their peers, including games like FF16 which have "female protagonists", is that the strongest female protagonists often form the narrative core of the story. FF6 has a large ensemble cast, but it is the struggles and efforts of Terra and Celes that drive things forwards, and to go into how Lightning, Fang, and Vanille form the narrative and emotional core of FF13 is a subject to an entirely different post. But like they still exist.

So many games have self-insert male characters compared to female ones. I'm genuinely surprised when I find a game with a character creator that only has a female protagonist. It is something that says a lot on the general sexism and misogyny in gaming spaces, how the male video game player is still considered the defacto default audience, and how worlds often aren't considered through the lens of female characters, or even just the perspective of a female player.

But on a more personal note, it's just...sad. Genuinely. I probably would have realized I was trans a few years earlier than I did had there been games like that out there and more in the public consciousness. So many games provided a cover in having a male option (and especially since so many of these games are aggressively heterosexual lol, looking at you Mass Effect) that I never needed to confront my feelings. It makes me feel bad than even to this day an entire audience of players aren't really considered as important.

Why can't we have games for us, you know?

[3psil-0n]

My love of Haunting Ground

Demento is the perfect horror experience.

Haunting Ground (or Demento in Japan) is the perfect horror experience in my opinion. It is a unique kind of horror that no games have done since, which is such a shame as the game is just... it's incredible; from the music and aesthetics to the story, it's just perfect in my opinion, so now I'm going to ramble about it for as long as it takes me to write this thing :3 (Spoilers ahead, if you can find a copy of this game (physical or emulated) I 100% recommend you play it!)

Its roots in Resident Evil.

A fun fact that people may not know is that Haunting Ground is very much linked to Resident Evil 4! People usually look at the dog that helps you in the El Gigante boss fight early in the game and joke that Hewie, the dog that accompanies you through Haunting Ground, is that same dog however there's more of a connection between the two games than just having the similar dogs.

A lot of people are aware that Devil May Cry uses some pieces of a scrapped plot for Resident Evil 4, but the same is actually true for Haunting Ground too! Specifically, it uses pieces from the RE demo which was dubbed Resident Evil 3.5: The Hookman Demo, which was obviously scrapped. The main plot of RE3.5 was a decent concept: "It was Spencer’s castle. Everything started from the castle owned by Spencer, when the ruin was found, and aristocrats started digging. They found the primal virus and Spencer began to have his ambitions. Leon infiltrates this castle seeking the truth, meanwhile deep in the catacombs of the castle, a young girl wakes up in a laboratory. She starts to ascend the castle, accompanied by a B.O.W. dog" (source :3) In this version Leon was also supposed to be infected, and the game would have two different stories to playthrough, similar to Resident Evil 1 and 2.

Although many pieces became part of the final product, a majority ended up being the main features of Haunting Ground, specifically the main location being a castle, the main character being accompanied by a dog, although the reasoning for the main character being accompanied by a dog is a little negative, as the developers were nervous about the game only having a female protagonist would hinder the games popularity and sales... which unfortunately happened anyway due to Capcom focusing its marketing on Resident Evil 4, likely making people who played that and hated Ashley (even though she is a perfectly fine character and I will DIE on this hill) compare her and Fiona without even playing Haunting Ground.

Horror and life.

This game is one of the best horror games as the story links so perfectly to Fiona and her womanhood, the way she's treated by the other characters in the game, the horrors she has to face... everything. Through the whole game, outside of some small craftable items, there are no weapons. You have no way to eliminate your stalker outside of their boss-fights, only stun them/hold them in place to give you enough time to run and hide. Those are your only real options, run and hide. You can't over-use the same hiding spot either, or the stalker will easily find you. I'm not kidding, the AI for this game is incredible and some of the best AI of the time, including the AI for Hewie! The thing that makes this game perfect is the fact that, well... the game could never work with a male protagonist, its themes work so perfectly with womanhood, as if the pair are woven together.

The fear you feel in Haunting Ground is so... familiar, it can be familiar to anyone; the feeling of dread, of not knowing if someone is coming after you, the paranoia; trying to figure out where to hide, trying to remember certain routes and area layouts.. that itch of fear when the area falls to total silence, making you freeze up and hold your breath until you hear footsteps and realise you have to RUN. That fear is so familiar, and I adore it in this game, I am so glad that you have no weapons, because that fear wouldn't exist anymore; you don't fear what you can fight against, after all.

An Innocent Freak and Objectification.

(Okay!! We're getting into spoiler territory here so if you wanna experience Demento go watch a playthrough or play it!! Dw I'll wait!)

The game starts with Fiona waking up in a cage with nothing but a sheet covering her. The cutscene shows a large ogre-looking guy reaching out to grab her, but he is scared off by thunder and leaves the room; Fiona then wakes up and looks around, leaving the cage once she finds it unlocked. The girl finds a dog collar with the name Hewie, gets startled by said dog, and then leaves the room she was trapped in. At the end of this cutscene we finally gain control of Fiona. Walking through the area, the only way we can go is up some stairs and into a castle, finding ourselves in the main suite of the castle. Soon we're introduced to the castles maid, get some actual clothes to wear, and can begin exploring the castle to try and find a map; the first main objective of the game. Walking down a hallway on the 2nd floor you can hear a dog panting, a cutscene starting when we get to the corner.

We are then introduced to Debilitas (yes, his name is literally Disability in Latin, I wish I was joking), the gardener of the castle and our first stalker. Debilitas is a play on the gentle giant trope, he doesn't truly mean Fiona any harm, he just doesn't realise how strong he is, or that Fiona is a living being; in his mind she is a new doll for him to play with. After the first interaction with Debilitas, where you learn about hiding spots, you're free to return down that hallway and continue in your search for a map. The search ending in the kitchen where you find it, then get some more cutscenes.

Throughout Debilitas section of the game, (which I'll just call the castle section for now) you get multiple interactions with the homunculus, showing his mounting frustration at the fact he cannot play with his "dolly". The fact he doesn't mean harm at first comes from his animations, all of which paint him in an innocent, childish light; swatting at Fiona, biting his nails and bouncing around while giggling, even picking her up in a bear-hug (something that can instant kill Fiona if you don't act fast enough.) He does slowly get angrier, the anger culminating in his boss-fight where he corners Fiona in the castle chapel. This boss-fight is the only one where you have a way to pacify the stalker without killing them, your choice dictating the ending you get, which I find to be a shame as I would have loved to be able to save the next stalker we're going to talk about.

If you defeat Debilitas peacefully, by tricking him into breaking the winches holding up one of the chandeliers (you can do it yourself, but it takes much longer than if you get Debilitas to do it) then the gardener will finally leave Fiona be, realising his mistake but still managing to objectify her, now viewing her as an object of worship instead of a mere doll. It means he leaves Fiona alone now, so perhaps it isn't all bad. Finding the homunculus in his shack, he gives you a key that unlocks a door in the bathroom and leads to an item that can help you through the game (or another ending if you've already beaten the game once :D)

Debilitas is no longer a threat, however we're given a new obstacle to face, it could never be that easy...

Womanhood and the thought of Something Lacking.

After the boss-fight with Debilitas, we obtain a key called the Saturnus key, which (obviously) unlocks the Saturnus door on the third floor. Before we can unlock the door, however, we are interrupted by Daniella who tells us that dinner is ready and leans a little too close for comfort (*cough cough* ambiguously gay moment- *cough*). Daniella tells us how she's meant to be the perfect woman, but is lacking the things that make her complete; the sensation of taste, the ability to feel pleasure and the ability to feel pain. While not said in that moment, there is also the fact that Daniella is also infertile, unable to bare children. This is what feeds her need to hunt down and eliminate Fiona, as she is a "real woman" in Daniellas eyes thanks to the fact that she, unlike the maid, has Azoth; the alchemical essence of life and, in Daniellas words, woman.

It's obvious Daniella hates herself and envies Fiona, as not only does Fiona have what she wants, but she is also treated much better than the maid is. There is a scene in the Castle section of the game, after we are warned about Riccardo by a man on the phone, where we can see Daniella getting interrogated and beaten by the groundskeeper; Daniellas model also has cuts on her hands, likely given to her by Riccardo.

Fiona and Daniella are the only two women in the whole game too, every other character is male, which honestly makes them two halves of one whole, both of them are objectified in different ways. Daniella was likely mistreated for years, as she's only a couple years older than Fiona, and it only adds to how damn crushing it is. Daniella is also the best stalker of everyone in the game, likely the one players will die to most of all (although I'm biased because she's the one who killed me most-) unlike with the others, you can't hide behind doors as Daniella closes every door she walks through, and she is much better at looking through hiding spots; there's also two hiding spots Daniella can hide in, both of which being closets (Capcom what are you tryin' to say/j).

Something that I think is disappointing is the fact that Daniella can't be saved. You cannot pacify her, your only option leads to her death. The worst part about it is the fact that originally you were supposed to be able to save her, but it was likely scrapped to save development time. Daniellas death is, ironically, incredibly gut-wrenching to me, as she is one of my favourite characters, and her death is the only time we see her truly smile, smiling as she finally feels pain... or finally realises that what she felt, while negative, was still a feeling. To be totally honest, I literally cried at Daniellas death. I'm not kidding. I was stood, petting Hewie while crying as I felt so guilty for killing Daniella, as in my eyes she is the most tragic character in the game. Just with Debilitas though, the safety cannot last forever.

We take the Mars key that Daniella dropped, say our (tearful) goodbyes (and apologies bc god I felt so guilty) and unlock the door that leads deeper into the mansion to try and find our escape.

Weakness and a Sly Hunter.

Once we find a room with a homunculus floating in green liquid, we're chased by the castle keeper, Riccardo. Riccardo is pissed that Fiona wants to go home, despite being the heir of the castle. He is awful, but he is pretty easy to evade if you pace yourself well. The problem comes once you leave the mansion, finding yourself outside of the mansion you get separated from Hewie (which can lead to the worst ending of the game if you abused the poor boy). Wandering through the chaos forest, once you find Hewie and bandage his wound, Riccardo chases you, but unlike every other time, you don't have Hewie to hold him off. Eventually Fiona gets cornered and we find out the truth; Riccardo and our father were clones, and Fiona holds the Azoth of Aureolus Belli an alchemist who cloned himself as a form of immortality as he attempted to learn the great truth. This ended with Ugo (Riccardo's brother and Fiona's father) as he ran away with Fiona's mother; leaving the clone before him to hope that Riccardo was the one who inherited the azoth instead.

Riccardo wants to use Fiona's azoth to create a new line of clones... the worst part being the way that the clones would be created, (I'm sure you can put two and two together). Riccardo is just foul, making a serum to turn himself invisible just to torment Fiona once she escapes her cell in the water tower; the only way to really hold him of being Hewie as he can see through the serum.

Riccardo's focus is on tormenting Fiona, scaring her into submission (shooting at her, turning invisible and mocking her) he is just awful, and it's clear he sees Fiona as just an object, similar to how he saw Daniella. If she didn't have azoth, he likely would treat her just as he treated the stalker before him. His boss-fight is the easiest, but that is likely because of just how hellish he is on the way toward the fight. There are no hiding spots, and he chases after you on nearly every floor of the water tower, excluding the planetarium at the top floor as that is a puzzle room and stalkers are unable to enter puzzle rooms until they've been completed. The worst thing about the boss-fight is just the line "let me into your womb" which is just... *barfs*

Once defeated, and the bridge to the final area of the game is raised, we can finally leave this hellish area, right?

... 

right?

A Warped Obsession and the eventuality of death.

Ha, NO :D! We have one final enemy, remember that man on the phone who warned us about Riccardo? Well, he's an enemy too! The mastermind behind everything... the clone that created Ugo and Riccardo, Lorenzo Belli. The stinky rotten gross corpse eww eww he it so gross I hate him so much.

Lorenzo is the only one who actually wants to kill Fiona (well.. I guess Daniella did too but shh she is allowed to have a mental breakdown after everything she went through) He is awful, vile, and just as disgusting as Riccardo. He is the most frustrating stalker as the House Of Truth, his area, is a maze that is very easy to get lost in, and it's even easier to not grab the map for the area (which makes the area harder to traverse) the area is the most draining to Fiona, as Lorenzo intentionally makes himself younger to mess with Fiona. He should get killed *multiple* times, but he so damn stubborn; even chasing after Fiona as a flaming skeleton (and not the cool kind of skeleton either) as the House Of Truth suffers earthquakes and crumbles around him and Fiona. He is an instant kill like this too, and it's just AWFUL trying to get through this final section of the game.

The relentless chasing of Fiona is common between all the stalkers, but this corpse takes it to the next level, refusing to let up even when should have died. The irony of him and Riccardo is perfect however, especially in Lorenzo's case... His obsession with immortality lead to his death.

He is the most off-putting character however, as Lorenzo is watching from the very beginning; watching Fiona get dressed at the very start of the game, at one point at the start of the game you can hear him call Fiona while walking past an area in the gardens, a cutscene occurring if you walk over to where he calls for her. He's there from the beginning and he doesn't care how Fiona feels; making his death all the sweeter.

Acta Est Fabula, Fortes Fortuna Juvat.

Finally... at the morning of a new game, Fiona and Hewie can finally escape this hellish place. While trying to unlock the door, the weight of Fiona's experience catches up with her, making her hands tremble and her breaths shaky, but before she breaks down, Hewie barks and brings her back to reality, reminding her its all over now, and she doesn't need to be scared anymore. As she calms down, she unlocks the castle gate and pushes it open, turning back to look over the castle one last time. Debilitas opens the front door to begin his tasks in the front garden, looking at Fiona he bows to her; showing his respect to her and sending her off. Fiona turns back, calls for Hewie, and they finally leave the castle.

However this only ending 1 of 4.

Some consider this the best ending, me being one of them, as Fiona was able to overcoming everything and escape the hell she was forced into. Ending b, Ignis Aurum Probat, is identical to ending A, only Debilitas does not appear as this ending requires him to be killed.

Ending C it another ending which is considered the best, which I also agree with, as Fiona goes through the least trauma in this ending. Yeah she has to deal with Debilitas but hey, at least she doesn't have to kill best girl Daniella (in my head she goes back with Hewie to save Daniella later). Unfortunately Riccardo and Lorenzo are still alive in this ending, however it's unlikely they would live much longer with the girl gone. This ending is the only one you can't get unless you play through the came once already, as it is the quickest ending and doesn't let you experience the full story (Think of it like the joke endings/items in Silent Hill, you have to properly experience the story first before you get the silly stuff.)

Tu Fui, Ego Eris.

"Huh... weird writing..."

Ending D is the worst ending, where Riccardo gets what he wants. The only way you can get that ending is by treating Hewie awfully and I'm sorry but if you do that then you DESERVE this ending. Every ending unlocks something if you get it, other than this one. You don't deserve nice things if you hurt Hewie.

Dona Nobis Pacem.

Haunting Ground is an incredible horror game to me. In an era where most horror games are just action games with horror aesthetics, this game is gorgeous, it's horrifying and I adore it to no end. If you can play through it, I thoroughly recommend that you do. It's a breath of fresh air in a genre that is starting to grow stale, and I can only hope Capcom will remake/remaster it so that it's more available for everyone that would like to play it.

Thank you for reading all the way through this, its taken me *checks clock* FOUR HOURS?! oh jeez- well, I hope you all enjoy reading my incessant rambling about a 19 year old game that Capcom is probably never gonna remake, feel free to comment or share, bai!!!

[cut-content-contest]

Yosuke Hanamura's romance route

persona 4 has got this friendship/romance mechanic called "social links" which is basically just 10 events that you can choose to gradually level up for each sociable character in the game where you raise your relationships with said characters, which gives you various in-game boosts. most of the women in the game are able to be romanced. however, there is cut dialogue which implies that at some point, one of the male characters was meant to be a romance option as well! yosuke hanamura, the main character's best friend, has cut dialogue for his social link rank 10 event which is voiced (VOICED!! IN ENGLISH AND JAPANESE!! WHILE PEOPLE HAVE DENIED THIS SINCE THE ENGLISH VOICE LINES HAVE HIM SAYING "I LIKE YOU," IN THE JAPANESE VOICE LINES, HE IS EXPLICITLY CONFESSING TO YOU I'M PRETTY SURE!!) that implies that there was at some point going to be an option to romance him. it's assumed that this was cut somewhere later in development due to the lines being voice acted, though i believe that the reason this was cut has not been confirmed yet (though, seeing as how persona 4 was made in the 2000s....... you can probably just guess why lol)

there were unreleased voice lines that showed what was supposed to be a gay route for Persona 4 (there ARE Japanese lines for this as well, and the way in which the "I like you" part is said is the Japanese version of confessing to someone you have a crush on) and a lot of fans do agree that the protagonist is best paired with Yosuke for character development purposes, but it was probably scrapped because of homophobia 😭

Exactly what it says. Was likely scrapped because Atlus are COWARDS who didn't wanna give us the gay romance we deserved. It would have been so cute though I'm forever pissed it was scrapped...

We know it was programmed it. Yosuke is the only male character with dialogue flags, meaning you can fail his social link. The only other characters with these flags are the female love interests. Yosuke also has recorded, in both English and Japanese, final confession lines, something unique to max rank romance social links. This means it was likely scrapped very late in development. As the game also covers (badly) gender and sexuality, we can hypothesize that Yosuke's character arc was supposed to be overcoming internalized homophobia. Instead he just kinda stays "jokingly" homophobic and never grows past it.

The player would have been able to enter a romantic relationship with the character Yosuke Hanamura— text and voice lines for this option still exist within the game, and can be activated via modding. They even have proper translations, and the English versions of the lines are voiced as well, implying that the cut was made rather far into development. While this is a sad loss in its own right, it also has devastating implications in regards to the original state of other pieces of LGBT+ representation which may have also been scrapped and/or heavily modified to appear. For example, Kanji’s attraction to men and Naoto’s gender situation were both downplayed and/or walked back in the final version of the game, but it’s highly likely that Yukiko’s arc was originally intended to include more bisexual overtones, and arguments can be made for Rise’s arc being meant to center on the struggle to come to some sort of terms with her own sexuality and presentation in an industry that keeps such a tight hold on those aspects of its workers lives.

throughout the entirety of persona 4 (+golden), yosuke is portrayed to be the best friend of the protag, but also extremely homophobic towards another male character who was hinted at being gay (before atlus fucked that narrative up too). his social link hints at him having a crush on the protag, and he was intended to have a romantic route just like the female characters, but that was cut (not sure why). the whole game is about embracing the truth, including your hidden sides that you are ashamed to show to others, and having yosuke come to terms with his repressed homosexuality (& realizing that he has internalized homophobia) would have fit perfectly within that theme, but atlus said fuck that shit and cut that entire romance out. the cut dialogue can easily be found on youtube. the thing with this being cut out is that without the romance and coming to terms with his homosexuality, the only thing left of yosuke is being very homophobic. no one condems yosuke for what he says to the other male character, and it is never addressed beyond mere gags or jokes. it's horrible to sit through and honestly it was such a missed opportunity. it's such an issue that people have made a mod implementing a romantic route for yosuke just because of this. every day i mourn thinking of what could have been

This game explores many queer themes, but lacks any explicit queer relationships. The fact that file scrapers and modders discovered an unused voice line for one of the male characters that implies a romance option for him was cut from the final game makes queer fans feel let down, regardless of how groundbreaking the other queer plot points were at the time of release. It's speculated that it was cut because devs or localizers thought that it would be too much queer content in one game, and that it would affect sales and create too much controversy. I, however, believe that anyone who manages to get through the mandatory gay sauna dungeon would have had no stones to throw about an optional mlm romance.

The first party member in Persona 4, Yosuke Hanamura, was originally going to be a viable romantic partner once the player got far enough into his Social Link. This was removed rather late in development, as voiced lines for a scene where he and the protagonist begin dating were recorded in both Japanese and English. To this day, Persona 2: Innocent Sin remains the only Persona game where the protagonist can enter a gay relationship with another boy.

In this game you can choose to romance several people. There is cut voiced dialogue for a romance route for Yosuke, the main character's best friend, but in the final game he is not a romanceable character. Some are of the opinion that taking out the romance option for Yosuke removes the complexity from his character.

article: https://gamerant.com/persona-4-golden-mod-yosuke-romance/

Devil Joker boss fight

In Persona 2, an important story/game mechanic is that rumors are becoming reality in the setting. You would have been able to spread a rumor that Joker, the leader of the Masked Circle cult, was an angelic or demonic figure, and that would have determined the corresponding boss fight when you reached a key point in the game. The ability to spread that rumor was never implemented (probably due to time constraints? or maybe because Devil Joker ripping himself in half was determined to be Too Much), and so the citizens of the city default to Joker being "as beautiful as an angel", leading to the Angel Joker boss fight instead.

recreation of the boss fight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uz24UqZfYk Angel Joker for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UPtkrsvI20&t=1227s

[rjmhereunderprotest]

Shocking News: Ubisoft Does What Every Developer Ever Does to get Positive Free Marketing for Upcoming Video Game! Rando CHUD Gamers In an Uproar!

This has been fucking bothering me at this point, okay? So I'm using this opportunity to vent because ignorant stupid people don't know how the gaming industry works and/or are exploiting the fact people don't for clicks. And I'm so fucking sick and tired of this shit at this point so I'm going to rage for a second.

Try not to see this as me defending UbiSoft, fuck them, I have no love for any video game company ever and feel that cheerleading corporations is fucking stupid, either for or against them. But this sudden attack on them is less about actually shitty gaming industry practices that HAVE valid problems associated with them and more about the ridiculous culture war that this Space Wizards IP is trapped in. If this was any other game by UbiSoft no one would care, but it's a Star Wars game, so some idiots do care. Here's the run down.

UbiSoft recently sent previews out to various gaming news websites and major YouTube Gamer Influencers concerning the impending release of "Star Wars: Outlaws." A bunch of them got to go down a private preview event where they got free merch, hung out, played the game for a few hours, that sort of thing. They supposedly even got a trip to Disneyland out of it and a Boat Tour.

Finding out about this, every single right-wing culture warrior on YouTube instantly pounced on this and declared that UbiSoft was bribing people to give good reviews for "Star Wars: Outlaws" to convince people to buy it! Because the game is actually terrible and no one would actually like it on its own merits, and they know its terrible despite not getting to play it because... well... uh... it's Disney-Era Star Wars and that's always bad! Kathleen Kennedy made their wives leave them and shat on their rug! It wasn't them, it was Kathy! She did it! She snuck in during the night and shat on the rug! Then she took their last can of gamer fuel and broke their waifu figurines!

If you must know, the real reason "Star Wars: Outlaws" is in the crosshairs this go around is simple enough. The lead star of the game is a woman you see, a not fair-skinned woman, and people got pissy over this. How dare they not make the most basic ass video game protagonist design for this one game! Brown hair and eyes with four o'clock shadow white dudes are the only heroes that should ever appear in any video game ever, says they. "Why can't you just let us pick our gender?" they cry. You couldn't pick your gender in "Jedi Fallen Order", where was your crying then? Oh? Was the protagonist a dude there? Gee, I wonder why you found Cal Kestis being your only option as a player character okay, but Kay is an awful choice forced onto you?

So Kay Vess being a woman means "Outlaws" must be opposed, must be bad, and therefore must fail in order to stop the horrible scourge of DEI Gaming Development before all our precious white male protagonists are gone forever! Boo hoo! We don't get to play a dude in this one game out of the several dozens that will allow us to! If we don't stop this now, gaming is ruined!

And of course, anyone who plays the game and has something nice to say about it? Well obviously they're corporate shills, who were bribed by Disney to say positive things and there can be no other possible answer. No one can legitimately like a game that has a g-g-g-g-girl as the lead character! That's insane! And to prove how not sexist they are they'll list all the female characters they actually like in games, mostly all the ones that make their peepee hard.

They even went after GManLives, a respected independent gaming critic, just because he apparently played and liked the game. And they're still going after him even after he took the video down because he didn't want to deal with that shit. Accusing him of selling out his principles for a trip to Disneyland.

It's ridiculous and not just because it's a bunch of people complaining about a video game that isn't even out yet and hasn't been properly reviews. It's because critics and influencers getting special perks and shit for previewing games is nothing new. It's been going on forever.

Publishers of video games want to maximize their chances of getting good reviews. But they don't bribe people for them. They try to butter them up a little by inviting them to big marketing events, but that's just standard. You always try to give the people looking at your product a good time. Especially if they are critics with the power to sell it for you for free.

What they generally do is promise you exclusive coverage, behind the scenes details, access to developers, hands-on demos, interviews with the cast, inside information. And they provide it to the critics and influencers first who they feel will best promote and be favorable to their product at no extra cost to them.

If you decide to not be fair or NOT provide positive feedback, well then next go around they won't invite you to the big marketing event party. They won't give you hands-on demons. They won't get you access to developers or the cast. It's a major misbalance of power, but it's been a thing in gaming since forever. Nothing "Outlaws" is doing in the lead up to its release is that different.

And no one is actually hiding this anyway. Gaming websites and the influencers in questions regularly admit they were provided these previews by the publisher or developer of the game. That they were invited to check it out directly. That this is a preview that they scored under the watchful eye and with permission by the developer. They admit to the sponsorship element of what is essentially a commercial advertising something. They can't be too harsh or they won't get invited back, but they also won't withhold criticism if they find fault in something. In fact, sometimes to convince people they're not being too positive, they will force themselves to say something negative in some way to prove they aren't biased. It's usually something extremely subjective concerning the article writer's or content creator's personal taste.

Being driven out to Disneyland or given a boat tour aren't what I'd call major bribes. They're at best, the company trying to cozy up to an interviewer or influencer in order to keep them in a good mood and retain positive feedback. It's about maintain the relationship between their halves of the industry, putting on a show, treating the guys who help you sell your games right. Is it a problem? Oh yes, it very much is, it makes a lot of gaming web sites rather unreliable given how they'll go softer on a game to retain that relationship. But it is nothing new and Outlaws hasn't been the first game to do it, nor will it be the last.

And all the same, if the positive feedback as that consistent overall, it's not because they were bribed to say it. It's because they genuinely enjoyed the slice of game they were given and allowed to play around in. Even then, in those positive looks, I noticed complaints about this or that, minor quibbles, about what I'd expect from a preview event that went well but isn't ready to call it just yet.

My opinions on UbiSoft are fairly simple, they make some pretty good games overall. But they're still a gaming company, and that comes with a lot of baggage. Especially given Ubi's recent sexual harassments scandals and poor working conditions. They're not special and deserve to get ripped open when deserved. But not for letting a bunch of influencers run around an organized event where they got to play a game, get a plushie alien salamander and then run off to Disneyland when they were done. Because that's not a UbiSoft problem, that's an industry problem and one not easily solved. If you're a major gaming company, is it wise to keep giving exclusive peeks into your stuff if the news site was unfair to you? That's money better spent on someone who doesn't have an axe to grind. And gamers can hold grudges worse than anyone. I should know, I'm a gamer. I tend to hold a grudge.

Everything I've seen so far about "Star Wars: Outlaws" suggests it is, at the very least, a solid open world action game with UbiSoft and its stable of developers is fairly good at creating. And Massive Entertainment, the developer, has made some of my favorite games in the past. I believe Outlaws will be good, nothing I've seen suggests it's a bad title, let alone a bad entry in the Star Wars brand. I just don't see the justifiable reason to cry foul play here. This isn't like "Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League" where the red flags are obvious from the word go. This isn't even head-tiltingly worrisome like Cyberpunk 2077, which kept getting delayed and delayed and problems were apparent even in preview builds that news sites raised eyebrows over. Nothing Outlaws has done suggests this impending disaster. At worst, it will be a fairly okay game, but nothing that's going to completely collapse a company under the weight of its failure.

But that's not the point. This isn't about any of that. It's about a stupid culture war and it's pissing me off how some idiots are pretending they have anything legitimate to complain about. Fuck, if they thought they could get more money out of it, they'd all be lining up to go to Disneyland for Free and take a boat tour themselves. But they're pathetic, loser, dipshit little fuckwits who can't cut it as real journalists. Because then they'd have to actually fucking do real work instead of shitting out 12 videos about how Brie Larson is evil incarnate in a day.

And at this point, I'm seriously rethinking my plans here. I was intending to get Outlaws at a reduced price through some Microsoft Rewards points. But now I'm not so sure. Maybe I should just pay for most of the game or something, if only to piss off the fucking CHUDs who want to convince me it will be a horrible failure. But I don't like the idea of playing the Capitalist Cheerleading game just to own some fucking douchebags on the internet. So I'm not sure at this point. I know I don't like playing $90 for a fucking video game. Wish they'd complain more about the increase in prices for Triple A titles than bitching about Girls existing in their Space Wizards Media.

Fuck it, I don't know what I'm gonna do at this point. I just know that stupid people are given way too many platforms these days to spew stupid shit and no one calls them out on it. It's fucking infuriating. Pre-Order or don't to your heart's content folks, stop listening to fucking idiots on the internet.

[ac-lesbians]

I've been really thinking about Valhalla lately and the way the story played out from my perspective as a player who solely plays f!Eivor and how that plays into the larger AC franchise. And I'll say that my hottest take is that if Eivor Varinsdottir was supposed to be canon, then they shouldn't have had the m!Eivor option at all.

And like, I get Ubisoft is a deeply misogynistic developer and this is not at all a new criticism, but just think about how much more depth to the entire world of the Assassins and Templars there would be if we actually had like, real female characters, let alone playable characters.

I've only played Odyssey and Valhalla because those are the only games I give a fuck about, but my point remains. The depth in those two games would have been amazing had they focused on one female protagonist and not making the game as gender neutral as possible so that misogynistic fan boys can keep their power fantasies and never have to consider a perspective outside their own while the rest of the world does.

Like Eivor would have had a MUCH more interesting story if she had to deal with the fact that she was a Norse woman in 9th century England. That changes the WHOLE STORY.

Dag would have had a legitimate reason to be mad at Eivor for using the power and authority lent to her by Sigurd. Sigurd would have had a real reason to be so dismissive of Eivor's input into his decisions. The Christians would have had one more reason to despise Eivor and the Raven Clan, not only are they heathens but Eivor is a woman daring to defy her social position.

The world of Assassins Creed would have had leagues more depth to it if the creators acknowledged that being a competent gender role defying woman is SO different from being a competent dude. Eivor should have had a million more roadblocks ahead of her as a woman trying to lead a clan in 9th century England.

And the worst part? We know it's not a research problem and we know it's not a "we don't believe women had those problems" thing either. Because RANDVI IS RIGHT THERE.

Randvi is one of the more important female characters in Valhalla and her backstory includes marrying a man she didn't know for the sake of securing an alliance. This isn't about shipping or anything, that's just basic info about Randvis character. And it doesn't take a genius or a historian to know that her situation is not a novel one, that happened over and over again throughout all of history. We KNOW that Randvi's story is not a unique one, and it's actively acknowledged in the game! So playing an entire game as a hyper competent female leader, who is also surrounded by plenty of competent female NPCs, fell REALLY flat for me when we see other characters face the woman-problem (AKA being a woman trying to get anything done at that time in that place) and Eivor never once faces it.

No one says "why should we listen to you, you're a woman" even when you are playing female eivor because that's how the game has to be for those who play male eivor. But I'm sorry I get that shit now as a woman who knows what she's talking about in this time, at this place. Eivor should not have been an exception. We see her regularly prove her mettle to other characters for different reasons (you're a heathen, you're a stranger, you're not from around here) but never the most OBVIOUS barrier being "you're a woman."

And I'm not saying that Eivor shouldn't have been a badass warrior or anything. In fact, it would add so much depth to her character to think about how different she is in comparison to the women around her who DO follow the expected gender roles of the time.

Eivor's parents died when she was young. We know that her mother was a competent enough warrior to hold her own in battle. That would not be surprising to me and it wouldn't have broken my suspension of disbelief. But when you think about Eivor and this pivotal moment to her character, knowing that she was a child of a nobleman and would be raised by both parents to be able to fight and be of noble blood, the fact that she's rather rough and tumble, focused on fighting and valhalla, then it really raises some questions.

If Varin and Rosta hadn't died, would Eivor be a viking? She probably would have had a better political education. She wouldn't be fumbling her way through leadership the way that she does in game. She'd probably have to be more clever because she has to manipulate her way through society, instead of blustering and fighting.

She'd also probably be married. Either to someone she cared about, or to someone politically viable like Randvi and Sigurd. She would have had her father choose a match for her, and she'd probably have little say in the match as well.

But styrbjorn raised her "as his own." So she learned to fight and became a viking. But that doesn't change the fact that she came from a noble family. She would not be so high status if she didn't come from a noble high status family. The idea that she doesn't behave like the other noble born women around her is kind of a key characteristic. And it's never brought to the front or explored because that would break the immersion for the fan boys who'd rather play as Havi.

Anyway this is my thesis for many of my fics because there's just so much there that is completely ignored because it literally CANT be explored if Eivor is a man. Ubisoft for the love of god hire a female historian I'm begging

[rpgchoices]

Sometimes I really want to read a short summary of what to expect from a game with a very particular description that CATER to my OWN SPECIFIC interests, so here we go.

(click here for other videogames)

what to expect from BALDUR'S GATE 3

This game is so famous it probably needs little introduction so I will give you the facts. Just know I played about 500 hours and I speak from a place of love.

rpg, turn based combat, a lot of specialization in character creation and for companions too (just class for them)

you can play as one of your companions as protagonist but that ends up erasing their whole personality (and given the player is not voiced they won't be voiced either if you start the game playing as one of them)

you can play as female, male, nonbinary

story is divided in three acts

gameplay is combat, exploration, dialogue, checks, with the use of dice rolls

lore is DnD / with characters from the previous Baldur's Gate games, but no knowledge of them is required

most quests have multiple ways to be solved, some peaceful and some via combat

dialogues are branched but often there is little consequences

the game is, at the end, pretty linear as the ending is only two or three options with small variations on them

there is plenty of romance option, the main ones being (in order of amount of content, from what I know): Shadowheart, Astarion, Lae'zel, Karlach, Gale, Wyll, Halsin, Minthara.

there are also a few flings that do not end up in romances

no romance is gender-locked

act 3 is mainly combat based

as said, the game is relatively linear, as in the ways to get to point B might vary but you will get to point B. Still, you can skip most of the plot in creative ways

companions reactivity to player choices is higher in act 1, but almost absent in act 3

the companions are probably the most developed part of the game, with rich backstories that you can unravel through the game

the new epilogue now offers some consequences regarding non-companions quests, but in general (as said) there is little variation

each companion has at least one quest, but not all of them influence the companion epilogue as in some case you might skip the quest altogether and get the same epilogue

combat is creative = environmental-oriented so you can use objects, place characters in advantageous points etc.

not all failed dice rolls end up in complete failure or combat

the game has no pause option (you will have to enter turn based combat to pause, but you won't be able to pause during cutscenes) , but you can save at any time even during dialogue choices and combat

plot? You play as character who has been kidnapped by mindflayers and infected by one of their parasites. Instead of transforming into a mindflayer yourself, you find that your parasite is on hold and you will need to investigate why and find a cure to it, unraveling a whole cultist plot. gameplay? isometric turn based fight, rpg with dialogue choices and dice rolls characters? The characters are definitely the best part of the game, all voiced (but the protagonist) and acted so realistically it is really remarkable. Secondary characters also all have names, voice and personalities. sadness level? low or medium depending on your choices

[pinkomcranger]

I agree with you about Saga! I personally don't ship Andercasey (no hate to people who do, of course! You're all great and your creations are fantastic <3) but I love love love their platonic relationship! It's so great to see male/female platonic relationships represented in media, and their relationship is fantastic (whether you like it platonic like me, or romantic!). Saga in general is such an amazing character and it's sad to see how the fandom treats her. I know this is a usual pattern in fandoms in general, not just with AW - people ignore the women (of course, woc even more so!) in general, no matter how interesting they are, just to focus on the (white) men. I do like Caseywake personally, since I find the dynamic interesting, but I don't like, ship-ship it very hard, I find it intriguing. But whether people do or don't, it's sad to see they also can't give focus to Saga and acknowledge she's her own person. They make her a prop in other people's relationships. It just sucks. Why are women always the backdrop and props to mxm relationships?? In general I find it sad that people are so quick to only value romantic love - not that there is anything wrong with shipping. Usually I'm a big shipper as well. But bc shipping is such a huge thing, then they can use the excuse of "I only like Saga and Casey platonically, but I don't write platonic things, and Saga doesn't have any interesting romantic pairings to make for her if it's not Andercasey so I just don't write her!!" And it sucks so bad. I wish this fandom was different but unfortunately it follows this very old pattern of a fandom. :(

I think everyone in every fandom needs to do some self-reflection on why they ALWAYS ignore the female characters and poc. It's always been a problem and unfortunately continues to be.

Oh, you absolutely do not have to ship Andercase romantically. It's perfectly fine to see them as platonic, it can arguably be said they were written that way! Their relationship is beautiful however way you see it. Their chemistry was off the charts, Melanie and James/Sam made sure of that!

Platonic m/f relationships do make me happy, and personally, that's Alan/Saga for me. Nary a hint of romance or even surface level attraction, and I'm here for that.

Now, putting my personal ships aside, you're very correct. In fandom, women and WOC especially get ignored to place more focus on the white men. And I've never understood that in this day and age, when women and WOC are finally starting to get the recognition we deserve. What's the point in this?

You can very much ship your fav men, while also including the woman, especially if she was such a big part of the source material. It's very egregious when it comes to Saga, considering she's the deuteragonist. She gets equal writing and treatment, in fact, I would go so far to say that if the series WASN'T called Alan Wake, Saga would be the protagonist.

There's truly no reason to ignore Saga when she drives the story we get. Alan himself admits, with no hesitation, no anger, that he needs Saga. So to see the fandom essentially go "that's nice you feel that way, Alan, but I don't need her beyond propping!" leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

You can't even give a good case of "I CAN'T create for Saga shipping-wise, there's nobody to ship her with outside of Casey!" There's her husband (and I know that's difficult considering we don't even get so much as a glimpse of him, and that's interesting to me, but that's a topic for another day), there's Rose, there's Tim, there's Ahti, there's Estevez, there's even Alice. Saga has just as many options as Alan.

And there's no excuse to ignore her in another pairing. You can EASILY write CaseyWake without using her as a prop, or just an aside to say "see? I remember she was in the game!" Where are the ensemble fics? Why can't she be written with all of her characteristics and agency that was she given in-game? Does a black woman who isn't a stereotype that uninteresting or frightening to the general content creators?

Again, this isn't something new to just Saga in this fandom. Alice suffered from it the most, by virtue of being the most important woman in the previous games. And she got pushed aside for ScratchWake. But with the release of AW2, she's been given more love, I've seen more fics for her, I've seen quite a few Alan/Casey/Alice fics. Which also tells me that fandom finds it easier to write for a white woman than a black woman.

There really isn't anything I can do about that, I can't FORCE anyone to relate to Saga in the same way I do. I know there's difficulty writing for WOC, there's difficulty relating to them personally if you're not one. But again, in this day and age, when we're being shown more on the big screen/small screen, in books and video games, there's truly no excuse.

POC in general are still nowhere close to being represented as much as white people, but seeing a character like Saga so well written, so wonderfully portrayed, so loved by her creators get ignored for the basic white men, while this same group of people claim they're tired of decades of white men being the focus but continue to personally make them the focus, shows an extreme case of hypocrisy and covert racism, because again, there's no excuse.

I understand the fixation on fictional and FBI Casey. There's so much we're not shown, that we can fill in the blanks and easily fit it into canon. But at the same time, you can do the exact same thing with Saga, because we're NOT shown or told everything about her and her life.

I want this fandom to be better and do better. Like you said, all fandoms need to take a good, hard look at doing some self-reflection. Don't choose to ignore the beautiful women we're given just because they don't fit your narrative.

[fzzr]

Go read the Vorkosigan Saga. Don't worry, I'll wait.

What if I told you there's a science fiction series of well over a megaword written by a woman with a mix of male and female viewpoint characters? What about how it uses just a single bit of technology to interrogate gender roles, reproductive politics, bioethics, and more? I give you the Vorkosigan Saga, and its number one trick: the uterine replicator. It's dead simple to explain - a fully functional exowomb. What Lois McMaster Bujold does with it is the real draw.

First you have the table stakes, the things you get for totally free:

Eliminating any chance of teratogenic damage during gestation

Perfect cloning

Making any prevention of "natural" conception irrelevant to one's future reproductive options

Then the ideas from the first few books:

Engineering a new kind of human for zero-G by giving them four hands

Creating a monastery planet with only men, but a reproducing population through replicators

Pre-natal hostage taking

Later we have:

Engineering a class of übermenschen to rule over a galactic empire

Allowing a couple to have their honeymoon while leaving their kids to gestate at home

Creating children with two genetic fathers

Another technology that asks some questions is cryorevival - as long as you get the brain on ice fast enough, you can bring back the otherwise biologically dead (think "chest turned into a crater") with few if any side effects. What if a society decided that everyone who dies should be put in cryo just in case technology advances in the future to the point where they can be revived effectively? If you're in cryo and thus "potentially alive", what is your position in the line of succession?

That's far from all the series has to offer. Beta Colony, inventors of the uterine replicator, also offers perfect sex transitions. How exactly does the law work when a new male heir pops up in the middle a line of succession? There's a weapon called the nerve disruptor, which does exactly what it sounds like. What do you do with someone lobotomized in combat, but otherwise perfectly healthy?

Also, this is a space opera. Most of the viewpoint characters are aligned to some degree with a patriarchal galactic empire. If you capture a planet mid-terraforming, do you keep working on the terraforming to increase the value of the planet to your empire, or stop it so the population remains trapped in their domes and unable to mount effective resistance? How do you balance a desire to push for modernization from within against the risk of civil war if you go too fast?

Before I set you on your way, a few content advisories: Some of these books deal intimately (but not grotesquely) with sexual assault, and the physical and psychological consequences thereof. Mental health more generally is also explored, up to discussions of suicide. Infanticide comes up at least once. Terrorism and mass civilian casualties are discussed mostly but not entirely in the past. From above you should also have gathered that while the series doesn't revel in gore, it does partake in it.

So, your potential starting points:

Falling Free - A distant prequel to the rest of the series, it deals with the creation of the four-handed people mentioned above. As such, it mostly stands alone. Themes: Bioethics, technological disruption of labor.

Ethan of Athos - The book about what happens when a gay man from the monastery planet meets galactic society, and women, for the first time. It takes place in the middle of the timeline, but it largely stands alone with only one shared character due to being one of the first books published. Picking this just means you're starting with a stronger emphasis on gender politics instead of bioethics, you have to pick one of the other options listed here after you read this one to actually get into the series. Themes: Gender politics (emphasis on sexuality), bioethics, intrigue.

Cordelia's Honor - A collection of the two early books. The protagonist of these books is the mother of Miles, who will be the protagonist of many of the books going forward. Themes: War (inter-state and civil), bioethics, gender politics (emphasis on gender roles), terrorism.

Young Miles - A collection of the two books which follow Cordelia's Honor, about the early life of principal protagonist Miles Vorkosigan. Themes: Physical disability, politics, irregular war, intrigue.

Personally I would recommend chronological order, starting with Falling Free. This is implicitly the order endorsed by the publishing history, as the collections are organized chronologically. For example, Cetaganda (1995) is in the same volume as Ethan of Athos (1986) because they take place at roughly the same time. The only exception is that Falling Free was stand-alone for a long time until it was republished in Miles, Mutants, and Microbes alongside Diplomatic Immunity, despite the long distance between them in the timeline. This is for good reason - Diplomatic Immunity is the book in the main part of the timeline that most directly interacts with Falling Free. If you choose to start with Cordelia's Honor, this is not a problem and you can read Falling Free when it comes up later.

Final notes: Lois McMaster Bujold is retired and has no current plans for more books in this series, but it's not impossible that could change. For now you can at least treat the series as provisionally complete. Remember to get your books from a library or buy from a local bookstore, used if possible. Don't buy from Amazon if you can at all avoid it. Audible is Amazon.

[misscammiedawn]

Taking Her Home

Back in the chaos of 2020 during the early days of the lockdown and while I desperately tried to get a therapists to endorse my HRT, I had began writing a visual novel in Ren'Py. Back then I was part of a game studio and had worked upon a number of projects for them. Writing, coding, music and photography.

My desire was to channel the skills that were being polished into a personal little side-project that I had named Taking Her Home.

The story was about essentially a reunion between a child and their estranged father who kicked them out of their family home when they were a teenager. The child has since transitioned and is seeking to gain some form of emotional closure from the encounter.

As written, it had been framed as Sabrina, the protagonist, disguising herself as Danny, her deadname, and interacting as Danny until the final day where she has a choice to reveal herself.

I ended up scrapping the project after starting HRT and allowing my experiences openly living as a woman to shape and change me. Regretfully I came to view the project with discomfort, feeling how unthinkable it would be to pretend to be who I once was for the sake of placating an abuser. Plus I had cut ties with my biofam since starting the project.

Thusly it was scrapped within a year of starting. 40k words, 5 original songs and a fairly competent game mechanic. All down the drain.

Alas

Though I am unlikely to finish it, I have come to appreciate the project in new light recently. Within the past year I was diagnosed with DID. I have a system of 5, though to those who follow me and know me on Tumblr, only 3 of them present openly to the world.

One of the hidden pair is The Kid. Our deadname. Our father's son.

In some way, I feel the writing of this script was an attempt for the emerging female parts who had been repressed to make peace with this male part that was being put away. In that light... well, it seems worth at least examining what we had written, don't you agree?

---

Note all screenshots are temporary assets, especially the GIU. They would have been replaced if the game were finished. Some GIU elements are from games I worked on previously and are used without permission of the studio I used to be part of. They would have been replaced before the game was released.

The game starts with a flashback. There's no art of it, but the notes depict a teenage Danny being kicked out by his father with a single cardboard box of possessions.

In the present, Danny and Sabrina are in an airport preparing to fly to England. Their sister, Liz, has died and they had received the news via unexpected contact from their father who they had not seen since they were kicked out all 15 years ago. The father, Rodney, wishes for Danny to come to the funeral and visit him.

As this scene plays out we hear the first track, Homecoming

As they psyche themselves up for the trip, Danny and Sabrina begin to discuss their childhood and we are given a stealthy character creation segment.

The character creation segment gives some flavor text to Danny/Sabrina's upbringing. We learn the name of their step-mother and the fact that their parents divorced, that they have a biological older brother who lives with their mother and a half-sister, the now dead Liz.

But as you answer these questions about their childhood the game places a score to your options that lets you pick from 3 variations of who Sabrina grew up to be.

In the code I label them as Fashion Brie, Geeky Brie and Active Brie. One was interested in theatre, learned make-up and starred in many stage performances. Geeky Brie was into anime and manga, did cosplay and Active Brie was into sports and had a lot in common with Rodney.

Then throughout the game there will be comments and baggage related to that backstory. For instance Rodney would have destroyed Geeky Brie's Sailor Moon manga brought in by a friend from France, Fashion Brie would be livid that her father never once attended one of her shows.

The other reason for character creation is to start the stat system.

During the course of the week Danny/Sabrina will talk with Rodney and get a feel for how much he has changed, if at all, and each interaction gives the opportunity for the stats to increase or decrease.

Frustration - How angry your character is with Rodney. At high levels this will unlock an option for the "burn all bridges" ending.

Confidence - Required to unlock burn all bridges, allows you to interject and stand up for yourself more.

Understanding - Required for the "come out" option, where you can see who Rodney is and why he is the way he is. Can play along with frustration too, if you are frustrated and understand Rodney then you'll "know" he is incapable of change.

Empathy - Connection between parent and child required for the "come out" ending. Grown when you make sincere connections.

Once they arrive in England Sabrina and Danny are picked up by Becky, the friend who housed them after they were kicked out.

Becky fills in some of the blanks on Sabrina's time when she lived in London prior to moving to the USA. Becky was present during Danny's transition.

As they talk the song Girl From London plays.

During this segment we get to see who Sabrina is in the present. The intro was focused in on the childhood and Danny and Brie's relationship with Rodney. This segment is to show that they turned out alright, even if they are willingly going back to confront a past that should be left to rest.

Day 2 is the first day with Rodney.

Becky drops you off and in if you need her to pick you up you'll need to send a "signal flare" text message which will take a while to be responded to.

On the drive Becky prepares you to talk to Rodney by introducing the "Call Out" function, where you have the option of stopping Rodney's dialogue and interrogate his dialogue for bigoted or untrue remarks (akin to the Hold It! function in Ace Attorney).

She'll also ask what you are looking to get out of the trip, an answer which will impact your stats.

As Becky speaks Questioning plays.

The "gameplay" then begins as your character, presenting as Danny, arrives at the house and begins to reconnect with their father.

While "Here With You" plays.

As Rodney and Danny talk, Rodney makes a number of reaching assumptions about Danny's life which show a level of projection, for instance he assumes Danny must spend every Christmas alone in America because he has "no family" there with him.

and you are given chances to ask or tell him to not use bigoted language. No matter which playstyle you use he will ignore this, though may apologize more often if told off.

For the Call Out function my favorite was always this subtle one, very much based on interactions with my IRL father.

"you left for London" he says. If you correct him you respond.

The conversation has ups and downs and you can be prompted to ask about your step-mum and why he's alone now, how his relationship is with your brother, if he still works at the local pub and a number of other bonding questions that can breed empathy, understanding, frustration or confidence.

Towards the middle of the day you can either tour the house or go for a walk. There are some stat bonuses for doing both.

In your childhood bedroom there are a number of options for searching for items from your past and a mechanic which either lets Rodney be in the room with you as you search (he will comment on items and give context as to why they are stored and such) or have you kick him out for either privacy or because he insists on smoking.

I had intended to polish this segment if I finished the game so that some items would only be available with or without Rodney's presence.

There's also a secret scene in the bedroom hunt which can end the game right here and then by having Rodney explode and begin to argue with Danny right there and then on the first day. In this ending you storm out of the house and skip the funeral entirely, opting to stay in London with Becky instead.

I wanted to make all of the endings valid, but since my diagnosis, the idea of "never think of the name Danny or Rodney Smith" kind of hurts, the idea of a viable ending being to bury poor Danny entirely? That ending came from a dark place, it seems.

Also the bench concept will come up later...

If you succeed through the day you can either leave early or stay for a meal. If you do, Rodney will note that Danny had mentioned wanting to introduce him to someone and wanted to know who it was. No matter how you approach this situation Rodney will think his son is hiding homosexuality.

Your reaction here will read how well your empathy and frustration points have been stacking up. The script sometimes doing a check for those values rather than asking you outright.

These options are unlocked based on your interactions, the below is checked to see what you are allowed to say at that point.

Obviously these are thought, not spoken.

The day ends when Becky arrives to pick you up. You have a debrief which is a stealthy way of seeing if you passed or failed the checks for the stats leading towards unlocking each of the endings.

Day 3 was the funeral and is a segment I never ended up writing. It was going to be more flavor text for Danny's childhood, his relationship with his other birth family and give some connection he had to Liz which brings about the unspoken truth that Sabrina is very much built from his perception of his older sister.

Day 4 is the second visit to Rodney and would take place on neutral ground with distinct paths. Pub, Canal Walk and Cafe are options.

I'd not finished writing this segment, but I had written the conclusion of Day 4.

It ends with an argument that causes Danny to burst out and retreat to The Bench.

The Bench is a park bench much like many others. Every time Danny and Rodney had an argument and Danny stormed out he would go to this spot. Sometimes people found him and had deep conversations on that spot with him.

There's a bench on the South Bank of the River Thames that fills that role in our own life. We think of it and the view it grants often.

The scene begins with a flashback of a time Liz is the one to collect 15 year old Danny and have a conversation comforting him after one of his dad's angry outbursts. As the flashback ends Liz is replaced with Sabrina and then as the scene continues the 15 year old Danny is replaced with the 32 year old one.

As they talk, Sabrina and Danny discuss their feelings on Rodney. At this point you are given stat checks to see if you can unlock options for the ending. Danny will advocate for the love he has for his father and Sabrina for the hatred she has for Rodney.

As the conversation goes on, Danny begins to yield to Sabrina and by the end Sabrina is the only one with spoken dialogue and Danny is only appearing as thoughts and choice screen prompts, much the same as Sabrina was during the first portion of the game.

I again note I wrote this 2/3 years before my DID diagnosis. In the dev notes I even state that Danny is the "kid inside, the one who sits behind every action you make judging you and wishing you were more" with no concept that it may not be a universal experience.

The final day is essentially select your ending.

I believe the ones I had written before abandoning the project were:

"I don't have a plan. I'm just going to go and see what happens." - You go in without a plan presenting as Sabrina. You cannot explain this in any way that satisfies and end up arguing. It is a break but an unclean one. You think back on it and wonder "what if" often.

"I'm going to burn all the bridges once and for all." - You end things on your terms, head held high. You understand he has no power over you and never did.

"I'm going to call him." - You call to say goodbye, you do not come out as Sabrina to him. You thank him for the week and return to America, satisfied that you got to say goodbye and knowing you do not owe him access or context.

"We're going to meet somewhere on my terms. We'll talk this out. Make it work." - You meet in London and run the conversation, dispel his every fear about your gender and sexuality. He finally gets to see the grown woman you have become and though you are not certain if he accepts or rejects you, he jokes about burying two children in one week after all, you can go back to the USA knowing he *acknowledges* you. Maybe that's enough?

"I'm not going back" - You do not show up to the scheduled Day 5 meeting and stay with Becky instead. You return to America and ignore the growing pile of emails from Rodney, leaving things unresolved but breaking all connection.

"I just want to say goodbye." - Essentially the "call him" ending but with coming out. You do not argue. You tell him your name is Sabrina, that you're going back to America and not to contact anymore. It's benign. You wonder how he is handling the news and realize you don't care.

-

And that's the game.

I just felt like putting something of it out into the world. It was a deeply personal project at an integral time of my life when I was on the intersection between past and present, slowly learning just who was hiding under the masks and lies I told myself.

Maybe one day, if the kid ever wants to come back, I'll let him finish this. For himself. For the love he still has for our father and for the game studio that we are no longer part of.

But for now I feel it's a draft that shall forever remain unfinished. And that's okay. It did what it needed to.

Thanks for giving me a platform to just air it out in a form that isn't just a lingering piece of ignored potential.

[dustedmagazine]

Linda Smith & Nancy Andrews — A Passing Cloud (Grapefruit/Gertrude Tapes)

A Passing Cloud by Linda Smith & Nancy Andrews

Linda Smith

A Passing Cloud is the first new music in over 20 years by ur-home-taper Linda Smith, reunited after even longer with her old bandmate, Nancy Andrews. In the late 1980s, Smith stood out as a rare female participant in the mostly male home-taped music scene that preceded the early 1990s international pop underground. Her CD releases on Feel Good All Over and Harriet placed her alongside Stuart Moxham as an example of what many artists recording for K and other such imprints wanted to become. Her music was informed by the emotional and sonic contours of 1960s AM radio pop, filtered through the sense of possibility and acceptance of untutored skills sparked by groups like the Raincoats, crafted using simple tools and sold in shoebox-sized quantities to like-minded, home-made music fans. Smith swapped music-making for painting in 2001, but a couple of compilations of old tracks have kept her sounds circulating.

Even before Smith started four-tracking, she was in bands. During a mid-1980s sojourn in New York, she and house-mate Nancy Andrews were in one called the Woods. They parted ways as creative partners when Smith discovered home-taping and Andrews pursued other arts, but remained friends. Music reentered the equation in 2020, when Smith made a proposal to resume working together after she was taken anew by some of their old work while cleaning out her old tape drawers during a COVID-mandated year off from her day job. They sent files back and forth between Maine, where Andrews now lives, and Maryland, for a couple years, and completed A Passing Cloud in 2022, thirty years after their last recording together.

In some respects, the album’s 12 songs feel quite rooted in the music they made back in the day. Their singing is unaffected and effects-free, born upon guitar licks that owe an undeniable debt to the third Velvet Underground album. However, drum programming and recording options being what they can be nowadays for anyone who owns a computer, the rhythms are a bit more assertive, the sound mix cleaner and more separate.

More significantly, there’s a clarity of intent about this music, a sense that its makers were consciously trying to see what new place it might take them. Andrews and Smith  kickstarted their songwriting process by cribbing lines from the former’s collection of detective paperbacks, which they used to generate stories more concerned with the manipulation of characters than the resolution of crimes. “How Could I Know” recounts a series of descriptive details about a woman, following by the question, “How could I know?” Not only does the repeated phrase make a nice hook, it drives home the message that the questioner really did know the protagonist, which in turn sets the listener on a course of making up their own stories about that relationship. Loops of dialogue sampled from some old movie abstracts melodrama into something more opaque on “The Whispering Cup,” and “Spare Me The Details” reimagines the sound of early mersh Residents as a vehicle for a couple of unabashedly older woman to pleasantly sing about giving no fucks. The music on A Passing Cloud may reference past methods and styles, but they feed an authentically present-centered process of creation. It turns out that that bedroom pop aesthetic has legs that can go the distance.

Bill Meyer

[nami-moittli]

[Part 1] [Part 2]

Note: There will be appmon spoilers ahead!

So, picking back up where I left off, now that we’ve got one half of the appdrive-color coding out of the way, let’s move on to the other half, where I will slowly start to get more indulgent and headcanon-y

So, now that I’ve talked about how each chosen is color coded, we now have to take a look at the appdrive DUOs

(Sorry Astora, for the blurry photo)

But now we get interesting, each DUO has two colors, each chosen’s main color and a secondary one. All but one of them have the same secondary color, and guess who that is!

It’s Yuujin. Because of course it is.

Yuujin has purple as the ‘top’ color, which as I’ve stated represents himself and Offmon, but on the ‘bottom’ color, it’s white, silver, really.

All the rest of the chosen have their respective colors on the top portion, and a yellow, gold, on the bottom. Now what could this all mean?

I, personally, see it as a slight show of Yuujin’s “other” nature. Being a second “sixth ranger” and, of course, being an A.I. being originally made for Leviathan before Minerva decided to use him herself.

Now, I can’t really talk about color theory and why Yuujin, Leviathan, is silver while the others, Minerva, are gold, but I can talk about my own headcanons and general AU bs!

So, speaking of the appdrives and Leviathan, that brings us to everyone’s favorite arc-long villain, Unryuji Knight.

We see in the fight between Warudamon and the app drivers there is a mysterious applidriver who allows for Mienumon to app fuse her to get her to ultimate, and this mysterious appli driver also shows up with Cameramon to app fuse him to Scopemon.

As we can see here, from Mienumon being listed as Knight’s buddy, (I think from the manga?) it would make sense for this mysterious applidriver to be our dear Knight.

Now, why am I saying this?

What color would his appdrive be?

To confirm that the manga is the reason why Knight is listed as Mienumon’s buddy, here on Wikimon it lists all the applidrivers:

Of course, the color is listed as “unknown”, which makes sense, it means we, the fans get to speculate!

(Also, slight mention for the game appdrivers, apparently Kazuki/Itsuki, who I believe are the male/female protagonists, have white appdrives. I’m ignoring that because it’s game canon, not show canon.)

Now, the easiest color to choose for him would be white, as that is what he is mainly seen wearing. However, as I’ve previously mentioned, the appdrive’s color seems to match the buddy, not just the child.

This, decidedly, makes things harder.

Of course, we could give him, maybe a pink, to match Mienumon, as blue and purple are already both taken (unless we want to go with a “different shade is good enough!” Approach) but, I and others who have watched the show know that this isn’t quite right. Knight originally had an app that he himself made, being a messaging app, before it got shut down due to hate speech.

Of course, we would go with this app’s color scheme instead. I don’t remember if we ever get to see this app’s icon in the show? I think it’s shown, but I don’t really remember the color scheme. But even, I do have my own ideas!

Now, I know that I said that white is the obvious option, and it is the one that I would pick for his applidrive, but I did want to talk about his buddy as well. So with that out of the way, and me diving into the trenches of my own cool ideas without regard for what makes the most sense, I do have a fun idea as to how Knight’s applidrive more interesting!

I think it’s be cool, if like Messemon, which has multiple colors, Knight’s appdrive reflects off different colors as well! Of course, the base color would still be white, but depending on the angle, maybe the outline color could change? Maybe green, blue and red like we see from Messemon? Or something else?

Idk, I just think it’s cool.

Oh, and of course, with his DUO the secondary color would be silver like Yuujin’s.

New section: My madness (with a hint of analysis still sprinkled in)

So, now that I’ve got all of the canon stuff out of the way, with an exception of Hajime, which I will get to in this section, I can talk about my own personal headcanons/post-canon AU stuff!

Let’s start out simple with “still in the realm of canon” Hajime!

I believe that his appdrive color would be orange, because yellow’s already taken and it’s reasonable to get orange from both Hajime and Onmon/Bootmon. For his secondary DUO color though, I’d imagine it to be neither silver, nor gold. Instead being a bronze, as by the time he gets his appdrive, both are gone.

Now, into my madness! Yuu, my headcanon/OC character. If you haven’t read my little “introduction post” I suppose it would be called, for him, the basic premise for his character is: Yuujin but one model down is brought to life by the Katsura’s, who he now lives with. He has an identity crisis over 1) being an android and 2) not having any memories of the main story, as he’s currently YJ-12, if you will. He ends up having so much of an identity crisis because (when I first imagined him he was Hajime’s age without me thinking of the implications) he wanted a more “fresh start” of being his own person. He’s now Hajime’s age and he goes by “Yuu Katsura”

Anyway, with that out of the way, I can get into what I actually wanted to talk about! Of course, as this is post canon, his secondary color is bronze, just as Hajime’s is. But his primary color? At first, I wanted it to be green, as that’s Yuujin’s main color, and it could be like they switched, Yuujin wears green with a purple appdrive, and Yuu wears purple and has a green appdrive. But then I had my appdrive color realization, and luckily, purple is not Offmon’s only color!

So Yuu’s applidrive would have grey as its primary color and bronze as its secondary color.

Now, for awhile, Astora’s cousin, Hinarin, was my Side Character I Care Way Too Much About. So, of course, I had to give her a buddy of her own! And so, I ended up giving her the buddy appmon of Dancemon! It makes sense, as she’s Astora’s cousin so a variant/coincidental resemblance to Musimon makes sense. Plus, as she’s been bedridden in the hospital for quite some time now, having such an active buddy would be really fun! I even came up with an episode idea for the two, but I never got around to really writing it, Y’know?

Anyway, all this is to say, green primary color, bronze secondary color.

Onto Ai! Now, I mainly associate her with the color pink, but as I’ve already discussed, there’s more to it than just that. So, who would her buddy be?

Now, I’ve seen people say that Bookmon would be a great buddy for her, and while I do agree, it would seem a bit, off. If you know what I mean.

Gatchmon, Musimon, Dokamon, Hackmon and Offmon (and Onmon/Bootmon, if we want to add Hajime) if you think about all these appmon, adding Bookmon to the roster would look, odd, would it not? After all, all of them are, idk how to describe it, vaguely humanoid? Of course, all except Hackmon, who’s more beastioid? I mean, It’s not like any of them look as human as say, Mienumon, off the top my head, but none of them are object appmon either.

So, no, I would not have Bookmon be AI’s buddy. Who would I choose?

Well, honestly, I kinda want to make an OC appmon for her buddy, so, in terms of applidrive colors?

Pink primary, bronze secondary.

Bonus:

Watson can have that one Roleplaymon variant we see in his joke backstory. The one based off the successful RPG app game.

Idfk, brown and bronze?