#nobody ask if I’m okay I’m okay

[purplebehittindifferent]

Doll. a vent mini comic.

cw/tw: blood/death/minor derealization

[adhdandcomics]

perhaps the most important question i’ve ever asked:

does anyone have tips for people trying to stop being chronically late to everything in the world that aren’t weirdly judgmental and aggressive or flat out lies

[shaykai]

yesss we need the good vat coronation drama please please please

I’m gonna be honest I have not worked more on it djdjjdjd (I do have three pages sketched out, but they’re from a while ago, here’s some panels from them in no particular order)

[lulu2992]

I’d like to (finally) talk about this interview with Mark Thompson, Narrative Director on Far Cry 4:

I love it when devs talk about their work because it’s always super interesting and informative! This video is no exception.

But what struck me most when I first saw the interview is what he says about Far Cry 3, a title he also worked on as a Level Design Director, which I believe means he was not (or barely) involved in the writing of the script. When he mentions what he thinks the issues with the game were and what had to be “fixed” in Far Cry 4, the thing is that... he often contradicts what Jeffrey Yohalem, Lead Writer on Far Cry 3, explained in various articles.

Under the cut, I highlighted some parts of Mark Thompson’s interview (in red) and compared them to Jeffrey Yohalem’s words (in blue, with the sources) so you can see how different their points of view are.

In this case, when it comes to the story and meaning of Far Cry 3, I’m inclined to give more credence to the Lead Writer’s explanations, but I think this example perfectly illustrates how even people who worked on the same project can have very different (and sometimes equally valid) opinions, understandings, and feelings about it, and why it can therefore be difficult for the audience to determine what the “truth” or the “right” interpretation is…

Open world vs story

MT: We ended up shipping a game where the open world had a lot of cool stuff, but it didn’t have a lot of depth or meaning, and it had almost no connection to what was happening in the story. And in fact, in some ways, the two were kind of opposed and they were kind of conflicting each other. So, on one hand, the story itself had this ticking time bomb of “I have these friends that I need to rescue, but holy sh*t, collecting plants, finding that next animal I need for the next upgrade, getting that next skill point… Oh, look, there’s a radio tower! Wait, wasn’t I heading to that outpost?” And then you’re like, “Oh yeah, sh*t, my friend Keith’s trapped in the basement, I should probably go rescue him… I’m a terrible friend.” That was my main goal: fix this sh*t and make sure that the story and the open world speak to each other, complement each other; strip everything down so that the story and the open world are the same thing and it’s the same game.

JY: People who have looked at the surface of the game think that the story and the game are at war with each other as they are in most games, with the story just plugging potholes and the gameplay is going along its merry way. I think it’s very exaggerated that, “Oh, go save the friends! Go save the friends!” but most people are out on the island doing all this other crazy stuff and experiencing the gameplay. And that’s actually the point of the story. It’s not a game about go save your friends. It’s a game about – doing a lot of picking skins from things, and wait, it’s just a pile of meat – this doesn’t even make sense, yet I’m still doing it instead of saving the friends. (Rock Paper Shotgun - Dec. 19, 2012)

The “white savior” trope

MT: We were definitely aware of some of the tropes that we fell into - unintentionally in some cases, intentionally in some - and (…) almost the first thing that we did was decide how we were gonna address the white savior trope, the outsider who comes in and helps simple people with his outsider’s kind of more advanced understanding of the world. (...) The first thing we said was, “This guy is from Kyrat, no matter what happens. That is the most important thing; he is part of this world, he belongs here.”

JY: “It’s a first-person game, and Jason is a 25-year old white guy from Los Angeles. From Hollywood. So his view of what’s going on on this island is his own view, and you happen to be looking through his eyes, so you’re seeing his view,” Yohalem explained. “It’s set on an island in the South Pacific, so immediately the thing that comes to mind is the white colonial trope, the Avatar trope. I started with that, and it’s like, ‘Here’s what pop culture thinks about traveling to a new place,’ and the funny thing is, that’s an exaggeration of most games, they just don’t expose it. (The Penny Arcade Report - Dec. 17, 2012)

JY: There’s a reason why Jason is a 25 year old white guy from Hollywood – these are all ideas that are in his head. You’re seeing things through his eyes. (...) It’s not that [Citra] needed a white saviour at all. She didn’t need a white guy at all. She was just looking for the ultimate warrior and someone to be her gun. (...) If this was about the white messiah motif, would I be so stupid as to have a main character’s nickname be Snow White? I’m making fun of that! (Rock Paper Shotgun - Dec. 19, 2012)

The player and the protagonist

MT: When we were doing the script review, almost immediately, the first thing we would do would be, “Okay, so how many lines does Ajay have? Okay, cut that by 75%”, and then we would review it and then cut out even more. Whenever possible, we would set up a scenario where we know or we think we know how players would react, and so we would remove the line that the character would actually say and then have the other person react to it. “Oh, you think that, do you?” - in that kind of way, so they’re like, “Oh f*ck, how did he know I was gonna say that?” Whereas, if the protagonist said that line, they’re like, “Oof, I wouldn’t have said that”, and then suddenly you’re kind of broken out of the experience. (…) When you’re in first-person, all you hear is this disconnected voice that might not be agreeing with what you’re doing. So, again, it’s just about stripping away those barriers of immersion so you can imagine yourself in this scenario.

JY: In Far Cry 3, Jason is a character and he’s not the player. The player is another character in the game. Sometimes Jason disagrees with the player, and sometimes Jason agrees with him. And the magic of that is that then it doesn’t matter! Basically, as long as the whole narrative is directed towards what the player is feeling—which for me is how videogames should be—then I get to target Jason as a resource where players can go: “I disagree with Jason.” And the player gets to convince Jason to do something else. So instead of trying to force the two of them together, I’ve decoupled them. (Killscreen - Dec. 12, 2012)

[tariah23]

Man, I still remember participating in one of the many jjba zines that I took part in and how my piece was placed as the first page (for the second time) and how one of my mutuals/artists that I’ve always admired, hit me with the “oh… you’re on the front page again… 😅…” like man, that kind of killed me lmfao. I never got over it like man, what was that about.

[ihhfhonao3]

I hope you heal from the things you don’t talk about. I hope you heal from the things that you do talk about, but others don’t listen to. I hope you heal from the things that only a few people understand the whole story behind, and you don’t feel like explaining them to people again and again

[great-tusk]

ughhh I need to stop having mental breakdowns over little things.

[perfect-snaccccccc]

okay but are the productive, helpful, non-confrontational ‘critiques’ of these fan fictions in the room with us?

[irregularbillcipher]

that one post that’s like “every day I get emails” but it’s also “every day I make phone calls” and “every day I make doctor’s appointments”

[twistedappletree]

AINT NO FUCKING WAY

[pendinganchor]

Billy was sitting at the kitchen table— one hand being used to hold open the book he was skimming for the fifth time, the other trapped in a loose thumb war with Steve. He wasn’t sure what Steve was doing— but he started winning any time it distracted him. He wasn’t sure when he had stopped worrying about his father coming home— but he’d pay for that later.

Hushed whispers sounded in the doorway. Billy tensed for half a second before relaxing when he saw Max and El out the corner of his eye. Then he heard the all too familiar sound of Max’s polaroid camera going off.

“I bought that for you two months ago and I’m already regretting it,” Billy groaned, placing his bookmark— that was actually just an old receipt— into his book then letting it fall shut.

“Come on, Billy,” El teased. “You look pretty!”

“Well then, let’s see it.”

Max reached out with the photo in hand. Billy abandoned his thumb war with Steve to grab it— which caused Steve to realize other people were in the room with them. “See what?” he asked, using his now free hand to push up his glasses.

Billy looked at the photo— his face forming into a slight frown. “Why do I look like that?”

Max raised an eyebrow at him. “Happy?”

[kavehater]

I’ll never understand younger siblings whining about their older siblings moving away like I bet yall were nasty and annoying too like wow all those years and you claim to adore the older sibling and post oh woe is me the older sibling abandoned me … girl … the older sibling didn’t have a parental certificate or anything.

[perfectlovevn]

do you have a discord for the game? and if not are you planning to make one?

Ahaha, well, this is kind of a coincidence (I think).

I personally am not going to make a discord for the game mostly because I'm kinda lazy and I don't really want to find moderators for the discord page and whatnot.

However! There is a fanmade discord made for this game! I actually did join but I am doing a really bad job of hiding and watching.

[feralsneeze]

Not sneeze just mental health rambling in the tags

[junglejim4322]

i’m in the exact same boat as you which is why i sent that message. my ocd is incredibly treatment resistant and everyone is just like oh well just stop having it! have you tried that? i’ve tried just about all of the same types medications as you to no avail (except antipsychotics do (somewhat) work for me bc im schizophrenic lol) and the only thing a therapist said was “well you haven’t tried them all”. maybe.. they all don’t work?

Weirdly enough trauma therapy or even anything that wasn’t basic cbt wasn’t suggested to me until my current therapist and I’ll say a mix of EMDR + DBT has made more progress for me than any medication ever has. I saw a psychiatrist recently who left the practice immediately after (I probably jokerfied her and she went into witness protection to avoid me) but she was the first person I’ve ever seen that after hearing I had been on a thousand different ssris said that it was probably time to stop pursuing that class as a whole and I was like wow… it only took over 15 years for someone to come to this conclusion. It’s crazy that people don’t even seem willing to think about alternate routes of treatment because it’s kind of inconvenient or atypical just keep trying shit that does nothing so I don’t have to bother apparently.

Anyway I do have faith there are things that will and do help whether it’s medication or other forms of treatment even if they’re more difficult or take longer to find but I hope you find what works for you and things go well for you ocd can really be the mind tar pit and I try to not let myself get too pessimistic because well it’ll set my ocd off like crazy lmfao. Me and you are gonna make it

[cuteniarose]

Is this anything