#at least we have this from the evil game

[ratatatastic]

[himbohimhoe]

Holding out hope that the writing in veilguard will get more bearable but rook saying to lucanis that it's "not nice that Spite hurt him" and he "shouldn't accept that it’s fine bc it wouldn't be ok if a person did that" like. That is a demon. Built off a single emotion called SPITE. Rook I am finding it really hard to believe that u have lived in thedas for more than 30 seconds.

[icewindandboringhorror]

Lineup of all of the characters that appear long enough to need a visual representation of them in the game lol

[meli-meliai]

I find it interesting how, out of all the boys so far in Blush Blush, Fuyu is the only one who has been directly implied to have killed a child through his genocide of the Summer Clan (as well as the highest kill count, most likely)

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

thinking about fallout 4 against my will

[crimescrimson]

Favourite Gothic Horror Women in Videogames: Laura Victoriano | Bela Dimitrescu | The Shade

[widevibratobitch]

7 minutes of a phonecall with my mother is enough for me to start being a bitch lol

[sorrowveined]

me trying to figure out whether or not vampires have free will by reading the wiki:

[psalmsofpsychosis]

Some Batman: Telltale thoughts

[this is a Batman Telltale critical post, ye be warned.]

So. There are perhaps no words in the english language to describe with how stupid i feel right now.

I started Telltale Batman because i thought that it's one of the more distinct unconventional Batman narratives that would let you have a more interesting, complex and nuanced relationship between Bruce and Joker— the game even lets you bring all of Bruce's sincere hypocrisy and sentimental selfishness to the surface and have him admit that yes, he can fight the rogues gallery because it takes a madman to know a madman; to love a madman. For a moment i geniunely thought that i can escape the everpresent shadow of DC hays code in the freakshow funhouse that is Batman comics, i thought Telltale had done something different.

But telltale's approach to The Enemy Within is so flaky and flimsy and timid at best— such noncommittal twist on themes of pain and grief. They take on a hefty plotline, "what does it take to actually fight through evil and be surrounded by it? How long does it take before your resolve and your selfhood cracks? When you lose the mask, which one did you truly lose— The ideal persona, the superhero, the crusader, or the person underneath, the casket that holds all your humanity and your heart and your hopes? How long can you stare onto the abyss before it stares onto you?" It's indeed a very Nietzsche approach to Batman— except that a good Nietzsche narrative takes a lot of intentional plot points and honesty of thought and of heart. And Telltale doesn't commit, not to Bruce's characterization, and not to any other character, and definitely not to Joker's journey in any variation of it. The existence of the Vigilante route is useless on every front; Joker is going to turn into a villain anyway, just with a different hello kitty eyeshadow palette and an extra bland consolation lollipop. No good choice Bruce makes on Joker's behalf affects anything whatsoever, and i particularly love the "community and friendship and sympathy do not help the mentally ill and all that ever works is punishment and shock therapy and confinement and loneliness" message the vigillante route puts on the table, charming charming status quo commandments from DC as always.

Telltale Batman could only be revolutionary if it had dared to break comic convention and let the vigillante route play out like Selina and Bruce's relationship always does; very grey morality, irrational, full of tension and trust, unstable, intriguing, inexcusable, irreversible, unavoidable and heartfelt, human. But we can't have nice things in batmanverse, so both Joker routes run on stuck gears and topple and fall into a predictable narrative hole that neither Bruce nor Joker can claim out of.

And on the predictable front? this story is too lukewarm to be a good time for me personally. When you get 84 Batman comics per minute every other Tuesday, all ending the same way no matter whatever the fickity happens inbetween, you have to pull no punches. This is my 53368532th Batman-with-tragic-batjokes-implications read of the week, say something new or forever hold your blue-balling silence, i dont care.

[residentevil2remake]

bro... ashley is ACTUALLY voiced and mocaped by the same actress that did everything for jill in re3r. wth. 

[unproduciblesmackdown]

also putting 1 and 1 together. as well as words like. as you can use a punch card for "i love my friends" being said around the xmas show b/c also it's a line actedly spontaneously expressed in the mister chestnut christmas medley, punch card for "heart words," there at the start of bloodsong / introduction to the musician & banana & the former's hardassedness & vinegar wit vs banana is not like that, banana saying the musician & his music is saying Dance, Banana, not with your mouth words, but with your heart words....& the musician is like terse mouthwordedness, ft. the audience's ability to infer that perhaps the musician is not really heartwording these things or really that invested in funny little guy dancing tambourine accompaniment. But In True Form....

holding that up to the other [1] in which the musician like Would Be has all the protagonist hardass lead hero power he needs to devote himself to his Mission & kill anyone w/music along the way but it's like step one. i Need banana. cannot do it without having banana here & that has nothing to do with Strategic power levels like he's gonna tell banana no it's fine if you just like are a held hostage no epic successful moves contributor who can't help me during a Situation, don't even worry about it....needs to have his special little guy there, in true form, you wouldn't have to change anything abt the verses of the friendship song to have it be a love(tm) song but it's not b/c it's necessarily that / Not the friendship song really, would never say if the way a relationship is described is like "enough" in whatever metric of intensity intimacy whatever it must Not be [anything] & must Indeed be [anything], lord knows i'm not here to interpret anything as romance as a category based on something inherent, not a context of normative relationality larping. which is also what is happening in bsol, unless you're the romantic leads, in which case i'm like well that's none of my concern except in how it is a plot device....

cue what is also what i was going to get around to in that paragraph anyway like it is beautiful to have the musician be like "well my wife is taken hostage for Evil Marriage larping? obviously gotta go save her" & then have "but first. again i may have already committed my whole being to this & have my lethal music powers but. i Need banana before i can do anything more" & Then have that become a matter of taking on a parallel like well great news banana was also taken hostage for evil marriage larping. (see: exquisite twist & turning contrast is that in this case the "well i want to have the Set & Performance of Marriage, so. pointing a gun at this guy for these three years" hostage taker is openly contemptuous toward banana & all & so perhaps you expect the bastard(tm) to be the exact same way with His [kidnapped hostage okay so now you're my wife then; points a knife at this woman for three years] situation, but first of all the [the conflict w/the antagonist foil brings out [conflict with/in oneself]] element like we need a bit more depth lol so we get that but like, while obviously they're not Actually Close we already are shown that lo cocodrilo Knows this & is actually bothered by it, rather than just like well as long as you have to be staying here on set going through motions then we're good to go. not only the failure of the crocodile approach but failure at Being the crocodile, if he did not actually care about having someone's actual affection (& cue that even after a comedically disastrous exchange, lo cocodrilo's like Default Marriage Larping is the "good evening, darling :)" exit lmao like. is not just fine with genuine contempt beyond the larping) how many brackets am i in what tangent am i on....i think i accidentally concluded it in Sidebar Parenthetical mode there, classic. the contrast that banana's wife is openly contemptuous / hostile, lo cocodrilo has the hostility more comically mixed up in Oh Just Another Average Dinner along with also actually being the party concerned with the desire / pursuit of Genuine Affection / not really being like well this must be fine or as good as it gets then when my wife (who also by contrast is the held hostage party here) tells me to kill myself or what have you)

anyway so that when the musician first before anything else Needs banana & this means saving him from being held hostage in "well, this must be fine? & ideal even, due to the normativity contexts?" (see: again, in an inverse situation, it's lo cocodrilo gunning for the Normative Ideals. while also santa violetta kind of is too but the marriage she already had where she wasn't held hostage for it) evil marriage with someone who hates him & we also see that [the conventions of the spaghetti western is an Expressive device] particularly persistently pushed back for i wear polo shirts now :(....

but what i was getting around to, throwback to that part where i was saying we had the room to think that banana as funny little guy sidekick was, according to conventions, more superfluous to the serious big protagonist than not, surely all the more so when that hero's mission gets activated, all the more seriously. surely that banana is liking to think that the musician is encouraging him to dance with his heart words, not his mouth words, & the musician is mostly like yeah sure whatever but i'm not even gonna use the mouth words to say even that. but here we are getting this scene where it's Step One I Need Banana i'll die or i'll kill to get to him & then i'll use my heart & mouth words alike to indeed encourage him like i know you need to Dance & Sing & Tambourine & be my special little guy who i also need btw. funny little guy banana being right & not being superfluous at all, & i don't know how i'd sing if to me you didn't cling

[crossbackpoke-check]

i’m not sure if you’ve heard yet but nico’s tattoo is all of his family members’ astrological signs smushed together which is so… i’m obsessed

NO I HAD NOT HEARD!!!!! (partially because tumblr decided i was not to see people’s asks??)

oh my god. oh my god. that is so unbelievably. actually i take it back it is incredibly believable and i love that for him

[tambutt]

WHEN DOES THIS GAME END????

[exilley]

Incredibly telling aspect of mcd's writing is how the evil antagonists who were written to be flat and uninteresting are actually more interesting than any of the protagonists because of inconsistencies and (ironically) a lack of understanding of the underlying cultural assumptions behind what makes blanket "evil" antagonists tick...

I need to know more about the shadow knights. Apparently guards have to kill the one they care about the most in their life (usually their lord) in order to gain immortality after being transformed into a premature shadow knight. And many guards turn to this path because their lords were corrupt or they felt betrayed by their fellow guards or unappreciated by the citizens they protect. Which would allude to a lot of corruption. This in itself is unsurprising but it IS fascinating to interrogate why, then, a Lord would typically still be the person they care most for. What exactly does servitude mean in a feudal city-state monarchy? In general, what does bondage to a higher power implicate? What dimensions of conventional human relationships are warped by such an extreme contract of loyalty? What if someone betrays that? Why? But the writing never touches on this and it never will despite the fact that one of the primary protagonists IS a shadow knight

[tevinter]

Veilguard fails to realise that for those who believe, faith is stronger than anything, even facts.

Right in the beginning of Veilguard all the Dalish/veil jumpers are so nonchalant and against their gods returning, as if they were convinced offscreen that their whole faith was based on a lie (even though they all still wear vallaslin) and their gods were Evil™. This, again, fails to consider that the vast majority of the Dalish would either not believe or not care because it's their religion, their faith.

Morally ambiguous gods exist in real life religions too and it didn't stop people from believing in them. Divine morality transcends mortal understanding, so their actions are always rightful. This also leads to the concept of a 'god-fearing' person - even the term used (θεοσεβής) can mean both respect and fear. Mortals are humbled by the gods' power and greatness, and willfully submit to their divine authority.

You needn't go further than the goddamn Bible itself to see countless examples of unethical things that God did/supported including legitimization of slavery and punishment (Exodus 21:20-21 “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property." is one unhinged example), cannibalism, many kinds of violence, war, and of course, genocide, one of which was literally the deliberate destruction of nearly all humanity and living creatures on earth. The god of the most widely practiced religion in the world for millenia. Ask a devout Christian if they would stop believing in God just because 'um actually he is bad'.

Mystery is also a great aspect of religion, which also makes it an excellent worldbuilding element for writers. Mystery adds to the immersion because just like the characters, we don’t know everything except the beliefs and unanswered questions. And we're not supposed to, because this is how religion works in real life, where faith is about belief rather than what’s fully understood. It makes the story feel more real and engaging. Professional writers - of a AAA title no less - should know this.

Religion was one of the greatest themes in all previous games, especially Andrastianism and the Elven pantheon. Reducing it all to 'the Evanuris did it' is disappointing to say the least, and even if it was the truth that only the writers knew, they should have kept it that way, or at least some of the mystery. It adds immersion, drama, nuance, it encourages thought and discussion. For all Veilguard failed in the 'show, don't tell' rule, in this case this is too much exposure, and not even done in a good way. ''Religion is fake, so now everyone's atheist or unfazed. Oh, except for one (1) person who is mildly upset'' is not how faith works, especially in a setting so religious as Thedas.

[todayisafridaynight]

Your brain is massive and your opinions are correct. I fucking LOVE SA2 and Shadow bro 😭 Last time I revisited my Sonic era I was trying to unlock training mode in Shadow by A-ranking all the missions and bosses. SA2/Shadow/Sonic Heroes/Sonic Riders were the ones I replayed (and still do every couple of years) the most :)

my god PLEAAASSE THE TRAINING/EXPERT MODE IN SHADOW i love how the hints just fuck off and are replaced by the cast chattin with shadow.... like black doom the fuck are you doin talkin to me you are dead.... leave me alone.....

as a part of my All-326-Routes playthrough of shadow im SO stoked to unlock that mode again for the first time in like. A Decade... i've just been clearing out all the routes from the very top all the way down but i might just A-rank all the levels and routes first just to get the mode..

the adventure games + shadow are my faves to play honestly like as much as i still do like sonic games nowadays i just really enjoyed that 3d free-roaming aspect of the gamecube era games (and even 06: just wish it wasnt such a glitchy mess and i was more of a fan of the models/art style)

PLUS WITH THE ADVENTURE GAMES YOU HAVE THE CHAOS LIKE WHY DID THEY GET RID OF THEM BRING THEM BACK !!!!! THEY WERE SO CUTE