#it is a narrative cop out

[loversandantiheroes]

Like not to put too fine a point on it or anything but I'm really tired of the post apocalyptic media thing where somehow the edgy, shocking thing is people dying. It's the apocalypse, Steve, of course people are fucking dying. The shocking thing is when they live. Against all odds and reason, against whatever departed god wrote the rules of the universe, against logic and their own wishes, they are alive and now they must contend with that in a world that is as baffled at its own persistence as they are.

[lildoodlenoodle]

Your reminder that having Peter choose not to kill the Goblin and turn him in to the police in the corrupt justice system only to then have the goblin ambiguously die seconds later so Peter faces no consequences for that choice that would obviously have consequences is such a cop out by the writers.

Because if the goblin hadn’t ‘died’ and had gone to jail he would’ve eventually gotten out. This would be a great way to touch on spider noir’s morality and creates a whole other plot point(and enforcing the fact that the justice system doesn’t work)exploring what will Peter have to do to protect people and how far he is willing to go. Cause remember after his first kill, the vulture, the goblin is the first person he chooses to not kill when he could’ve.

[itsnothingofinterest]

While I’m on a Toga kick, it’s interesting to me that this arc for far seemingly sees Toga give up on romance & being like her crushes, yet she’s is acting more like Deku & Ochako than ever now. But specifically at their worst by putting her interests and happiness aside to right a great wrong; paralleling Ochako putting her feelings for Deku aside for a long arse time now, and more pressingly, Deku’s whole self destructive mindset in the Dark Hero arc.

Although what’s interesting with Toga is, it’s ambiguous & debatable if this is really that kind of self-destructive downgrade for her. She hurt the ones she loved & innocent people before, consuming blood and ostracizing her from normal society in the process, and so lived only for herself. But now putting aside love seams to mean putting aside blood. In looking for revenge, she also pursues justice, and now only attacks those complicit...even if that does work out to mean “all of the heroes.”

In the past I joked that it seems like she just can’t win because her behaviour is seen as toxic no matter what; but really, I’m curious which behaviour the story will ultimately say is worse for her.

[divinekangaroo]

I attempted to replay DAII a few weeks back for the pleasure/refresher of the story and the character arcs but just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Have lost lots of capacity to enjoy game mechanics which extend length of time to engage w story and notwithstanding the dialogue is quite excellent (in a game context) it’s clunky for, say, a story, and the physical/visual staging in character interactions is v dated. (Key Settings are pretty decent for symbolism tho)

and that’s when I realised the first time ever why sometimes fans *do* get interested enough to write full novelisations of a thing.

[northern-passage]

cw: mention of suicide

not sure how many of you are into traditional horror games (or more specifically the indie horror game scene)

and while i don’t usually play these games myself i enjoy watching playthrus on youtube and one of the games that circulated pretty recently was MADiSON, as well as martha is dead, and less recently was the blair witch.

all 3 of these games have 2 things in common: they are “psychological horror” and they all have suicide endings.

i hated all of these games. i think if i had to choose, martha is dead is the one i hate the most. but i don’t want to talk about that specifically (we’d be here all day)

it’s very obvious that there’s a trend towards “psychological horror” or as they call it in film for some reason, “elevated horror” and i think it’s fair to say that that’s true for IF as well. i don’t think that’s a bad thing, i like psychological horror, i don’t really have a preference to be quite honest; what i dislike, though, is the demonization of mental illness.

it’s always been a problem in the horror genre, but now i think it’s shifted slightly in a less direct way. i started thinking about this because i was watching a review about the blair witch project game, and she opens up the video talking about the ending, as well as MADiSON’s.

she made some really interesting points that i think are worth repeating. i know up until recently i had a “sanity” mechanic in tnp - it served a purpose, and it still does, but it never really needed to be labelled that way.

the reviewer even makes a comment about how mental health has been reduced to a “bleak soft magic system” - a game mechanic, a setting for people to play around in, a setting where bad things can happen for no reason other than it’s dark and edgy and shocking.

her criticism essentially boiled down to: mental illness isn’t your playground to experiment in, to spitball ideas for your horror game, it isn’t a toy you can pick up and play with. it’s not a game mechanic, it’s something that real people live with every single day. and that really resonated with me and put into words what i couldn’t.

tnp revolves around the hunter and their mental health - it’s an important part of their character, and impacts the way they interact with their companions and the wider world of the game, as well as how they deal with the rot. and with it being fantasy, it definitely blurs the line - is it magic? is it their imagination? is it the rot/their illness? was the hunter the killer all along?

mental illness can be scary. but it’s also manageable. it is not Thee Horror at the end of this book. and i think that’s important to remember when writing some of these horror stories. what is the point of mentioning this here, in this specific story - is it just for shock? is it just to imply and emphasize some imagined horror about the mentally ill? is it just to slap “dark themes” in the description, to grab the attention of some edgy readers? or is it actually serving a purpose in the narrative, offering something of substance beyond “mental illness scary”? beyond “dark and edgy” just for the sake of it?

here is the original video. i haven’t finished it, but the opening 10 minutes is where she discusses the trend of “suicide endings.”

it definitely made me pause and think about how i’ve approached things in tnp, and definitely made me regret not changing the humanity mechanic sooner.

[bongosinferno]

Might only be on episode 3 of True Detective s2, but it's framed like a TTRPG campaign which keeps insisting on individual scenes between PC and dm.

[heatmiiiiser]

Ggrrr I wish disenchantment was better. I binged it all because I'm sick somebody talk to me about this.

[cacw]

adding onto that one I feel like they put too much emphasis on how bad bucky feels about killing while he was the winter soldier as if he hadn't killed what must have been countless people beforehand

[itissadbutitsmy-artblog]

JOY IS STORED IN THE HORRID LITTLE COP

[sinni-ok-sessi]

Can you tell me more about something a bit miserable? Love it when people are having a bad time

ehehehe, yeah me too :D

this one is a post-canon fix-it of sorts which mostly revolves around Mei Changsu figuring out what the hell he's meant to do with more time. He had a Grand Purpose in life! He achieved it! .....what now?

(by Total Coincidence I started writing this in the last few months of my PhD...)

unfortunately I too have not figured out what MCS does with his life if he survives canon, hence why this one has stalled

[starpuncher]

btw i do think everyone and anyone who 100% of the time refuses to engage with the aspect of trimax/tristamp wolfwood's character that is being a teenager forced into the body and life of an adult and in the process denied a childhood is a coward just a little bit

[coffeeworldsasaki]

YES EVERYTHING COMES BACK TO THREE AND THAT'S WHY THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO GET TOGETHER ALL THREE OF THEM

[spoonbenders]

youtube commenters trying to be clever when they see a story about being disjointed and stuck in the past or even your own head that has a single drop of surrealism: yepppp. this is DEFINITELY about dementia

[moltengoldveins]

me: i… I think I might have to kill my main character. I. It’s really looking like this might be a very similar narrative to the gospels… I… i really don’t want to kill this character but it’s not looking good… like the Whole World is broken and needs reparations type not looking good…. But I don’t Wanna kill her, I love her and I wanna keep her. I want a happy ending. Dangit. I hate writing tragedies.

me, moments later, sitting bolt upright in bed: JESUS CAME BACK YOU KRIFFING IDIOT-

[c0rinarii]

That was. huh. erm

[chenpire]

my post series recommendation is that if you've never listened to the orchestral version of hero by faouzia while thinking about Wilhelm and Simon's utter trainwreck of a romance, you should. I think you should.