#MC is meta

[quicksilversnails]

Took some notes from the Wild Life retrospective episode of the Imp & Skizz podcast featuring Grian because I thought the behind the scenes info was really interesting!

(3:15) The wild cards were all kept totally secret from the players (apart from Grian), with the exception of the superpowers and finale (as they required the players to set keybinds)

(3:45) The players were given files containing the required mods each week, which were named things like "creeper rain" to throw them off

(4:12) Wild cards were a combination of data packs and mods

(4:38) Grian told them not to read the folder name to avoid spoilers (which is kind of impossible), so everyone fully believed there would be creeper rain lol. Grian was saying it in jest but everyone took it seriously and were apologetic about having seen it, to which Grian told them not to worry

(6:58) Grian originally contacted a data pack dev called Brace for help with programming the wild cards. Some, like the shrinking/growing could be achieved with minecraft attributes, but the snails were too janky and unusable. Grian still liked the idea though, so he reached out to mod developers Henkelmax and Breadloaf, who designed the pathfinding/behaviour from scratch

(8:49) They had a debugging mode used to test the pathfinding of the snails, shown in the podcast and in Grian's credits

(10:09) Grian wants most of the credit to go to the development team and artists, as he was mostly in charge of ideas & organization!

(10:39) Grian's only regret with the snails was that they were too fast in session 3, leading to unexpectedly many deaths. They were apparently not so difficult to get away from during testing, but perhaps the testers were more used to them than the players were

(11:44) Grian: "We did develop to the lowest common denominator" ie. prioritizing how players would struggle over how worrying about if players would do too well

(12:56) Oli's voice for the snails was iconic. It cost Impulse a life because he intentionally stayed closer to it to hear the voice lol

(13:42) Danny was in charge of the snail models and animations

(14:11) During testing, the snails just sounded like Oli, which made it feel weird. They pitched up his voice so that it'd be less immediately recognizable

(15:18) The snails' jumping attack was meant to be clearly telegraphed: they would stop, wiggle, make a "ooeee" sound before jumping. Many players had their friendly creatures volume turned very low/off (as cows and other mobs are loud), which made this attack much less obvious for them

(16:57) The growing/shrinking had the least testing done for it, as it was the simplest conceptually and to program. This meant that the falling off of blocks due to the shrinking hitboxes wasn't anticipated

(17:55) Before the 1st session, Grian told them that he didn't think anyone would die to the wild card. Pearl's death made Grian pretty nervous, as he didn't want everyone dying too early in the season

(19:29) 6 lives were given, knowing that many of the death to the wild cards were unexpected/unfair. The intent was for ~3 lives to be allocated for wild cards, and ~3 for PvP.

(21:13) The developers were all fans of the Life Series!

(22:43) The shrinking/growing was intentionally pretty simple to ease players/viewers into the concept and build up toward more dramatic wild cards like the snails

(25:38) In the hunger episode, Grian didn't know which foods would be good

(25:58) Grian thinks that "it's unfair that Grian already knows everything" is valid criticism, but that it's important for him to be involved with the ideas. Having someone else do that is like having someone else record his videos: Life Series is his brainchild

(26:35) Well before the season began, while they were still developing the concept, Grian asked the other players for wild card ideas that would meet a few criteria. All of them ended up being unused for one reason or another. Impulse thinks his ideas were very "inside the box" because he was viewing things through what was possible in vanilla Minecraft. His idea was to have a scavenger hunt where the players would search to find a relic. The first person to find it would get a buff. Skizz's idea was for every player to turn into a random passive mob for every given interval of time. They would have to find every other player of the same mob type as them or else the whole group loses a life.

(29:44) The food qualities were weighted by the rarity of the item, so very common blocks like dirt and cobblestone would never give anything good. The other items were randomly selected

(30:23) Regular blocks/items cannot be made edible normally, so they had to circumvent that and custom code a fix for items not stacking correctly

(32:41) While a lot of players do want to win, the main priority is creating entertainment, which prioritizes playing recklessly

(33:20) The food wild card wasn't included in the finale because it would've felt like "too much". There was a higher risk of technical issues since it changed the data values of items, and Grian didn't want someone's last death to be because they ate their sword. In his mind, it was a good and fun wild card, but didn't need to be repeated in the finale. Impulse points out that they all would have collected more rare items by that point, removing the incentive to search for blocks to eat

(33:46) The wild cards in the finale were nerfed from their original sessions. The shrinking/growing had a smaller height range, the snails moved slower, etc.

(36:21) The personalized snail skins were a late addition by Danny, who made 18 skins very quickly

(36:49) Grian did not anticipate the snails becoming as popular with fans as they were. After the session released, they had the idea to release the snail merchandise, which directly funded the rest of the season

(39:20) Grian spent what "felt like every day" testing with the developers. They'd record the sessions on Tuesdays, meet up with the dev team, talk about what need to be done, testing, bugs, etc, edit and upload on Saturday, and would get a few days grace before starting again

(40:01) After the snail session, Grian was worried that the season would be very short due to all the deaths. They were considering toning down the later wild cards but ultimately didn't change them too much

(40:36) The time wild card was carefully balanced. If it had gone even a little faster, many players likely would have died because they wouldn't have time to react to threats like baby zombies or creepers.

(40:57) While sessions normally run for a variable amount of time, session 4 was hardcoded at 2 hours. Grian ended the session ~10 minutes early, just after they hit max speed, because he felt like things were getting dicey

(42:46) When the wild card first activates, it looks a lot like the server had frozen or crashed. Grian told the players before the session started that it would look like the game was broken, but that it isn't broken. Skizz tabbed out anyway and missed the beginning 😔

(43:30) Having the rain start just as the wild card began was a good visual indicator of time slowing down. This was a suggestion from the dev team (probably Brace)

(44:41) Impulse and Grian "cheesed" the end of the session by going branch mining. Grian wanted players to take advantage of the wild cards (eg. mining quickly, helping to kill someone), and not have them just be an annoyance.

(45:30) Keeping the client and server-side time stay in sync was challenging. The sky's motion was changed to be smoother on client-side. The players were also not as fast as the server (around 2x faster), the server was going faster than that, and the time of day was even faster

(46:56) The sounds were pitched up/down based on the speed to add to the effect

(27:46) In testing, if the players were made 7x faster, it would be basically unplayable, which was why it was capped at 2x speed. This made mobs very dangerous, as they were now faster than players and could catch up to you and kill you easily

(49:01) On several occasions, they had to extend the fuse duration of creepers to make them more fair. In the time session, their speed was only increased by ~10%

(49:39) Usually, Grian was the one to test the wild cards and notice when things like creeper speed would be an issue, since he was the one with experience making videos

(50:50) A challenge with balancing wild cards is accounting for the playstyles of so many players: reckless players like Scar and Skizz, "kind and gentle" players like Bigb who would stay off to the sides, and "the sweat squad" (Scott, Impulse) who play very cautiously

(52:48) Trivia Bot was the only wild card that was not planned in advance. Grian was struggling to come up with a wild card for that episode, and wanted to have a wild card available that could give people lives in case many people died to early wild cards without it feeling cheap.

(53:33) Trivia seemed a little boring on its face, so presentation was essential

(54:34) This one made Grian the most stressed due to all the moving parts involved in making it (coding and pathfinding mostly by Henkelmax, visuals by Hoffen, audio/music, questions)

(55:08) Trivia Bot's design was based on Grumbot and Mettaton from Undertale. Hoffen drew concept art shown in the video

(58:32) They show Trivia Bot's custom animation for becoming a snail and it's really cool

(59:12) The music was the most stressful part of the project. Grian spent 2-3 days looking through Epidemic Sounds for a Trivia Bot theme song and couldn't find anything good. He commissioned Zera @hopepetal for a theme song, which is played in the podcast. However, Grian realized he needed a full audio package, so he commissioned Oli late in development, who created the final soundtrack and many audio variations

(1:01:38) Grian wants to send appreciation for everyone who worked on the project, even if their work ultimately went unused

(1:02:58) Skizz was happy to give back however he could by staying on standby in the final episode as a zombie, as the players were able to "reap all the benefits" of the hard work of the development team

(1:05:21) Grian didn't know any of the trivia questions beforehand, which were done by fans of the series. The goal was for ~50% of the questions to be answered correctly, which was approximately met

(1:07:11) Players couldn't get questions about themselves because it would be too easy. This would encourage players to leave their bot, allowing other players to mess with them

(1:07:57) Grian felt a little left out from the discovery element of the wild cards, and decided to mess with Scar by hiding his bot. He wasn't expecting Scar to die from it, and could tell that he was genuinely a little upset by it. Grian felt bad about it, which led to a genuine in-game alliance between them

(1:12:32) Grian was very close to letting Trivia Bot give lives as rewards, but decided it would feel too cheap

(1:14:38) Mob swap was slightly toned down, with more camels and sniffers spawning

(1:15:07) Evokers didn't drop totems anymore. Instead, there was a minuscule chance a warden or wither would spawn, which would drop a totem if killed. Grian was a little disappointed that the warden got cheesed in the end

(1:17:45) Having the mobs start passive and turn hostile was mostly for the presentation, building anticipation, and so players could predict where mobs would spawn and react accordingly, making things feel less unfair

(1:20:32) There was no superpower made for Skizz (or Mumbo presumably)

(1:20:38) The superpowers were another late addition. There was a large design doc where Grian created all the powers, which were handed over to Henkelmax and completed over 4 days

(1:21:42) Grian avoided superpowers involving strength, that could cause someone to die easily. Most of the powers were social or movement-based, which couldn't be used for offence as easily

(1:22:25) Some powers were randomly assigned, others weren't. Impulse's was random. Cleo's, Bigb's, Lizzie's, Grian's were assigned.

(1:24:25) Grian gave himself the mimic because it could easily backfire (like in Grian's fall damage death), and because it would've been confusing for a player who wasn't aware of the other powers. They likely would've spent the episode just figuring out how everything worked and not actually using the power to its best ability

Lots of discussion about the superpowers and how they interacted in the episode itself, go watch if you're interested :)

(1:33:38) Talk on how the series "standard" rules evolved since 3rd Life. There was no keep inventory, and no restrictions on enchanting levels or potions, which created slow or unbalanced fights

(1:36:23) 3rd Life was designed to be an experimental series, which made Grian eager to improve it. For example, some people just weren't dying in 3L, leading to the boogeyman in LL, and so on

(1:37:17) The goal with the seasons isn't to one-up the previous one, but to create a different experience every time, which keeps things engaging for the creators

(1:38:31) At the end of each session, Grian would ask the group if they had fun and how they felt about the wild cards. According the Skizz, the answer was "a resounding yes"

(1:39:08) Grian had moments throughout the season where he personally felt like things didn't go well for him, and was anxious for the rest of the group's episodes. Things worked out while editing the raw footage, though. His issues were never with the wild cards themselves, but his own actions (traps not working, spending too long branch mining), but would always find funny moments in his footage

(1:43:41) Everyone in the Life Series cast genuinely likes and genuinely respects everybody else in the group. This allows them to make the show and get mad at each other, because they know it's all just in-character

(1:44:50) It'd be hard to top Wild Life in spectacle, and Grian doesn't want to start an arms race with himself. The next season could potentially be closer to 3rd Life, but Grian's not sure yet. For Grian, Wild Life was the most enjoyable

(1:45:20) Grian: "As long as people keep enjoying [the Life Series] then I'd love to keep doing it"

(1:49:35) With the finale, Grian knew how the wild cards played out the previous sessions and was able to adjust them

(1:49:56) Grian's goal was to create safe chaos where everyone knew what was happening and wouldn't die to them, which didn't go entirely to plan. The snails were 60% of their original speed and people still died

(1:51:03) Grian made a precise timeline of when each wild card would start/stop, it wasn't randomized.

(1:54:16) All the superpowers were randomized, with Bdubs' power being removed from circulation because it didn't have much use in a finale setting

(1:56:10) It was important for Grian that in the final moments, the wild cards were removed, so there were no interruptions. The timing worked out well because there were a few people left and it ended within ~10 minutes (this implies that the change wasn't based on # of players alive, as people had speculated based on Gem's death)

(1:58:48) The players all randomly switched to zombie skins throughout the session to mess with people on NameMC. Well-played :)

[wwillywonka]

rewatching where no man has gone before and it's wild how different spock's characterisation is in this versus the rest of the series. like i know logically (haha) that the episode was so early that the show and nimoy didn't really have a grasp on the character yet (made evident by the "one of my ancestors married a human woman" line), but it also strikes me that this is technically kirk's first episode in timeline (production) order, meaning jim and spock have barely started to get to know each other. it's obvious from the chess game that they're already very close and likely have been joined at the hip since their very first meeting, so i like to think that spock is almost, ya know, giddy at this point, adjusting to the comforting warmth and joy and security he feels just by being around jim all the time because it's all so new, because he's never had anything like this before. spock likes jim so much and so immediately and wants to get to know him better and feels safe enough around him to let jim get to know him better, too. the interaction at the end, "i felt for him, too" and "there might be some hope for you yet, mr. spock." followed by a very not-subtle, fond smile from our dear vulcan first officer, just stands out so much against the rest of the series. young spock and his brand new blossoming crush for his captain and he hasn't gotten to the point where he's afraid of those feelings yet, just basking in how nice it feels to have a proper friend. so damn cute. it fills me with butterflies.

[qqchurch]

dungeon farming economy setting with a healer girl MC suffering crippling boredom due to her subclass being inefficient for the most effective farming parties so she's stuck guiding noobs over and over again on the upper levels

then she meets this absolutely unhinged berserker woman that's bleeding all over the place but damn she's good at fighting and it turns out she needs a healer that can work with her that isn't one of the pansy barrier healers that the meta teams want and noone wants a berserker because they're insane and get stronger the closer to death they are, which barrier healers can't help because they're designed for preventing damage and topping off whatever slips past their mitigation. MC's healer class is fucking awesome at sustain and keeping people from dying but all the meta parties use classes and equipment that rely on constantly being topped off, which she can't do because she mostly has beefy heals and defense buffs

so, seeing nothing else to do, MC and Zerker go dungeon diving and after a rocky start, they hit off immediately because MC is actually insanely fight-happy and just wants the rush of a good fight, while Zerker is partly a masochist and partly doing this as a coping mechanism

and thus they become badasses that get further down the dungeon than anyone else in recent history all through sheer gumption, spite, and a looooooot of hyperviolence

oh, and they have hot sloppy yuri sex, can't forget that

[bellshazes]

i don't think the life series is "about" anything at all. it's not about survival or winning or player dynamics, or any theme. however i do think that the entire series - third life to present - is unified by a game design philosophy where all mechanics are engineered to disrupt the game as it has been played.

third life was initially pitched as "a[n ...] experiment" and its opening question was fundamentally how long can this last, which scar quickly proved was not long at all. it's easy to forget that it was not always a given that seasons would last approximately eight weeks and how the breakpoints of red/yellow violence would fall.

last life attempted to disrupt the established social norms by a) attempting to ban acting based on prior season's events and more importantly b) introducing social deduction mechanics which destabilized all alliances by default. similarly, although the ban on continuity never returned, double life's gimmick at its core is just another disruption of social dynamics. limited life iterates on last life's boogeyman dynamic while applying a different kind of time-limited pressure; secret and wild life are carousels of disruption to social play and "regular" or survival gameplay.

nevertheless players have defined the real rules of the game - the game-as-played which gives the series continuity - through their playing of it. both in spite of and because of the mechanical disruptions, conventions around sportsmanship and acceptable behavior are deeply entrenched. kills that are "illegal" by the written rules matter less than the player perception of them; the desire to invent social punishments for explicit infractions died with etho in the third life firing squad. players judge kill attempts as acceptable/impermissible by their relative status of reds vs. yellows, as the rudeness of ending someone's series early far outweighs the obvious strategic benefit of eliminating reds first. history persists, only as much as a given set of players negotiates it should. everyone should be along for the ride for as long as possible, but it will end.

ultimately life seasons are designed to make it difficult to play as you always have, and the players derive fun and drama from balancing their leaning into the gimmicks or into their habits. unfortunately this tension is deeply compelling and leads to wildly divergent opinions on what is "good" or "authentic" about a season or gimmick or episode because where the "good" tension is depends on the viewer, the point of view, the episode, etc.

[archetypal-archivist]

Lmaooo the poor people in charge of the QSMP plot must have an interesting time in the background as their job is to promote conflict so the players have something to react to. And you know what they get for their efforts? 

Cellbit blasting through their insanely hard ARG in two weeks, Foolish and Aypierre skipping huge chunks of their puzzles through clever use of game mechanics, and everyone being so friendly and communication-oriented that any chance of internal conflict driving the plot is slim to nil because they keep talking about their problems and solving things maturely and with good faith. Interpersonal disputes get resolved in like, a few days! Tops!

 Even the egg event has had a wrench thrown into it because people fell so in love with the eggs that they are just part of the server now. Pomme has two lives and that’s just a thing. They can’t kill her, lol, everyone is working too hard and with too much cohesiveness to allow anything to happen. Code monster sweeps in and it’s boom, just an immediate 1 v 7.

I love the Q-mmunication smp with all my heart but man, from an admin perspective, they must be constantly screaming.

[hellamorte]

another interesting piece of exchange between mhin and leander that caught my eye 👁

indeed, it seems baffling that leander, our reliable man, our nice guy, the nicest of the nicest, just forgets to warn mc about such a tiny little detail, easily forgettable for sure — that eridia's streets are unsafe at night 💀

he quickly covers it up by flirting — and boy, can i wait (can't, need this game right now) to see more of such instances, because he seems to master this craft, and it is working on most people, — hinting at mc's beauty and/or the intimate (and it is intimate for mc, whether you like leander or not) moment they shared.

but do you know the most important, tasty nuanced thing this tiny, blink-and-you-miss-it dialogue reveals? leander doesn't care about mc, about their life and safety; he's niceys, it's all just an act. sure, cap, you might say, we already know leander is a manipulative titty shit, what's new? but look at it another way: we know this because rss kindly backed us up with all this additional info and content so we don't starve to death while waiting for the release (rss, i would have gone through content drought anyway. this is not a shade, take your time, i love you). now imagine playing this game for the first time without a pile of lore stacked at the back of your mind and seeing these discrepancies in his behaviour (check out my previous post on this), foreshadowing that he's not as good as he seems and his path might be dark and gritty as hell.

and now, my fellow leander girls/gays/whoever else is there, imagine how it would feel when leander cares (faints).

[cozymochi]

pls.. pls. Tia crumbs

I am facing withdrawals 🥺

ERMMMMMM i wanted to finish something for the ongoing Stitch Event (for reference, i started it during it’s JP run 😭 and even wanted to repurpose it for the old wardrobe meme months ago, wheee) but i don’t think I ever will truly finish this tbh. So I haphazardly cobbled the gist together on top of my wip and i’m calling it on this attempt!! Do you see my vision

thought it’d go well with Grim’s Lilo 🥺

[mxtxfanatic]

Wei Wuxian at His Best: Arrogant

The cultivation world liked to slander Wei Wuxian about his "arrogance," but is it really arrogance if one knows perfectly well of their own capabilities? Wei Wuxian, for one, can follow through on all his promises. Here are some of my favorite moments where Wei Wuxian is deservedly arrogant:

Wei Wuxian stepped inside the hall, and, one on the left and one on the right, lifted Lady Mo and Mo Ziyuan’s dead bodies. In a low voice, he urgently said, “Why aren’t you awake yet?” As soon as the words left his mouth, their souls returned. An instant later, Lady Mo and Mo Ziyuan’s eyes rolled into the back of their heads, their irises replaced with a blank white gaze. The characteristic piercing shrieks of newly revived vicious ghosts tore from their mouths. In the middle of the screeching, one high and one low, another corpse, trembling with fear, also crawled its way up, and in a voice which was as quiet as it could be, joined the chorus with a soft, soft cry. This was Lady Mo’s husband. The cries were loud enough. The resentment great enough. Wei Wuxian was extremely satisfied, and smiling lightly, said, “Do you recognize the hand outside?” Then he commanded, “Tear it apart.” The three Mo’s were like three black winds; they flew out in the blink of an eye.

—Chapt. 5: Feral IV, fanyiyi

Wei Wuxian stood in front of them, lowered his head slightly, and greeted them politely. The paper effigies returned his politeness and then some by bowing. Wei Wuxian pointed outside. “Bring the living person inside. Eliminate everything else.” ... In only a short period, the twin girls chopped the fifteen or sixteen walking corpses into so many pieces they were impossible to reassemble. The dead body parts tumbled all over the ground! Having secured an overwhelming victory, the paper maids followed their orders and carried inside the weakened man who had been running from the walking corpses.

—Chapt. 36: Flora IV, fanyiyi

Only vicious corpses could fight such a ferocious battle. If two living people fought the same way, they would have long lost an arm and a leg, or cracked their skulls open and splattered their brains everywhere! “Guess who’ll win?” Xue Yang asked. “Is there a need to? Wen Ning, of course,” Wei Wuxian said.

—Chapt. 37: Flora V, fanyiyi

Before he could finish speaking, Wei WuXian had quickly tied the ribbon over his eyes to cover his sight. He positioned his arrow, drew his bow, and released—it hit! The series of actions was both smooth and fast. The others didn’t even realize what he wanted to do. They couldn’t even see his movements clearly before the center of the target had been pierced through. After a moment of silence, overwhelming cheers rang throughout the watching towers, with even greater intensity than those for Jin ZiXuan. The corners of Wei WuXian’s lips curved slightly. Spinning the bow within his hands, he tossed it back.

—Chapt. 69: Departure, exr

[secriden]

something i really appreciate about prapai is that even at the start he never pulls the asshole rich guy move of trying to buy/impress sky by throwing money or expensive gifts at him/his problems.

when sky makes it clear he's not interested, prapai almost immediately bounces back and decides to 'try again'.

rather than getting angry, in an unexpectedly sweet move, mr playboy "i love my freedom" goes for actually getting to know sky.

i mean yes, he's absolutely still just trying to get into sky's pants at this point, but at the same time this isn't a move from the rich asshole playbook at all.

when prapai shows up at sky's dorm unannounced again, it's clear he doesn't really have a plan other than 'try to be sexy around sky' and he fails terribly at this because prapai is NOT as smooth as he thinks he is.

he's so, so bad at flirting, but...it absolutely works in prapai's favour because it disarms some of sky's defences. look at sky's expressions here:

it's hard to see in screenshots, but we hear that sky suppresses a small laugh, and towards the end he's very clearly fighting not to smile. prapai's not living up to sky's expectations of finding a suave playboy type. he's ridiculous and sky is very reluctantly charmed by it.

and when they have breakfast, prapai doesn't try to show off by bringing sky to a fancy restaurant or try to make a big deal about paying for sky's meal. even though he also likely overpays for his meal.

sky leaves what looks like two 100 bhat notes while prapai leaves a single 500 bhat note. (my experiences in places like this in Bangkok says that sky left a reasonable amount/slightly more than he needed to, while prapai probably left a tip that was bigger than the cost of his meal.)

so if he wanted to, prapai could've made a big deal about this but he doesn't. this isn't for show because sky never even sees the amount prapai puts down.

look at prapai's emphasis: he queued up for it since 5am. he didn't try to pay extra to jump to the head of the line or order it to be delivered to him or send someone else to buy it for him. this was prapai's time, effort, energy and he didn't use his money to take any short cuts.

purely speculative, but assuming sky is heading directly to classes, his dorm is located within walking distance of the university, and the first class is at 8am, it's possibly around 7:30am at the earliest. which still gives a conservative estimate of prapai having a whole 2.5 hour window of queuing for the food and bringing it to sky right before his international flight and a slew of business meetings.

for a man with money, with power, with influence, this is so, so much effort.

even before prapai ends up taking care of sky when he's sick, he's already shown how real his commitment is. this is intentional, focused, dedicated pursuit. of sky. not just a warm body for sex, but very specifically: sky. because prapai is not a man who has to work this hard just to get sex.

and then there's this moment:

i think this was the moment when prapai realises that his approach was working on sky. before this point, prapai's entire strategy is 'throw stuff at wall, see what sticks,' but here he realises: sky has been moved. first, by the reassurance that prapai wasn't looking for sex anymore (at least not just sex), and second by the attention and forethought inherent in making sure sky still had food ready for him after prapai left. this is the kind of care you show when you genuinely want the best for someone, not just to make a good impression or to elevate their opinion of you, and it's working.

it's super telling that after this point in the show, about 85% of prapai's wooing strategy becomes 'send sky food', whether in person or via delivery. he's paying attention and when something works he doubles down on it with zero hesitation. and everything he does give sky either meets a basic need (food, medication, a safe space to rest) or involves directly helping sky with something he finds challenging (helping him with his assignments). primarily, prapai's focus is about spending time with sky.

and none of this, none of this, was the approach you would expect from a rich fuckboy. and i really, really love prapai for that.

[1000sunnygo]

IMO a lesser mentioned reason behind Luffy's overwhelming success as a protagonist is Oda's extreme overprotectiveness. Like he'd rather jump off a cliff than let Luffy be controversial.

Marineford is an easy example. An arc heavily featuring Luffy's low point, but Oda didn't make him responsible for Ace's death. In 1000+ chapters of screentime, I can't think of an instance where Luffy did something irredeemable in fandom eyes. Only controversial scene that comes to mind is picking a fight against Zoro in Whiskey peak? Maybe Oda had the luxury to let his guard down back then bc online discussions weren't a thing PFFT

It's not like Luffy doesn't make mistakes, but Oda makes sure Luffy is immediately called out by someone in the story so he stays grounded and can apologize if he has to.

And that's not all, Oda is vocally supportive of Luffy in the polls, he can't not include Luffy in magazine covers even when the editors press him to, he made the timskip 2years bc he wanted Luffy to stay a child during story's runtime, he doesn't let a single character outshine Luffy in an arc, he cushioned Luffy's past with TWO brothers and kept one alive after taking away one of them.. he's spoiling Luffy rotten and I love to see it bc that's the right kind of spoiling, that's what keeps Luffy the happy boy he needs to be, shonen authors should take some notes methinks

[zeravmeta]

still not over issekai shikkaku im still recovering from the fact that this is the most pained expression that sensei ever shows. a man who is thoroughly depressed hates his own life leading up to his isekaing and actively tries to kill himself 24/7 has his most agonized and distraught look when he sees that the supposed village of love is demonizing someone for not conforming in how they love. it's especially painful because for all of this mans pessimism its entirely self-directed: he wholeheartedly believes that people can become better through and despite suffering and even when encountering absolute monsters and pathetic people in both native inhabitants and otherworlders he still holds a fondness for their complexity as humans and believes that they can always be better, so seeing this truly bleak scene before him does hurt him in a way that quite frankly nothing else in the story does

he also has one of his softest and fondest expressions watching diantha and eliza leave towards their happy future

[hylialeia]

not going to bug people in the tags but it is (legitimately!) interesting to see a character in asoiaf who is so clearly meant to be the traditional fantasy red herring chosen prince, and to see people - including the readers! - gravitate towards that romanticism, often unquestioning. I think one of asoiaf's major motifs being "ruling is hard" (see GRRM's thoughts on Tolkien) and that consistently showing up across every pov regardless of their morality or ideals or circumstances, yet both people in universe and in fanbase stalwartly believing that surely this does not or will not apply to their ruler... now, that IS fascinating

[bellshazes]

dreaming up a syllabus for an imaginary course on metanarratives about gameplay, which i think would go something like:

unit 1: who do you think you are i am - auto-documentary & games

Vlogs and the Hyperreal, Folding Ideas

The Slow Death of Let's Play Videos, Meraki (to ~10:00)

World Record Progression: Mike Tyson, Summoning Salt

ROBLOX_OOF.mp3, hbomberguy

Life as a Bokoblin: A Zelda Nature Documentary, Monster Maze

optional: Braindump on the History of Let's Plays, slowbeef

unit 2: what like it's hard? - intro to challenge narratives

Chapter 26: Games as Narrative Play: Two Structures for Narrative Play, Rules of Play

A different kind of challenge run: Minimalist 100% (BOTW), Wolf Link

Surviving 100 Days on Just Dirt, Mogswamp

Can You Beat DARK SOULS III with Only Firebombs, the Backlogs

Is it Possible to Beat Super Mario 3D World while permanently crouching?, Ceave Gaming

The Pacifist Challenge - Beating Hollow Knight Without Collecting Soul [CHALLENGE] - Sample

optional: How to 100% Snowpeak Ruins in under 15 minutes, bewildebeest

unit 3: nelly you don't understand, i AM the narrative - form and function

The Future of Writing about Games, Jacob Geller

Can You Beat GRIME Without Weapons?, the Backlogs

Mushroom Kingdom Championships, Ceave Gaming

My Life as a Barber in Hitman 2, MinMax (Leo Vader)

MyHouse.WAD - Inside Doom's Most Terrifying Mod, PowerPak

optional: Mega Microvideos, Matthewmatosis

the theme and structure is mostly intended to introduce at least one critical or historically contextual work followed by examples of the type of narrative in question.

in unit 1, this is the idea of "How do people talk about their own experiences in the context of YouTube and playing video games?" across three rather different kinds of documentaries. unit 2 is intended to take that lens of who is telling what tale and dial in on challenge running, where i first noticed the way some videos turn the story of overcoming a challenge into its own narrative that is distinct from but related to the narrative events of the game itself. unit 3 circles back to the bigger picture with a variety of examples that, to me, are maximally metanarrative, the emergent story of the player-narrator now functionally replacing the game's embedded narrative.

bonus unit: broken narratives

Glitch & the Grotesque at the MLA, Sylvia Korman

Watching time loop movies to escape my time loop, Leo Vader

The Stanley Parable, Dark Souls, and Intended Play, Folding Ideas

Breaking Madden, Jon Bois

The TRUTH about the Pizzaplex in FNAF: Security Breach, AstralSpiff

this one is highly underdeveloped, but i'd love to work out something more robust building on randomizer challenges that produce intentionally bizarre, semi-ironic "lore," and bois-esque endeavors to break games so hard the story itself crumbles. but that's really out of scope so i'm just including the links to things i couldn't bear to get rid of. more rambling abt the challenge runs I chose under the cut.

Challenge runs represent one of the most obvious places to start, due to being extremely plentiful and having a hook that makes a "here's how I did X thing in Y video game" format almost unavoidable. Minimalist 100% is an underrated and sweet straightforward example that I mostly include as a baseline for reporting-out style narrative; here are the facts, here's what happened, this is the thing that it is. Mogswamp's 100 Days on Just Dirt is similar in style, but the physical measuring of days is a delightful and, more importantly, external narrative device.

Now oriented, we get a taste of Ceave Gaming's narrative approach to Mario challenges with the no-crouching run, and while we still aren't at the degree of player-characters being constructed for the narrative's sake, the spirited belief in crouching sets the stage for other rhetoric in more extreme cases we'll see later.

The Backlogs' entire body of work qualifies here, but GRIME is the strongest inspiration for putting this list together. I include the DS3 firebombs run because what was initially a factual description of how his wife's use of firebombs inspired him to play differently in the original DS1 firebombs run has developed into full-blown multi-game narrative arc with the Firebomb Goddess (his wife, who also voices the character) compelling his in-game character to achieve his destined quest. Grime takes that even further,

In-Game Documentaries

I include Life as a Bokoblin mostly as a contrast to My Life as a Barber - there is a level of fictionalization and roleplay involved in the Zelda in-game documentary that highlights exactly what I want to single out when I am talking about metanarrative, the story about a story.

[celestialrealms]

I just noticed Mephisto matches with Barbatos (who is matchy with Diavolo) in the anniversary outfits in his SSR memory card

These three were also the only three who had half masks in the masquerade event!!!

Anyway, The Royals with Mephisto chat group when? We got one for Purgatory Hall with Raphael..... it's just fair !!

And one for Mephisto and Diavolo as well, but also one for Mephisto and Barbatos too. because you can't tell me their relationship isn't deeper than the devs portray when Mephisto has lines like this about Barbatos's room:

[hellamorte]

back on stage in my big clown leander shoes, a promised post. here's what i talked about previously: part i, part ii, part iii

let's go back to the last two points in part i (starting with 'now hear me out'): i replayed the whole scene and turns out i was wrong. here's why: 1) never write any theories at 5 am 2) never take things out of the context. sorry for misleading you, lemme make some amends:

if you choose the 'keep touching him' option, leander will notice how desperate and touchstarved mc is (he's constantly pausing before speaking: afraid of hurting anyone with his words or skillfully manipulating? i know it's the latter, but what if it's both? 👁), keeps eliciting information and, when his suspicions are confirmed, he puts his trusted weapon to use: flirting (empty flattery, as vere said). we all know he's lying and he's not infatuated with mc at all (his pulse was steady). BUT!!

power?? is that some kind of doublespeak because leander doesn't want to mention the curse and ruin the moment OR is it a slip, and the curse is not a curse but something that mc just cannot control (yet?)? 🤔

for now the 'level-headed' line in the context seems to be used just for building mc's trust, not for hinting that controlling the curse is difficult; same with "we match" — to stress that everything is okay, and leander's completely reliable, because hey! he and mc are alike! (i am squinting suspiciously here though, i still have a hunch he means so much more) however, that's yet to be seen how much truth leander actually reveals in his speech.

the question is: why does leander need mc to trust him with their life? he can control the curse, can he teach mc how to do that? or does he want to use them however he likes, feeding them lies and using mc's "curse" (or even mc) as a weapon? much to think about.jpg