#another wall of text

[rooniearts]

OKAY SO- does sonic ever realize he screwed up when leaving patiya(probably spelled that wrong) behind? Does he ever acknowledge her? What would she do if he tried? Would tails stand in the way? Is Knuckles mad at sonic? Sorry for so many questions, I just found this AU recently and I am OBSESSED (in a healthy way). Love your art and I can't wait to see how this AU grows!

He absolutely does! In fact, he realizes pretty early on that he's screwing things up with Pitaya, but just doesn't know how to do right by her and is too prideful to ask for help. He figures he doesn't need to and that everything will turn out fine since Tails is already stepping in and helping... But now Tails is clearly mad at him too. It seems like no one's on his side anymore. This is why he eventually starts running off on adventures all the time with Ray and Mighty - they're the only two people he knows who aren't connected to this whole mess. This, too, is him avoiding the situation.

By the time he has Barb, his deepest regret is how he handled Pitaya. He wants to make amends, but he still doesn't know how. He hopes just being friendly to her will start bridging the gap, but she's responded coldly so far. He's not happy about it, but he won't force her to accept him. He just hopes she knows that he's there for her now if she ever needs him.

Tails doesn't get in the way of this, he actively avoids interacting or dealing with Sonic directly up until certain events (that y'all will see later!). If Sonic can figure out how to bond with Pitaya, that's fine by him.

And yes, Knuckles gets mad at him too, but only until they fully separate. When they don't have a little kid or co-parenting to argue over, he gets along with Sonic just fine. He even considers him a good friend still, up until the topic lands on Pitaya. Then it's a battle to the death again.

[jomeimei421]

Felt a bit nostalgic watching RT shut down…Here are the og faves again for old times sake 💙

[mumbeau]

mumbos s10 plotline is soooo incredibly compelling to me ive said this again and again and reiterated on the suicide aspect of it hard in posts but that's only a piece of his whole deal. hes gotten caught in this weird space where he believes killing himself, watching himself die, is the only way to live forever. he loves the ever changing world he's a part of so much that he wants everything to stay the same. he refuses to die on anyone else's terms but his own, so much so that... he ends up aiding in his own death on somebody else's terms anyways. mineds trap is working. he's become so invested in his own demise and preservation of life that his judgement on what he's doing has become so deeply clouded and his perception of what hes doing has warped. the way he's gone from calling the mumbot "me" to "it" to "him". He has this idealized version of his own shady plan that's been set in his mind ever since the idea came to him and that's been, in my eyes, consistently reinforced by mined that "i'll do this and then ill be this and then ill live forever with no problem!" and is unable to see the downsides past his fear because of the perceived time limit that's been imposed on him with his rapid aging. his s10 plot is driven by fear and nostalgia and success and failure that i feel is obviously a translation of some of olis own feelings as he reaches 30 and as he's kind of turned over a new leaf in his career in the past few years. it ties a lot of the smaller less groundbreaking aspects of cmumbos character that are so natural to him they often go unnoticed together into a single story. his impulsivity his suicidal tendencies his anxiety his sentimentality his love of technology and new and fun things his fear of the unknown his draw to the unknown. his will to live and his urge to die. his love of preservation and his love of destruction. his intricate multi step season plan with no consideration as to how this will be the last. everything about this plotline is a pile of contradictions that highlights itself with each passing video and its just so good It's so peak i will NEVER stop being annoying about mumbos s10 nothing can compare

[theythemmer]

Parted from me and never parted. Never and always touching and touched.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

if i said i picked up this issue for anything but drunk erik i fear i'd be lying

(Wolverine (2020) #3)

[ladyofchroyane]

Some of the most compelling narrative choices in the series gain new depth when seen through the lens of Snow White. Not only are the fairytale’s motifs and themes explored, but its traditional roles—especially those tied to gender, beauty, purity, and familial dynamics—are reshaped and subverted. George goes so far as to complicate the fairytale’s naming logic. Both Snow White and Jon Snow are named in ways that reflect how society perceives them, based on conditions of birth they could not control. In reworking such a familiar symbol, the narrative seems to pose a deeper question: what does it mean for birth to define you?

The opening of the Brothers Grimm’s Little Snow White features a queen seated at a window, sewing as snow falls. She pricks her finger on her needle, and then three drops of blood fall onto the snow, prompting her to wish: ‘If only I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood in this frame.’ Soon after, Snow White is born with those exact physical traits, and the queen dies. Snow White’s life is later shaped by these traits she was born with. This introduction finds an echo in Arya’s first chapter. Though the scene is not a direct recreation, the resonance is clear. For one, two central figures of the chapter—Jon Snow and Ghost—recreate Snow White’s symbolic triad of black, white, and red. And Arya, a known Lyanna lookalike, interacts with Jon at a setting defined by its window—mirroring the queen’s position in the fairytale. The set up is too similar to brush off as coincidence. Even the needle is present through Jon and Arya’s conversation, but where the original tale links the needle to traditional gender roles, here that is a bit inverted. It is needlework/swordplay that prompts the wish, and Jon Snow who grants it, gifting Arya the sword she names Needle. This connection deepens when Arya is read as a stand-in for Lyanna—Snow White’s mother in this reimagining, and is underscored by the knowledge that Lyanna, too, would have wished to wield a sword like Needle. In this light, Jon—the ‘Snow White’—has fulfilled his mother’s wish by empowering a girl like her. This moment is deeply rooted in the fairytale’s framework, but even outside that lens, one can see how this moment rejects predetermined identity at birth. Instead, it affirms the power of choice and personal agency, even in the face of stigma.

That said, at its heart, Snow White is a tale obsessed with beauty—so I must factor this into my analysis. This should be clear, but George does not play the trope straight. Instead, he reframes the idea of who is ‘fairest’ and why that matters. Early on, Jon Snow is described as ‘dark where Robb was fair.’ This juxtaposition flips the original script, and the word fair, which traditionally connotes beauty, is stripped of that weight and is posed as a simple descriptor of Robb’s lighter coloring in comparison to Jon’s darker one. So Jon is not the fairest, and yet that is a crucial factor of Catelyn’s discontent with Jon’s presence because Jon closely resembles Ned Stark, her husband. Her rejection of Jon mirrors the Queen’s rejection of Snow White, but here the source of tension isn’t beauty—it’s resemblance that only worsens underlying fears and insecurity. These insecurities are rooted in Catelyn’s constrained role as a woman in a society that limits her agency—even within her own home. So her push to have Jon sent away (despite her husbands protests) can be read as an act of defiance against the role assigned to her at birth.

That said, Catelyn is not a reimagined evil queen—she sort of exists as a foil. This distinction is essential to understanding not only her relationship with Jon, but also how the fairytale’s landscape is reconstructed. Crucially, Jon and Catelyn barely interacted in the text. This deliberate absence severed the emotional intensity of the “stepmother”/“stepchild” dynamic and reoriented asoiaf’s moral center. Their separation reinforces the idea that their conflict is not merely personal, but symptomatic of broader structural inequality. To emphasize her role as a foil to the evil queen, consider the moment when a young girl—Sansa—will seemingly surpass Catelyn in beauty. The trope is immediately subverted. Cat was not envious of Sansa’s looks—she was proud and happy for her daughter. By invoking the Snow White framework only to immediately deconstruct it, George really highlighted how simplistic the original fairytale’s dynamic was.

This framework is further utilized through Jon’s journey to Castle Black, which shares a few similarities with Snow White’s own escape through the unnamed forest. Jon’s journey through the wolfswood sparked personal growth, just as hers did, and he ultimately found shelter (emotional shelter) with a dwarf. Tyrion very clearly fills the dwarf role and his Lannister identity furthers this connection (Lannister wealth comes from gold mining similar to the Seven Dwarfs in the tale). Interestingly, in some Snow White variants the dwarfs are replaced by bandits or robbers, which is exactly who Jon ended up surrounded by at the Night’s Watch.

In the fairytale, after Snow White fled into the unnamed forest, the Huntsman killed a young boar in her place. The Queen later ate the boars lungs and liver under the false belief that they belonged to the girl. In Disney’s version, the Queen wanted Snow White’s heart, but the Huntsman tricked her by giving her a pigs. She kept the pigs heart in a box that when latched closed resembled a sword through a heart. Disney’s version seems to have been the inspiration behind the motifs in Randyll Tarly’s threatening monologue: ‘Three men-at-arms had escorted him into a wood near Horn Hill, where his father was skinning a deer. “You are almost a man grown now, and my heir,” Lord Randyll Tarly had told his eldest son, his long knife laying bare the carcass as he spoke. “You have given me no cause to disown you, but neither will I allow you to inherit the land and title that should be Dickon’s. Heartsbane must go to a man strong enough to wield her, and you are not worthy to touch her hilt. So I have decided that you shall this day announce that you wish to take the black. You will forsake all claim to your brother’s inheritance and start north before evenfall. “If you do not, then on the morrow we shall have a hunt, and somewhere in these woods your horse will stumble, and you will be thrown from the saddle to die . . . or so I will tell your mother. … Nothing would please me more than to hunt you down like the pig you are.” His arms were red to the elbow as he laid the skinning knife aside. “So. There is your choice. The Night’s Watch”—he reached inside the deer, ripped out its heart, and held it in his fist, red and dripping—“or this.”’ House Tarly’s sigil—the striding huntsman—marks Randyll for the Huntsman he is, and the ancestral sword Heartsbane provides a physical manifestation of the image present in Disney’s version, and Sam himself is the metaphorical pig. In my eyes, Randyll Tarly is a gender swapped Evil Queen who is unhappy with a son whom he considered too feminine. So Sam’s punishment for ‘failing’ to perform masculinity is dehumanization; because he couldn’t become the hunter, he became the hunted—which carried over to the Night’s Watch where he was mockingly called Lady Piggy by Alliser Thorne. This shows how pervasive and normalized this sort of toxic masculinity is, and that not conforming is life threatening. Contrasting Sam, Jon is depicted as a good hunter (someone who can perform masculinity) who could’ve ignored Sam’s struggles and fall in line, but he instead openly rejected the rigid, violent masculinity embodied by Thorne and Randyll. Jon used his advantages he gained due to his birth to protect.

Taking this further, just as the pig is a stand in for Snow White in the fairytale, Sam serves as a stand in for Jon so the huntsman encounter can be present in Jon’s narrative. Notably, Jon is the only person Sam confides in about this traumatic encounter, which signifies how they share the role of Snow White. On that note, Jon’s protection of Sam could be seen as an inversion of the fairytale dynamic—Jon, the ‘Snow,’ protected the pig here, not the other way around. More importantly, Jon’s acceptance of Sam was also a form of self-acceptance. Jon only began to want the brotherhood he began to feel over his family at Winterfell after he decided that it would encompass Sam and the traits Sam embodies. If there was no place for Sam at the table, Jon no longer wished to sit there either. It’s important to note that Sam’s trauma reminded Jon of his own, which was why Catelyn came up in his memories. Sam sitting alone away from the other new recruits is no doubtfully meant to call back to Jon’s own displacement during the feast at Winterfell. But by looking at this through the lens of Snow White, this serves to link the Huntsman and “Stepmother” together to tighten the intertextuality even though Cat and Randyll had been no where near each other.

The Snow White framework is further employed when Jon found himself not only doing chores, but becoming a steward. Jon was placed in a role of (somewhat) domestic, undervalued labor—a traditionally female coded job. Jon was not happy about it. He wished to be a ranger—a male coded heroic role—but found himself doing chores for the Lord Commander, which is reminiscent of Snow White working as a maid in most variants of the fairytale. It’s important that Jon didn’t get what he wished for, and doubly so that a place of devalued labor was his pipeline to Lord Commander—it’s a clear reframing on gender roles and their importance in society. And crucially, it was because he helped Sam that it snowballed into this. The pig, a disposable figure in the fairytale, has become a symbol of overlooked value in asoiaf.

Though it’s important to admit that Jon and Sam’s experiences are clearly meant to be read as situational. Their setting and the decline of the Night’s Watch is one of the clear keys to their success. This type of malleability is not possible much elsewhere, and it’s certainly not easily achieved in King’s Landing where gender performance rules social and political interactions. Only very few exceptions seem to have been allowed, and Cersei was no exception here. Yes, Cersei—the archetypal Evil Queen. She even has the color scheme down, as the evil queen of the Grimm’s fairytale is only connected to two colors: yellow and green. And amusingly, though Cersei and Jon are separated by a great distance, she still found a way to engage with his story as his would be killers client. Very Evil Queen of her to call Catelyn a mouse for not killing Jon sooner, and while this line isn’t very important, I believe that it’s meant to once again strengthen the intertextuality as Cersei explores what she would have done in Cat’s place, which links the Evil Queen and “Stepmother” figures.

Through Cersei George does some of his best work. The Evil Queen of the fairytale can be read as simplistically vain, but some interpret her actions in the tale as an attempt to maintain her position and control within a patriarchal society that values women by how much they can be objectified. On that note, her role in Robert’s death therefore acts as a layered form of retribution. It’s justice for the socially sanctioned abuse he inflicted on her, it helps shine a feminist lens on the Evil Queen from the fairytale, and it gave the boar a fighting chance—which marks it as a sort of narrative revenge for Sam as the huntsman and pig roles are being utilized. ‘“Serve the boar at my funeral feast," Robert rasped. "Apple in its mouth, skin seared crisp. Eat the bastard. Don't care if you choke on him. Promise me, Ned." "I promise." Promise me, Ned, Lyanna's voice echoed.’ This is an obvious allusion to Snow White’s death—the apple is present along with the ‘choking’ line—but also includes motifs important to Jon. This just further solidifies my idea that the pig is sharing portions of Snow White’s roles.

Now, it wouldn’t be right to explore Cersei without mentioning her prophecy or the younger girls she’s harmed. I morbidly love that the younger and more beautiful queen from Maggy’s prophecy is a horrifying figure dressed up in superficial language. All Cersei has, all Cersei loves, is tied to her beauty—tied to the impermanence of beauty. It’s chilling. It’s also an obvious feminist reframing of the Evil Queen’s dynamic with the magic mirror. On that note, I want to discuss one of the younger girls Cersei has harmed, Sansa, and how Sansa fits into this. Fairytales often exist in many variants, but in this case there are actually two unrelated Grimm tales with characters translated into English as Snow White. The more well-known tale is Schneewittchen, which we typically associate with the poisoned apple and the Evil Queen. But there’s also Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot, or Snow-White and Rose-Red, a different fairytale entirely. In that story, the two girls are opposites: one associated with a white rose, the other a red one. The symbolism of the white and red rose plays a striking role in Sansa’s narrative (this somewhat reminds me of the sun and moon line from Ned), and I interpret this as a subtle merger of the two separate tales that share the name Snow White, deepening Sansa’s connection to both while positioning her as a Rose-Red figure—equal to but not Snow White. It’s a clever and beautiful bit of wordplay. That said, two other characters that appear in Snow-White and Rose-Red are a bear who is actually a prince and a dwarf. The nature of these two characters seems to be reversed in the series, as Sansa’s prince is more so a terrible bear who she mistook for a knight—making it fitting that The Bear and the Maiden Fair was sung to cover her telling Margaery and Lady Olenna of Joffrey’s true nature. And the role of the dwarf is obviously filled by Tyrion, though this time it’s the ugly dwarf who turned out to be better than the pretty prince.

However, I think Sansa’s most important connections to Snow White actually stem from Angela Carter’s ‘The Snow Child,’ which is a gothic retelling of the fairytale and part of The Bloody Chamber collection. The horror of the tale finds a mirror in Baelish’s predatory fixation, Lysa’s jealousy, and the snowy setting of the kiss. Like the Snow Child, Sansa is a replacement for an older woman, and she eventually ends up wearing Lysa’s clothing and inheriting her role. I’d even go so far to say that ‘The Roadside Rose’ was inspired by ‘The Snow Child.’ In the story, the Snow Child died picking a rose by the roadside for the Countess—she pricked her finger, bled, and died, and then the Count assaulted her corpse. Afterwards, the Snow Child melted and all that was left of her was a feather, a bloodstain, and the rose. All components of Angela Carter’s ‘The Snow Child’ are present, so I’m fairly certain that I’m looking at this correctly. That said, Sansa even took on a bastard identity and connected Alayne Stone to Jon Snow: ‘She had not thought of Jon in ages. He was only her half brother, but still . . . with Robb and Bran and Rickon dead, Jon Snow was the only brother that remained to her. I am a bastard too now, just like him. Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again.’

I may have missed some connections, but what I’ve noticed is that what emerges from all of this isn’t a simple inversion of the old story—it’s a messy patchwork of reimagined roles drawn from not just the original fairytale, but from a myriad of connected works. And I find that to be cool lol :)

[laurelwen]

The Myth of Consent

[Like Minds Masterpost - Humor]

[tomaturtles]

She finds Kaworu in the same place she left him, sitting against the wall with his head in his hands. The candlelight sets off an amber glow, and in the halo of light, she can see Kaworu’s shoulders shaking, his breath hitching in little hics. The tallies drawn on the wall behind him shine like hundreds of tiny white gravestones.

Kawoshin Week Day 5: Rebuild/Q + Timelooping Gays Crossover! Based on the Evangelion x Madoka Magica crossover fic graduation day by phollie, which I adore

[sunshades]

Kind of a dumb thought but something just hit me: What if Heathcliff got a bit of Book!Cathy's personality? Book!Heathcliff wasn't really very violent or temperamental but *Catherine* in the books was. Do you think that's true?

I'VE THOUGHT ABOUT THIS BEFORE TOO!

i remember laughing my ass off back in part 1 when hindley talks about losing the manor to her because that was like. wait. she wasn't lying she really is heathcliff 😭... then we find out it was Literally Heathcliff who physically ran that con, but it felt purposeful to have catherine be the one behind it, even if it was with nelly and n corp.'s help. book!cathy is impulsive, gets carried off by her feelings, while game!cathy has a much cooler and more calculating demeanor, even when literally getting overwhelmed by the despair of countless lifetimes (very heathcliff!). the way she explicitly sees the marriage as a means to an end in particular to me reads as closer to book!heathcliff's own view than to her book counterpart, who is instead the coping and suppressing queen 🔥

ON the other hand those traits fit heathcliff much more, i think particularly the way the reasoning behind it- cathy's is a reflection of how hindley has raised her, used to seeing that violence, always on edge and ready to snap at the slightest provocation. that's incredibly close to game!heathcliff, where a lot of the violence seems to come specifically from being insulted or looked down upon (hi S.E.A). it's a very different brand from book!heathcliff who, while also violent, is much more calculating about when and how to use it, working in tandem with his status to force others to respect his superior role as the patriarch. we see this trait in the erlking instead, the whole system of "whoever i kill belongs to me" which is cool as fuck btw.

also (<- guy who always has to make it about how theyre gen2) it's fun because some of these traits are then shared by the gen2 characters theyre based on too- catherine's more gloomy personality, the kind of fatalistic way of talking is in line with book!heathcliff but with catherine linton as well, with both of them getting described in mythical terms as a way to insult them (heathcliff is called a vampire at various points, cathy l. is called a witch) which checks out with game!cathy being described as frightening.

on the other side heathcliff's short fuse is close to book!cathy, but also to hareton, and both of them are also very empathetic (yeah even cathy. the if she made you cry she'd keep you company (and cry as well) from the early chapters as well as the whole each of his miseries speech) in a way that heathcliff shares, but not his book self. which is also a fun thought because book-wise heathcliff seeing catherine in her daughter is very obvious, but he also absolutely sees her in hareton which is so interesting.

there's also the factor of the post canto vi identities which is really huge. the narrative focusing on that theme of an empty life really connects heathcliff back to the catherine from the book- the repression of her feelings for heathcliff, the attempt to fit into a life she admits is not right for her, the idea that just forgetting about him would allow her to be happy. all ideas that both game and book nelly strongly believes in! and the outcome is SO similar to what happens to the heathcliffs of those worlds where she doesn't exist anymore. denying those feelings never truly allows either of them to actually suppress them. he ends up much like cathy falling into her delirium- asking whether he's going to come back for her, seeing him in the shadows, knowing something is wrong and something is missing even if you can't put a name to it.

ofc then their feelings corresponding and overlapping is part of the plot and the big reveals of the canto, but when comparing them to the book selves it definitely feels like the switching around of many elements of their characters was purposeful. as the spread of the traits they share and the points where they differ was really well balanced, the outcome is a dynamic that's fresh while still being recognizable! very tasty!

[chrysopoeias]

Talking about it again because I am a broken record.

But yeah the duality between Riza’s gentle and cruel side are important. I know she is not unique in this regards within the series, but she is my favourite, so ヽ(；▽；)ノ. Like it is the whole point that the veteran characters are likeable people, but they are not ‘good’ people. Even Riza never denies that she is indeed proud of her skills as a marksman and feels satisfaction from her kills. Because she does. She did believe in the military and politics of Amestris and joined in voluntarily. She has no excuse and knows it. Yet at the same time she dreams of peace, is gentle and patient, maybe grew up a little shy, and has been like that since she was young. How can such a sensitive soul commit atrocities? These characters not being solely pureblooded good or evil or cruel or kind is the point. That’s what the series is about ya know.

So yes it does frustrate me when people come out of reading/watching the series and even liking Hawkeye’s character, but then only have the most flattening characterisation or things to say about her. Almost always boiled down to her being solely ‘no fun allowed’, downright mean to her friends and having the others gripped by the balls constantly... But we are on the introvert/autist site here, I think a lot us can relate, or at least understand, what it’s like to be judged as mean/above it all over not being a social butterfly or appearing too quiet. 

[cycyuu]

Burn and Tremor...

My baby Capote Meur is happy :D

[cozymochi]

the tiana show being cancelled after 5 years of carrot dangling is my villain origin story

[cybernaght]

On Clair Obscur

It has been a hot minute, and I am back with another wall of text from my brain to yours.

There are a great many things about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 that are remarkable but none as much as its ability to use the player’s experience to place them inside the themes of its story through its three acts and its three protagonists. 

The way this game uses the fact that its medium is participatory not just to make the player walk through all of the stages of grief, but to shine a torchlight on their relationship with the game itself, is honestly revelatory.

It is also the very thing I would like to talk about today. 

Let’s call this one:

What will you paint? 

*Spoilers for the entire thing ahead. Please, do yourself a favour and do not read anything I have to say unless you have played the game in its entirety.*

Act 1. Gustave

The catalyst for player grief. 

Gustave is set up as the main character, in a way that’s both deliberate and traitorous. We see the world through his eyes. We see Lumiere as his hope. His is the first loss we experience. We observe in an extreme close-up as he goes through the darkest moment of his soul and perseveres. We - and this is critical - care for Maelle because he does. The game spends a couple of hours establishing that for us, as Gustave, she is the most important person in the world. 

But that’s not enough. Gustave is written for us to know, yes, but more importantly he is created specifically for us to love. He has the clearest wants and needs in Act 1, and it’s not just his trauma or his perseverance that we get to know, it’s his charming multifaceted personality. We get to see his (and only his, at this stage) playful, adorkable side. My favourite scene of his is the one where he delivers a password to a Gestral as loudly as possible and then has to be dragged away as he tries to apologise profusely. This scene has only one reason to exist: to manufacture our affection. 

Because, of course, this is all a facade. Gustave is a model protagonist exactly because he isn’t one. 

Grief is about absence. One can craft a way of demonstrating that absence in many ways, across many mediums. In a video game, however? The ultimate “show don’t tell” medium in which “show” is active and includes controllers? What better way to force a player to grieve but by giving them someone to love and then snatching them away for good? 

Much later, in Act 3, Verso confesses that he let Gustave die to get him out of the picture, so that he stops anchoring Maelle to her non-reality. He had to die because she loved him.

Gustave had to die because we loved him. His absence mercilessly shapes the entirety of our experience. He is a scab that this game never lets heal. 

There are a lot of cruel moments that surround his loss, but none as heavy-hitting as putting Gustave’s grave in the Monolith right next to Aline’s journal. You know. The one in which she is consumed by grief. 

Act 2. Verso

The ultimate imposter. 

Verso arrives into your camp, seemingly out of nowhere, and immediately takes Gustave’s weapons, pictos, music records and, if you have a DLC, his wardrobe. The latter makes his arrival feel particularly unsettling, almost ghoulish, like he’s this unwelcome imposter, filling in for the one you lost. 

In the narrative, Verso has been created to fill in the space of a dead man, taking his face, voice and memories. He lives this imposter life without a reprieve in sight, and against his will. A lesser interactive story would have told us that, but instead we have to shuffle over and make space for our discomfort with his presence. 

His truth doesn’t get revealed until much later, of course. An easy way out would have been to pivot towards “what is really going on” before you reach the quote-unquote Bad Guys. Instead, Clair Obscur masterfully lies to you for the entirety of this act; not just through half of the words coming out of your hero’s mouth being manipulation, but through this act’s very structure.

And you know something twisted is coming, because the whole of Act 2 feels “off”. The act hits all of the beats of the Hollywood Scriptwriting 101 with too-perfect precision. Our adventure is exemplary in its sleekness: the team getting together; the mid-point twist reveal, followed by a loss of a very minor character; the “all is lost” moment; the revenge and the victorious return. It all feels like the over-rehearsed play. 

This catharsis feels false, but “oh well”, you think. “Maybe I have expected too much of this game. It is, after all, ultimately an action/adventure, and we had our fill of those things. It’s a little bit short, perhaps, but that’s okay.”

This is when the story flips. 

How do you make your playing audience feel what it means to live in a painted reality? You present them with a perfect acts three, four and five of the five-act play, and then tell them that none of it was as it seemed. You show them that they were not brave adventurers  to rescue a broken world, but pawns in the hands of merciless painter-gods, who tear their non-reality apart, as they wage a grief-stricken war between preservation and destruction. You let them destroy that reality, manipulated by a flawed copy of the Painteress’ lost child, who only longed for his own oblivion. 

Verso, the imposter, walks you to the epic victory and with it to your doom; a tragic hero and a conniving villain, and neither of those things. 

The one who guards the truth with lies, indeed. 

Act 3. Maelle

The spirit of escapism. 

The fact that Maelle was going to be pivotal in some way became apparent as early as the second half of the first act. Her nightmare, the seeming familiarity of the white-haired family with her, and then of course her loss solidified her as the Chosen One. But then again, when the truth is revealed, Chosen One is what she is not. She is a teenage girl with power of creation, lost in a fantasy of someone else’s making, hoping to stitch it back together, and with it, herself.

The point of view doesn’t shift to her, but it doesn’t need to. It is in fact, more elegant that way, because the message is clear enough as it is: we have always been Maelle.

The irony of her hiding in this death-streaked reality from herself is on display everywhere we go. She is here willingly now, and when she says that she is doing it all for the Canvas and its habitants, she is lying. The quiet horror of watching her erase painted Alicia from existence right in front of her brother speaks louder than any line of dialogue about just how far gone she actually is. 

Really, Maelle is an elevated version of a chronically online teenager. She is someone who spends their semester in fandom spaces and has to revise for an exam the night before; she is a child who hides a torchlight in their bedroom so they can read their favourite book past their bedtime even though they know it will ruin their morning. She is someone playing the game and ignoring the world outside.

And, I suppose, this is where the game starts getting really curious about how lost you are. 

What keeps you, the player, in this whimsically horrific universe? Why aren’t you going into the sun and instead choose to sob over your controller? What are you hiding from in this piece of art? 

While, yes, the theme of this game is grief, seeping through every line of its dialogue and through every element of environmental design, the thesis seems to be about escapism.

This is what fractured the Canvas, after all: not just the act of grieving, but the conflict between escape and erasure.

How fitting that the only narratively significant decision you have is this exact choice:

Do you continue being Maelle, running and hiding from whatever it is outside in your perfectly imperfect dollhouse? Do you let the escapism claim you?

Or. 

Do you join Verso and scrub this reality clean, destroy the universe filled with love and laughter, and rest? 

Do you finally put the controller down?

*

Addendum. 

On bones (to pick)

I think we have established that Expedition 33 is one hell of a game, and that it does something very poignant and beautiful with its medium. That said, I’m a realist and it’s not perfect. Here’s three bones I have to pick with it.

The romance.

I just don’t think it’s necessary.  The romance doesn’t really contribute meaningfully to the core themes of this game in any way. It doesn’t even change the established cut-scenes or group dynamics. Besides, narratively it would be much more interesting to watch your companions fall in love with each other. What I’m saying is that I genuinely believe that Lune and Sciel should have gotten together, or at least had big Sapphic thing happening, because seeing how that love affected their journey would have been fascinating, and this could have added another dagger to twist into the wounds of both endings. 

2. The lore.

Or rather hiding the lore behind some of the most mechanically complex boss fights in this game is rude and cruel. And before you say “skill issue”, yes I’m aware. Still, punish me by depriving me of weapons, cosmetics, whatever. Don’t punish me by locking away the actual story behind bosses that require a spreadsheet level of min-maxing. 

3. New Game Plus 

NG+ should have been exploration-only and available only on Maelle’s ending, and I will die on that hill. Maelle’s choice is about dying to not leave the reality you love. It’s about seeing your friends over and over again. It’s about bringing Gustave back. Verso’s choice is all about putting the controller down. NG+ as exploration only with any companions and only on Maelle’s ending would have beautifully paid off that choice and the game’s core thesis in a very tangible way. 

[sosadraws]

I feel so sorry for anyone that clicks on my OC tags expecting art, but instead they stumble on the terribly redacted walls of text 😭😭😭

[trans-yllz]

DRESSER FINALLY OBTAINED FOR ONLY 20 DOLLARS HELL YES.

[palmolli]

I SWEAR MY COMPUTER TEACHER IS PSYCHOLOGICALLY TORTURING ME.

I have a passionate dislike for the song Lost Boy because he kept playing it every single day while we were typing, and I began verbally expressing that... my computer teacher heard those complaints. They stopped for a while, but he did make fun of me.

GUESS WHAT HE PULLED TODAY.

Our final assignment is to make a dumb PowerPoint. He suddenly announced, "Anyone who puts this song in their presentation gets an A." And then he played Lost Boy. Then he played it a second time. I'm losing my shit.

Monday is going to be actual torture.