#i don’t play a lot of video games but some examples from really popular games that i can think of off the top of my head

[hidingoutbackstage]

Not only do video games not let you be fat but they will put characters in their games that are fat who are either meant to be laughed at or disgusting or unsettling (or all of the above!)

[danandphilplay]

*just want to clarify that by short form I mean youtube video uploads not youtube shorts. like videos to the channel not to the shorts/tiktok like content bit.

my answer to this is kind of one long yap. also did not put a third option for no preference bc ik a lot of answers will be ill watch anything from them and whilst i get that i want to see if there is an actual preference between the two so pls pick which u like/prefer or even engage with more

I think generally I prefer long content but it is also very dependent upon what the video is about. what I am trying to get at tho is I would love to see dan and phil play some different longer game series. yes I am thinking about life is strange AGAIN but I really would like a series like that and I genuinely would not mind if the wait between videos was longer than more frequent short form videos

just my opinion tho bc obviously we have no say over the dnp games channel but I feel long form game series may be a popular move?? but at the same time people may not have the time to watch and keep up with long videos/series. in the example of life is strange I guess the actual first game is quite old now but I still see people playing it on youtube for the first time and it’s still a popular game so I don’t really think that is an issue. obviously dnp know what sorts of games and uploads get more views and engagement (not saying that that’s the most important thing about uploading but it is definitely important to consider) so that impacts what they play too. hmmm I don’t know how to phrase it so I hope it sounds alright buttttt I do wonder if long form content or just a new series would do better on the channel and bring in new viewers? there is obviously a huge nostalgia factor with dapg and there’s still the core fandom that engages but I wonder whether content length impacts any growth in new viewers?

there is clearly the issue with long form content simply taking way longer. it obviously takes longer for dnp and their editors but also for viewers to have the time to spend on a series so maybe long form is not a popular move bc of that reason

nowww this also leads to a 4th option I wanted in the poll but I took out is whether people would want dapg youtube shorts. because reallllly super short content like shorts reels tiktok whatever else is so popular atm and so many highlights or funny moment clip things exist I wonder if that is a direction dapg will go in. I know dan isn’t rly a fan of all that especially tiktok but imo some of phil’s youtube shorts on lessamazingphil are still funny I just wonder if dapg shorts will ever become a thing and not even necessarily new content just like highlights or idk outtakes of a video like the ones anthony posts from his interviews. the highlights of the vid with dan seem to have got a lot of engagement too although ik anthony is a very popular creator still and his rebranded content continues being popular so I just wonder if dapg will ever have that kinda shorts thing going on??

I also think the times they’ve used the community tab to do polls or just general discussion has been fun and it just kinda gives the channel more personality imo!

again I just wanted to yap there is like 0 seriousness in this or what dapg should post bc I do watch whatever they put out I just wonder if there will be a shift in content and if that would impact the channel overall. idk!!

[vonlipvig]

I started playing Not For Broadcast, a game that manages to both be a worrying dystopia where human rights can and will be violated, AND a wonderful utopia where the rich actually face consequences… As someone from the UK I feel I am looking at both a brighter and darker future for my country and I don’t know how I feel about that! It is also (as someone who grew up during the era) very nostalgic. These adverts, this title sequence, I feel as if I have seen these before… a small me is dispassionately watching this shitty bullying play at school… at home she turns on top of the pops to see this exact music video… I had to go on the IMDB page for some of these actors to work out where I’ve seen them before.

I have just got up to the first day of lockdown, in what I am pretty sure is an unconscious electric shock dream. I’m enjoying myself a lot so far though my god it’s stressful having a job and a family to support. I think my wife is leaving me and taking our daughter with her, WHICH IS A BIT MUCH CONSIDERING I PLAYED HOOKIE FROM WORK FOR THE SAKE OF OUR RELATIONSHIP! And I’m SORRY you didn’t get to go on holiday daughter but we’re in CRUSHING DEBT! I TREAT OUR SON WITH COMPASSION BECAUSE HE’S THE ONLY ONE WHO ASKED ME TO DO SOMETHING I CAN ACTUALLY GIVE! I’M NOT RISKING OUR NECKS FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR BROTHERS TRUST FUND! AND I CAN’T MAGIC US UP MONEY BECAUSE I’M TERRIBLE AT MY JOB!!! I’M TRYING VERY HARD FAMILY!!! *sob*

Anyway I’m having fun, and getting to know the characters! I think Jeremy is my favourite at the moment. I can appreciate a character desperately struggling for both command and a sense of dignity on a sinking ship. If you look to your right you’ll see Megan has constructed herself a lifeboat and is doing just fine. She’s definitely going to be eating your lunch in a few years Jeremy… ah well!

YIPPEEEE WE GOT ANOTHER ONE, FOLKS! 📺

i will reserve most of my plot-specific comments for obvious reasons, but yeah, i do really love the angle they took with advance being a pretty popular progressive party (like, i would have voted for them, i'm fairly sure most of us would have voted for them). it definitely makes what's going to happen a lot more interesting and less black and white...

OOH the lockdown, one of my fave broadcasts, no doubt! it was, as you can guess, very much a product of the 2020 lockdown and the inability of getting together to film, and to me one of the best examples of art that used the situation to their advantage, i'm really so fond of it ♡ and also YEAH IT'S INSANE. i can't wait for you to discover all the insane secrets and possibilities within it...

again, shutting the fuck up regarding all your family choices here, but 👀 very amused, very amused, keep going!

and yeah, jeremy is such an amazing character. my fave's megan, but everyone in this game is so stellar, it's just fantastic.

[mha-grievances]

So with the way that I talk about Katsuki and MHA, you’d think that I see myself as some sort of armchair critic, someone who constantly has to pick apart everything about whatever media I consume. Oddly enough, that’s not really true. I know how to turn my brain off and enjoy something. I know how to get so wrapped up in something that I don’t notice any inconsistencies. I know how to simply allow suspension of disbelief to take over and let myself have fun. So why do I struggle with MHA?

Let me describe a Video Game I love: Fire Emblem Awakening. Awakening’s perhaps the most popular Fire Emblem game in the series alongside 3 Houses. Despite this, Awakening does have some glaring flaws. The gameplay isn’t as polished as some of the previous and newer games, parts of the story do drag on, and some lore related stuff are just glossed over. What makes Awakening such a beloved game? Well, despite the flaws of the gameplay, they aren’t enough to hinder the overall experience unless you’re an elitist. The world and most of the characters are all super charming, fun, and deceptively well written. Though the game does take a lighter tone most of the time, when it wants to take itself seriously, it will without making it seem awkward. For those who aren’t aware of Awakening, it was meant to be the last Fire Emblem title and it was meant to serve as a celebration of the Fire Emblem franchise. It does all of this fantastically. Despite a basic story and some hiccups in the gameplay, Awakening’s strong points have such a big presence that it makes the game great to play and even to this day it has a big fandom for a game that was released 10+ years ago.

MHA struggles with its tone. It doesn’t know when it wants to be good ol’ superhero fun or if it wants to be this philosophical discussion about heroics and heroes. Moments that shouldn’t be played for laughs are and vice versa. So much things are introduced into the world that when something becomes big, it feels smaller than it should be. Things that should’ve happened a long time ago only happen now and things that shouldn’t have happened persist in the story with no real reason as to why they should happen. Characters come and go, playing no real role, especially those who should have a bigger role, while characters who should’ve taken the backseat a while ago are hogging the spotlight. Some people might say that due to us following MHA in real time, the pacing may seem slower than it actually is and it’ll make a lot more sense once everything’s published and read in one sitting. This excuse doesn’t sit right with me cause I’ve read Webtoons that have weekly updates and were still able to maintain the pace of their story, where I actively looked forwards to reading the next update and seeing how all the pieces fit together. Sure, they may have had slower parts where the story’s just playing with its side characters, but even then, the story is consistently written well to the point where I’ve eagerly kept up with the journey even when my favorite characters weren’t front and center.

To look at an example of MHA’s awkward focus and pacing, let’s look at the most recent chapter. Katsuki’s alive now, and while you might think I’d focus on this, I already knew he was coming back so I’m not going to rant about that. I wanna turn my focus to AFO. AFO’s someone who shouldn’t have this much influence on the story anymore. Reason why? The series was building Tomura up to be the new big bad. Whereas Izuku was going to become All Might’s successor, Tomura was becoming AFO’s successor. Suddenly though, Hori introduces the idea that AFO can just possess people and Tomura suddenly becomes a puppet. Yeah, Tomura was being manipulated by AFO before, but he was finally developing beyond AFO’s influence to become his own villain. All that character development thrown down the drain. Sure, Tomura eventually becomes free from the possession and is fighting Izuku for his own reasons now, but AFO’s hogged up enough of the spotlight doing nothing of importance that I don’t really care for Tomura vs Izuku anymore. Keep in mind that after a ton of chapters we still know Jack shit about AFO except that he’s a power hungry person and had a brother. At this point going over his backstory would be an info dump.

There’s also the issue of AFO’s character in general, and that’s being a physical obstacle for the heroes. Now, there’s nothing wrong with a character existing solely to be a physical obstacle, but you have to pace them well or else they end up like AFO, a character who somehow not only knows everything that someone can and will do, but also whip bullshit out of his ass that keeps him around longer than he needs to be. There’s nothing wrong with an OP character but AFO’s an example on why OP characters have a bad rep. It only gets worse when you remember that he should’ve stayed down so many times but for some reason he refuses to exit the story. All Might beats him and he’s still plotting. Tomura rejects him, he acts like it doesn’t matter. All Might tries to take out AFO with him, somehow AFO was able to counter that. AFO should’ve handed the spotlight to Tomura, but he instead persists on stealing it all for himself.

Anyways, I just wanted to rant some more on MHA’s pacing. Thank you all for reading 😂.

[asteria7fics]

I've got a few questions for ya! Where did you learn to write like you do? I read through your newest fic and I'm blown away from how could you write!

And the other question I have, do you ever get worried? I hurt my brain and went down the SP confession rabbit hole, and now I'm worried about my writing now. I'm afraid of falling into tropes and writing these characters to be one dimensioned. How do you get past that?

First of all, thank you!! I never really know how to react when people compliment my writing as a whole, because truthfully I’m still very insecure about the way I write! It really does help to hear that people enjoy my writing style! (,,> ᴗ <,,)

I have a couple of answers to your first question. Learning to write has been a weird process for me if I’m being honest. I’ve always been told that reading is the best way to learn, and while I think reading lots of different things is a huge factor in being able to write confidently, there’s really no substitute for actually doing the thing.

I’ve always loved storytelling, but only really began writing stories down in middle school. Then I started finding RP partners online, and spent several years writing all kinds of stories and absorbing tons of skills from those people.

I’ve also spent an embarrassing amount of time listening to people talk about writing. Story structure, character development, all that jazz. There are several really great YouTube channels that discuss different writing techniques that I’ve taken bits and pieces from throughout the years.

Writing style is a very personal thing though, and while I’ve learned a lot from the way other people write, I’ve also spent a lot of time experimenting with my own voice. I’ve drafted tons of unfinished projects just to see what perspectives I enjoy writing from the most, or what sort of narrative voice I prefer to have. As you may glean from both TSOB and EWILY, I tend to take on a sort of sarcastic tone as a narrator, and for the most part I do that because that’s just kind of how I talk! I’m a smart ass by nature I’m afraid, though I think it also works well in the context of the sillier stories I tend to tell with my SP inspired works.

To answer your second question, yes! I’m always worried that my interpretations of certain characters won’t be enjoyed by the greater fandom, especially as someone who tends to not really vibe with a lot of really popular head canons. My solution to that? I pretend not to care!

Seriously though, I have spent a truly, horribly embarrassing amount of time studying these characters. Between watching the show, playing the games, listening to the episode commentaries, watching character analysis videos on YouTube (I’m a Johnny2Cellos girly myself), and reading some really, really good fan fiction I have put in the time to feel at least a little bit confident in my characterization of the main four boys, and sometimes Butters.

The fun thing about SP is that even Those Bastards play pretty fast and loose with their characterization, though.

Characters like Cartman who tend to have very consistent traits are usually the easiest for me to write. When I ask myself the question “how would Cartman respond to this?” the answer is usually whatever the worst possible response I can think of would be. Then I dial it back a little bit because I’m not trying to get cancelled.

But characters like Stan or Kyle are a lot more fluid. Sometimes they care very deeply about things, sometimes they don’t give a single shit. Sometimes they support one another through everything, sometimes they’re very quick to part ways. Characters like this can be really challenging, especially when you have them alongside characters who are often so cartoonishly villainous like Cartman.

My best advice for writing any characters, but especially for these particular characters, is to lean into their positive traits and flaws equally.

Cartman is actually a great example of this. He’s bigoted, crass and quite frankly kind of terrifying if you think about the things he’s done for more than thirty seconds. But he’s also extremely creative, pretty smart when he wants to be and, in many instances, is shown to actually care about his friends. Balancing all of these traits can be challenging, but it can also result in a more fleshed out, well rounded character.

Another character I see a lot of discourse about is Butters. To avoid making him too ‘uwu sweet baby’, as I often see it said, I balance a few things with him. Yes, Butters is generally very kind and sensitive to others’ feelings, but he’s also extremely gullible and can be a real asshole when he’s around the wrong people for long enough.

Of course, you don’t need to take my advice as gospel. I’m someone who has tried to keep the characters pretty close to canon (less so in EWILY than I did in TSOB, truthfully), but I’ve seen many incredibly written, extremely interesting SP fics that throw much of canon in the trash. Do what feels right for you and helps you to express the kinds of stories you want to tell!

At the end of the day, if you write for you and you enjoy the content you’re creating, then it shouldn’t matter what anyone else thinks of the interpretations you make. I especially don’t take anything on confession blogs personally, because if one of my head canons really offends someone they can talk to me about it. (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

Thank you so much for this ask! I had a lot of fun thinking about my own journey with writing these fics, and I hope some of my advice will be helpful for you! Much love, anon! ♡⸜(��˃ ᵕ ˂˶)⸝♡

[demi-shoggoth]

2023 Reading Log, pt. 15

I am behind on my writeups: the last book here I read the week of Thanksgiving!

71. The Body Fantastic by Frank Gonzalez-Crussi. This book made for a surprisingly relevant pivot from Cult of the Dead, as it starts with talking about how Christianity has made a long history from denying and denigrating the flesh. This book is a miscellany of odd medical trivia and historical beliefs about the human body, from wandering wombs to the curative power of saliva. As someone who’s read a lot of medical history books, this one didn’t stand out so much to me, but it would probably be a good starting point for someone looking to learn some of the odder highways and byways of how people have thought about bodies. The author’s sensibilities are philosophical, leaning mystical, and his personality shines through. This is particularly true in matters of food and drink—he feels disgust over eating competitions having gone hungry in his youth, for example.

72. Eight Bears by Gloria Dickie. As the name suggests, this book covers all of the extant bear species, although more from a cultural and conservation perspective than evolution or ecology. The author travels around the world in an attempt to see all of the bears in the wild, or at least in local captivity (such as going to a panda preserve in China). I think the book’s strongest chapters are the ones in South Asia, where she sees how in India, humans and sloth bears are being pressed into conflict through land use, and the waning in visibility but still strong market in bear bile in Vietnam. I was also pretty surprised about the chapter closest to home—how the black bears in Yosemite National Park were outright fed by park management for decades as a tourist attraction before the realization that, wait, getting large strong omnivores used to associating humans with food is a bad decision.

73. The Delusions of Crowds by William J. Bernstein. This is an odd one. It poses itself essentially as a sequel to Charles Mackay’s Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, a book about mass hysteria and fads from the 1840s. It narrows down Mackay’s wide scope to two major domains—economic bubbles and millenialist religion, and then progresses in a roughly chronological order. The problems are two fold. One, the narrative never really draws much linkage between these two types of “delusions of crowds”, leaving the book feeling disjointed. Second, the author assumes a lot about the reader’s background in economics (possibly because he’s an economist himself), so the explanations of the exact financial chicanery involved in the various bubbles are not always fully comprehensible. I wanted to like this book a lot more than I actually did.

74. Spirit Beings in European Folklore 2 by Benjamin Adamah. The second of four volumes, this covers primarily north-central and north-east Europe. Germany, Finland and the Netherlands get the most attention. The monsters contained within include a lot of house and field spirits, as well as many variations of alps and other sleep paralysis monsters. Again, what monsters the author decides fall into his category of “spirit beings” and which ones don’t is somewhat arbitrary. Tatzelwurms and stollenwurms, for example, are listed, even when more traditional dragons are not. I also think that the author needs to be more careful with their word choice, and/or spend more time studying folklore as a whole. For example, the book talks about the spoukhoas, a ghostly hare from the Netherlands. It talks about the spoukhoas as being a “were-hare”, despite the only lycanthrope-like trait in the entry being its vulnerability to silver… which is not universal to werewolves, and only became inexorably linked to werewolves due to Hollywood. No references to being a person at all!

75. Saurian: A Field Guide to Hell Creek by Tom Parker, Chris Mansa and RJ Palmer. This is an art book, tied into the Saurian video game in which you play as a dinosaur. As such, the book takes an in depth look at the habitat represented by the game, and discusses the flora and fauna of the late Maastrichian South Dakota. The book is, of course, gorgeous. Both in terms of the dinosaur reconstructions and the landscapes, this makes a wonderful coffee table book. This might sound like an odd complain for a coffee table book based on a video game, but I do wish it had a bibliography. The book talks a lot about specific diets and habitat preferences of the animals within, and I want to have some sort of a guide to sorting out what’s supported by evidence, and what’s creative license.

[daemonwritesstuff]

MATCHUP EXCHANGE WITH @twilightpentagram

ENSEMBLE STARS

NATSUME SAKASAKI!

☆ I think you two would be able to get along so well! He’s able to help you with your temper like for example, if someone’s been staring at you to long and your about to go off on them, natsume will stop you, have you calm down and then he’ll handle the situation for you. You guys were friends before you guys became lovers.

☆ He loves your personality so much! You have a lot to give to people and I think your personality and attitude is what attracted him towards you, he remained to be mysterious to get to know you better. You guys both take charge of your relationship, your relationship is definitely a very healthy one! He motivates you to do things, he’ll make sure you take breaks so you don’t overstimulate yourself from so much work, he rlly cares about you <3

☆ He will play a lot of games with you during your free time since that’s what you wanted to do, your hobbies are so interesting to him, usually because you seem to have to many and they seem really fun to do. He’ll also do couple cosplays with you, just you’ll have to lure him with something.

MY HERO ACADEMIA

DENKI KAMINARI

☆ He was the one who fell for you so hard when he first met you, you are definitely the most popular person in all of the school, second next to momo, you are always hanging out with her and he definitely tries flirting with you but that usually backfires, even though he flirts with a lot of the girls in the class… he’s taken a huge interest for you.

☆ He’s someone who’s gonna play video games with you any time of the day with you, he’ll buy a lot of your things for you, and you guys can do matching outfits in online games <3 he would also listen to a lot of vkei music with you, I think his music taste is somewhat all over the place, he mostly likes alternative, metal music or rock music (because of jirou). He’ll also buy you whatever you like! He’ll also go out with you to cafes every morning to get drinks before school.

☆ He definitely pulled the best person in school and that person is you! You are so much fun to be around with and your also very intelligent! I think a lot of people would love you, but not as much as denki kaminari <3

HONKAI STAR RAIL

AVENTURINE

☆ This man will tease and flirt with you so much, but it’s not to make fun of you or anything, it’s because he’s in love with you and he doesn’t really know how to express that… he’ll flirt back just to see you get flustered. He’s also gonna spoil you a lot with whatever you like because (from gambling…) he has a shit load of money on him.

☆ He’ll be the first person to interact with you, you are just so interesting and it made him wanna get to know you more, your also there to get him out of situations that he got himself into, he’s kind of a pain in the ass but he’s very lovable either way, you also taught him a lot of things as well! He definitely needed you, he was never taught to much stuff, even some basic stuff but you were happy enough to teach him and that’s kinda how he fell for you in the first place.

☆ He’s very possessive of you, he doesn’t want you to be with anyone else but him (he really doesn’t). He likes psychical contact a lot so I would expect a lot of hugs or neck kisses when your around him. He’s able to calm you down whenever your upset. He’s like your safe space to go to and he’s happy to be of help for once.

[twistedtummies2]

Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes - Number 26

Welcome to A Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes! During this month-long event, I’ll be counting my Top 31 Favorite Fictional Detectives, from movies, television, literature, video games, and more!

SLEUTH-OF-THE-DAY’S QUOTE: “Truth brings closure.”

Number 26 is…Gil Grissom, from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Perhaps it’s just me, but it feels like a lot of modern mystery shows today tend to veer more towards “crime drama” than your more classic “detective story.” These are shows that feature a more or less ensemble cast, rather than focusing primarily on a single chief investigator. Oh, there may be one or two characters more important than the rest, but at the end of the day, it’s less about one man or woman putting the pieces together, and more a group of people who all have different jobs, working together to stitch the greater puzzle into one solid whole. They try to focus more on “real” detective work (and I use the quotation marks because, even then, there’s usually some romanticization involved), rather than the old-fashioned ideal of the singular sleuth.

I’m not saying this as a complaint, by the way; there are many great shows that have come out of this, and lasted for long periods of time, because something about this formula is as appealing as any other. One of the most popular and long-running examples – as well as one of the first I remember seeing a lot growing up (perhaps more than was healthy, given the nightmares I remember occasionally having) – is “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.” The series, as its title implies, focuses on the adventures (if that’s an appropriate choice of word for them) of the CSI operatives of the Las Vegas Police Department. The show had a revolving door of cast members over the course of fifteen seasons (and, fittingly, fifteen years). While many characters came and went, for the first eight-and-a-half seasons of the program, if there was a main character to be found, it was this one: team leader Gil Grissom, played by William Petersen.

My biggest problem with CSI, to be honest, has always been its characters: with only a few exceptions, a lot of the members in the cast I just don’t feel were very interesting. I remember their faces, but I can’t tell you much when it comes to a lot of their personalities, and some characters I probably wouldn’t even remember by name if you asked me. I say all this because this was NOT the case for Gil Grissom: he is genuinely a really interesting, fun, unique character, and probably one of the best leads any crime series of this nature has ever had.

Grissom is a certified genius, who is known for being highly intellectual, and slightly eccentric. He’s fascinated by insects, being a passionate entomologist, but also has many other interests: history, literature, theatre, and art, among others. He speaks in a frequently poetic fashion, making references to various bits of trivia and offering moments of philosophical wisdom here and there. Ironically, he’s not that well-versed in a lot of pop culture references, despite all this. (I can relate.) Throughout the show, Petersen creates a wonderful character that is both detached and sensitive at the same time. On the one hand, Grissom isn’t made of stone; he can be irritated or unsettled by things around him, and he does sympathize with people and feel sorrow about situations beyond his control. He’s even got a spiritual side to his personality. However, he’s also a very logical and practical person: he’s a scientist, before all else, and believes in hard facts and evidence above all. He also doesn’t have many social graces, and will do bizarre and seemingly deranged things for the sake of proving a theory or testing a hypothesis. In short, he’s a bit like a modern day Sherlock Holmes…except maybe a bit less rude.

Part of the way through Grissom’s tenure, it was revealed that he was starting to go deaf, which signaled a change in his character. While he eventually got surgery to save his hearing, this paved the way for the character’s departure about halfway through Season 9. Later lead investigators would enter the series: first came Laurence Fishburne as Ray Langston, who had probably one of the most wild departures from the series to his credit. Following him was Ted Danson as D.B. Russell, who to HIS credit got an episode with an “Alice in Wonderland” theme. (For me, that’s always a plus.) Neither were bad characters – all three leads were the most memorable ones in the show, for me – but I never felt as attached to them as I did Grissom, possibly at least partially because they just weren’t around for as long as he was. For me, whenever I think of this show, I always think of Petersen as Gil Grissom before anybody else.

Tomorrow, the countdown continues with Number 25!

CLUE: “How did people survive before there were pattern-recognizing sparse representation algorithms?”

[talkingattumble]

okay deltarune opinion incoming so spoilers and all that

Okay here’s like my take on the secret bosses so far. Fair warning this isn’t structured at all, I just kinda leap from subject to subject and this entire thing is just ramblings so don’t expect some well thought out and presented theory it is just my thoughts, and some messy theories. SORRY IN ADVANCE FIR THE LONG POST like seriously this post is just a bunch of enormous paragraphs about my extra shaky barely supported deltarune theories so be warned

First of all, jevil is pretty widely assumed to be the joker card in a deck of cards. Mostly from the fact that he was the jester in a card based dark world and that he is wearing a joker outfit. Also, his signature line is “I can do anything”, which is kind of a reference to the fact that a joker card can do anything in most card games. Anyways, so I saw this theory in a video about the bosses being tossed aside or ignored things. And I was agreeing with it, but then I thought about jebil. Why would a joker card be tossed aside? Okay well in my experience. The joker card is usually super op in most card games. For example, in war, most of the time the joker is regarded as being able to beat any card (in some cases only an ace can beat it, but I’m not sure how common that rule is or if it has any significance to the interpretation). For this reason, it’s usually not included to make the game more fair, as most of the time anyone who ends up with a joker card gets a huge advantage. So a lot of the time people end up playing without a joker and forgetting about it. And his whole backstory? I think that jevil believing that his life is a game is another reason he’s always saying “I can do anything”. The world he lives in is populated by (mostly) a suit of cards. And once he realized he was the joker, he kinda realized how powerful he was compared to everyone else. He could literally do anything they could. So yeah that’s my take. Very badly structured and probably obvious, but I’d rather make a post than spam my friends about it.

Spamton is kinda more easy because of the sheer amount of characters who are able to add details and perspectives to his story. But I’m still gonna take a crack at it. Right off the bat, it becomes obvious that spamton is a spam ad. His disjointed speech that’s often interrupted with words or phrases you often see in spam, the fact that he pops out and starts forcing us to make a deal (in contrast to the other ads who you could choose to interact with), the rip off items in his shop, and his literal name. I think this is also what the addisons meant when they said “he was just unlucky”. Unlike the other ads, spamton was kind of doomed from the start. No matter how hard he works, nobody will buy his products because he’s a spam ad, and basically Nobody ever clicks on spam ads. The rest of his story is mostly outright told to us. He gets famous from a man named Mike, gets so popular he gets into the queens castle, the addisons leave him out of jealousy, Mike stops helping him, he goes a bit insane and starts worshipping a broken down machine, he gets evicted, and eventually we come along and help him (to sum it up). I also have a theory that he might’ve falllen into the acid pool at some point, but it’s not well supported. My only evidence really is that he’s very tiny and the dialogue in his shop where he randomly starts screaming in pain and saying how “it burns”. Not really important but I couldn’t fit it in anywhere else. Ok moving on. So even though we’ve basicslly got spamtons backstory down, there’s still something we’re all in the dark about: Mike, the man in the tv. So it’s kind of widely accepted at this point that mike is the grinning tv seen at the end of chapter two, and that’s what I’m basing my theory on. So why would the tv guy help spamton? Okay so here’s my thoughts. One thing that has been a regular thing on tv for a while is dumb commercials that try to convince people to buy useless things. I feel like Most people usually don’t pay attention to that kind of stuff. But I will say, even though I have no evidence to support this, based on my experiences and the people around me, commercials work much better than spam ads, even if they’re essentially the same thing. My thoughts on why: spam ads are something st the edge of the screen that you can ignore or usually close. And when they take the form of messages or emails, they’re usually sent straight to the junk or spam sections, meaning there’s a huge chance they won’t even be seen. But on tv, most of these spam advert style commercials are on live channels, meaning they can’t be skipped. Meaning that more people see them and are tempted to buy the things in them. So if spamtons ads were out in commercial form, it would make sense for him to suddenly get a boost in popularity. But this could also explain why Mike stops helping him. Eventually, due to changes in the way tv works, these dumb spam ad type adverts became less effective and only caused people to be more annoyed with live tv/switch to other methods of watching movies. So it would make sense for Mike to drop spamtons commercials as soon as they started causing viewers to drop. My last piece of evidence to support this would be, how one addison specifically calls attention to the noise that is heard when you try to call someone in the dark world. It’s described as garage noise, but what you hear is a messed up kind of staticky noise. Spamton also has static in his eyes when he mentioned Mike.

Oh yeah, here’s another thing. Something I don’t see many people talk about it the moment in his shop where his eyes go dark and he says “hello….can anyone hear me…..” or smth like that, and then says that he didn’t hear anything but he thinks it’s probably for us?? I’ve got a few theories. It could be his connection with Mike (again, note that he has dark static eyes when he says this). “It’s for you” is a phrase commonly used when you get a phone call for someone else, and in this theory we can surmise that Mike was the one calling spamton. So maybe it’s a hint about us facing Mike next chapter? I have some other guesses but no actual evidence to support them so I’ll leave those out for brevity (I say that as if this post isn’t a gajillion paragraphs long already lmao)

Ok last thing: this is pretty irrelevant to the bosses but it technically counts. So a lot of others have already drawn the obvious connection between spamton neo and mettaton neo. But why is mettatons robot body rusting away at the bottom of queens castle? Here’s my theory. So mettaton, at the moment, seems to not have transitioned by this point (wether you view his transition in undertale as being a trans thing or just being a ghost inhabiting a body it likes thing, the word still applies either way so it’s what I’ll use). He refuses to show his face, and is a lot more negative, angrily answering to you and immediately assuming you want to see napstablook instead. Another thing to note is that he calls himself a nobody, and no one in the town seems to mention him. So given all that it’s safe to assume he’s still a ghost with no body. But what does that have to with his neo form in the cyber world? Well my thought is that mettaton designed what his dream form would look like using the computer, but then for some reason (sadness, shame, despair, whatever you want to interpret it as) he tried to delete the file or buried it deep. As the queens castle in general reminds me of a search engine (the rooms based on the characters searches, the butlers giving people the things they ask for or like, the bookshelves, queen herself being concerned with noelles searches, etc.), it’s possible he might have even bookmarked a tab with his design and then forgot about it/didn’t want to revisit it, and the bookmark got buried under the searches and bookmarks of others. Whichever makes more sense idk it’s late. Anyways. So if mettaton is at the point where he wants fame, knows that he wants a different body, and has long had a design, why is he still a ghost who hides away? Well the sad truth is (in my opinion), he’s got no way to make the body. Undertale was a much more fantastical world, full of magic and crazy inventions and things that would be otherwise impossible. Deltarune is a much more grounded world. It contains monsters, but there’s seemingly no magic, no crazy inventions, ordinary shops and buildings. While a “magic portal to a dark town” would be commonplace in the world of undertale, this same thing is laughed at and not believed in the world of deltarune. So, chances are it would be way harder to build a robot as complicated as mettaton neo. Especially because it seems that deltarune takes place in the 2000a or 2010s (based on the computers they use, the chalkboard in the classroom, the clothes the characters wear, and also undertale took on as in 201X so I’d this truly is a parallel world then it likely also takes place at that time). Also, in this universe, alphys is a schoolteacher. There’s no such occupation as “royal scientist/inventor”. So there’s nobody to build the body anyways. In a nutshell: mettaton designs his perfect body, forgets about it or buries it deep due to negative feelings about not being able to achieve this, and he never transitions, meanwhile the powerful design he made stays in the computer, old and buried deep underneath all the newer searches and files.

But why would spamton worship this machine in particular? Well the first theory is that the machine is very old. Mettaton is obviously older than Kris (he was much older than frisk and doesn’t go to school with Kris). So it would make sense that by the time Kris gets to the cyber world, mettatons design file is considered very very old to the cyber people. Maybe file she has something to do with power, or maybe spamton assumed it was an ancient relic because of its rusty and decrepit look. I’d guess the second because I think one of the swatchlings has dislogue mentioning that spamton would pray to the machine, and that swatch refers to it as a relic. My second theory is that spamton thought that if he could transfer his consciousness to any other body, his strong would be cut, no matter what form it is. And the only available empty body in the castle was the machine in the basement, so he placed all his bets on that.

And finally my third theory (least likely to be true, I believe the answer is a mix of one and two, but this is my personal favorite) is that mettatons body design was made with freedom in mind. This is something they might have sensed and started worshipping the machine for. After all, for mettaton, that body meant being free to be himself, to express himself, to be who he really is. If queen can sense emotion through searches (she called noelles searches strange and sad and is protective of her due to this), who’s to say spamton can’t? Spamton also mentions the smell of freedom a lot, so it’s possible freedom is smth he can just sense.

WOW THAT WAS A LOT. Alright that should satisfy my “must talk about deltarune to everyone and anyone” urge for the week. A lot of this is super shaky, and a lot of it probably has canon answers I just forgot about. But whatever, I mostly just wanted to ramble about deltarune, no structure just word vomit (plus it’s like super late so I’m kinda tired). Also I’m sorry this post is so spamton centric, I know I said I’d talk about both bosses but jebil really got less words than mettaton of all character lmao. I do live jevil and have a whole other load of opinions and theories about jebil, but it’s late and that writing all that here would only make this essay of a post longer. Also there’s way more information available about spamton (two routes worth of content, lore dumps by almost every character in queens castle and even some outside of the castle like the sweet capn cakes or the addisons, the secrets in the spamtons sweepstakes arg stuff, and you can actually talk to him instead of just fighting him) which makes him easier to talk about.

ANYWAYS SORRY FOR THE LONGPODT GOODNIGHT AND CONFRATS ON ACTUALLY READING TJIS HIGE POST

[jtl07]

jtl07 fics, 2023 round up(ish)

So I do an admittedly intense EOY reflection / SOY preparation every December but I’ve never really done a review of my writing for the year. Part of it is that, after over a decade of not writing fic, I didn’t start writing fic again until 2021. Crazy enough, my output this year was more than those two years combined (almost twice over!).

Tbh part of me almost felt guilty to realize that. I mean, here I am, recovering from one of the hardest times in my life, writing fic. But then a small part of me whispered, what’s wrong with that? Just because I’m healing doesn’t mean I have to suffer.

So I’m trying to take joy in what I’ve done this year and honestly, I’m proud what I’ve written. I truly cannot pick out a favorite because all of them mean so much to me. As I mentioned in the last fic review, reading and writing fic has played a huge role in how I process things and express myself; to have had this time to relearn how to write (with all its frustration and joy), to discover new things, to explore new characters, to connect with so many folks, it’s meant a lot. It’s helped me move forward, it’s helped me hold on.

So thank you - you, reading this, y’all who’ve read anything I’ve written, who’ve liked and left kudos and comments and messages - thank you, so, so much.

[some stats and random thoughts under the cut]

Because I’m me, I went into nerd-mode and used Flamebyrd’s ao3 bookmarklet to pull my fic stats earlier this month. I drew up some tables and charts and used lots of colors (what’s a spreadsheet without conditional formatting?)

(just one of the many sheets in the workbook I drew up lol)

After looking at different interactions (hits, kudos, comments, percentages of each), I came up roughly with my “top” fics and “bottom” fics (focusing on avatrice fics because that was the bulk of my writing this year).

Top 5:

Customer feedback surveys for Bar La Vasseur

past tense, future perfect

that melts the blood inside our veins

looks for you in everything (finds you there)

propose (now am found)

I’m not surprised by the surveys fic being at the top - I still giggle at that one and it gets kudos pretty regularly. It’s easy to read with a unique premise and I’m generally happy with the execution.

I am surprised, however, that propose shot up so high so quickly - the top three had been published early in the year (Feb-Mar) but propose was posted just last month. I suppose there was something about the premise - a different take on an Avatrice proposal - that must have resonated with folks.

Bottom 5: 18. so different now from what it seemed 19. we both know how this ends 20. the long, delirious, burning blue 21. late night vigil 22. can’t go back

I’m curious about the ranking of some of these fics - for example, that melts the blood inside our veins was my first amnesia fic and is in the top 5, but my second amnesia fic, so different now from what it seemed, is in the bottom 5. Perhaps it’s the difference in premise, perhaps the execution - who knows. (I’m not mad, just “huh.”)

I’m not surprised about the others though: a video game crossover, a military propaganda movie AU, an Avatrice+Cam threesome (fun fact: the doc title was simply “ABC” for a while lol), and a moody “what if” speculation - none of them fit the mold of “popular” lol

Now that I think of it, though, I did try new things with some of these fics: the tone and action of we both know how this ends is one I don’t usually do; I rarely do a retelling of other media (I know the long, delirious, burning blue doesn’t follow the Maverick movie exactly but still), not to mention having that twist at the end; I’m still very much learning how to be comfortable writing intimacy (I still don’t know where late night vigil came from lol); and can’t go back was an exercise that stretched my brain thinking of the different ways Beatrice’s life could have changed.

Slight tangent: I am, however, surprised that pocketful was so low - it’s #17 in the rankings (it’s just shy of 900 hits as of this writing) - only because I thought it got quite the heartwarming response initially. I received some of my favorite comments on that one (though to be clear, I love all the comments I receive! Such gifts, comments) That said, I can acknowledge that the premise does sound a bit odd. I mean, cmon, a fic about pockets? What even?

That said, I can’t promise that my ideas won’t be any less weird next year lol. There are some ideas that I think will carry over but I’m certain there will be plenty of new and unusual ideas that will pop into my head in the year to come.

I also can’t promise that my output will be as high as it was this year, what with some upcoming changes to my life (new job! moving, hopefully relatively soon, to a new state!) and general life-ness. I do intend to keep writing, though, at least that’s the goal.

Anyway, I think I’ll wrap this up here - if you have any questions or comments, feel free to reply here or drop an ask or DM. In any case, thanks again for hanging out with me and I hope your holidays and new year is safe and full of light <3

[galaxyraiders]

Generalists vs. Specialists in TTRPGs.

Generalists and Specialists is a term that is never really heard of in the TTRPG community in my experience, but is a core mechanic of Galaxy Raiders in how I designed the game which allows for the variety of builds to be performed.

The concept of a Generalist and Specialist in Game Design is something mainly done in class based first person shooters, fighting games, and other video games. Each executive decision is made with this in mind: Will this topple the balance between both?

For those that don’t know, A Generalist is basically a character, class, race, or ability that has a wide variety of uses and is balanced in all aspects, in D&D terms, these are three classes, the Paladin, Bard and Ranger. These classes are designed to be able to do all aspects of the game in little ways very easily. A specialist on the other hand, is something that focuses on one aspect of the game, in D&D terms, like Wizard, Fighters, and almost every other class that hasn’t been mentioned. They usually have very in-depth mechanics that change up how the game is played with that style.

I incorporate a lot of the playstyle of a character in Galaxy Raiders to be tied to a Race, the game has no classes, but the general playstyle and feel of the character can be seen from the race, for example, a Supercomputer has the ability to control anything it hacks and become a hive mind with ease, this is just StarCraft for the player. Each race can be classed as a Generalist or a Specialist, each having their own traits and abilities that reflect that. The generalists can do a lot but not focus on something, while the Specialists can do so much by focusing on one thing.

The effect this has caused is a large diversity in roles that players tend to play as, while also always inherently feeling useful, Generalists will be able to play the game and feel helpful because of their role as being able to do a multitude of things, while a Specialist will always feel helpful because they have a niche that others don’t and can be a huge boon with. It balances the Team composition for those who want to make characters that operate as a team, and it also allows for players to play the game solo with great success as some items designed for specialists become used by generalists and vice versa.

Creating a perfect character with the moveset you want was one of my hugest drives nearly 10 years ago, that’s why I removed classes in GR2 and made various abilities to unlock, and now we’re here in GR3 with its large list of abilities to make every character.

Generalists and Specialists improved my games balance a whole bunch, as I was able to create more freedom in character design with those game design techniques. While most TTRPGs nowadays, especially popular ones, aren’t designed with this in mind directly (everyone is usually a specialist to make everyone unique and useful), it would really be amazing if we could see these concepts used more often.

[drakedoo]

My thoughts on the fnaf movie. ⚠️spoilers ahead, if you haven’t watched the movie yet, I urge you to watch it and then come back and read this⚠️

Hey, so I just got finished watching the five nights at Freddy’s movie and let’s just say it was pretty good. I don’t normally put out my thoughts on movies that I watch or reviews on them but I thought this would be a little fun and like I said if you haven’t seen it yet, I kindly ask you to go watch it and then come back here and read what I have to say so that I don’t spoil the fun for you. If you read this without watching the movie, please do not get mad at me for spoiling it because I did warn you and asked you to watch it first . Without further ado, here’s my thought on it.

Things I liked about it:

At first, I had my doubts with Matthew Lillard, playing William Afton, but he did an amazing job, especially at the end. I really enjoyed his take on our beloved villain of the story.

I found it really cool that one of MatPat’s lines is “but that’s just a theory.” because it references his oh so popular phrase that he always says on his channel.

The animatronics designs. I love how they look almost like they just stepped right out of the video game and look absolutely amazing and say what you will about them having red eyes, but I really didn’t mind it.

Foxy humming. There are parts were foxy hums while he hunts, and it brings back a detail from the game

The miniature doll of balloon boy popping up every so often in cabinets and scaring the shit out of Mike. He did what we were all thinking, and turned that fucker around.

The game poster in the background of the office

Some of the 2016 Halloween store, costume masks hanging on the prize counter wall, and a few Funko plushies scattered here and there

Mike’s little sister having the same legal name as me because it just felt refreshing and a little bit joyful, hearing, my name, said, over and over in one of my favorite things in the world

The animatronics, helping Abby build a fort in the pizzeria. I just found it really adorable and cute.

The living tombstone song playing during the credits. It brought a lot of nostalgia back to me.

Spring lock failure scene

OK now that I got through the things that I liked and enjoyed in the movie here’s the things that I wish could’ve been different and didn’t necessarily like or find necessary

I wish they there was more scenes at the pizzeria and a little more time with the animatronics because they were so cool, and I wish the movie was a little longer because it kind of just felt rushed at some parts.

I wish the spring lock screen was a little more than what we got and had a little little more dramatics I guess, like, for example, more violent thrashing, and more blood but I mean it is also a PG-13 movie so they can’t really have a lot of blood and gore

 I wish they actually played Toreador March at some point like they did in the trailer

Scott Cawthon should’ve been the one on that training tape

 I feel like Vanessa could’ve been written better . No hate to the actress though, because she was just doing her job and going off of the script.

I know we all wish we could’ve seen Markiplier since he’s the reason the game really took flight mainly but since he had scheduling conflicts with the iron lung movie, he’s working on unfortunately he couldn’t do it but it would’ve been really cool to see him in it.

So I had a lot more things I enjoyed and liked rather than not. I’m just happy we finally got a five nights at Freddy’s movie after many many years, and many many trials and errors, and rewrites. Mind you, this isn’t going to be exactly like the games because the movie is an entire new story and lore, with some five nights at Freddy’s game lore, mixed in(there’s so many different five nights at Freddy’s universe lores) if I had to rate it, I’d probably give it an eight or nine out of 10 because I actually thoroughly enjoyed it and it made my inner child really happy because in a weird way, Five Nights at Freddy’s saved my life because the lore and the games and the fandom, was my escape from my reality in school(I was what you could call a Carrie White in junior high and high school) and it really helped me find my passions, which was cosplay because some of my first cosplays were five nights at Freddy’s. So finally getting to see the movie we were promised is amazing and made 12 to 13 year-old me really happy.

Anyways, I’m gonna go to bed now because it’s almost 5 in the morning so peace out✌️

[waywardsalt]

Hi! I hope you’re doing good in life! So it’s spooky season so I have an ask related to that. I don’t know if you play horror video games, watch horror movies/shows, or read horror books, but if you do, I have to ask: What is the most disturbing book, or video game or show/movie that you’ve played/watched/read? In my opinion, there is two types of horror: the ones that scare you, and the ones that traumatize you. If you can think of any book, movie, or game that really kind of fucked you up, I’m curious to know if you feel like answering. I hope you have a good day and a good life.

Hey, I’m doing good and I hope you are too!

the answer ended up being really long lol

Woof, this is honestly a pretty hard question, since I can't really name any horror (or otherwise) media that actually left me kind of fucked up for a bit, at least not to the degree where it affected me for a while. I probably haven't been really fucked up by anything since I was a kid, so I'll try and recall what a few things fucked me up back then...

Off the top of my head I know that two different spongebob episodes got me bad, the first being one with that tunnel of love thing (tho tbh i havent seen it in a while so it might still spook me today) and the one where i'm pretty sure for whatever reason squidward gets locked in some small locker and has some kind of fucked up dream, whatever that was. I remember there was an eagle in that one. the eagle terrified me. (i looked them up, and the first episode is titled 'tunnel of glove' and the second is 'squidward in clarinetland'. with how badly that second one got to me, i'm surprised i ended up learning to play the clarinet at all)

other than that, i think the courage the cowardly dog episode 'the house of discontent' got me pretty bad, too, but i think everyone who saw any amount of that series as a kid has at least one episode that got them fucked up.

there's probably a handful of scooby-doo stuff that got to me when i was a kid, but i could not name any specifics (asides from charlie the robot's original episode, christ) because i think i managed to see just about every bit of available scooby media around that time.

nowadays stuff still does kinda fuck me up, but it's usually only for brief bits of time. the most recent example I can think of is cowboy bebop's 20's episode, pierrot le fou, which is honestly some great horror, especially how it uses the show's typical format and flips it on it's head, but i wouldn't necessarily say it got to me because of it being scary, more because of the way the ending disturbed me for a bit. it was the only episode that had me stop afterwards and really look into it for anything other than clarifying a character's gender, lol.

the endings of both neon genesis evangelion and end of evangelion had me shaken, the latter more so than the former, but not really due to horror aspects, though. i did have to take a walk after finishing end of evangelion. i don't really watch horror movies, i just... read the wikipedia plot descriptions of them.

honestly, i think some of the more popular youtube analogue horror series have gotten to me worse (likely due to the fact that they can get a bit more fucked up than, say, a tv show or movie), specifically the walten files (which i did watch) and the mandela catalogue (which i just watched wendigoon's vids on), and those two and mostly because facial distortion is generally just an incredibly effective form of horror imo. a lot of the time (esp with the childhood examples) the way i was 'fucked up' was that id be in be visualizing the stuff that scared me, and both the mandela catalogue and the walten files had me doing that for a bit.

now that i remember it, i was really scared of fnaf when it first came out. i first learned of it second-hand from seeing some other kids looking into it, and the bits and pieces i put together about it really scared me.

honestly, it's usually straight-up disturbing sequences or imagery that gets to me the most, and i know my limits well enough to generally identify and avoid that stuff, which is probably why i don't have too many recent examples. i've got one or two examples of non-horror movies that fucked me up as a kid, but that's mostly because they were wildly inappropriate for someone of my age (at the time) to be witnessing, so that's a different sort of topic.

i mean, i think i generally have a decent tolerance for fucked up stuff in media, anyways, i mean, i enjoy berserk and haven't really been too upset or disturbed by what happens in it (look theres some nasty shit in there im not saying its not that bad) so there's definitionally some kind of line that media needs to cross to really get to me nowadays, or it just needs to be a specific kind of fucked up. books generally don't do that for me so i don't have any book examples. no games, either, though shadow mario and the haunted house segments in super mario 3d world scared me so much that i had to make my mom do the levels for me, and i'm pretty sure scooby doo: first frights scared me a bit when i first played it on ds.

other than that, though, I just think that, in pokemon x, the story that an npc tells you during your first trip to route 14 and then the strange office building encounter with the animation-less hex maniac creeped me out pretty bad.

yeah, it's kind of hard for me to think of anything (recent) that actually really fucked me up or anything. most stuff just scared me, never really fucked me up or figuratively traumatized me in recent years.

[francostrider]

‘The Last of Us’ Was Not the First of Anything

With The Last of Us the Game the Series released, the conversation of whether or not this is the greatest game that ever gamed has come up once again. Its position was called into question due to the mixed reaction of its sequel in 2020, and while it still had defenders, people were a lot more open to discussing the original’s flaws. But there are still those who call it the greatest game ever, and award shows (a cancer upon entertainment) love to push that narrative.

As I maintain, this is subjective, and declaring anything the greatest is a shallow viewpoint of any medium and only serves to invalidate the whole rainbow of other works that are, ultimately, not comparable. The sequel was incredibly divisive for that simple fact. You cannot compare The Last of Us, a cover shooter with some expensive cutscenes, to more complex RPGs like Divinity Original Sin 2, or high octane action games like Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, or investigative titles like The Return of the Obra Din. Comparing them is like comparing a lawn mower to a cookie tray. I have not played The Last of Us, and while it may be a competently made game, it holds zero value to me. I’ve heard the praise (the cutscenes), and the criticisms (Ellie not being a factor in gameplay, gameplay is pretty derivative, etc.), but I’m not going to rip into it because it’s not part of the my world.

And fans of TLOU, don’t take that personally. Final Fantasy VII Remake also holds no value to me. As does Lisa: The Painful RPG, most Final Fantasy, Valkyrie Profile, Call of Duty, Fortnite or a lot of other popular franchises of today. I am occasionally surprised by something out of my usual repetiore, like Dawn of War, but with my limited time, I want to put my time to something I am interested in, and I’m well past the point of caring about hype. The games I criticize are the ones I wanted to care about (Fire Emblem Fates) and wanted to do better.

But let’s make something clear: The Last of Us was not a first on any given level.

We all know the meme of someone on Twitter saying that Video Games have been nothing but coin crunchers until TLOU. From my research the “showrunner” quoted (who had been left anonymous) does not exist, and the post was a joke to anger people. But I have gotten into arguments with people who claimed that The Last of Us was the first to be really “narrative focused”. Sadly, this was not the only example.

And, say, aren’t we forgetting a few? If you want to go back to narrative driven games, the earliest I can think of are adventure games, like the Monkey Island series. You know, back in the 80s, early 90s. RPGs (both western and Japanese), have been playing with dialogue and settings and character arcs since the NES days. But the one that comes to mind for myself is a little old game on the PS1 by Hideo Kojima.

Metal Gear Solid for a lot of people (including myself) was the first to put a lot of effort into its cutscenes. Not only that, but it was the first I played to put the voice talent onto center stage. When introduced to a new character, you are given the name of the character and the name of the voice actor behind it. As a kid, I did not think of the voice talent much before that game. Kojima not only wanted you to know the characters and their story, but the voices behind them.

On the shoulder of that game, you have Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. I was more aware of the voice talent coming into this game, but there are some significant details that marry gameplay with the story. Raziel is a fallen vampire, turned soul devouring lich. The bones were torn from his wings and he was cast into an abyss, killing him before an ancient being brings him back. In this form, he needs to devour souls to maintain himself in the living world, or else be forced back into the spectral realm. His torn wings can be used as an impromptu parachute to glide. Devouring greater vampires leads to new powers to allow him to progress further. The vampires need to be killed in specific ways, like water or fire.

The point is Soul Reaver matches the gameplay and story with very little segregation. You feel the world and Raziel’s character in ways most games neglect. There is no forgetting the narrative during its gamplay. This is not the only example of this, but it is one that will always stand out in my mind. And this was all the way back in 1999. This is a classic example of a narrative driven game.

The Last of Us was basically a logical next step of the trends of the time: cover based shooting, refinement of cutscenes and voice work, graphical touches, and so on. It did not break trends or set them. Spec Ops: The Line is very often compared to TLOU, and that came out the year prior, specifically to deconstruct the modern military genre of shooters. We’d seen zombies before, we’d seen main characters fall apart, we’d seen character arcs and we’d seen some real downers up to that point.

This is not to say you cannot enjoy The Last of Us or that the game itself is toxic. By all means, have fun. But what is toxic is the narrative surrounding it. Calling it the greatest does nothing for the gaming industry except decide an arbitrary standard (like the Oscars) of which games are worth looking at. It decrees that only when you’ve worked your animation staff to death will you draw the greater collective’s attention. It implies that every other kind of game is a waste of time. It erases gaming history for the sake of Oscar fueled spectacle.

And most of all, it harms the legacy of The Last of Us itself. This myopic, elitist attitude toward gaming does nothing for a game about the desperate and downtrodden. Because the buzz and hype has become so important to the game, it muddies the message. We do not live in a vacuum: Timing and exposure of a piece is important. One of these days, we’re going to look back on this game more soberly and call into question the culture around it.

Maybe we can finally quit this Oscar bait nonsense and spread the attention around. That would be a first.

[radcowboylad]

I do agree with what you said about actors engaging with the material outside of formal interviews as an important tool to prolong the popularity of said material (and to be honest, other projects of the actors' too; I think a lot of people started watching 'Six' after playing COD because of Barry Sloane). However, I wonder what Activision truly thinks about it. On one hand, I think they do support it, seeing as they helped Neil make that Christmas video. But, how much does this extra marketing translate to sales? (I personally have fallen into the COD rabbit hole here on Tumblr, but have never bought the game). It also seems as if that that's only how far Activision is willing to go to make extra promo material, because they don't seem to have made any more.

As fans start to attach/separate characters with their voice actors depending on their reaction to the voice actors' statements (like, the Konig/Soap situation with their voice actors), do you think this will affect the recasting of actors for future COD projects? If it were to negatively affect a voice actor's involvement in future projects, would this not be unfair since some fans expect a character to be like their actors, especially in this game where they do use the actors' physical image?

--- I hope that this doesn't come across as a hate message. I really just wanted to discuss it.

Do you think this will affect the recasting of future projects?

Oh definitely. I think we’ve seen this happen in other casting examples—when a character becomes so well received it’s hard for any other actor to “feel the same” (especially if it’s for a movie and the actor needs to actually look like how the previous actor looked) that franchise will have so many boosted sales. If you look at Nightmare on Elm Street as an example, Robert Englund (Freddy’s actor) completely stole the hearts of the casting crew and the fans despite the history of his casting for the movie being almost on a whim. Robert then proceeded to be in like 7(?) elm street movies with most of them rising in even more sales than the 1st movie because people were so attracted to his character and the way he played him. THEN… you take a look at the reboot that doesn’t involve Robert. I might be biased but it was kind of a complete dumpster fire and did not ever make it as popular as the rest of the films Robert was actually in. (and also tainted the way people saw Freddy forever since they brought in the idea that he was a pedo, when in the original franchise the writers purposefully did not want to do that!!)

On one hand, I think they do support it

I do think that once they saw his characters rising popularity they did try to make the most out of it, but there’s only so much Activision can do without turning it into something that’s too corporate feeling, instead of something that only the actor can do in their spare time out of love.

I think if they did this again with just Soap, it would really seem unfair and kind of weird to ignore all the other characters. To boil it down it was most likely a decision made based off a unique situation that Neil created. It would make sense for them to do the same with Ghost since he is also essentially the icon for MW2 but they probably recognise that Samuel doesn’t have as much of a connection to the fans or his own character as Neil does. They’d probably have to bring in a writer to help him answer questions in regards to his own character.

But then there’s Horangi, I’m kind of curious if Activision would also lean into the current situation with his character’s popularity rising from his actor. I doubt it though since I don’t believe any regular fan would care about another random DMZ/multiplayer only character as opposed to a story character.

I personally have fallen into the COD rabbit hole here on tumblr, but I have never bought the game

Cod games are outrageously over priced so I don’t blame you, but I do have some good news for you: you can play a handful of mw2’s multiplayer game modes for free ^_^

[emilyrox]

Youtube Music also has a recap I am SO READY to expose myself 😎

This equals 954 hours and 47 minutes.

That equals roughly 39 days of just music. 39 days we'll spent.

I got into The Weeknd earlier this year, a couple months after "Dawn FM" came out. So like, April or May. Both Dawn FM and After Hours own my heart and I've come up with a whole ass story line for them.

All of these artists I've had specific phases for ar some point this year.

The Weeknd: summer + late October

Evanescence: honestly idk if this phase ever truly ends

Ariana Grande: early in the year. But comes back.

Flyleaf: September - now

Set It Off: March - May

This song is why I don't think the Evanescence phase truly ended. This has become one of my favorite Evanescence songs. The vocals and instrumentation kick ass, it's fast and very stimulating in a good way, and it just hits different, ya know?

I also associate this song with Regina from Once Upon A Time. The lyrics remind me a lot of her internal struggle with dealing with the bad things she's done and wanting to disassociate herself from them (see the season 5 finale) but knowing she can't really do that, and having to accept that (see all of season 6).

Both this remix and the original go hard and are S-tier.

1. Already explained.

2. This song also goes hard and hits different. I know the real context of it is that it's about Jesus (Christian rock band), but I reinterpreted it as being about Emma Swan from Once Upon A Time. The first two verses and choruses can be seen as about her building up her walls due to all her trauma and people that have severely hurt her (Neal Cassidy, for instance), but the bridge and third chorus show her in a better place in her life, now surrounded by people that love her and make her feel safe enough to start breaking those walls (Killian, for instance).

3. I have a specific plot line made for this song but it's too long to put here.

4. Got into this song around the same time ISWM came out so I associate the two together now.

5. First off I had no idea that & Juliet existed until I heard this cover and I want to explore it more. Secondly I didn't think I'd ever hear Britney Spear's "Baby One More Time" as a tragic ballad but here we are. It's awesome and I want Anna's voice.

I don't actually have a favorite genre but this tracks.

Made this playlist because "Monster by KIRA slaps." I'm glad people enjoy it! Although there are definetely more covers to add to this by now. I made this in high school. I'm a sophomore in college now. It needs an update.

YouTube Music was trying to say “Oh you set the trend of people listening to Kim Petras :D” which I honestly doubt, but it honestly gives me “I listened to Kim Petras BEFORE it was cool” vibes

I guess this is true? I don’t think “Erase This” by Evanescence was her most popular song from the album “Evanescence” for example.

Y U P

My top 5 songs you saw earlier I put on loop for days at a time. I am not ashamed.

Gotta have a sick beat for the climax of the fake scenarios in my head.

I’ve been psychoanalyzed by YouTube music y’all. And it fits.

Like I said earlier, I don’t have a favorite genre of music. One day I’m vibing to rock, the next pop, the next Vocaloid, the next a song about a video game I’ve never played but it absolutely slaps.

And this has been my YouTube Music 2022 Recap. Thank you for indulging me to do this.