#and then being stuck with narrative meaninglessness for decades

[godsfavoritescientist]

I have a draft saved somewhere talking about my classpect headcanons for everyone, I really need to finish that sometime so people can see where I'm coming from when I say "fidds is a mage of rage". I have Ford down as a prince of light, stan as a thief of time, and bill as a lord of hope, but I think those are a liiittle bit more self explanatory

[myfriendpokey]

meet the beetles

vidcons were new media when the idea of new media was no longer new, was a path with known waypoints, a citizen kane here, a maus there… except as soon as this path was mapped out it no longer applied, the landscape no longer made sense. as if videogames as postmodern form was still cursed with a modernist conception of itself, this shadowy mirror life that seemed to mock and undercut the achievements available in postmodernity (say it with me: "videogames are bigger than the film industry!!"). the idea of some heroic transformative turn being just around the corner became less and less persuasive every year, until we were left with an unsettling sense that the medium as a whole had stopped, that it had died… this came as no news to hobbyists who had always experienced the medium as dead, who lived and worked inside the grisly material husk the format left behind on its movement from tradeshow to tradeshow - always a decade or two behind the cutting edge that the medium wrapped its identity around. but now even the tradeshows seem ailing and the format's own hype-men have either moved on to more exciting variants of stillborn new media (vr! nfts! ai!) or else were shaken by a sense that the tech industry's own master narrative was no longer looking so hot. the consultantification of the medium, trying to shore up a leaky ship with a delayed appeal to incremental reforms… we no longer just say that videogames suck as that hits too close to home, and there's no longer any confidence that these brash provocations can actually be followed up, instead we're left agreeing with each other that the format is actually doing pretty well, all things considered, and maybe just needs a few extra touch ups to look, uh, good as new. there are still frustrations bubbling beneath the new consensus. something i feel i've seen a lot more of lately is a kind of irritated aversion to the "same old thing but with new aesthetics" school of game design, complaints about formal conservatism etc… and as sympathetic as i am to arguments that videogames should just be weirder, i also sort of feel, well, didn't we just do that? does the desire to feel some kind of momentum again really mean we're stuck relitigating Games Formalism II: The Bitch Is Back?

for a sec let's do the opposite and assume the horrible unyieldiness of videogames, their stuck and stubborn refusal to "evolve", is not a failure in art's traditional relation to the cultural unconscious so much as the way that relation manifests. if we take this failure seriously, take it as something which is itself historically new. what would it mean for game-making - to live and work inside a dead format, to be a worm inside the corpse? the decomposing body becomes a visionary landscape, new colours, unnatural tints, sharp contrasts of vividness and paleness - old boundaries melt and run together, yield to gentle pressure of the penetrating beak. there is no longer such a strong boundary between the inside and outside. the bones show through the skin, the hidden things we took for granted renew themselves in their full strangeness. but also: there is no sense of these discoveries doing anything, leading anywhere. as temporary perceptions they might be startling and immediate but the question of what impact the little aesthetic explorers of the fields, worms bugs beetles millipedes etc, are individually having as they gnaw the corpse into something else is probably too fussy to calculate. meaningless bounded riches of experience… that's right, we're back to that thing everybody hates. we're back to aesthetics.

if videogames are haunted by a kind of pop-modernism then modernism itself is haunted by the aesthetic - by an aestheticism it tried to define itself against, the stale drawing-room air of the 19th century. over and over in reading those manifestos we find artistic calls to move past art, into something the authors frequently defined as more "active" than the "passive" role of aestheticism. and part of how videogames and the wider tech industry as a whole present themselves as modern is by repeating these calls, by drawing an implicit line between heroic activity and passive compliance. the aesthetic is imagined as "internal", as individual in the bad sense - a neutralised and murky inner world. whereas what we picture as non-aesthetic is what brings the individual out of herself, into some new socially legible role. the heroic user vs the lotus eating experiencer…! and as a figure out of time the aesthetic subject is lumped in with the other recalcitrant bogeys of tech - luddites, luddism as "a way to call those with whom they disagree both politically reactionary and anti-capitalist at the same time". but it's hard not to feel the luddites got a bad rep these days, and hard to feel like the kinds of participation allowed in a ringfenced public culture are not if anything even more disspiriting than the most "passive" text. one of the most striking features of the new-new-media, forms of new media more fully adapted to the role new media has as a kind of speculation bubble, is their near total lack of aesthetic interest. it almost feels crankish and petty to say these things (nfts, ai art, various metaverses) are boring and ugly - but that's kind of the point, right? the contempt for mere aesthetics is the sign that what these things are selling is the sense of their own inevitability, an inevitability that requires no consent from the people it's enforced upon. aesthetics themselves don't matter… but of course they do, right? how can they not matter?

videogames, as a weak form, have never really been able to jettison the need to appeal to the senses. their most cherished distinction, between "aesthetics" understood as meaning visuals and sound and the "non-aesthetic" of all the other gamey parts that they encompass, falls apart for me the more i think about it: are the pleasures of solving a puzzle, executing a combo, traversing an area really of a different nature to those of reading a text, following a piece of music or investigating a visual plane? to say reading prose is not a tentative, active, problem solving kind of task is just to say you're bad at it. and there's a sense that the odd blockedness, deadness of videogames as a format is itself aesthetic.. i think of the old adorno line that the aesthetic itself is always the extra-aesthetic, that which threatens to overflow the category of the aesthetic and transform life itself. so maybe the aesthetic is always experienced as a kind of provocative failure or stubbornness, a blockage, in contrast to the greased slide to a future no-one really wants or believes in.

so what does it mean to be interested in making games mostly as an aesthetic activity. right now the "game making scene" feels as fragmented and directionless as i've ever seen it - whatever infrastructure is still there now exists to provide networking or marketing opportunities to professionals, themselves ever more protective of their specialised domains and with ever less patience for any merely aesthetic actes gratuits that might gum up the pipes. the people i know still making weird shit seem increasingly cut off, working just for themselves and some friends, and maybe they're happier, i dunno. to me there's something melancholy about this condition of narrowed possibility - the difficulty of bouncing new ideas back and forth to one another, when everyone's constrained to their own holes and all the space in between is filled with advertisements. but as well as that, it can feel like it's hardly worthwhile even trying to rebuild those networks to begin with if it's just going to get us back to where we were. the same spurious claims to importance or social good or "what we need right now", same sleazy power dynamics, maybe a different handful of guys getting a career out if it this time.

and so i keep coming back to the stuckness, the nothingness of aesthetic work, of work that can't be evaluated in terms of historical importance or evolution or journeyman best practice, existing as nothing but sensibility, at a point where sensibility itself is treated as a kind of uncanny and functionless surplus that weighs upon the living. the golden coin that can never be spent, visible only through its absence in the ledger. we test it in the mouth, thought is made in the mouth, we chew, not knowing why, yet. as the guy says in the thing: why don't we just stick around for a while, and see what happens.

[generation1point5]

There is an implicit dichotomy instilled in almost all narrative storytelling as a result of neoliberal, capitalist system that runs the global economy and society. The moral of so many stories today is that the only reliable means of change comes from individual development and our external circumstances cannot be depended upon, or even altered.

Perhaps part of that dichotomy is also psychological at heart; it is terrifying to face a reality where there is a class of people and their descendants who have spent years accumulating power and insulating its loss to any other, who have spent decades, even centuries, legitimizing their own tyranny; to fight against it would feel like facing a force of nature, like fighting gods.

When a government beholden to capital interests can drop a missile on someone and their whole family's house thousands of miles away on a whim, that is not far from the truth. To resist this imperialism by any means available to them, including violence, is only natural, but also ultimately doomed. Hope for justice in this is bleak. What has risen in its place is a feckless neoliberal order, beholden to the interests of capital.

Liberalism and the Kingdom of Conscience is small and individualized by necessity; it is the only room in the world we can carve for ourselves from the scraps left to the majority by the powerful who have come before. We are the crabs in the bucket, consigned to our castles of sand. Likewise, it soothes the conscience of the powerful, that by individual, inconsistent, and ultimately meaningless acts of charity, they can ease the conscience of the brutality of the system from which they have benefitted.

What Disco Elysium proposed was so revolutionary that I feel much of its player base did not understand the truths that it highlighted, the importance of historical materialism and the dynamics of power that so greatly affects all our lives, and the trials and tribulations of the human condition stuck somewhere between, universal to all but affecting others differently by degrees of how their government supports them.

Acknowledging the universality of human suffering is a given; but our actions to mitigate these things should not be examined solely through our own hands, our own decisions. Liberalism and its thought are intuitive in this respect; we cannot reliably influence the will and decision of others, but we can control what we ourselves do with whatever means are available to us. That is true, but the solutions to our problems should nevertheless be examined also through the lens of power: namely, who has it, and what they do with it. It is necessary that these considerations be taken into account, that in response to the broad powerlessness of many there is organization among them. There must be a creation of a counterforce by the many to offset the powerful few. 

Any organization with strong leadership is hierarchal, and by that nature also at risk of corruption, but it is no less necessary for that shortcoming; the tent that leftists try to create is necessarily bigger than that of the conservative minority, and must satisfy the greater collective interest of its constituents, lest it become no different than the oppressors themselves. Moreover, the material benefits of being elected leader within a union are lesser than that of the owning class; if self-interest and the accumulation of wealth is the goal, then success would not lie in grifting for progressive values. Arguments from cynicism become just that; it fails to distinguish the meaningful, consequential, material differences that follow when pursuing values diametrically opposed to the current order. Socialism is not a poverty cult; it is the creation of a new system of providence entirely. Its ends are strived for by an entire revolution of means, not by individual acts to reverse the unequal results of the existing system.

Revolutions by violence or efforts at incremental process are resisted in equal and overwhelming measure; the former by a greater capacity for violence by the wealthy, and the latter by capitalism’s uncanny ability to absorb anything, even its critiques, into a consumer product. If history has taught us anything, it is that the chances for success, at least in our lifetimes, are incredibly low.

But if we truly believe what we are working for is right and good, then it is persisted upon for the sheer virtue in the act, and the hope that we are planting the seeds of trees in whose shade we will not live to enjoy. It is a call to live beyond oneself, and beyond making the choice to pursue it, that call is fundamentally an anti-liberal act. 

I want to write and read stories with such sentiments. Whether the end is happy or not is immaterial; there is virtue, even necessity, in the struggle itself. It is a message I feel like is badly needed in this day and age.

[garudabluffs]

Awards are meaningless Feb 23, 2023

From the Oscars to best in business, why do we do awards for adults?

"It’s pay-to-play”

"You’ve probably heard about the whole participation trophy thing — the complaint that there’s something deeply wrong with America because a bunch of first-graders got a ribbon for drawing a picture that wasn’t even that good or something. The whole debate, which has persisted for decades at this point, tends to feel pretty ridiculous, largely because it is. Plenty of things are deeply wrong with America today; being nice to 6-year-olds isn’t super one of them. For one thing, if we’re going to be upset about awards, the ones we give to adults are a whole lot weirder when you think about it."

"Awards are less about who’s best at the game but instead who’s hacked the game best."

READ MORE https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2023/2/23/23610516/awards-oscars-grammys-best-business-media

= =>>https://www.vox.com/22946366/the-big-squeeze

2023 Grammy Awards: The Beyoncé paradox February 3, 2023

How the Grammys got themselves in a pickle (and how they might make it worse)

There are any number of storylines that could emerge from this year's Grammy Awards, which will be handed out on Sunday, February 5. But if we are narrowing things down to the night's most coveted prizes, the four awards in the general category — record of the year, album of the year, song of the year and best new artist — some narratives begin to take shape (mostly, if we are being honest, around whether or not the Academy will once again fail to award a top prize to Beyoncé).

To begin to wrap our minds around all the affirming and deflating possibilities, NPR Music gathered four critics to pick apart the nominees in those top four categories to try and figure out which surprises and/or inevitabilities await.

RECORD OF THE YEAR

Ann Powers: "We begin with a paradox, a Zen riddle: a widely anticipated win this year may also feel like the biggest surprise. Beyoncé, inexplicable bridesmaid in all but one of the major Grammy categories since Destiny's Child's "Say My Name" nom in 2001 (her one win was Song of the Year in 2010 for "Single Ladies") may grab the gramophone for Renaissance across categories this year, and a sweep for her would feel like justice while breaking a pattern of exclusion that has come to feel inevitable. Record of the Year is the spot where she's been most rejected — seven times — and might feel like a bigger triumph than even an Album of the Year win. "Break My Soul" announced Renaissance, a new concept and beginning for the woman who'd seemingly done everything. And the song has the grand scale and spirit of a Grammy shoo-in. I could see some fuddy-duddy Grammy voters still resisting Bey in the album category, even though Renaissance is definitely a unified listening experience. No dance music album by a Black artist has ever won in the album slot (John Travolta and some French robots have taken home the prize in past years), and, as an alternative, the gospel-ish uplift of "Break My Soul" might appeal to voter still stuck on rock and ballad-ish pop.

That said, another widely anticipated ROTY win wouldn't feel like a surprise at all. Harry Styles is an industry darling whose rabid fan base no longer only consists of teenage girls (never taken seriously by Grammy voters, at their peril). In the philosophical bon bon "As It Was," he had 2023's most popular smash by far. I could see him winning here and Bey shining elsewhere. Or maybe the pie will be cut three ways and Kendrick Lamar, also up for every top slot plus, will take this one for "The Heart Part 5" with Styles nabbing song and Bey getting her album trophy. Other Grammy faves are hanging out here, too: Don't underestimate the feel-good power of Lizzo or of Brandi Carlile, whose live performances with her spouse Katherine have turned "You and Me On the Rock" into the 21st century's most unexpected marriage-equality anthem. The rest of the nominees feel deeply unlikely to me."

S.P. "The prospect of another white artist shutting Beyoncé out completely seems unfathomable and, frankly, indefensible, but given the way voters have treated Beyoncé in recent years, it feels even less likely that she might somehow steamroll through the generals, despite her recent music's all-consuming inevitability."

ALBUM OF THE YEAR

S.T.: "Beyoncé's Renaissance is the album of the year by virtue of its wire-to-wire excellence and its cultural cachet."

"If you're looking for a prevailing storyline for the 2023 Grammy Awards, consider that Beyoncé — who has won 28 Grammys and counting, closing in on the record for the most by any artist in the awards' history — has never won album or record of the year. Her track record in the general categories has rightly infuriated fans:

BEST NEW ARTIST

S.Y. : "In a similar vein, the entire Americana industry has sensibly lined up behind Molly Tuttle, an impeccable bluegrass flatpicker and singer-songwriter whose clear prowess could appeal to the kinds of folk who like kinds of folk, and anything else you might inadvisably call "real music."

Ann Powers: "My Nashville hometown would be absolutely delighted if Molly walked away with this little record player – she's already a champion here, having won seven International Bluegrass Music Association Awards since she came on the scene in the mid-2010s. And her latest album Crooked Tree is a powerful mission statement: a challenge to bluegrass, a deeply conservative genre, to reinvigorate itself through open-hearted innovation. But her commercial reach remains more limited, for now, and as Nate points out, that seems to matter now in this category." '...Tuttle, who's now 30, and made her first album (with her dad) at 13.'

READ MORE https://www.npr.org/2023/02/03/1152837041/2023-grammy-awards-preview

But this particular year, Beyoncé not winning the Grammys’ most prestigious award did feel pretty close to discrediting the entire enterprise. Everyone knew it in advance, as spelled out in headlines such as “The Beyoncé Paradox,” “It’s Beyoncé’s Time to Shine at the Grammys … Right?,” and, most aggressively, in the Los Angeles Times, “Grammys, You Have One Job on Sunday: Give Beyoncé Album of the Year.”

"It’s because this is the third consecutive studio album for which Beyoncé Knowles has been nominated and then passed over for a white artist, despite all three records’ status as music-industry milestones. Last time this happened, in 2017, Adele’s acceptance speech was just an abject apology for 25’sbeating Lemonade, which didn’t much help. It’s because, although Beyoncé last night officially became the most awarded individual in the history of the Grammys, only 1 of those 32 prizes has come in the Recording Academy’s top, cross-genre categories—“Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” as song of the year in 2010. And it’s because Renaissance is not only, in my opinion, Beyoncé’s best album, it’s one presented precisely on terms that the Grammys ought to understand. It might not have her very best songs, but it is an album as analbum, an extended conceptual statement encompassing decades of music history in dialogue with the present."

READ MORE https://slate.com/culture/2023/02/grammys-2023-winners-beyonce-harry-styles.html

[disconnected-dragon]

Dune and Fight Club say your leaders are not gods.

okay its midnight and my eyes are itchy from tiredness but I wanted to write this up because I think my mind has entered super space.

Fight Club and Dune both go over a main point in their narratives-- that obsessive devotion to one central character is inherently self-destructive and will lead to nothingness.

Ok I'm going to have to quantify that statement so hold on

In both Dune and Fight Club, their worlds are kinda fucked up. With Dune, humanity has regressed back to pseudo-feudal times. Powerful families dick-measure and fight over shares in a company, hold planets in fiefdoms, have their own shares of atomic weapons. They hoard resources and control politics and keep everyone underneath them exactly where they are. It's mentioned in the book that space travel is very expensive, even to the elite. The trip to Arrakis is Paul's first time off Caladan. The lower classes are probably stuck slaving for a family that doesn't care about them, on a planet they might hate, for meaningless politics they don't care about. So, the prospect of jihad, even if you're not Fremen, sounds a bit.... enticing. It's a lot more direct, whereas Fight Club is a bit more indirect. Society at large isn't actively oppressive, but it is working to keep you happy and chasing something. Capitalism's main goal is to make money, and what better way to do that then forming a society around Stuff? Jack makes a point to tick off all his stuff and list what exactly he has, but the end result is that he feels empty. He only gets fulfillment via the support groups, and later the violence of Fight Club. Capitalism itself is empty, so in order to sustain that emptiness, everyone and everything in it must be empty as well.

The Fremen and the men of Fight Club are different, but still similar in feelings. Justified or not. The Fremen are legitimately grievously harmed. They've been brutally colonized for decades, had their culture degraded and mocked, their holy substance taken for profit and forced to live on the fringes of society. Moreover, their asks for basic respect have been consistently denied, they've been manipulated by a space cult, they're surviving in a desert-- the Fremen are pretty much at the bottom of the barrel. Fight Club's dudes on the other hand, are sort of feeling threatened. With the rise of feminism and the threats to toxic masculinity, they're having an identity crisis. They did everything society dictated a "healthy" man should do-- go to college, get a job, maybe get married. But they're not happy. They're not fulfilled. So, they want something to blame, a reason why following the social script didn't work. And with women and minorities getting more power...well....

In both cases though, there's a lot of anger and frustration built up into the demographics. And then-- enter Tyler Durden and Paul respectively.

Both Tyler and Paul have a similar strategy, though Tyler's a bit more single-minded. They both want to manipulate this populace to achieve their own ends, that being the destruction of the current society and systems they inhabit. So they promise things that they think they can achieve. Tyler it's more "back in the old days, we used to hunt deer and stuff, wanna go back to Real Manhood?". Paul is more "I can help you see the world, get off planet, and make Arrakis worth living on". But they don't actually care about these people. Tyler's main goal is complete blood-in-the-streets anarchy. Paul's is revenge on the Harkonnens and the title of emperor. They're not the gods they try to be, but they've told these vulnerable people they are.

In addition, they also use the same kind of culty religious tactics. In Dune, Paul fits the role of a savior in a more prescribed sense, like a literal prophetic messiah. He can do all the right things, say the right words, etc to convince this (predominantly POC people) that he's their messiah that will lead them to freedom and water. Because this is a critique of a white savior story, so the "savior" is expected to fail. But in Fight Club, it's a bit more metaphorical. It's stated in the book by Chuck Palahniuk that "you father is the ideal model for God". And that if you don't have a stable father figure, which due to toxic masculinity, many of Fight Club's men don't, you "spend your whole life looking for father or God." Tyler essentially uses this philosophy to condition his men to see him as God in the same way that Paul uses the Fremen's traditions to position himself as Messiah. It's a more paternal, harsh sense, but through the rules of Fight Club and Project Mayhem, Tyler fits the role of a father and God.

And the scary part is that Tyler's strat actually seemed to work. I know Fight Club is mocked as being a stereotypical "film bro" movie, but like-- both the book and the movie make it very clear that Tyler is a horrible person and not something to be aspired to. Just like in Dune. Yet a lot of men and boys see Tyler as a legitimate role model, and the more straightforward Paul isn't. I could go deeper into speculating abt that, but I didn't take Sociology and it's one in the morning. Half of this is probably me talking out of my ass so idk moving on.

In the end, both Tyler and Paul end up falling victim to the same things they were trying to fight. Tyler has created the same messy toxic hierarchy that capitalism did. Paul has become a tyrant worse than the Harkonnens and killed billions of people in the jihad. They've succeeded in fulfilling their goals, but at the cost of their own lives. Paul's son grows up to try to attain the Golden Path, and undo the one thing Paul managed to save-- Arrakis' terraforming. Tyler dies by his own alter, which rejects his toxic masculinity and refuses to try to live up to the ideals of Project Mayhem. Despite the Project succeeding (movie) or not (book). In the end, the god's wills and wants turned out to amount to nothing.

So what did we learn today, we learned that I am tired and spent way too long thinking abt this and I need to sleep. But there's similarities between these two works I swear! I'm not crazy! Everyone else is crazy! HI BRAD PITT WHY ARE YOU IN MY ROOM--

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

The Last Word: Shirley Manson on Fighting the Patriarchy and How Patti Smith Inspires Her

The Garbage singer also talks racial justice, living for now, and why legacy is an inherently masculine concern

Almost as soon as Garbage’s self-titled debut blew up overnight in 1995, their singer, Shirley Manson, became aware of the patriarchy running the music industry. Even though she was the group’s focal point — belting dusky electro-rock songs about making sense of depression (“Only Happy When It Rains”) and taking pride in nonconformity (“Queer”) — she was still a woman fronting a band of men, one of whom, Butch Vig, had produced Nirvana’s Nevermind. Almost immediately, she felt as though her role in the group was being devalued — not by the guys she worked with, but externally.

“There was a lot of stuff written about me in the music press, and that’s when I started to realize how I’m being diminished, how, in some cases, I’m being completely eradicated from the narrative because I’m female and not a man,” she says now. “I was talked over by lawyers; I was ignored by managers. The list goes on. It’s boring and tedious; there’s no point in me moaning about it now, but certainly, that was my awakening.”

That revelation emboldened her to speak out about equality and she quickly became a feminist icon, using her platform to bring attention to human rights, mental health, and the AIDS crisis. All the while, she wrote inclusive hit songs with Garbage about androgyny and reproductive rights (“Sex Is Not the Enemy”). On Garbage’s great new album, No Gods No Masters, she grapples with racial injustice, climate change, the patriarchy, and her own self-worth. But as weighty as the subject matter is, she approaches each song in her own uniquely uplifting way.

“I don’t think really the record is serious, per se,” the singer, 54, says, on an early May phone call. “I think it’s an indignant record. I think in indignance you can still carry humor with you, as well as softness, kindness, and love in your heart. I just felt it would be inauthentic to say anything other than what I was saying in my daily life across the dinner table from my friends and my family. I think as you get older as an artist, the challenge is, ‘How I can be my most authentic self?’ because that’s the most unique story I can tell. In an industry that’s just absolutely jam-packed to the rafters with ideas, opinions, melodies, and so on, you can’t afford to be anything other than your most authentic self. It won’t last.”

Authenticity and being true to herself are the qualities that have made Manson who she is. And those traits seem to guide her answers to Rolling Stone’s questions about philosophy, life lessons, and creature comforts for our Last Word interview.

What are the most important rules that you live by? I’m 54, which is ancient for the contemporary music industry. At this point, I feel like if it’s not fun, then I’m uninterested entirely. If somebody’s treating me poorly, I have to walk away. Life is so fricking short, and I’m three quarters of the way through mine already; I just want to have a good life, full of joy.

Who are your heroes and why? Patti Smith is a huge hero for me for a lot of different reasons. Most importantly, it’s because she’s a woman who has navigated her creative life so beautifully and so artfully, with such integrity and authenticity, and she has proven to me that a woman, an artist, does not have to subscribe to the rules of the contemporary music industry.

It’s very rare for other women to see examples of women actually working still in their seventies. That, to me, is really thrilling and really inspiring, and it fills me with hope. At times when you come up against the ageism, sexism, and misogyny that exists in our culture, I always try and picture Patti in my mind’s eye, and it always brings me back to center, like, “OK, adhere to your own rules. Design your own life. Be your own architect. You can continue to be an artist the rest of your life.” And to me, that’s life. That is a fully lived life.

You’re also a role model yourself. How do you handle that responsibility? I’m a bit speechless if the truth be told. I realize that I’ve now enjoyed a long career in music, and by default, I think people are inspired by that. I think whenever you see an artist, no matter who they are, when someone can endure, I think that’s exciting to everybody else, because it’s a message that says, “You too can get up when you think you’re done. You too can brush yourself off and try again.” By just continuing, you can help other people continue and fulfill themselves in ways that they thought they wouldn’t be able to.

I try to be a decent person. I make mistakes. I fuck people off. I say stupid shit. I’m not all-knowing; I am ignorant in so many ways. But I do try my best. I think that’s really all I can ask of myself.

How others perceive me is absolutely out of my control. There’s always going to be people who think I’m an arsehole, and that’s just part and parcel of being in the public eye. People are just going to hate on you, so I try not to take too much of it in; I don’t let it absorb me too much. I have gotten to that point in my life when I’m able to just go, “You know what? Fuck it. You can’t win them all.”

You once said that the idea of legacy was a masculine construct that you don’t believe in. Do you still feel that way? Yeah. I still very much believe in that. I know a lot of male artists who bang on about their legacy and their importance. Not to knock that if that’s what’s important to you but for me personally, what do I care? I’m going to be dead and gone and totally unconscious of any so-called legacy that I might leave behind. I want fun now. I want to have a good life now. I want to eat good food now and have great sex. It’s absolutely meaningless to me what happens after I’m gone. I want to use my time wisely, and that’s all that I really am concerned with, to be honest.

What is it about legacy that’s inherently masculine? This is armchair psychology, so please forgive me, but I’m sure it has something to do with how women have this uterus that can bear children. I think that’s profound. One of the few gifts that men have not been given is that ability to create with your body, and your blood, and your heat and all these nutrients from your body. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why you don’t hear as many women banging on about the great legacy they’re going to leave behind. I think for women it’s their kids.

You’re Scottish. What is the most Scottish thing about you these days? I’ve got a lot of grit, and it’s served me really well in my career. I think that is a really Scottish trait. The Scottish people are tough, and they also have a good sense of humor. So, grit with humor. I should say “gritted with humor,” in the same way we grit roads.

As you were saying “grit,” it occurred to me that a lot of your songs are about survival and moving forward, going back to “Stupid Girl” or “Only Happy When It Rains.” They’re about perseverance. [Pauses] I think it’s funny you should say that because I’m just sort of like, “Wow, he might be right.” I do think that a huge theme for me is, “How do you overcome? How do we all overcome?” Things can be great for a while; things will not be great forever. And to every single life, these challenges appear. We all have to reconfigure ourselves in order to try to hurl ourselves over obstacles in order to have the kind of life we hope for. So I do think you’ve shocked me a little by discovering a theme for me. Yay, I feel thrilled. I have a theme. It’s exciting.

“Waiting for God” is one of my favorite songs on the album because of the way you address racial justice. How can we, as a society, fight white indifference? You know, that’s a question right there. It’s interesting that you use the words “white indifference,” because one of the things that shocked me so greatly is the ambivalence and the apathy of white people all over the world who are seeing what we’re seeing on our TVs and on the internet, and yet not having the moral courage to speak up. I think the most important thing we can do is pull back the carpet to see the mess on the floor in order for us to actually start cleaning it up.

If we could curtail some of the brutality of police against black people, that would be a good start. I think it’s going to be decades and decades and decades before we can start to really equalize our societies so that everyone is enjoying the spoils of Western wealth over in the developing world. It’s necessary that we try and help these countries that aren’t as powerful or as wealthy. It’s good for the whole world if we start to improve situations for everyone. Nobody will lose anything, and everyone has everything to gain.

But if I had the answers to how we go about fixing it, I would be in politics and not in music. I just know what I believe to be right, and I’m doing my best to use my voice to try and encourage my friends, my little ecosystem, to start with paying attention and supporting black businesses and elevating black voices and black talent.

What’s your favorite book? I have so many. The one that springs to mind would be American Pastoral by Philip Roth. I loved All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. I loved The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje. I loved Winnie the Pooh and Wuthering Heights. I’ve got so many that have really stuck with me that are classics.

My most favorite recent book that I’ve just finished reading is Dancer by Colum McCann about [Russian ballet dancer Rudolf] Nureyev. I was just absolutely mesmerized by it. It was just such a fantastic read, and he’s such a miraculous writer. He brought out Apeirogon last year about the struggle in between Palestine and Israel. He talks about this complicated mess with such clarity, kindness, and generosity. I couldn’t believe Apeirogon didn’t get more fuss made of it last year. Somehow it just seemed to get buried in the morass of other books, and of course the suffering that Covid had brought upon the earth.

What advice do you wish you could give your younger self? “Take up your space.” When I was growing up, to be a girl was to be told to minimize the space you took up: “Close your legs. Don’t be loud. Smile. Be cute. Be attractive. Be pleasing.” I inherently balked against that as a kid. I was a rebellious kid, and I wasn’t going to sit in the corner and be quiet. I’ve never been like that. However, looking back, I still notice some of the patterns of my own compliance. It’s not that I hate myself for it, but I just wish I could turn around and say to my young self, “Take your seat. If there’s not a seat there, drag a seat up to the table and sit down.”

I’m still really aware of the sexism and misogyny that I have had to battle throughout my career. I’m not crying, “Woe is me,” because I’ve obviously flourished in my career, and it obviously didn’t hold me back enough to hamper me in any way. But I feel for all the women who were unlike me, who didn’t have my forcefulness of personality, or my education, or my ability to articulate myself. I want that for all people, though; I want all people to stop trying to please, and accept that some people will like that, and some people won’t, and that’s OK. It’s OK that some people just don’t dig you.

On the topic of gender, I got a kick out of your song “Godhead,” where you ask if people would treat you differently “if I had a dick.” I’m really proud of that song, because I think it’s talking about something really serious, and it’s really fun. It’s about addressing the patriarchy, and how omnipresent it is. When I was young, I was so busy trying to make it, I didn’t see that there was a patriarchy in place. And it’s only as an adult, I start looking back going, “Oh, wow — when that A&R man told me to my face that he wanked over pictures of me, that was really uncool.” But at the time, you kind of laugh it off and just press on.

I was oblivious to it. In this song, I’m talking about how patriarchy bleeds into absolutely everything, specifically under organized religion. The “Godhead” is the male, and we are all under the godhead forever, and that’s unquestioned, and how crazy is that? Because a dude holds a higher position in society, because he’s got a dick and a pair of balls. Often, these balls are smaller than my own [laughs].

It just gets silly after a while, when you watch other men protect other men just for the sake of protecting the patriarchy. So few men are willing to speak up about bro culture and call into question the behavior of the men they are associated with. There’s just a reluctance by men to address this absolutely shocking, terrifying, depressing, pathetic assault by men of other people’s bodies.

In 1996, your bandmate Butch Vig said about you, “So many singers screamed to convey intensity, and she does the opposite. It just blew us away.” How did you come up with that approach? I don’t know. I’ve found that when people speak to me quietly, I feel the most threatened because I’m really comfortable with conflict. I thrive on conflict. It excites me in a funny way. When people are shouting, I don’t feel scared. I like to shout back; that’s just how my family were. We’d just start to shout at each other all the time. I’m not scared of elevated temper. For me, when people get really quiet, that’s when I know they’re really serious, because they’re in control of their rage, and that’s when they’re most deadly.

The last question I have is a shallow one. I love being cheap and superficial.

What’s the most indulgent purchase you’ve ever made? At the height of my success, I hired a person who would shop for me and then send everything in a big box to my hotel room. I would choose what I wanted and return anything else. One day, this beautiful pair of Italian leather boots arrived. I wore a pair very similar in the “Stupid Girl” video, and I thought, “Oh, yeah, these are really me. I’m going to keep these. These are amazing.” It was only when I got back from tour, I found out they cost $5,000. I can’t even laugh about it. It makes me so crazy. I still have these boots. I’d like to get rid of them just so that I never have to look at them again, but there they are every day, warning me of my own greed.

[christinealtomare]

why didn’t you like The Last Czars?? i’m here for a rant!!

For a few reasons. I’m not opposed to the docudrama format. I enjoyed the Roman Empire one also on Netflix enough, despite its gratuitous visuals, and think a good director could probably pull off the format very well. The Last Czars, however, was not it. 

I wasn’t a fan of the countless sex scenes between Nicholas and Alexandra, and Rasputin and half of the cast. I don’t think they added anything to the story they were trying to convey in any meaningful way and after a point, were just uncomfortable to watch. If I wanted to see porn, I’d go to pornhub lol. 

Additionally, I wasn’t a fan of the way the series seemed to be hellbent on portraying Nicholas II as a potentially good leader corrupted by his wife’s wants. He was presumably a good father and husband, I don’t think that’s something anybody would dispute, but Nicholas II was not a good ruler. Both he and Alexandra were pretty unfit for that role and I think if they did want portray him as not a terrible man, that could have been better done by showing his interactions with his children. 

Going off of that last point, while I didn’t love the lack of OTMAA, I understand why they would choose to not focus on them too much since the series as a whole seemed to be more concerned with portraying Nicholas as the final ruler. However, throwing the Anna Anderson plot in there kind of throws a wrench in whatever they were trying to get at there. We see one, maybe two, shots of little Anastasia throughout? Yet for some reason, half of the screen-time is dedicated to is she or is she not the lost princess and while I can see that being a compelling conflict maybe a decade or so ago, as an audience, majority of us are pretty aware at this point that she isn’t. So, when it’s finally revealed that she is in fact a fake, it’s not nearly as climactic as what I’m sure the crew was hoping for because 1) there was literally no build-up lol. The flashbacks focused entirely on Nicholas II/Alexandra/Rasputin and little to no time was spent on the after-math of the execution. 2) Anastasia not having survived the massacre is basic, historical knowledge at this point.

I think as a whole, The Last Czars could have been successful even in all of its low-budget glory had they chosen a cohesive narrative and stuck with it. Drop the Anna Anderson plot, less sex scenes, focus on the build-up that led to Nicholas II sucking as a ruler and ultimately having to abdicate, and why despite all of this, the family was ultimately chosen to be eradicated anyway. Don’t include meaningless Rasputin orgys, expand on why him being the only one who could heal Alexei was such a big deal and how that led to his increasing influence within the family. Less magic man stuff that toes between fantasy and misconstrued history. End on a meaningful note about how all of the bodies were indeed found and no survivors were confirmed. Maybe a couple of shots of the statues and stuff being constructed in Yekaterinburg dedicated to Nicholas II’s family. Done.

[retphienix]

Hi there! Long time reader of your liveblogs, great stuff! (Apologies if the Submit box isn’t a good way to message you, I’m not a tumblr veteran.) I just re-read your Fallout: New Vegas liveblog, though, and had some thoughts about your intense hatred of Ulysses. Now, I 100% get your frustrations with the character, especially compared to the more colorful, less lecture-y characters elsewhere in the game and DLCs. But there was one element where I thought an alternate viewpoint might help you, if not *like* the character, at least make peace with his existence in the game. You mentioned hating the way he was a sort of embodiment of taking player choice away. The comments on how the Divide was the Courier’s “home”, the insistence that this is all the Courier’s fault, etc. Taken at face value, I agree, that’d be an annoying thing for the writers of The Lonesome Road to do. But I never interpreted it that way. Instead, I always saw Ulysses as a madman. An articulate, high-functioning madman, one who can even make a convincing point here and there, but a madman nonetheless, utterly broken by years of trauma (much of it self-inficted) and a desire to find purpose and meaning in *everything*, meaning that was usually completely and utterly absent. It began when his tribe was wiped out by the Legion. It was an act of utterly pointless brutality, but that was something that Mr. Symbols Are Important couldn’t wrap his mind around. So instead, he convinced himself that his tribe was destroyed because they deserved it, convinced himself to serve the self-absorbed history-fanboy dictator responsible, because otherwise he would have to accept the meaninglessness of it all. His madness went into overdrive when a simple delivery resulted in the nuclear destruction of his *latest* home. His mind had to find a culprit (you) for the destruction, as well as a Greater Purpose for it all. If I recall correctly, there’s even a choice in the dialogue to say “What? I’ve never been here. You’ve got the wrong guy.” or something to that effect, which Ulysses dismisses. Not because he *actually* knows better than the player, but because in his mind, you simply *must* be here for a reason, you *must* be the one who caused all this, if you’re the wrong person then what was all this for? And yes, he keeps lecturing you for the destruction the Courier causes as you pursue him, but again, I saw that not as the narrative saying “LOOK WHAT YOU DID, PLAYER”, but as yet another sign that this man is obsessed with proving to himself that you’re every bit the avatar of destruction that he’s come to view you as. He’s blind to the fact that *he’s* the one who chose to call out to you and taunt you into following him, because it doesn’t fit the grand tale he tells himself to assure himself that everything still makes sense. My memory’s fuzzy here, but I vaguely recall that the only ways to beat Ulysses without fighting or using a Speech check involve shattering Ulysses’s own narrative. (The Speech check is more about playing into his narrative/philosophy, which I suppose is fitting.) Either you point out the fact that ED-E’s recordings, point of origin, and destination suggest that there’s more “America” out there than than Ulysses realized (rendering his “WAAAAH YOU KILLED A NATION SO NOW I’M GONNA DO THAT TOO” rhetoric utterly hollow), or you use his logs to point out that for all his pontification and self-righteousness, his philosophy is just as fruitless and self-destructive as the many broken philosophies he encountered and dismissed in his many journeys (the Think Tank, the Brotherhood, the White Legs, etc.). You even echo his own “Who are you, that do not know your history?” back at him - the same line he used against a batch of insane brain-robots who were *literally* stuck in a feedback loop, unable to to see beyond their own petty obsessions. Sound like anyone you know, Ulysses? I’ve rambled on enough, so I’m going to end on the observation that most amused me while I was re-reading your liveblog. As Ulysses came up again and again, even in segments that barely featured him, it occurred to me that he had more or less become the focal point of your problems with the game. His buggy faction-recognition was emblematic of your complaints on the faction system, his DLC’s lack of glitz and glamour echoed your problems with the setting’s aesthetic, and his dialogue seemed to embody all your least favorite aspects of the game’s writing. In other words, you came to perceive him as a perfect Symbol of what’s wrong with Fallout: New Vegas. You came to hate him, and the Flag he bore.   How… Ulysses-ish of you. :)

I enjoy a good read on fallout so why not :P

My response might sound strange as I’ll respond as I’m reading so keep that in mind: To start I MIGHT CHANGE MY MIND SHORTLY BUT I WISH YOU WERE WRITING ULYSSES INSTEAD OF THE POMPOUS REAR END WHO FORCED HIM IN THE GAME BECAUSE YOUR INTERPRETATION COULD HAVE LEAD TO SUCH A FUN CHARACTER.

Seriously! Like, I’ll tell you right now I don’t expect your argument for Ulysses to change much of my mind- but you’ve already instilled a sense of potential that I never saw. IF YOU WROTE HIM, HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN SO MUCH BETTER IN MY EYES, I love the interpretation of him being an articulate madman. I really appreciate you sharing that.

I’M GONNA SCREAM BECAUSE YOU’RE RIGHT LOL.

Ulysses IS my symbol for what’s wrong with New Vegas, and that goes beyond how I articulated in my liveblog. For years before this replay of NV I would complain about the game and call it a terrible pile of trash (an opinion I’ve grown to understand was because I only recalled the worst parts of NV- My opinion is more gray and more based on “It’s good but has problems” now)- I digress. I complained about the game for years and EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. In my head the only thing I could think of was Ulysses. The self insert from one of the worst writers in this game, whom shows up in the narrative constantly as a pointless background character just to steal agency from the player- whom got a dlc all to himself just to preach and talk down to you in a “Writer vs player” sort of way, whom based his morals on a corrupt and crappy faction system that didn’t even align with his morals because the factions are written kinda poorly.

I honest to god, have used him as my symbol for what’s wrong with NV for years BEFORE writing the liveblog. I mean I stand by that- but I’m screaming that you’re 100% right lol.

Darn, I feel so much better having read this. Thank you for sharing, seriously! Because your interpretation is miles better than what I see in the game, and I honestly can’t really credit your interpretation as my new interpretation BUT I can credit it as how I wish he was written. Basically you were able to pull out such an interesting narrative that I think is only really there if you try to pull it out. And I don’t say that negatively, that’s the rule of interpretation- you see what you see.

What I mean is, I desperately wish the writers were more at the speed you seem to be, because my god I feel like you’ve just revealed miles of potential that I don’t think they really tackled effectively. Also I feel like if you’ve got that head on your shoulders, maybe some other flaws would have been a touch better as well. But darn man. Thank you for sharing this- it gave plenty to think about and it really did make me feel like more potential existed than I assumed.

Now, to be honest and mean, that’s kind of a bad thing because it means I now think Ulysses ‘could have been’ better but they screwed it up, and wasted potential is arguably worse than no potential- BUT, in this case I’ll say it’s good thing. Because I really have done like a decade or something like that feeling like he had no potential and existed purely as a negative void of good content- but now I can see a glimmer of light. I like that.

Thank you for sharing, and thank you for that god like semi-roast of calling me out I REALLY dig knowing that. I’ve done it for years and never realized! Thank you :D

[scribeofjiaal]

Random ask time! Are you working on any other books besides Cohime? If not, do you plan on making any others after it's done?

Cohime is bluntly described as a massive project that’s taken up a great deal of my brain space for more than a decade of my life, so from the project itself there are plans for expounding upon certain characters lives both before and after the resolution of the story. 

Additionally to that, I have had a few other ideas come and go over the years, and probably the one that’s stuck around the most is a sort of Monster Apocalypse novel which I still haven’t named but have spent a decent portion of my mind fleshing it out. In the novel the modern world has been ended by a race of parasitic creatures that are instinctually attracted to city centers for breeding purposes [they seek out high concentrations of certain minerals that humanity likes to use in the building of things] and are highly aggressive to anything that isn’t themselves. They appeared suddenly, they multiplied quickly, communications broke down and humanity has clung on in small groups that found hiding places and weapons enough to survive. The writing begins some twenty years after the disaster, with a group that co-opted the grounds of a university as a safe haven and managed to gather a number of survivors. The main character, Paige, is a teacher within their system as well as a seasoned scout; educating the younger generation on what they need to know to survive on scavenging runs. Things get rolling when the eggheads on-base [we call it base] get far enough in their research to realize that these creatures didn’t crash in from space or somehow naturally evolve-- someone engineered them. 

I want to explore a number of themes in the above described work, particularly the most painful side of motherhood-- Paige lost a two-year-old daughter, Anne, when the world ended, and suffers greatly at the hands of her own mind because of it. She became estranged from Anne’s father, unable to look at him without being reminded of her little girl. She never had kids again, and her teaching is very much a sort of surrogacy as she does her damnedest to ensure every kid in her orbit knows what they need to know not to die meaningless deaths. Of the keepsakes she holds onto from before the world ended is an old cassette tape on which she recorded herself singing ‘You are my Sunshine’ to her baby. [Gimme a break I first started working on this story back in 2000 when the CD was just taking over. I still have had a cassette player.]

More so, the monsters are just cool. They’re a parasitic life form that takes many shapes and sizes, all of which are capable of spitting a highly acidic compound. Obviously useful for offensive reasons, but this also factors into their life cycle, too. An egg-bearing mother will go hunting up some kind of mineral deposit when its time to reproduce, most often iron or steel because holy crap have humans dug a lot of that shit outta the ground. Once she finds a steel beam or some iron re-bar, still spit her eggs onto it, mixed with acidic compound. The eggs are protected from this, but the acid is strong enough to melt the mother’s chosen platform for her eggs a little bit and let her eggs attach to it. It’s discovered through the course of the book that this is where varieties of parasite are differentiated; whether they were attached to iron or steel or aluminium or gold or silver or whatever else they were able to find effects which parts of the new creature’s DNA gets expressed, and results in a number of differently adapted creatures that require different strategies to avoid, escape, or kill. 

From here, the mother fucks off to whatever she pleases, and the eggs are left to develop. They start small, and hatch into the first stage of their life cycle which is universal across all of the parasites; larva. Tube-like worms that start tiny but will grow quickly with food, they’ve a great many tiny teeth on their interior that ensure any prey captured will not escaped until the larva has sucked them dry. At their largest they can be a meter long, and at that size they can easily stretch themselves wide enough to encompass a small child and begin the feeding process of draining their blood from all directions through thousands of tiny puncture wounds. Once a larva has latched on, there usually is no removing it without ripping the host apart. It won’t wiggle to escape if exposed to fire, and it lacks a central brain to shoot for a clean kill. Freezing might be an option if the technology and energy is available, but usually it is not. I’ve used a child as example, but more often they attach themselves to animals useful for human existence; like the legs of cows and sheep. 

After about six months at this stage, larva will find a place to hide an pupate into their adult form. Depending on what metal or stone their mother spat their eggs onto, they can change into a number of different creatures, but for this one we’ll focus on the most common egg platform; iron. Iron births a quadruped creature with thick, scaly skin, large fore-paws with long clawed digits, and a massively wide head like a hammer-head shark with a great many eyes that are capable in peering in all directions around it. They are fast and strong, with excessively good senses of sight and smell... but they’re perchance not entirely all that smart, which is all a human survivor can hope to take advantage of in this most common of encounters. [I’ve got a small mountain of notes on what metals and rocks makes what monsters, but I am in no mood to see where the heck they ended up after this particular move XD]

A bullet to the head will stop an adult parasite, as they now have central neural matter to shoot... though bullets are now treated as currency for their universal value and scarcity. Cutting off a limb or crushing them also works, as they now have a circulatory system to speak of as well as bones and organs. They also will starve to death, if not fed, which has enforced a sort of deer and wolves carrying capacity of these creatures after the majority of humanity was killed off in the initial incursion, with humanity as the deer. 

... I honestly feel like this idea would work better as a survival-shooter game than a book, with a narrative gravity similar to The Last of Us. That said, I’m gonna keep working on it behind the scenes. 

[then again I’ve thought as Cohime in the context of gaming too and man oh man is that a n o t h e r kettle of fish]

[sombytaco]

Why DaveKat is Narratively Important

Let’s talk about DaveKat because I have nothing better to do!! So, whether or not you personally ship or agree with davekat, this is just going to be about how, from a narrative standpoint, it is 100% vital to both Dave’s and Karkat’s storylines and personal character arcs, let’s start with:

Knight Class- So, bit of class/aspect analysis because the fact they both Dave and Karkat are both Knights is absolutely VITAL to their character development and their connection to each other. Something Kanaya said, that classpects are not necessarily chosen to suit the strengths of each player but rather to challenge them in a way that is most beneficial to their personal growth? That is completely correct, Dave and Karkat being some of the best examples in the comic. The aspects are the elements which the game, and therefore the universe(s) are made of - literally. Like, these are the constructs out of which the world exists, the building blocks so to speak. However, they also represent more metaphorical concepts, Life=Optimism, Hope=Belief, Heart=Soul, so on and so forth etc. So paired with the Knight class, the active pairing of Maid class, we have to examine how exactly the aspect *applies*. Obviously, being active, the Knight class is self serving (more on active vs passive or knight vs maid specifically if y'all hmu with some asks I’d be happy to explain more in depth), there’s also a metric shitload of symbolism involved in the name. I’ve been reading this comic for almost five years and the sheer amount of symbolism never ceases to amaze me, but the absolutely loaded amount of metaphorical value behind this class has to be in my top 5. The classic “knight” iteration, sword and shield type of deal, is instrumental in the interpretation of how Dave and Karkat wield their abilities and grow as characters. The weapon is obviously the way in which they wield their aspects, but the shield is so much more interesting: it’s their PERSONA. Part of the blatant parallels between Dave and Karkat’s story arcs is how they allow others to perceive them in regard to their own internal struggles, they both put up a persona to protect themselves. For Dave it’s his “coolkid” facade, he doesn’t let others see his emotions, feelings, or motivations because he’s so wrapped up in this delusion of irony and toxic masculinity that he feels it would be a weakness to show himself for what he is, one that could very possibly (at the hands of Bro) get him severely injured at best, dead at worst if he fears for his life which is a distinct possibility. Karkat suffers in a similar way, his persona is this image of the overly aggressive, “shouty/angry” guy, he’s loud and obnoxious because he’s trying to keep people at arms length, similar to how Dave doesn’t let anyone in. Karkat also has similar motivations behind this persona, because of his blood color he knows he will be in immediate danger if people get too close, look to closely, care too much, so if he can shout and seem just as bloodthirsty and aggressive as other trolls, he can both keep them away and keep himself free of suspicion. So, they have their shields, their personas, this is how they protect themselves from the world. Let’s talk about their weapons.

Aspects- As I mentioned above, aspects are the literal elements that make up the world, but also have a more metaphorical meaning. In the same way that Heart=Soul, Dave’s aspect Time is not only literally representative of time, but metaphorically representative of PROGRESSION. Karkat’s aspect of blood is therefore, while literally blood (possibly a reference to his mutation), also more symbolically representative of UNITY. Now, let’s see how those apply to each players personal struggle, because remember that’s the key here, how their classpects tie in to their character arcs. Dave is troubled by his aspect at multiple points throughout the storyline, severely disturbed by dead Dave’s and essentially haunted by the multiple loops he has running, in what is a single day to his fellow beta players likely feels like *weeks* for him, he’s not progressing in the game, he’s running all these loops and doing so much and yet he’s not really going anywhere. He’s like a broken record, if you will. Dave doesn’t see himself as a hero, broken sword symbolism aside because I cannot get into that rn lmao that’s way too loaded and this is long enough, Dave *can’t* see himself as a hero because in his mind, Bro was a hero, and he will never live up to it, so why bother. Easier to just run his loops and do whatever Terezi says because she’s probably right and anyways it’s just easier to do something menial and meaningless that doesn’t move anything forward because he would probably fuck it up anyways, right? Dave is so stuck in the past, haunted by his loops, haunted by the legacy of his Bro, haunted by dead Daves, he is terrified (whether consciously or subconsciously) of moving forward, of Progression. Alternatively, Karkat’s aspect of Blood, or UNITY trips him up in similar ways. Karkat’s relationships are…complicated. It’s been *headcanoned* that he comes across as pale towards most of his friends, because despite how hard he tries to act loud and aggressive, he’s a big softie who cares way too goddamn much about everything. Terezi also represents his biggest struggle with Unity and relationships, he “wanted her in every quadrant like a desperate fool”, and she played along for a while to see if he would settle in any one quadrant, but when he never did she moved on. This is a huge blow to Karkat’s self-esteem, he thought he was being so suave and smooth just like his romance novels and movies, but really he was pushing her away either knowingly or unknowingly. On the topic of his romance novels, his obsession with relationships also shows him trying to compensate (more on this in a sec) for his lack of capability in the area, as if he’s studying them to get a better understanding of how relationships should work because he really has no idea. In his very first conversation with Sollux that we see, he ends by affirming that he hasn’t gone too far right? They’re still friends? Because underneath his loud, obnoxious persona, he’s just acting the way he thinks he’s supposed to in this hyper-aggressive society. Sound familiar? It’s because Dave is doing the same thing. They’re both using their personas to survive, to appear the way they think they should to other people, because when it comes to their aspects, they’re fucking terrified and don’t have a clue as to what they’re really doing.

Storyline Parallels- So, I’ve seen a lot of good analysis of this and I doubt any of what I’m saying will be news to any of you, but I’m gonna put it in my own words as best I can bc this shit is imperative to understanding why DaveKat works so perfectly in the narrative. Dave is obviously working an uphill battle the entire story to overcome the hyper-masculinity (see also: toxic) that his Bro has ingrained in his psyche for 13 years. Not the least of which is some deeply rooted homophobia. Dave fronts constantly, accusing others of being gay, accusing *Karkat* of being gay pretty amusingly. Obviously he pokes at this in other people because he’s so insecure about it in himself, he struggles heavily with his sexuality the way so many pre-teens do, only he’s fighting against a decades worth of anti-gay propaganda basically so there’s no room for him to search within himself too deeply without feeling deeply uncomfortable because obviously that’s Wrong and Bad and that’s not how society works in his world. Similarly, Karkat struggles with the quadrants which is practically unheard of on Alternia. It’s such a clear parallel to human homophobia that like. I’m left speechless when I think about it honestly. Their struggles are so overwhelmingly similar and parallel to each other sometimes I just have to stop and appreciate it. But back on topic, his whole life, Karkat has grown up with this over idealized concept of romance, the quadrants, and he obviously knows something is wrong with himself from an early age. Karkat’s obsession with romance novels is no coincidence, he’s clearly always felt off when it comes to that and so he most likely reached out to these novels and movies to get a better grasp of the quadrants, consuming what was essentially romantic propaganda to overcompensate. The problem is, in studying these works, he latched onto the wrong thing which is so funny to me. He’s reading these trying to understand, to make himself fit into this system because that’s what society is like *cough* heteronormativity *cough* and yet he latched onto quadrant vacillation like it’s the holy fucking grail of romance. Like oh, okay, this is normal? Obviously people do this, as long as they switch within the bounds of the system it’s Okay™ and even romantic in some occasions. Only, this is fiction he’s reading and if you try to apply the logic of romance novels to real life…well, we all know what happened with Terezi. He was constantly pushing the boundaries of vacillation, he was red for her, he wanted to act black on occasion, he cares so much about everyone it’s impossible for him not to be pale, and we see him (though I doubt he realizes he’s doing it) trying to auspistice for her and Gamzee in the pre-retcon timeline by staging a sort of intervention. He “wanted her in every quadrant like a desperate fool” and I don’t understand how people put Karkat into the quadrant system!!! That line is so IMPORTANT, not even taking into account that we know his dancestor, who shared his blood mutation which may have had something to do with his irregularities, loved the Disciple “beyond the quadrants”. It’s. So. Obvious. Karkat is overcoming the stigma of wanting to love beyond the quadrants in the same way that Dave is struggling to overcome the loaded idea behind being Not Straight. They’re both overcoming these extremely similar prospects and it’s an absolutely stunning feat of narrative that as an English major it makes me fucking weak in the goddamn knees like Hussie is a lot of things but this? This is fucking genius. I’ve never seen two characters written together in such an in depth and parallel way before.

Opposites Attract- So we’ve talked about their similarities, let’s talk about their differences and how those differences are also actually poorly disguised similarities. Karkat is obviously a Loud Boy, thats his coping mechanism. He keeps people out and away by being loud and aggressive. Dave needs to cope for similar reasons, to protect himself he needs to keep people out and away but he does it in just the opposite way, he gets quiet. He doesn’t talk about his shit. Sure, he’ll go on the rambling metaphor when the occasion calls, but although he’s always talking he’s never really saying anything. Karkat is an almost compulsive over sharer, like, the boy (bless his heart) has zero filter. Dave will talk your ear off just as well, but I’ll be fuckin damned if he says anything worthwhile outright (his many, many Freudian slips aside). It’s also interesting to note that while I’ve seen people talk about how part of the reason Karkat doesn’t fit into Alternian society is that he’s so human, as its stated in the narrative that after seeing this soft species, that shares his blood color and stupid, stupid compassion, even *Vriska* admits that Karkat seems to fit in better with them than he ever did with trolls, we don’t see the same for Dave? I’ve rarely, if ever, seen the situation flipped, in that Dave was more suited for Alternian society the same way Karkat was more human than troll or at least had severely human aspects. Obviously Dave’s romance is still very human in that he’s a big ol’ fan of monogamy (he and Karkat both faced problems in their relationships with Terezi romantically when she became involved in other quadrants, these boys love monogamy I’ll fight), but his upbringing? Yikes. Lusii are supposed to, while still protecting their trolls, prepare them for the harsh and violent world. Whether they had to kill other trolls and Lusii to feed them, or learn how to fight to fend off other trolls on their own, there was a shit ton of fighting in their pre-pubescent years. Trolls are a hyper aggressive, violent species that learn to fight basically as soon as they can walk, which is exactly what Bro did to Dave. Dave could fight practically from the second he crawled off the meteor, I doubt a day went by without a sword in his hand for some reason and god knows he suffered through enough strifes. Both boys were brought up just thoroughly *wrong* for their societies in a way that ensured they would never feel like they truly fit in.

Finally, Romance- In the final culmination of all this, let’s actually talk about how they work together as a couple. So, they have this overwhelmingly similar upbringing and life experience, what happens when they finally meet up? Dave thinks it’s hilarious that Karkat is always yelling, “get a load of this guy I was telling you about, Rose”, and while I have no doubt he thought Karkat’s shitfits were the funniest thing since Colonel Sassacre, there had to be a part of him that was just in awe of how someone could be so free with their emotions. Like, he’s angry? And you know it the second he walks into a room?? This is an entirely new concept to Dave, my son, who grew up with an insanely passive-aggressive psychopath who would sneak up on him and fight him with a crazy fucking puppet like what the fuck?? Dave has always had to be on edge at home, Bro was quiet so you never knew when he was upset and you never knew when he was coming for you. With Karkat, that’s such a non-issue it’s like the issue dined and dashed, no bill and no tip, vanished into the wind. You can hear Karkat stomping down the hall five minutes before he even gets into the room, and once he gets there oh boy he will Let You Know What The Problem Is. Why is Dave always provoking Karkat? Literally just to hear him yell because it’s so goddamn refreshing to know exactly with 100% certainty what someone is thinking, no irony, no bullshit, just genuine fucking refreshing annoyance. And for Karkat, well here’s the guy he’s always wanted to be, right? Cool and suave, the romcom hero who could smooth talk the paint off a wall. Only, Dave isn’t actually cool in the way he pretends to be, he’s not this smooth suave hero, he’s not even just a hero. He can’t be. He’s just…a kid. A kid like Karkat who has issues like Karkat and talks just as much when he’s nervous as Karkat and he’s relatable even though he’s trying not to be. He’s trying so hard to be what society wants from him he wants to be the tough guy with the sword but he’s just so not and that’s so refreshing! Karkat realizes he’s not the only one who’s trying to live up to some buttfuck impossiblestandards and he realizes…that’s okay. He doesn’t have to be anything he’s not. And they figure that out together.

So pardon me if I don’t understand how you can put Dave with John, or Jade, because they don’t fit. The narrative literally doesn’t benefit in any way for them to fit, and if it’s your personal preference then by all means go for it who am I to stop you, but there is no benefit to them being together. They will not grow from it, John is explicitly someone who doesn’t seem to focus or care much about romance even? And Jade has no concept of anything Dave has gone through, she couldn’t even begin to understand. Same with Terezi and Karkat, or Gamzee and Karkat or John and Karkat or whatever, Terezi likes quadrants. They make sense to her and she enjoys them, Karkat cannot bring himself to deal with with that and they’re so much happier as just friends. I’m not even getting into Gamzee, I’m not even gonna dip my toe into that discourse because everyone likes different characters for different reasons and I won’t begrudge you of that so I’m just gonna stay away. So again, if you ship those then that’s fine! Go for it! This is just an analysis of why the narrative, in my personal perspective, supports DaveKat and why I personally think they are good and healthy for each other and help each other grow as people.

[tessatechaitea]

Justice League #14

Just fucking great. Bryan Hitch is back to writing.

These asshole Green Lanterns can make anything they can think of and they choose to make Batman, Aquaman, Cyborg, and Flash squat uncomfortably in bubbles? At least create some kind of space stagecoach, you lazy jerks.

• The object shoots a green laser out of the part of it that isn't anything like a Death Star at all. It blows the Justice League back into Earth and into a huge crater in the city. That probably means a few thousand people are dead which means a few thousand super-villains were just created due to the Justice League failing to save their loved ones. • And just like that, we're back at where the comic book fake began, showing that opening the comic book in that way added nothing to the narrative. It's almost as if the fifth page was mistakenly printed as the first page. I suppose the first page was going to be wasted no matter what since Bryan Hitch obviously meant for the real story to begin with a double splash page. And most comic books never print any of the story on the inside cover.

Oh. So now Superman can be defeated by sticking him in a windowless room?

• Cyborg's GPS was obviously destroyed in the blast. "Twelve miles below Canada" is not an answer to "Where are we?" I mean, it's an answer, sure. But it's not a precise one and therefore meaningless to the spirit of Superman's query. • Just before Cyborg was shot in the face by a Death Star, he managed to hack that Death Star and learn all about it while also shutting down its main gun. So now he can fill in the rest of the League on what they're up against. The space object is a laser drill that goes from star system to star system strip mining everything in the system. It's too bad they always begin with the third planet out from the sun or else maybe the Justice League would have had some warning that they were coming. Or maybe all the planets out past Earth have already been destroyed because nobody believed the astronomers when they were warning everybody. They were just all, "I don't want to believe that so shut up."

Of course it took down Flash! He was in a stupid green bubble with nowhere to run!

• Oh, excuse me. Some of my snark needs to be corrected. Apparently the strip mining planet also breaks down red suns. That means part of its caloric intake is based on red sun matter which obviously means that any energy created from red sun energy is practically lethal to Superman. It's just science! • The Justice League treats the situation lightly, as if thousands of people weren't just killed in a huge blast from a space drill that's threatening to destroy the entire solar system. Maybe a little sense of urgency would be appropriate. This isn't Giffen and DeMatteis's Justice League.

Shut the fuck up. You're always out of your depth.

• By the way, Aquaman looks like he's coming after being fucked in the ass in that panel. Don't ask me how I know that look and why I own such a large mirror that rests on the floor. • It's times like this when I'm reading a comic book by Bryan Hitch that I think, "I really miss commenting on poorly written comic books!" • As the team regroups (see the title! It's all about regrouping!), Jessica Cruz needs another fucking pep talk because she's so fucking fragile.

Apparently Cyborg was even less precise than I realized. They're twelve miles beneath Canada! That's, um, uh, a long fucking way down! That's deeper than the deepest part of the deepest ocean. Aquaman was being literal when he said he was out of his depth! And according to the quickest Internet search I could manage, the deepest hole ever dug was seven and a half miles deep. At that point, the temperature in the hole was 180°C! And yet the Justice League seems pretty comfortable in their hole. Maybe they really are just twelve miles below the Canadian border and The Flash, who was unconscious and probably concussed when Cyborg mentioned where they were.

• Simon mentions how he and Jessica need each other to charge their rings. I forgot about that. Maybe that's why Jessica hasn't been allowed to quit like she wanted to. Also, maybe that time she quit resolved differently than I remember since she's maintained membership with the League ever since. • Being stuck in a hole while the world is on the brink of destruction gives the Justice League a moment to pause and reflect on their relationship as a team. They're all, "Do any of us belong here?" And then they're all, "Yeah! We do! Let's do it, guys! Save the cheerleader; save the world!" • But before the group hug, Superman brings up that thing about how Batman keeps files on every member of the Justice League and little boxes with weapons that will allow him to defeat them all. They all act shocked at why Batman would feel the need to defeat them. Batman is all, "Hello? Eclipso?! I just fucking had to defeat you all, you judgmental assholes. And how many times has Superman been turned against us in just the last five years? Too many to count, really! I'm fucking saving the world here!" • Also before the group hug, Superman has to point out that they need to think of him as the old Superman or Rebirth is never going to work. Forget that whole Preboot thing and the death of the other guy that was stupid but had to be done because New 52 Superman had way too many poorly written moments to keep him alive. They need to think of Preboot Superman as New 52 Superman but without all the times Scott Lobdell wrote him and without all the stories written by Greg Pak and without any of the stories written by Andy Diggle and...well, I'm sure there were others that told fucking stupid Superman stories which made him untenable. • Now that they're all buddies again and trust each other implicitly forever and ever, it's time for Batman to come up with a plan.

No. You cannot use that as an example for defeating this real life threat!

• Look, we've all known for years growing up that the Death Star having that flaw made absolutely no fucking sense. Which is probably a good percentage of the reason why Rogue One was written! To explain that nonsense! Which it did fabulously! Rogue One was like the corrections section of a newspaper but instead of admitting to the mistakes and correcting them, it just told a new story that effortlessly weaves in some new perspectives to explain away a bunch of stupid bullshit that has always plagued the Star Wars fandom. It was the best piece of fan-fiction I've ever consumed. Although I didn't jerk off over it like most of the other pieces. • What I'm pointing out is that Batman's reasoning is flawed. This space drill doesn't necessarily have to have a flaw or weakness in its design. The Death Star only had a flaw in its design because it was sabotaged! This thing might have been engineered by the third smartest man on whatever planet it originally came from. • Batman's plan is to have the strong, invulnerable members of the team punch the big gun while the others Boom Tube inside and punch the people controlling the gun. That sounds less like finding the space drill's weakness and more like just punching it into submission.

This is how terrible writers resolve conflicts. It's also how all writers utilize stupid Aquaman.

• Superman comes up with a better plan that's a bit destructive considering there are sentient beings aboard this laser drill. He's going to get the "world-breaking sphere" to shove up the "exhaust port" of the "laser drill." I got carried away with the quotes. • I wonder why Superman didn't decide to just put it in the Phantom Zone along with everything else he puts in the Phantom Zone? • The last page just shows that the Justice League won because this story was about them regrouping and not about them fighting. I hope the next issue follows the race aboard the space drill and how they float off to die now that they don't have the ability to gather resources to sustain their people. Superman couldn't have gone aboard to speak with them after destroying their drill? Maybe point out that they shouldn't strip mine inhabited planets? Or maybe any planets? Maybe they could come up with a more responsible way to get their energy needs? Maybe something renewable and more sustainable? I don't think Bryan Hitch meant for this issue to have that message. He was just happy to leave it at "The Justice League broke the space drill and the world is safe! Who cares where the Space Miners strip mine next? Or die before getting their drill repaired? Not the League's problem!" The Ranking! -1! Don't get me wrong! I don't mind the theme of this issue and what it tries to accomplish. The League needed a moment to tell the readers, "Look. We're done with all the bickering about trust issues. We're going to focus on saving the world now and put all those other tensions aside." It was basically an editorial mandate that the fans accept Superman as the real Superman and accept the new Lanterns as Hal's replacements since he picked them personally. Those points can't be criticized anymore because the team dealt with them! And that's fine with me. Writers need to shape their world by telling the reader what's what and stop feeling the need to constantly justify continuity shit. But the book drops in the rankings because it is full of terrible nonsense and also a lot of people in Canada died. Or people twelve miles below the Canadian border died.

[terryblount]

Shenmue III – PC Review

The height of the console wars between Sony, Nintendo and Sega was undoubtedly a trial by fire for developer and publisher alike. These companies had invested huge sums of money in the promotion of their respective platforms, and studios hired the most creative minds in the business to develop that one game that would rise above their competitors. It is here that Sega deployed Yu Suzuki.

Now while gamers enjoyed an idyllic time in which studios created brilliant games to gain market dominance, one fact had become clear: Sega was falling behind. Nintendo had the mascots and Sony had massive 3rd party support, but Sega was stuck with a library for their Dreamcast console that just couldn’t gain a foothold. Sonic and the gang simply failed to bring in sales from this volatile market.

The opening of Shenmue with the murder of Ryo’s father

Fortunately, Yu Suzuki had been developing an idea since the previous generation for not just a new IP, but a new kind of game that didn’t really have a genre yet. Yu Suzuki had been at the frontline of the console wars for some time, but the game he was about to pitch for the Dreamcast had grand ideas worthy of Sega dropping an initial budget of a whopping $47 million. This game was Shenmue.

Sega’s killer app

Whereas Shenmue is more typically remembered for introducing modern, quick time events to the gaming world, which indeed it did, its true legacy lies in how Yu Suzuki had conceived the world’s first, 3D, open-world game. His team at Sega AM2 used their astounding pile of cash to invest not in action or explosive set pieces, but in pushing the boundaries of the player’s immersion.

When their masterwork finally released in 1999, gamers found themselves entering a world that was more than just a digital playground for the protagonist, Ryo Hazuki. The town of Yokosuka was a fully-realized, mini-universe filled with distinct characters, various side activities, and a day-night cycle which was all woven into the core of a beat-‘em-up, kung fu adventure. Truly a feat for the 90’s.

In short, Shenmue’s world and its revolutionary graphics felt like a reality not just to play in, but to live in. Yu Suzuki had a vision of making players a part of his game by giving them the freedom to progress at their own pace. Shenmue had therefore become a paradigm for how a new generation of games should represent the open-world genre, and its legacy is clear in everything from Grand Theft Auto to Assassin’s Creed.

Today this looks rather sterile. In the 90’s this blew gamers away

The neverending story

In terms of the actual narrative, Shenmue shares many characteristics with those 80’s Jackie Chan movies I used to watch as a kid on Friday nights. You play as Ryo Hazuki, a budding martial artist who witnesses his father being murdered over an ancient artifact named the Dragon Mirror.

The murderer in question is the formidable kung fu master, Lan Di, who journeyed to Japan from China once he learnt of the artifact’s hiding place in the dojo under the tutelage of Ryo’s dad. After forcing his father to hand over the mirror with his dying breath, Lan Di then returns to China with his prize, leaving the fire of vengeance burning strong in Ryo’s heart.

Ryo and Shenhua in a cave next to huge depictions of the dragon and Phoenix mirrors

The stage is set, and Ryo pursues his father’s killer starting with only the scraps of information he can salvage from the villagers of Yokosuka. He eventually picks up the trail of breadcrumbs and encounters some nasty people willing to defend the secret of Lan Di’s whereabouts with their lives. So, like Jackie, Ryo uses kung fu to pound some answers out of them, and thus improves his own fighting techniques along the way.

Sadly, our hero appears to be broke, which is where the infamous forklifting gameplay came in. Shenmue used its open-world as something of a pragmatic diversion where Ryo could earn some moola by doing mundane chores, such as forklifting for cash. Yet all work and no play makes Shenmue a dull game, which is why Yu Suzuki filled the game with various side-missions also, such as going to actual arcades in the town.

Enter Shenmue III

Again, this was the nineties and the first time gamers of the day could switch seamlessly between the game’s key story missions, the monotony of work, and fun side-activities within a single, cohesive package. It was far from perfect, as the tedium of just waiting or working did outweigh Shenmue’s fun factor (and the core gameplay) at times. The novelty of it all did make plenty of room for misfires.

Yet, the substantial following garnered by Shenmue and its sequel is testimony to how innovative the experience was. Yu Suzuki could not save the Sega Dreamcast, but droves of gamers loved the freedom of just exploring unrestrained through both games, helping Ryo with his detective work, practicing kung fu moves, or just trying their hand at all the mini-games. People wanted more.

So why the drawn-out pre-amble you may ask? Well, it has been 18 years since the release of Shenmue II, but I have to say I have never played a game released this many years after its forerunner, only to resemble it so closely. Shenmue III is such raw, undiluted fan service, so devoted to its source material that it seems utterly inseparable from the bigger picture.

Tranquil village life. This is probably the best world in the Shenmue universe thus far

Seriously, I played both the remastered ports last year to see what the fuss was about, and rather than feeling like a separate game, my time with Shenmue III often felt like an expansion pack, or perhaps a upscaled textured pack. On the one hand, this works in the game’s favour since this really is a true sequel in this eleven-part saga. On the other, certain aspects of the game should have been modernized a bit.

Why it works

As if nearly two decades haven’t passed, Shenmue III takes off right where players were left hanging with the previous game. Ryo has since made it to China in his search for Lan Di and finds himself in Bailu Village, a remote little hamlet nestled in the mountains known for its culture of martial arts and stonemasonry. It is also here where both the Dragon Mirror and its companion, the Phoenix Mirror, were created.

Ryo has also befriended Shenhua, the daughter of a stonemason involved with the mirrors’ creation, and in the words of the only friggin’ loading screen, “their fates becomes entwined”. As is the modus operandi from both prequels, the gameplay is once again centered around searching the village one small clue after another taking Ryo ever closer to Lan Di.

Shenhua

The Dragon Quest games are more generally regarded as by fans as the most chilled franchise and I have played almost all of them, but for me it is Yu Suzuki’s beloved series. Every time I launched Shenmue III I inhaled, exhaled and just relaxed as I luxuriated in the bliss that is fundamental to how the game unfolded before me. It is like Tai Chi transformed into a game.

Bailu Village is one of two main hub worlds that the game opens with and it is an absolute Shangri-la of green mountain fields, majestic peach trees in blossom, and villagers just going about life. While lacking the the more complex textures of a AAA title, the Unreal Engine 4 does the job beautifully here, and it it augments the game’s tranquility and total lack of stress.

Such tranquility

As Ryo continues his search of Lan Di’s whereabouts, and learns more of how this opening setting is a crucial component in the path leading to his father’s murder, the player is never rushed, or urged to progress. If you get tired of talking to people, or beating up the thugs harassing the villagers, go fight some of the monks at the local dojo, help the old shopkeeper chop some wood, try your luck at the various ‘pop-up casinos’ to buy Ryo some new threads, or… drive a forklift hahahaha.

Like I said, this is a thoroughbred entry in the Shenmue franchise and these fun (if perhaps somewhat meaningless) mini-games one again reinforce the idea that the player has left the real world behind.

You get to see Ryo not in over-the-top action scenarios, but is a variety of smaller, more routine situations that we ourselves could actually relate to, bringing the player closer to his character.

Yes you can race turtles!

There have been a few minor tweaks to the formula as well. Aside from the obvious graphical upgrade, Shenmue III sometimes lets the player skip ahead to an objective’s location and time. The fighting also feels much more responsive and easier to master since Ryo now executes moves automatically with deadly force once the player becomes skilled in executing a technique.

Why it doesn’t work

For all the occasional forklift driving, quick time events, casual character interaction, kung fu and other staples of the Shenmue franchise on display, the very character of the third installment also represents its biggest weakness. While Shenmue III smashed Kickstarter records, and while a dedicated fan base still upholds their beloved franchise, this game belongs mostly to them.

See, the problem with this kind of sequel where the only true change lies in the presentation is that the game very easily succumbs to its forebears’ weaknesses and shortcomings. Shenmue III is no exception.

Turtle racing!

I get that Shenmue was originally conceived as a sixteen-part epic, which was later cut to an eleven-part story covering four or five games, but the narrative just does not feel like it moves much further from square one. Ryo hardly makes any substantial progress towards avenging his father, and the overall plot is beginning to show signs of fatigue. I think Suzuki needs to consider wrapping things up.

The relaxed and tangential gameplay is also likely to ring hollow with players who like to see their grinding translating into something more substantial as with more modern RPG’s. It is true that the martial arts training is useful to Ryo to a certain extent, but even my nostalgia failed to cover up how I was often doing something in the game only to wonder what the point of this activity was.

Again, it must be remembered that Shenmue III is attempting to make a seamless transition with the first two games which took shape in a climate that had never seen any of this before. Bringing this forwards to the current generation creates a charming sense of continuity, but also gives Shenmue III a noticeably asynchronous feeling when placed next to the hoards of games it inspired.

I don’t really have an issue with the graphics given that this game’s budget places it on the lower, middle shelf. In fact, at times it even puts other releases with five times its budget to shame. Yet, I imagine many players would likely be put off by the slightly robotic look of the NPC’s regardless. Where I see old-school charm, others are guaranteed to perceive certain aspects of the visuals as dated.

One for the fans

So there you have it. Despite the community thinking Yu Suzuki’s most passionate project had died with the veryconsole it was trying to preserve, here we are, eighteen years later, thanks to the magic of crowdfunding. Instead of trying to establish itself as a new JRPG force to be reckoned with, Shenmue III seeks to pay tribute to what players loved and remembered about it.

Unfortunately, to those that have never played the first two Shenmue games, or have little interested in the legacy of this series for our beloved pastime, this very fact makes Shenmue III a hard sell to newcomers. Standing by itself, this game is bound to raise more questions than answers, and looking at several early reviews, it seems that players just weren’t feeling it.

As a recently converted Shenmue fan, however, I enjoyed my time with it in spite of a few frustrations. It was so relaxing to play and I can practically sense Yu Suzuki’s passion within every aspect of the gameplay. They will not get away with this formula for a fourth time though, so Shenmue IV had better try to introduce a few modern, open-world mechanics to bring it up to speed. For now, we can allow one last homage to the past I think.

Pure fan service

Decent variety of mini-games

Tranquil tone

Looks good for AA game

Needs more fast travel

Some boring grinding

English localization sucks

Dull side-missions

          PC Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM – Played using an XBox One controller

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