#I LIKE the scary eyes vs the disguise eyes very cool
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I really liked your art and reading about your au concept with Bermuda made me want to doodle a concept of what Bermuda’s Maria may have looked like (you don’t have to use this but I don’t mind if you do!! I just like the doodle you did of her in the corner of one of your drawings of Bermuda and went wow she’s neat!!!) I hope you have a good day :]!! @son1c
aw omg!!! this is awesome i love her seashell necklace wow <3
#the bitter ocean#for me#bermuda#I LIKE the scary eyes vs the disguise eyes very cool#i might draw her eventually or i might not idk#i'm glad u liked my doodle at least!#and thanks sm for drawing her wow!!!!
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The Obey Me Brothers and Undatables vs An Insect/Arachnid Loving MC
I find it amazing how many people find it disturbing that I just love some insects and arachnids (not more than birds but still, insects can be both cute and cool even when they manage to terrify me so I can't help but love them lmao).
It's so cool how insects are actually the most dominant species in the world even before humanity existed and will most likely still be even after humanity ceases to exist, of course some of them actualy spread disease and such but it's not all of them and the mosquitoes that do spread it are females and they are just sucking your blood to feed their babies and the males like flowers over your blood, I actually don't like all spiders but I love tarantulas with all my heart although I can't say the same for wasps, they are evil but they can be so cool I have so many mixed feelings and cockroaches can be so adorable specially the forest/wild ones, have you ever seen them eat fruits??? They are so cute! And don't even get me started on how a d o r a b l e beetles are-
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Lucifer vs Ladybug
Taking strolls in the Castle's garden when you are accompaning Lucifer in his work are very common.
Just taking a fresh breath of the Devildom's air in between breaks with you by his side powers him up like crazy.
Now that being said, he doesn't really appreciate losing your attention to a little, colorful, bug crawling on one of the flowers in said garden.
"Lucifer, look! It's a ladybug! It's so different from the human world!"
That is true, ladybugs in hell were brighter in color and had a toxin in their bodies that- Oh wait
"Don't touch it!" Lucifer grabbed your hand in realization "haven't you learned anything about bright colors in nature? The toxin in their bodies can melt your skin off!"
He really didn't expect your eyes to get even more shiny.
"Ladybugs in Devildom are both bright and dangerous??!! I'm so jealous!"
With that, he became both exasperated and more in love with you.
Does this have a relation to the fact that you love him and his brothers even thought they are demons?
He is definetelly giving you a brooch in the shape of a ladybug later
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Mammon vs Cockroach
If you think this man didn't scream like a plate being scratched with a fork when he saw a cockroach in your bedroom, you are wrong.
I mean, okay, he was on the floor and the thing just decided to crawl up to his head out of nowhere.
He jumped over the table so fast it probably has beaten a world record.
"Aw! It's a baby cockroach!"
It's true, it was very small compared to adult ones, but Mammon didn't care.
"STOP FAWNIN' OVER THOSE CREATURES FOR ONCE AND KILL IT ALREADY!!"
And of course instead of killing it you just raise your eyebrown at him while scooping the thing up with a paper.
And of course you needed to bring it really close to him just to watch him squirm before you decide throw it out of your bedroom's window.
He definetelly will ask you to wash your hands before comforting him even if you didn't even touch the cockroach directly.
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Leviathan vs Dragonfly
You cannot tell me dragonflies in Devildom are actually very few and actually have the size of a small dragon.
It all happened on the day you and Levi got lost in the forest searching for a raven that stole his just purchased phone charm of a game that he was currently addicted to.
Both of you were looking for a way out when you heard an extremelly loud buzzing noise from somewhere in the woods.
Of course both of you followed the sound because first, you just know that must be one big ass insect since it sounded almost like a helicopter and you had to see it, and second, Levi suddenly forgot all about the charm (and being lost) and started rambling about how 'it couldn't be! Is it really-!'
And that is how you guys found his new Henry.
A giant, navy blue, shiny dragonfly, that was currently eating the Raven you and Levi were searching for.
Let's just say Levi got his charm back and both of you got a free ride to the House of Lamentation.
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Satan vs Spiders
Where there are old books, there are spider webs, and where there are spider webs, there's at least a 50% chance there are spiders in there.
So you can say Satan was quite familiar with the eight legged creatures, although he never really paid them much attention.
That is until he found they were of your interest.
You will never see someone start to give spider names, treat them with courtesy and have small talks with them faster than with this man.
Getting a book from the House of Lamentation's library and there's a web in the way along with a resident spider? "Excuse me, I will have to disturb you a little, I hope you don't mind a bit of damage to your home"
He is reading and suddenly sees a spider dangling down from a web string right besides him? He is definetelly letting it land on his hand just so that he can show it to you.
One day he even choses to read a book in his berdoom that a tiny spider was standing on. The sight of the tiny thing crawling around the pages as he reads it and explains some things out loud is so precious to see.
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Asmodeus vs Scorpions
Of course, what would suit the Lust Demon better than his own patron?
That is until you teach him that there are more than just one type of scorpion, and there is one type that has really big claws and a thinner tail that are usually pretty big in size.
Why would learning that be a bad thing, you ask? Instead of stinging its food, it actually grabs it like a crab.
So yes, the day Asmo held one and didn't use his charms, it pinched him.
Needless to say, it was chaotic.
Leaving the fact he is never approaching those kinds of scorpions ever again, he coos a lot at you while you coo at the small scorpions.
If you tell him the fact that they are his patron just makes you love him more, he will be so happy he will be squealing for the next 5 minutes.
He has definetelly taken a few dozens, of pictures for you while holding one or more scorpions.
His followers in the devilgram were surprised at how even while holding that thing, Asmo still looked amazing.
Scorpions definetelly became sensation in Devildom after that.
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Beelzebub vs Flies
Again, nothing better than his own patron.
If he didn't have to swat them off his food that is.
He has definetelly eaten some accidently.
"Look! I managed to make it crawl up to my finger without scaring it!" you say.
"That is cool. But you should probably wash your hand." He replies.
He's right, wash your hands if you ever grab onto flies.
He finds it really cute that you like insects, and it makes him tingly on the inside when he remembers that his symbolic creature is an insect itself.
Don't hold back on asking him to change into his demon form more often, he is very happy to do it.
He starts paying more attention to insects and flies in general after he finds out how much you love them.
How big their are, their color, where he saw them, what were they doing, if they tasted good.
And then he proceeds to tell you all about it.
He is very cute.
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Belphegor vs Butterflies
It's not that he attracts butterflies, no. But he actually likes them, finds them cool even.
Did you know some butterflies disguise as another type butterfly because that type is actually not very tasty to eat so the animals stay away from them?
And how many of them have patterns on their wings that look a lot like Owls and again, it makes animals stay away from them?
And the whole symbolism of life, death and rebirth around them? And the fact that the larvae eating everything around them reminds him a lot of Beel?
Belphie definetelly likes butterflies and you cannot tell me otherwise.
So when he finds out you love insects? Oh he is definetelly taking you to the best butterfly watching spot either in the Devildom or the Human World.
It's specially cute when he falls asleep and one lands on his face.
He definetelly had a minor heart attack when he woke up to the sight its wings but he will never admit it.
Also definetelly grabs it and puts it on you instead.
It's counterproductive as you end up looking too cute for him to handle.
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Solomon vs Beetles
I mean beetle fights.
You thought you liked insects, just wait until you see this man cheering on a beetle like an excited kid.
Also finds it hilarious when one just yeets the other away.
And because now you are there to feed more into his love for beetles, one day he casts a spell on two of them to make them big enough to ride and just showed up outside your window like:
"No time to explain, get in the beetle"
Because of safety measures, no, you guys didn't have a giant beetle fight.
But you did ride them around the Devildom forest at 2am.
You thought it would be an insane ride with lots of adventures
But you guys just ended up star gazing while laying on them.
He forgot to turn them back to their original size and they scared a few of the residents of Devildom.
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Simeon vs Mantis
Warning: it's a big goreish
When you introduced the praying mantis specifically to Simeon, he was immediatelly in awe.
And then you proceeded to show him how they can have many shapes and forms, be it as leafs, tree branches, and others.
And he was so intrigued!
But then you gave him the more, specific details.
Like how they can feast on their prey while they are still alive.
And how it actually can attack small birds such as humming birds, eating their brain tissue through their eyes.
And how the females practice a cannibalism ritual, feasting on their partners after mating.
That's when his writer self came to light.
What I mean is, he was now both horrified and extremelly inspired.
Simeon can be scary sometimes.
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Diavolo vs Ants
If you can find ants in every nook and crany around the world, you cannot tell me you can't find them in hell.
If they are able to travel the sea just by being taken along with baggage on accident, they have definetelly come to hell the same way, specially black crazy ants.
So honestly, I wouldn't find it surprising that Diavolo would have at least one big colony of ants he takes care of.
But he didn't have it until you pointed out why ants were awesome to him.
"They don't eat the leafs, they are farmers and what they eat is the other tiny creatures that decompose the leafs" "they can go to extreme lenghts to find their food and they have a real good teamwork, often they don't eat right away but instead bring the food back to the colony to feed the young" "Some ants that live in tropical weather that rains a lot, such as the amazon, can swim! And they do it together in big, ant, nests!"
Needless to say, he was intrigued.
Such tiny creatures are able to eat other insects much bigger than them? And they love sweets?
They actually like their homes clean and throw their trash into the very corner of their enclosure? Their bite can actually hurt a lot even to creatures gigantic copared to their size such as humans??
He had his own personal colony the very next day.
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Barbatos vs Bees
This man definetelly has his own share of appreciation for bees even before you told him you like insects.
They are very good helpers in the garden, their honey can be used on a extremelly big variety of both food and health products along with their wax, and honestly, they're just so fuzzy and cute.
If you want to get a rare laugh or chuckle out of him, make bee movie references.
He will just stop in his tracks and cover his mouth as he tries not to laugh.
You could almost make him spit his drink if you do it while he is drinking something.
And you can't tell me this man can't make bee related puns with a straight face. It's unbeeliveable
Aight, imma head out
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(This was basically an insect/arachnid appreciation post and I have no regrets)
#Obey Me#Obey Me!#Obey Me! Shall We Date?#obey me headcanons#obey me imagines#obey me scenarios#Obey Me Lucifer#Obey Me Mammon#Obey Me Leviathan#Obey Me Satan#Obey Me Asmodeus#Obey Me Beelzebub#Obey Me Belphegor#Obey Me Solomon#Obey Me Simeon#Obey Me Diavolo#Obey Me Barbatos
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Chapter 51 Analysis / Reactions
Putting them under the cut. This is both long and spoilery, so definitely check it out AFTER you’ve read the chapter!
Well, it’s finally happened. I’ve been predicting that Tanaka would defect for more than a year now, and now it’s finally happened... sort of.
In all my predictions I always assumed it would be Tanaka doing the leaving. That he’d be taking agency. But I underestimated Satou (as do so many others). Tanaka was just so desperate to cling to Satou, to hold onto the one person who saved him. Even if Tanaka hates everything Satou does, that doesn’t change the fact that he wants to believe in Satou. He wants to believe Satou is a good person, and sparing Naomi is a part of that. He wants to believe that all his intuition is wrong.
Well, now the rugs been jerked out from under him.
From Satou’s point of view, it’s absolutely brutal: He used Tanaka as bait. The entire reason the prime minister feels comfortable showing up at the base (which is a show of force--look, he’s not in hiding!) is because he knows Satou will be elsewhere, at the meeting. If no one had shown up, he likely wouldn’t have made an appearance. But because Tanaka did show up, he went on stage anyway. No one--not Tanaka, not anyone else--thinks Satou would just abandon Tanaka, using him as bait to let Satou get at the prime minister.
As for the fake Satou... there are a few options, to say the least. It’s entirely possible that he’s legit. That when he says ‘I’m not Satou’, he’s not lying. Sakurai’s already introduced the idea that it’s not as if the characters of Ajin look terribly unique. As Kei mentioned, there’s probably a dozen people who could be mistaken for him at any time.
It’s also possible that he’s not lying, but that Satou threatened him to have him show up as a diversion.
Having said that, I think my favorite is that fake Satou doesn’t exist. The man crying in restraints is actually the real Satou. The Satou on the tarmac is Takahashi (note the gloves, and the fact that the only skin showing is his face).
Right now we have several unexplained questions:
What story purpose does fake Satou serve?
How did Satou get onto the tarmac, passed all that security?
What’s Okuyama doing right now?
What’s the overall plan?
If fake Satou doesn’t exist, and it’s real Satou in the restraints, then several of these questions get answered at once.
One: Fake Satou is a bluff, a misdirection by Satou to get at his real goals.
Two: ‘Satou’ didn’t. Takahashi did, simply walking right through security because he hasn’t been properly identified (it’s been less than 24 hours since Forge, and it’s unclear if his face was even spread from there). He then disguised himself as Satou using a mask that was kept in the cooler we saw a few chapters ago.
Three: Okuyama was setting up the fake Satou’s ID so that it’d come back when searched. It’s not clear what he’s doing after that, but likely he’s going to come into play with part four.
Four: Satou doesn’t care about the prime minister. Sure, killing him would be a nice bonus, but that’s not his real goal. He wants to bring Japan to its knees, to become such a significant problem that America itself is forced to intervene.
And now he’s been escorted inside the military base. Takahashi has gotten access to the tarmac, but fake Satou’s been brought into the very depths of the base itself. His restraints LOOK really scary, but they’re also completely useless. Japan still has no countermeasures for IBMs, and all he has to do is pop out Blep and he’s free.
Free inside the depths of Japan’s military base.
We’ve had several things of foreshadowing that are now coming to ahead in this chapter.
In 47 we see Satou try and bring Tanaka back to his side, playing off Tanaka’s obvious insecurities. At the time I thought this was kind of out of character. I really didn’t think Satou cared all that much. Why try and keep Tanaka?
Assuming the above plan is true, it makes sense - he needs Tanaka as bait, to go to the meeting while he goes off to carry out his plan. If Tanaka defects and doesn’t show up, everyone’s going to be on high alert. If Tanaka shows up, no one will be expecting him.
Satou only emphasizes this when he says ‘It will all be over soon.’ - He means it. He doesn’t need Tanaka anymore, but he just needs him for this one last thing.
The plan also explains this ominous shot:
By this point, Satou’s already planned to abandon Tanaka. Takahashi and Gen are in on it. He smiles because he knows Tanaka’s going to do what is needed, and Takahashi and Gen are right there to confirm with him.
This also explains the rather mysterious introduction of the Prime Minister in chapter 48. We see a rather long lecture about defense vs public security in the eyes of Japanese law. Satou wants them to go all out, and for that, he needs to make it a national crisis.
This also gets explained by the plan. In the cooler is the mask, the facial prosthetic that allows Takahashi to pass for Satou. It’s also worth noting that Satou and Takahashi are around the same height, and have a similar build. They’re mostly distinguished by their facial features.
There’s a lot of stuff in chapter 50 that sets the whole plan up.
We see Satou trying to get Tanaka to drive, but he does so with the car door blocked. For Tanaka to drive he’d have to physically wait for Takahashi to move out of the way, and instead he takes the path of least resistance and hops in the other car. Satou doesn’t even invite him to drive until he’s already walking past. Satou says it’s fine and that they’ll follow when Tanaka jumps in the other car because that was the plan all along. Probably he had some kind of backup plan, but being realistic, Satou’s fairly impulsive, so it’s entirely possible he didn’t, and was just counting on Tanaka playing by the rules.
Okuyama’s words in chapter 50 are more clear in the context of the plan:
He’s not talking about negotiating. He’s talking about abandoning Tanaka and starting WW3 with America. Of the entire group, Okuyama’s the one who has been the most sympathetic to Tanaka, and he’s also the one whose motives are the most unclear. Okuyama showed up at the meeting because he genuinely believed in Ajin rights, and it’s entirely possible he’s not cool with abandoning Tanaka and going gung ho on the murder-everyone plan the way Takahashi and Gen are.
So that’s my guesses for the plan. I wouldn’t be surprised if I was wrong, but a lot of foreshadowing seems to line up very well with Fake Satou being REAL Satou, and ‘Real’ Satou being Takahashi. That said, this chapter pretty much ripped my heart out in one go. The final page of Tanaka on his knees, crushed by the realization that he is once again alone... that’s some powerful (and awful) stuff.
In my dreams, Okuyama contacts team good guy and basically negotiates Tanaka and him defecting to them, and Izumi jumps in to confirm that Tanaka’s a good guy (which she knows, since she had an IBM headbump). Maybe Ogura can hop in and negotiate as well, since he’d be able to completely screw Japan anytime he wanted.
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How a joke about the milkman inspired Psychonauts' best level – PC Gamer
The Milkman Conspiracy started, as many great things do, in a Thai restaurant. Or maybe it didn’t. Tim Schafer can’t remember exactly. Somebody—perhaps him—came up with the phrase ‘I am the milkman, my milk is delicious’, and it may or may not have been during a Double Fine team meal. “I wish someone had said it at the restaurant, because their milk was delicious,” he says.
Either way, those eight words unified ideas that had been buzzing around his head for a conspiracy theory-themed Psychonauts level. It’s how most levels for the zany platformer started: Schafer brought the concept, the artists re-imagined it, the designers dreamt up the gameplay, and then the world builders and programmers brought it to life. So how did The Milkman Conspiracy go from a simple, silly phrase to one of the most beloved levels in a beloved game?
How did The Milkman Conspiracy go from a simple, silly phrase to one of the most beloved levels in a beloved game?
Schafer has always been fascinated by people who genuinely believed conspiracy theories, and wanted to know what was going on inside their heads. “I loved the movie Capricorn One when I was a kid, on faking the moon landing. Just the idea that someone would think [it was true] was so funny to me, in the same way some people think flat earthers are funny now, but I find it very sad, because it’s just a symptom of how scary and misleading the internet can be,” he says.
He drew up a chart of conspiracies and linked them all to a central character, Boyd. Some of the theories were famous, or taken from movies. Some were inspired by office chats, others by a homeless man named Doug, who lived on the streets nearby. “We’d pay him $10 a week to sweep our driveway,” Schafer says. “He had ups and downs. Certain days he thought the government was trying to do things with him, and some days he didn’t. It was interesting to talk to him… trying to get inside of his head was very inspirational for the level. I still see him around the neighbourhood.”
Psychonauts was an exercise in dealing with mental illness in a comic way—the team were conscious of never “punching down” and wanted players to empathise with the characters, Schafer says. For Boyd, that meant showing the problems he’d been wrestling with: Being fired from a string of jobs and having an alter-ego implanted in his mind by Psychonauts villain Oleander.
That alter-ego was, of course, the Milkman.
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Visually, Schafer imagined Boyd’s mind world as a giant spider’s web, with Boyd’s house at the centre. He also wanted it to give it a retro, ’50s spy vibe, and thought a suburban neighborhood would be the perfect setting: Relatively mundane on the surface, but hiding a dark secret. He gave the concept to his artists.
Art director Scott Campbell tells me he wanted to emphasise paranoia, and he drew eyes and binoculars popping out of trashcans, mailboxes and bushes to make the player feel like they were being watched. He also came up with the G-Men, who kept an eye out for suspicious activities.
“I based their outfits on the classic ’50s G-Men detectives in their overcoats and hats, reminiscent of the Spy vs Spy comics in Mad magazine and every single TV show from that time period,” he says. “I just loved that spies always wore those overcoats and people were supposed to not notice them in hotel lobbies or on park benches with their newspapers covering their faces, with just their eyes showing.”
Campbell says the team found it funny to simply give the G-Men a single object as a disguise, and have them act out what was clearly the wrong use for that object. It’s why you see G-Men using red stop signs to hammer in imaginary nails, or playing a bouquet of flowers like a guitar, and it’s the root of much of the level’s humour.
Schafer recalls the initial magic of the level coming from a drawing by concept artist Peter Chan. “Suburbia is supposed to look mundane, but what if it was all just vaulted up against the sky? He had this drawing of the roads bent and twisted in the air, like [Boyd’s] thinking was twisting back on itself and illogical.
“And I was like, ‘woah’, the programmers were like, ‘woah’.”
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Schafer knew instantly that was the road to pursue, but he still had no idea what the gameplay would look like, so he brought in lead designer Erik Robson. Up until that point in the game, the team hadn’t used the player’s inventory much, and Robson was keen on an adventure game-style level where players combined items in their inventories to solve puzzles.
Those puzzles would be themed around the G-Men guarding certain areas, and the players would have to carry the right item to blend in. It fit well with Clairvoyance, a psychic power that let protagonist Raz see through the eyes of other characters, which had come from Schafer’s research into psychic abilities.
The trick, Robson tells me, was to make every possible item and Clairvoyance interaction entertaining, including failures. The team knew players would try to combine seemingly unconnected items, or try out their powers on inanimate objects, so they created a huge spreadsheet of every possible interaction, filling each box with a new idea.
“We know we have to have something fun for if I use the clairvoyance on the feather I’m holding, for example,” he says, “We knew those interactions would all be possible… it ends up being a situation where a bunch of creative people have to brainstorm and come up with fun solutions, and hopefully, that ends up being entertaining for a player.”
Sometimes those interactions would be simple: When used on a keypad, Raz is seen as a giant finger. But others would require more time and effort, and one of the brilliant things about Double Fine was that three designers were allowed to take three days to come up with the right concept.
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All the things that seem like antagonists, in the level, are… like an immune system trying to understand an alien body in its midst.
Designer Erik Robson
The Milkman Conspiracy ended up much larger than originally planned, partly because of the team’s relative gravity tech. The programmers came up with a way to flip gravity as you moved between the twisted, spiralling streets that Chan had drawn, and the camera would react in kind. It worked brilliantly, and the level naturally expanded as Robson took players off in different directions.
The sprawling design also fit into the theme, he says. “Broadly, the goal of every Psychonauts mind level was to express the personality of the character in whatever way possible. I think there was something appealing about it being an open-air maze. That’s a weird contradiction that seems consistent with Boyd: ‘I’m lost, but I can see everything. I see my goals, but I can’t suss out how I’m going to get there.'”
In the end, Robson feels Milkman sprawled too much. “There’s maybe two or three of those ambient houses when there should really only be one. As a level designer, my proclivity is to make things too big, so there might be a bit of guilt kicking in there.”
Robson also wishes the team could’ve better expressed Boyd’s inner turmoil throughout the level. The opening sequence, where the player uses Clairvoyance on Boyd and sees the conspiratorial scrawls he’s made on the walls of his house, is an example of when it worked, because it gave the player a sense of what was to come while revealing something about Boyd’s character, Robson says.
“All the things that seem like antagonists, in the level, are… like an immune system trying to understand an alien body in its midst. And that alien body is the what the Milkman represents, this thing that is there and buried, but he can’t get rid of, and he knows something bad is going to happen as a result. There are a bunch of things I think we did get, the sort of confusion and how nothing is quite what it seems, the open-air maze. But I think that would have been cool to kind of drive that emotional point home better.”
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Partly because of these niggles, Robson says he’s never thought of Milkman as a standout level. But he says it’s one of the funniest, and Schafer’s writing undoubtedly brings the whole thing together. Simply written down, the jokes—”The most pleasant sewers can be found in Paris, France”—have almost zero impact. But their deadpan delivery works so well in the context of the level, and the ultra-serious G-Men talking about how “rhubarb is a controversial pie flavor” as they try hopelessly to blend in with their given roles proves to be hilarious.
That was only possible because writing all the dialogue came last. After the designers and gameplay programmers had finished, Schafer would assess every piece of the level, and write dialogue based on all the work that came before. “That was the most solid foundation for the jokes to get layered on top,” Robson says. “Half of my memory of Milkman is playing it without any of that dialogue, so that stuff still almost feels like a sort of recent edition. And then after you’re done with the level, six or eight weeks later, this dialogue appears all of a sudden in the game.”
Schafer tells me he wanted Erik Wolpaw to write the dialogue, but Wolpaw ended up being too busy. “So I ended up writing all the G-Men dialogue myself and I’m so happy I did, because it was so fun,” he says. “It’s just that matter of fact, straight-laced: ‘Who was the milkman? What was the purpose of the goggles?’
“We just happened to be talking about pie a lot, about people thinking rhubarb can be dangerous if you cook it wrong. You can poison people. So it’s a very controversial variety of pie—being able to sneak stuff like that in was really fun. It was really relaxing to write in that flat tone. ‘My helicopter goes up and down.'”
It’s those jokes that I, and many other players, remember best about The Milkman Conspiracy. But for Double Fine, it carries its own legacy: a reminder that “no one person makes a level”, Schafer says. “I didn’t think of the twisting roads, and I didn’t think of the way the G-Men functioned. But I still feel like the ideas that I cared about are in there, and each department got to contribute an essential part of the level. Any one piece of that, you took it away, and it’s not the same,” he says.
(Image credit: Double Fine)
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Bài viết How a joke about the milkman inspired Psychonauts' best level – PC Gamer đã xuất hiện đầu tiên vào ngày Funface.
from Funface https://funface.net/best-jokes/how-a-joke-about-the-milkman-inspired-psychonauts-best-level-pc-gamer/
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Women are complicated, loving creatures, meant to be treasured and adored. But we aren’t perfect beings, and the limits of our patience can (and often are) tested beyond what is practical or considered. We are only human, after all, and as such, we have triggers that can send us into a tailspin of annoyance, resentment, and good ol’ fashioned rage. A lot of these hot buttons come in the form of off-hand phrases that, on their own, might be innocuous, but in the context of gender politics, can be very dangerous. For anyone who has ever spent even a little time with a woman, this list might seem somewhat familiar. In fact, when I was doing the research for this article, all the women polled unilaterally agreed on the top five phrases on the list. We hear these things over and over, so I’m doing everyone a public service by consolidating them all into one place. I’ve compiled a list of the top 15 things you should never, ever say to woman, and the (mostly) logical reasons why it’s such a bad idea. Scrub these from your vocabulary now, and you can thank me later.
#1 “Is that what you’re wearing?” Although this question might be completely innocent, it has the potential to ignite a firestorm of anger, self-doubt and recrimination the likes of which you have never seen before. You might actually want to know if she’s wearing that, and you might have asked in a neutral tone without malice or ill-intent, but you might not get a reciprocal reaction. What she heard was criticism, judgment and control. Some women are keenly aware of their appearance and are methodical about deciding what to wear. So, when she walks out, after having spent all that time and energy figuring out what to wear, and you throw shade (even if it’s unintentional) you’ve just undermined all the work it took to make this happen. Just don’t do it. Unless she has toilet paper stuck to her shoe or her skirt is tucked into her underwear, never, under any circumstances, criticize what she has on. What to say instead: “I really like what you’re wearing.”
#2 “I don’t care.” This is the ultimate form of rejection. When a woman feels comfortable enough to share something with you, whether it’s about her new promotion at work or the fight she’s in with her mom, it means she trusts you. Telling her you don’t care about the things she does is pretty much telling her you don’t really care about her either. In a different context, telling a woman you don’t care when faced with some sort of choice is not only annoying, but mildly disrespectful. Have an opinion about where you want to eat, what movie you want to see, which party to attend. It shows you care enough about what’s happening to get invested. When you can’t even muster a short list, it means you don’t really give a crap. What to say instead: “Tell me more about what happened.” or “Let’s brainstorm together.”
#3 “Where’s my _____?” Just because you have a badass, capable superwoman in your life, doesn’t mean she’s been granted the powers of clairvoyance and omnipotency. She does not know where your keys/wallet/socks/cell phone is and nor is it her job to find them. Asking the woman in your life to keep up with all her own stuff, plus your stuff, (plus your kids’ stuff, if you have them) is just plain dumb, and reinforces some pretty antiquated gender norms. This can become particularly annoying when said superwoman is busy with her own things, and you interrupt her to ask her to sort out your things. It may seem like a small thing to you, but you can bet she’s probably rolling her eyes when you aren’t looking. Sure, she might actually know where your things are, but you’re a grown human with eyes and deduction skills, too. Right? What to say instead: “Do you have time to help me look for my ____?”
#4 “How much do you weigh?” Unless you are her doctor, then this is never, ever acceptable. No matter how confident, strong, beautiful, and self-assured a woman is, asking her about her numbers (age, weight, sex partners) is just bad business. And it’s not always because a woman is insecure about how much she weighs. It’s mostly because there is so much cultural pressure attached to these numbers, especially weight. It’s scary to say them out loud without fear of being judged. Your girlfriend could weigh 200 pounds and be the most beautiful woman on the planet, but all the cultural associations with it might not really match how she feels about her own weight. It’s best to concentrate on how she makes you feel and how beautiful her spirit is, rather than some arbitrary number on a scale. What to say instead: “You look amazing.”
#5 “I don’t mean to be rude, but….” Anytime anybody prefaces a statement with this, it means they are probably about to say something rude. Forget about whether or not to say this to a woman, just don’t say this to anyone, generally. Just because you say you don’t mean to be rude, doesn’t absolve you from the rudeness of the words that will inevitably follow this statement. It’s not a thing. You are being rude, so don’t insult me by saying you don’t mean it. Don’t be a dick. If you have to say something that is hard to hear, do it with kindness and compassion. These six words will put someone on the defensive, and will likely cause a fight. If things need to be said, say them, but don’t hide behind this as a way to say whatever you like. It’s not cool. What to say instead: Nothing. Just say nothing.
#6 “You’re acting just like your mother.” This is a landmine waiting to be stepped on and blow you into pieces. Mother-daughter relationships are notoriously fraught with complicated female politics that people who are neither a mother or a daughter will ever understand. The dynamic is so loaded with baggage and history, that it’s not a safe space through which to tread. You just don’t know what you’re getting into when you compare a lady to her mother. If the lady in your life is exhibiting signs that remind you of her mother, it’s not really your place to point them out, like, ever. Telling a woman she is just like her mother could explode all over you and suck you into a world of repercussions the likes of which you may never be able to climb out from under. Even if her mother is a damn delight, don’t go there. What to say instead: “I brought you some tacos.”
#7 “How many people have you slept with?” You just can’t ask women about their sex number. Similar to all the icky stuff surrounding their weight, a woman’s number of partners is something very personal. And truthfully, it has very little to do with who she is as a person. We still have a long way to go, as a society, to be as accepting about women’s numbers as we are about men’s, so think before you try to get too much into her sexual past. It’s also a slippery slope right into slut shaming that will leave a mark on her for the rest of your relationship. Think about what would happen if she reveals her number and your reaction is disappointing or upsetting. This judgment could damage the current relationship and make her unlikely to share things with you in the future. What to say instead: “How many times have you been in love?”
#8 “Are you really going to eat all of that?” Yes. I am going to eat all of that, and the last thing I need is you policing what I put into my body. You don’t get to weigh in on what or how we eat. It’s just not any of your business, and when you make it your business, you immediately transform into a controlling, sexist pig. Unless I’m about to eat something I’m allergic to and could possibly die, and you’re merely trying to save my life, do not comment on what I eat. This kind of behavior is fat-shaming in disguise and is destructive and incendiary to a woman. We face an insane amount of pressure from a lot of different places, so when we sit down with a loved one to enjoy a meal, and that loved one makes us feel bad about what we’re doing, it’s not good. In fact, if your wife reaches across the table to punch you in the face, you deserve it. What to say instead: “That looks so good. You really know how to order.”
#9 “You wouldn’t understand.” SO. INSULTING. You’re pretty much saying that the woman is dumb and couldn’t possibly understand something so complicated with her silly little lady brain. But in truth, she can understand, maybe better than you, and to say she couldn’t is both condescending and ignorant. Telling a woman that she wouldn’t “get it” is not only extremely rude, but it’s also completely exclusionary. If the implication here is that she couldn’t possibly understand something because she’s not a man, then there are other ways you can approach this without insinuating that she’s just too stupid to even fathom what you’re saying. Nobody wants to feel like they’re left out of something, so don’t assume she won’t understand. Explain it to her. Make her understand, because she probably really wants to. What to say instead: “I’d really love to talk to you about these things.”
#10 “I don’t like your friends.” Danger. Abort mission. Get out of this conversation while your head is still attached to your body. You will not win an argument over this, you will not convince her of your side, and you will absolutely create an awkwardness from which you might not recover. Saying anything negative about her friends (or her sister, or her mother, for that matter) is dangerous territory. Even if she’s in a fight with them, and she’s saying terrible things about them, you are never, under any circumstances, to offer a negative opinion about them. I’ll concede that this is little illogical. But these friends were probably around before you, might be around after you, and have a lot of influence in her life. You don’t want to poison the well with them. She’ll resent you, they’ll hold it against you, and you’ll wind up being the asshole in a “them vs. you” situation. What to say instead: “I really admire how close you are to your girlfriends.”
#11 “You look tired.” You might as well say, “you look like shit.” It’s essentially the same thing. Telling a woman she looks tired is redundant (because she probably is really tired) and reinforces everything she’s probably feeling about herself in that moment. Maybe she had a long day at work, or the children were particularly high maintenance that day, or she stayed up all night studying, but you don’t say it out loud. No matter the reason, she deserves to be rewarded for her extra efforts, not criticized about the toll they’re taking. In scenarios where you find yourself wanting to comment on how a woman looks or her general appearance, always default to a compliment. No woman has ever started a fight after her significant other uttered, “you are so beautiful.” What to say instead: “Enjoy this glass of wine I poured for you.”
#12 “You’re overanalyzing this.” This starts the countdown to the top four most dangerous and micro-aggressive things you can say to a woman. When you tell a woman to stop “overthinking” something, or that she’s “overanalyzing” it, you’re dismissing her emotions and her process of working through them. Men and women calculate their feelings very differently, and neither one is right or wrong, but this statement comes close to saying she’s doing it wrong. Perhaps it’s the addition of the prefix, “over” that is adding the extra level of condescension, but saying this is the equivalent to saying that she’s doing her feelings wrong. Which is ridiculous, because we are all having our own experiences, and you can’t really tell us how to have them. They belong to us. So, if we need to think and rethink and then think some more about something, then that’s what we need to do, and it’s okay. We get to do it the way we want. What to say instead: “Let’s talk more about it.”
#13 “Is it that time of the month?” Don’t you dare, EVER, blame anything on our periods. It’s a low-blow and wildly unfair. It’s a biological process that we have little to no control over, although we struggle to have agency over it every month. Yes, it makes us a little more weepy at sad movies, or a little more apt to order an extra egg roll, but it does not mean we’re “overreacting” when you’re being an asshole. Assuming a woman’s human emotions are merely a function of her menstrual cycle is the most insulting and denigrating assumptions you can make about woman. It undermines the authenticity of her feelings, lumping them into an “irrational reaction” category, thus invalidating them about legitimate things. Periods are a physiological process, that don’t turn us into aliens or hijack our personalities, so it’s never safe to blame our periods. What to say instead: “Sure, I’ll watch The Notebook with you again.”
#14 “You’re acting crazy.” Sigh. This is the worst. The absolute worst. Chances are she’s not acting crazy, but rather, getting emotional in a way that is uncomfortable for you to watch, or in a way that you don’t know how to handle. Unless your girl has been officially diagnosed by a medical professional (and, actually, even if she has) this is not a smart tactic. For most women, hearing this is a trigger. As in, “Oh yea… I’ll show you crazy,” because they probably don’t perceive their own behavior as anything but in-bounds. Now, I’m not saying women don’t lose control and have meltdowns— we all know that’s not true— but I am suggesting that it’s not a good idea to label these episodes as “crazy.” It’s like gasoline on a fire that will inevitably consume you and burn your life down. What to say instead: “What can I do to make you feel better?”
#15 “Calm down.” No one in the history of the spoken language has ever actually calmed down after being told to “calm down.” It’s a terrible strategy for diffusing volatile situations, yet people continue to invoke it when a woman is upset. Yes, it would probably benefit her, in that moment, to find a little zen, but that’s not where her head is. Whatever she’s doing or saying is what she needs to be doing or saying, and you don’t get a say in that reaction. Saying “calm down” is the verbal version of a pat on the head and makes it seem like she needs handling. Nobody likes to feel “handled” and by stepping into the role of “handler,” you’re invoking hundreds of years of patriarchy that suggest women aren’t fit to manage their own emotions. It’s a sticky trap that is impossible to get out of. What to say instead: “Will you explain to me why you’re so upset?”
Source: TheRichest
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How a joke about the milkman inspired Psychonauts' best level – PC Gamer
The Milkman Conspiracy started, as many great things do, in a Thai restaurant. Or maybe it didn’t. Tim Schafer can’t remember exactly. Somebody—perhaps him—came up with the phrase ‘I am the milkman, my milk is delicious’, and it may or may not have been during a Double Fine team meal. “I wish someone had said it at the restaurant, because their milk was delicious,” he says.
Either way, those eight words unified ideas that had been buzzing around his head for a conspiracy theory-themed Psychonauts level. It’s how most levels for the zany platformer started: Schafer brought the concept, the artists re-imagined it, the designers dreamt up the gameplay, and then the world builders and programmers brought it to life. So how did The Milkman Conspiracy go from a simple, silly phrase to one of the most beloved levels in a beloved game?
How did The Milkman Conspiracy go from a simple, silly phrase to one of the most beloved levels in a beloved game?
Schafer has always been fascinated by people who genuinely believed conspiracy theories, and wanted to know what was going on inside their heads. “I loved the movie Capricorn One when I was a kid, on faking the moon landing. Just the idea that someone would think [it was true] was so funny to me, in the same way some people think flat earthers are funny now, but I find it very sad, because it’s just a symptom of how scary and misleading the internet can be,” he says.
He drew up a chart of conspiracies and linked them all to a central character, Boyd. Some of the theories were famous, or taken from movies. Some were inspired by office chats, others by a homeless man named Doug, who lived on the streets nearby. “We’d pay him $10 a week to sweep our driveway,” Schafer says. “He had ups and downs. Certain days he thought the government was trying to do things with him, and some days he didn’t. It was interesting to talk to him… trying to get inside of his head was very inspirational for the level. I still see him around the neighbourhood.”
Psychonauts was an exercise in dealing with mental illness in a comic way—the team were conscious of never “punching down” and wanted players to empathise with the characters, Schafer says. For Boyd, that meant showing the problems he’d been wrestling with: Being fired from a string of jobs and having an alter-ego implanted in his mind by Psychonauts villain Oleander.
That alter-ego was, of course, the Milkman.
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Visually, Schafer imagined Boyd’s mind world as a giant spider’s web, with Boyd’s house at the centre. He also wanted it to give it a retro, ’50s spy vibe, and thought a suburban neighborhood would be the perfect setting: Relatively mundane on the surface, but hiding a dark secret. He gave the concept to his artists.
Art director Scott Campbell tells me he wanted to emphasise paranoia, and he drew eyes and binoculars popping out of trashcans, mailboxes and bushes to make the player feel like they were being watched. He also came up with the G-Men, who kept an eye out for suspicious activities.
“I based their outfits on the classic ’50s G-Men detectives in their overcoats and hats, reminiscent of the Spy vs Spy comics in Mad magazine and every single TV show from that time period,” he says. “I just loved that spies always wore those overcoats and people were supposed to not notice them in hotel lobbies or on park benches with their newspapers covering their faces, with just their eyes showing.”
Campbell says the team found it funny to simply give the G-Men a single object as a disguise, and have them act out what was clearly the wrong use for that object. It’s why you see G-Men using red stop signs to hammer in imaginary nails, or playing a bouquet of flowers like a guitar, and it’s the root of much of the level’s humour.
Schafer recalls the initial magic of the level coming from a drawing by concept artist Peter Chan. “Suburbia is supposed to look mundane, but what if it was all just vaulted up against the sky? He had this drawing of the roads bent and twisted in the air, like [Boyd’s] thinking was twisting back on itself and illogical.
“And I was like, ‘woah’, the programmers were like, ‘woah’.”
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Schafer knew instantly that was the road to pursue, but he still had no idea what the gameplay would look like, so he brought in lead designer Erik Robson. Up until that point in the game, the team hadn’t used the player’s inventory much, and Robson was keen on an adventure game-style level where players combined items in their inventories to solve puzzles.
Those puzzles would be themed around the G-Men guarding certain areas, and the players would have to carry the right item to blend in. It fit well with Clairvoyance, a psychic power that let protagonist Raz see through the eyes of other characters, which had come from Schafer’s research into psychic abilities.
The trick, Robson tells me, was to make every possible item and Clairvoyance interaction entertaining, including failures. The team knew players would try to combine seemingly unconnected items, or try out their powers on inanimate objects, so they created a huge spreadsheet of every possible interaction, filling each box with a new idea.
“We know we have to have something fun for if I use the clairvoyance on the feather I’m holding, for example,” he says, “We knew those interactions would all be possible… it ends up being a situation where a bunch of creative people have to brainstorm and come up with fun solutions, and hopefully, that ends up being entertaining for a player.”
Sometimes those interactions would be simple: When used on a keypad, Raz is seen as a giant finger. But others would require more time and effort, and one of the brilliant things about Double Fine was that three designers were allowed to take three days to come up with the right concept.
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All the things that seem like antagonists, in the level, are… like an immune system trying to understand an alien body in its midst.
Designer Erik Robson
The Milkman Conspiracy ended up much larger than originally planned, partly because of the team’s relative gravity tech. The programmers came up with a way to flip gravity as you moved between the twisted, spiralling streets that Chan had drawn, and the camera would react in kind. It worked brilliantly, and the level naturally expanded as Robson took players off in different directions.
The sprawling design also fit into the theme, he says. “Broadly, the goal of every Psychonauts mind level was to express the personality of the character in whatever way possible. I think there was something appealing about it being an open-air maze. That’s a weird contradiction that seems consistent with Boyd: ‘I’m lost, but I can see everything. I see my goals, but I can’t suss out how I’m going to get there.'”
In the end, Robson feels Milkman sprawled too much. “There’s maybe two or three of those ambient houses when there should really only be one. As a level designer, my proclivity is to make things too big, so there might be a bit of guilt kicking in there.”
Robson also wishes the team could’ve better expressed Boyd’s inner turmoil throughout the level. The opening sequence, where the player uses Clairvoyance on Boyd and sees the conspiratorial scrawls he’s made on the walls of his house, is an example of when it worked, because it gave the player a sense of what was to come while revealing something about Boyd’s character, Robson says.
“All the things that seem like antagonists, in the level, are… like an immune system trying to understand an alien body in its midst. And that alien body is the what the Milkman represents, this thing that is there and buried, but he can’t get rid of, and he knows something bad is going to happen as a result. There are a bunch of things I think we did get, the sort of confusion and how nothing is quite what it seems, the open-air maze. But I think that would have been cool to kind of drive that emotional point home better.”
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Partly because of these niggles, Robson says he’s never thought of Milkman as a standout level. But he says it’s one of the funniest, and Schafer’s writing undoubtedly brings the whole thing together. Simply written down, the jokes—”The most pleasant sewers can be found in Paris, France”—have almost zero impact. But their deadpan delivery works so well in the context of the level, and the ultra-serious G-Men talking about how “rhubarb is a controversial pie flavor” as they try hopelessly to blend in with their given roles proves to be hilarious.
That was only possible because writing all the dialogue came last. After the designers and gameplay programmers had finished, Schafer would assess every piece of the level, and write dialogue based on all the work that came before. “That was the most solid foundation for the jokes to get layered on top,” Robson says. “Half of my memory of Milkman is playing it without any of that dialogue, so that stuff still almost feels like a sort of recent edition. And then after you’re done with the level, six or eight weeks later, this dialogue appears all of a sudden in the game.”
Schafer tells me he wanted Erik Wolpaw to write the dialogue, but Wolpaw ended up being too busy. “So I ended up writing all the G-Men dialogue myself and I’m so happy I did, because it was so fun,” he says. “It’s just that matter of fact, straight-laced: ‘Who was the milkman? What was the purpose of the goggles?’
“We just happened to be talking about pie a lot, about people thinking rhubarb can be dangerous if you cook it wrong. You can poison people. So it’s a very controversial variety of pie—being able to sneak stuff like that in was really fun. It was really relaxing to write in that flat tone. ‘My helicopter goes up and down.'”
It’s those jokes that I, and many other players, remember best about The Milkman Conspiracy. But for Double Fine, it carries its own legacy: a reminder that “no one person makes a level”, Schafer says. “I didn’t think of the twisting roads, and I didn’t think of the way the G-Men functioned. But I still feel like the ideas that I cared about are in there, and each department got to contribute an essential part of the level. Any one piece of that, you took it away, and it’s not the same,” he says.
(Image credit: Double Fine)
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from Funface https://funface.net/best-jokes/how-a-joke-about-the-milkman-inspired-psychonauts-best-level-pc-gamer/
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