#for ONE game. so yeah fuck me i guess.

[three-bunnies-in-a-trenchcoat]

PLAYSTATION 2? FUCK

[astranauticus]

this isnt the kind of stuff i'd usually post but im fuckin losing my mind. ive been watching through the bilibili livestream vods of like this arknights lore creator reading through and commentating on like the game stories and right now im watching the vod from his main story chapter 11 stream and his reaction to logos' sprite reveal is so fucking funny i had to clip it. man is really having a crisis on stream

[mazojo]

“Is it like Korean thanksgiving?”

“Yes minus the genocide”

Yuri as my favorite character

[bidisaster-peanut-romano]

soo hi everyone!! i'm back on my bully essay/meta/something writing!! sort of. i did this.

anyways anyone who's been on this page for some time know how from time to time i have insistently mentioned the parallels between lola and peanut, right?

welp! that was a joke but the time has finally come!! a super-pretentious essay just for the fun of it!! (and also bc i haven't been writing actually argumentative texts in like months perhaps a year, so. yikes, i really need to practice again)

word count: 2.2k WOAH. IM SORRY

i, in my corner, with my monstrous needs. — susan sontag, as consciousness is harnessed to flesh

take this quote both as a title and an anticipation of what is to come. the essay will be distributed analyzing first the dependence of each of them on johnny, to then draw comparisons. i'll make sure to steer as away from headcanons as possible, sticking closely to the source text. obviously, some things' interpretation might be ambiguous, but, you know. your usual occupation hazard.

also, a disclaimer before we start: while they are psychologically complex and there is always a mimetic intention in developing them, these are fictional characters, and, as such, their primary function is to be vessels for different themes, questions and so forth. therefore, i will prioritize meaning and themes over moral implications and similar elements.

i. peanut

for how much i can adore talking about him, the way peanut depends on johnny is very much on the nose; worn on his sleeve, even. in 11:11 minutes of voice lines, he mentions johnny 30 times.

many interpret this as the caricature of a boy crush, but i have reasons to believe it is much less cute than that.

the problem is that, really, more than trying to identify specific situations... peanut seems to rely on johnny for a significant part of what he does. when he does good at dodgeball:

Look at me, Johnny, look at me!

almost like a child calling for his parent's attention to be praised. he calls johnny's name when he's going through hardships, when he's scared or when he's sad.

more than someone he just loves, johnny is a point of reference. whenever there's something going on, whenever he does or has to do something, his first thought goes to johnny; vice versa, what johnny asks of him is his priority.

I gotta tell Johnny! No time. I gotta see Johnny now. Gotta help Johnny. What can I do next to please Johnny? I mean Lola! I mean…

(this also goes in a "negative" direction, envy being the other side of the medal to adoration. especially because, in some way, this reliance on johnny might be felt by him as emasculating, and, being johnny his model of masculinity, adding it to the napoleon complex thing, it's not hard to guess why it can be so unpleasant. we can see this manifest through some of the things he expresses in regards to lola- not as much an interest he has towards her, but the interest he wishes to have from her- which are a bit more different than it might seem at a first glance. but this is a mouseketool we'll need later. still:

Last time I saw her, Lola made eyes at me, not Johnny!

do we really need this part? heh. i'm not sure, but it's always good to point out)

(also, just because, for the purpose of this analysis, it might be useful to specify: while these sentiments are very much implied in peanut's canon quotes, we have no evidence in canon in what measure they are reciprocated by johnny. the fandom has universally agreed that johnny also views peanut as his Best Friend In The World; while in some measure, they must be at least a bit close, i think it is even safe to say, given the caricaturist nature of bully's characterizations, that johnny holds peanut in less consideration that peanut deludes himself into believing. quoting another post of mine, the kids who show some level of obsession towards their leader mention him on average ten or less times (gord mentions derby eight times, parker six times, kirby mentions ted five times). the leaders don't usually make names at all, that much is true; however, peanut mentions johnny 30 times, and, even in front of this proportion, johnny mentions peanut 0 times. just to make that clear)

overall, what undeniably shines through his voice lines is a feeling of general inadequacy, whether about his height, or his strength in front of a bigger adversary. the audios in which he tries to show off range from being disingenuous, to straight up improbable.

crossing what we have until now said, it is not hard to come to the conclusion that he really tries to make up, to fill this empty feeling of inadequacy by taking pride in his role as johnny's second in command.

while i am a big fan of bully's characteristic of having left much content out of the main game, leaving the gamers to dig it up for themselves, i do believe that scrapping some of the stuff that was prepared for peanut is a loss. we have a number of voice lines coming from chapter 3, in which it was heavily implied how important peanut's role as johnny's right hand man was.

for example, much like... all other seconds in command, really, he was to be followed and then fought in the rumble, before you could get to johnny, with the specific duty to cover his back. even his very first scene, the opening cutscene of chapter 3, i believe, is not to be underestimated. most of the other people, as far as i recall, call you when they need it in person; johnny, however, sends peanut. making him, de facto, an extension of himself, almost.

again, you choose the motivation. what is important, from a narrative point of view, is that peanut clings to johnny through these acts of service, almost making it the foundation of his personhood.

basically, he makes it so that, if he can't be of help to johnny, his whole self is fundamentally annihilated, giving himself completely to johnny.

ii. lola

with lola, reading between the lines gets a bit more difficult; first of all, because lola is much less transparent than peanut, her insincerity being a supporting beam of the whole chapter 3. secondly, whether she was done dirty by the creators or not, it is undoubted that being the perspective that of a teenage boy (namely, jimmy, but we certainly, as viewers, are brought to sympathize more with johnny than with lola) with all the prejudices it can bring with itself.

however, it doesn't mean that there isn't anything to work with- quite the contrary, actually. the issue with lola is that there is a certain amount of layers to get through before gaining a satisfying perception of her as a character. still, we're here to try our best, aren't we!

even behind the muddiness of her intentions and the manipulation she shows herself a master at, it is clear from the second we first meet her that what she does is in function of johnny.

to get through this mess with order, we'll start from an easy, measurable numeric information: lola mentions johnny in her audio files 19 times. which, we're assessed, IS a considerable amount.

we have extensively talked about the way her cheating patterns are a strategy not to succumb to the passive role of the girl in the heteronormative, patriarchal prototypical couple (there's a post here breaking down a lot of this stuff, if any of you is interested!!), so, instead of this, i want to focus on what lies beneath that behavior.

ultimately, the whole point is that lola expects and wants johnny to fight for her. whether is it because she feels taken for granted, or just because he can't perceive it if not through grandiose gestures like the rumble- your interpretation will work; she wants to see johnny fighting nail and teeth not to lose her, she wants him to show her that he wants her.

she's all about that attention, and she knows exactly what and how to do to get it. and i think this is especially clear when you compare the moments in which she knows there's no advantage she could go for; when she has understood that jimmy won't fall for her manipulation, when algie and chad leave her unsatisfied, when norton openly accuses her and antagonizes her - she loses her temper, lets go of that sweetened and/or flirtatious voice tone, abandons that specific kind of gesturing. she doesn't care anymore about obtaining something. she was actually angry, and she was actually upset that johnny had disappeared.

in some of her audios, she references johnny with some amount of fondness, as well:

Johnny and I were on the best date ever.

(there is also a voice line in which she says "He told me he likes me because of my personality. Isn't that sweet?"; due to it being a general chatter and not exclusive to one chapter, i assume it is relatively safe to assume she is quoting johnny. however, as i said at the beginning, we're trying to stay as close to canon material as possible, so, do your thing- and i'm open to arguments!!)

a considerable amount of audio files, however (which will lead us to our final point) is about her... calling for help for johnny, or stating, confidently, that he will come save her, or avenge her later.

Someone get Johnny! Johnny's gonna get you for this. Johnny is gonna kill you!

but wait... i have some sense of déjà vu...

You're gonna be sorry when Johnny finds out!

iii. two faces of the same medal

if i had to pick an effective image for a metaphor, i'd say that the thing about lola and peanut is that they are both dogs looking for someone to take their leash; we’re talking here about an exclusive relationship with someone they can rely totally on, someone we’ll call the Other (with a capital o, distinguished from just other. yes it is unnecessarily complicated i’m sorry).

for what my professor would call accidents of history, it happened that both of them found that Other in johnny.

each of them attempts at creating an exclusive relationship with the Other, one foolproof and fundamentally… perfect. perfect in the way that everything works like oiled gears, in the way that every next move is predictable, in the way that any accident will not break the created equilibrium. (even if, in the general sense of the term, lola and johnny's relationship is everything but perfect, it is in the connotation that we have established here. lola is aware that, no matter what she does, johnny will come back around. hell, the very thing that she does is aimed at keeping that balance; specifically, keeping him a bit on the edge, pushing him into a corner where he has to actively make an effort to keep her close.)

they both hide something they are ashamed of, regulating not only their actions and reactions but their very way of existing in the world, in order to keep that gear working, in order to remain in johnny's hand. lola hides that craving for a genuine and stable affection, dissimulating it with the cheating and the fatuous physical demonstrations of closeness; peanut hides his sense of inadequacy and complex of inferiority, by being the tough and reliable second in command.

basically, what they mean to achieve is a sense of security, the safety of not really being the one to lead but, at the same time, finding a purpose, other than a shield from the outside world that they are not willing to concede themselves to. like a... symbiotic relationship?? i was going to say parasitic, but, yknow. the Other does get some advantages, which are, respectively, peanut's acts of service and lola's capacity to boost johnny's pride.

now, of course, johnny is not aware of either of their play. which makes it even better, since, as we already said, both of their approach to the relationship needs some degree of insincerity.

like, i don't deny that johnny might be a good friend, or a loyal one. but he is an oblivious, prideful fuck who can't see past his own nose; he's got a tendency to make it all about himself - which of course goes perfectly with what we said about both peanut and lola making the Other their center, taking up, in a certain way, a passive role in the relationship.

this way, both of them aim at creating with johnny a relationship that is, in a way, codependant and conditional, in which the do ut des (their respective "service" ↔ johnny's guarantee of stability) creates the foundation of the very relationship.

this, of course, brings up the problem of exclusivity; on which, however, i prefer not to delve into too much, as this would bring us to the topic of their antagonism which... isn't really what i wanted to go for, at least not here. (it would risk bringing us a bit too close to my subjective interpretation and too far away from the canon, which i PROMISED i wouldn't do. however, someday i might elaborate on that??? idk , please do lmk if someone's interested around here)

i will, however, show you a diagram (it looks like a triangle- i guess it is, but it is VERY important that it is a pyramid, with a top and a larger foundation) and a quote, to wrap this up bc i think it is already WAY too long and ramble-y lmao. let me know what you think anyway, my ask box is always open <3

it almost feels like a joke to play out a part when you are not the starring role in someone else's heart you know i'd rather walk alone (i'd rather walk alone) than play a supporting role if i can't get the starring role -- starring role, marina and the diamonds

[butterflieswhisper]

hiiii ^^ beastlife fishie analysis. spoilers ahead. etc etc

okay so. the main point of this is simple. I don't think the salmon head cursed c!fishie. Explaining that is the harder part I think. also i'm going to refer to the salmon head thing in e5 as "the incident" from here on out because frankly i think it's funny

Let's start with the incident. The big day. etc. What happened? Why did it happen? Obligatory third questioning statement? Well. She was gifted the salmon head for her birthday by kiwi(or like. someone in the kiwibird system. -bird system. the birds). Immediately upon receiving it she relives parts of season one and fishie herself doesn't really acknowledge it. The other players definitely notice but im not caught up enough in any other pov yet to like have thoughts on that I'll come back to that point someday. Fishie seems shaken, sure, but she moves on so quickly, especially considering what happened just there. 37 seconds of standing frozen, unresponsive. she recovers in 5 seconds. And seeing how she reacts later on to realizing the memory situation--if she was aware that happened, she would probably be concerned by it. She puts it on for a brief second at the end of the party and takes it off immediately. She's otherwise normal -- well. as normal as she is otherwise up to that point. Because that is also how she acts with pretty much any salmon head, even just kiwi herself.

I raise: Episode one, about 8:20 in. The slow zoom on kiwi as the static overtakes every other noise. This is the *exact* same behavior displayed when fishie receives the salmon head, albeit without actual concrete old video footage style flashbacks. In episode two (28:55ish) the same thing happens when she looks at the salmon head in moch's house, but this time there is technically a flashback -- kiwis grave. Fishie moves on immediately and doesn't acknowledge her behavior at all, and, seeing as it is fishie, im inclined to believe that means she does not know she is doing it. Fishie (when alone) will discuss all of her problems in immense, and usually misguided detail (bestie i promise kiwi doesn't hate you???) to the audience and/or herself. I mean she's not alone in episode one, and it is technically presession, and i guess getting struck by lightning is a decent distraction from your problems, but in episode two? She is completely alone. There is nobody with her. She went looking for moch and moch is not there. She still doesn't acknowledge the fiveish seconds she is completely frozen. This happens again and again with kiwi and salmon heads.

And then that leads you to e5. The incident. She's. well. she's doing worse. 0:50. "This will distract me if i leave it up." This is the first mention from fishie herself about how fucking weird she's being, and even then she doesn't seem concerned. I think she does not realize she's being so so incredibly weird about it. If the static and freezing is what's referred to as "distraction" then keeping it in her inventory makes it worse actually so it wouldn't really make sense unless the way it is distracting her is NOT the. well. whatever the fuck is wrong with her (affectionate). After she puts the head on there's the static all the time but for a short brief amount of time she's like significantly more normal and i don't really know if that means anything i just think it's really funny.

And then we all know what goes on during the incident i'm not analyzing this video frame by frame. um. i could. but i am not going to right now. And then she has the conversation on the table with kiwi where she like is normal for 5 minutes. Like genuinely the most. i guess stable? fishie's thought process is is like in the moments directly after the incident. She is immediately understanding with the antikiwi situation, they come to an agreement that they're like. okay now. "thank you for everything and im so sorry i couldnt do more" / "it was short, but it was nice" "i knew what i was getting into when i married you" etc etc and then they kind of rush it at the end because people won't stop dying. But then fishie is fishie and takes it in the complete opposite extreme (from. um. whatever was wrong up until now. to "oh kiwibird must secretly hate me because" and then there's no real good reason she's just like that) and it's also an issue. And i think the season two memory thing is also a part of that but this is so long already and so i'm not going to get into it rn. So bringing all of this back to my original point: the salmon head was not the cause of the curse(?) because she's been so weird all the time forever and the salmon head thing was just like. an effect. of whatever went Wrong(tm) in the season transition. like the head was a vessel to Be Worse about it but i feel like it would have worked with any salmon head she got her hands on and that it happened to be kiwico was a coincidence and also that the head wasn't cursed at all there's just something deeply wrong with fishie s3 in general and uh yeah 👍

I'm so sorry this is so disjointed i had a thesis statement and everything. alas

[todayisafridaynight]

word vomit anon back!!!

pirate majima game is funny...watching people complain abt rgg ruining majima is super funny because he's been a silly guy for like 7 games and a serious guy in one...can he not be silly again...just once more??? (also im sure this game is gonna be emotional in some way shape or form) also k3 heads stay in line yokoyama said it was coming one day he never said soon lol

'k3 heads stay in line' PLEAAASSEE VJLKEALKJ youre right tho i cant lie ....

on the real though yeah no like. majima can be serious at times but generally he's a zany guy, it'd be illegal not to capitalize on that in SOME regard

[the-good-luck-anomaly]

WOUND UNDER THE CUT. CW FOR WOUND

[haarute]

something i realized in the recent years is that while my mom is a very nice person and i can understand why she is the way that she is sometimes, she had a history of always dismissing and throwing away things that were important to me, and in hindsight that certainly had an effect on both my trust in her and how much i was willing to ever share, and also just turned me into a dumpster goblin because i just gave up on ever having nice things so why bother ever caring about my personal space at all ✌️ i'll just live in the filth because we'll never have anything better after all !!

[anxiously-sidequesting]

So I don't know if it was ever revealed how Duncan felt when we killed Malistaire all three times but I'm wondering if maybe some part of him could hate us for that too. Like you hear that and you go "but why. Malistaire was terrible and even Duncan knew that(?). Why would he hate you for getting rid of him."

But like I think it's so....... interesting in a very, very, very sad way how Duncan so easily latches onto anyone who directly feeds into his delusions of grandeur. And that's no fault of his own that he was manipulated by the nasty Schism but when you think about how desperately clung to the idea that Malistaire, easily one of the greatest necromancers any of us had ever heard of (at that time), somehow actually recognized Duncan's talents (even when canon supports that Duncan wasn't all that talented, at least no more than the next necromancer) and then praised him for it so often that Duncan believed that he would be the next Death Professor is. I mean ☹️

So like with that mindset I unfortunately feel like it would be quite easy to twist even Malistaire's death as something that's horrible and awful and all our fault. ESPECIALLY if the Schism was feeding into Duncan's already broken mind and shattered ego and was constantly telling him that everything bad that ever happened to him ever in his life was Our Fault. That's like a realistic conclusion that someone like Duncan could come to

And like, at this point in time, are Malistaire's crimes even a factor in how he thinks????? Was Duncan ever able to separate Malistaire's talent and skills and prowess from the terrible and awful things he did? If Duncan wasn't able to consciously tell that distinction in the first place I can't imagine it would be any better during the years he was being manipulated and isolated and lied to

Like in Duncan's mind it probably isn't, "maybe I shouldn't idolize a national criminal, or idolize anyone at all for that matter, and aspire to be like someone so harmful when I can recognize my own talent and build from there" it's probably more like, "you (the wizard) permanently got rid of a brilliant mind, an innocent person who just made a few mistakes, and someone who believed in me no matter what just so that you could be the better than me and loved by everyone else" and that's! very sad actually!

[kjzx]

I've been playing slitherio these past few days, and after some time messing around with nicknames and my own experience with the stuff, I've realized anger is something very easy to weaponize. On my second attempt of having "trans rights" as a nickname I killed a huge ~5k point worm as a teenie tiny 200 point worm simply because it was so desperate to kill me specifically. Anger makes your life harder, but it also makes people really unwise. I fucking bet this is in "the art of war", even though I haven't read it.

[presiding]

What is your favourite thing about Billie Lurk?

(Answers are obvious possibly but i love when people talk about her👍)

thanks for the ask!! YEAH ME TOO I love when people talk about Billie! I can't say I have a favourite thing specifically, but I can explain why she's my fav. apologies for not taking this qn literally, but -

short answer: she’s really cool

& you can stop reading there, or, for the maybe 2 mutuals who might have time to read this my thoughts on her as a character, her meta, and her character as raw potential...

long answer:

i considered making this entire thing a gush so you could read a gush about Billie. but, part of what draws me to her is that she’s not always well written, and in fandom she’s underrated for a literal protagonist.

since you ask...

billie is a cool character

when I played Dh2 (hadn't played Dh1), I was excited to see a black woman with disabilities who was captaining a massive ship by herself. wow.

then I discovered Billie’s backstory with Deirdre, the way she responded to that, then having to survive while living on the run, and her bisexuality. as well as her history with daud & delilah. fascinating!

she’s an outsider who has so much to lose, and knows what it's like to lose everything - having lost everything not once but three times - but nevertheless speaks truth to power. she's so brave! she went and helped Emily & Corvo and she must have known they might kill her! plus, she’s smart, she’s funny, she gets shit done, she’s gorgeous.

but... the meta

mild critique of fandom & arkane incoming.

skip this bit if you want - you've been warned twice now - jump to tired Hayao Miyazaki and read from there if you'd like my thoughts on writing her.

i thought Death of the Outsider was going to be amazing and then... well. *sad trombone* i've written about that before so i won't keep banging on. i figured others must be disappointed too, so I joined a few fandom spaces in hopes of finding camaraderie.

most people with complaints about DotO didn’t like how the Outsider and Daud were handled. which is valid & I agree. but it seemed like most paid no attention to Billie; when people talk about her it’s with respect to Daud, as opposed to in her own right. you could argue for fandom misogyny because people don’t talk about adult Emily Kaldwin that much either, but in Billie's case, it’s misogynoir (compare & contrast with the popularity of thomas, particularly the popularity of thomas portrayed as a white man for no particular reason that i've been able to discern - i keep asking around, is it in the books???).

i think this is a LOT better now than it used to be, which is fantastic. or perhaps i have found the correct echo-chamber? ha.

ultimately, The Fandom is a fraction of the entire picture, and not even the important bit since The Fandom is not who these games are made for. you can't make money relying on only your hardcore fans even if all of them spent a fortune on merch, this is true for any AAA game.

while it's true that Billie is underrated from a fandom perspective - but Billie as an underwritten protagonist is squarely Arkane’s fault.

it was reasonable when she was a side character - the lack of info in Dh2 makes perfect sense (if anything there was more lore in Dh2 which is kind of wild)-

- but as a protagonist in Death of the Outsider?

.... there’s lousy writing, and there’s whatever is going on with Billie Lurk, a black woman who mostly exists as a foil or saviour for light-skinned characters. In her own game there’s barely any of her own lore except where it's relevant to saving two dudes.

lore hints at, but barely touches on what race means in the Dh universe (xenophobia is stronger in Dh1; separate essay i guess), but Arkane has patted themselves on the back for portraying non-white characters, which feels like the same thing as the aesthetic of diversity we're seeing in advertising currently because it’s in marketing trend guides. it's self-congratulatory and it's a missed opportunity for deeper storytelling.

you can see an example of diversity at its most shallow in the way that Billie’s written: there’s little engagement with her as an entire person with history & wants & preferences, and the world she walks through in that game feels like it has nothing to do with her. you could make a case for alienation as a theme, but then, how do you handle the titular premise of 'Dishonored' without ever letting Billie make changes in an environment without a chaos system? it's disappointing from that angle too.

in my opinion, whatever it's worth, it was an accident Arkane created such an awesome character - they needed someone to betray daud. congrats billie.

all this said, it makes her an underdog as far as characters to enjoy & create art & stories for. it's nice to find so many like-minded, switched on people! <3

billie's character potential

she’s got a wealth of unexplored lore, being deeply intertwined with both Karnaca & Dunwall’s fates & criminal underbellies, as well as her connections to the witches & whalers, and three Empresses.

she’s lived a few distinct lifetimes and in the games we get to meet her at two peaks (KoD & DotO) & a low (Dh2 as Meagan).

her voice is very distinct, her dry & often dark humour is entertaining & fun to write. her perspective is really interesting - she’s had the widest variety of void-powers of anyone canonically, and she’s also lived through the highest highs and lowest lows.

she's got everything going for her :) i couldn't really pick a fav thing!

[astranauticus]

what's like the venn diagram overlap of people who have read orv and people who have played 1000xResist because im very slowly going insane

[tankgotstuckinthecircusgate]

i know that when carlo suddenly decided that he needs to marry guy made a whole list in his head n like had a deadlines n shit. like it was some kind of a task he needed to do

[disdaidal]

I'm already starting to regret that I joined yet another Discord server.

[lord-squiggletits]

Man, it doesn't matter what the medium or fandom is, truly the debate that ruins fandom discussions the fastest is when people try to decide which characters "deserve" what. Especially when it comes to them deciding which characters are evil, how evil they are, and how severe their punishment should be for their evil deeds.

It's really annoying/harmful on multiple levels. For one, morally speaking, the line between "evil, but can repent/compensate for their deeds" and "evil, cannot be redeemed, suffer and die forever" is harder to define than you think, and who has the authority to define it anyways?

But also, fictional stories (especially the better, more nuanced, more mature ones) are rarely ever about "deserving" and don't divide their characters neatly between the "good" and the "evil." Every time I see fans debate about "how evil" a Problematic Fave is, or if Fave 1 is better/worse than Fave 2, all I see is people ruining their own fun and stirring up bad blood between other fans. Why would you add this dichotomy of "deserving" to a FICTIONAL story and start real life beef with people over it? At that point you're getting more invested in your discourse over imagined good/evil binaries than you are invested in watching/reading/consuming the actual story itself.

[coridallasmultipass]

Goddddd, Dorothy is waifu for laifu, I s2g. Can't wait to see what conditional saviour bullshit she pulls from this stunt.