#play some games as well idk but like

[yongseungkim]

.

[cowardlykrow]

"Suck it, weeb-ass BEEETCH!"

Richie loses to Ruth. (She probably cheated)

[swampybogg]

[puppppppppy]

i like him

[ria-starstruck]

and also "putting everyone in a simulation will make it all ok 👍" and also "let's park next to this random system's sun" and also "we can't live on our own planet because of our own folly" and so on

[titsthedamnseason]

HAPPY LONDON N1 YALL!!! i can just feel this run of shows is going to be CRAZY. also if you haven’t realized hi it’s me juli titsthedamnseason and yes even under yet another new url i am hosting the surprise song game! the rules are simple: leave your guesses in the tags or replies and if you’re right i will give you a shoutout <3

i’m personally about to give the worst guesses ever but i already submitted them to mastermind so i feel like i have to stick with it. so im going imgonnagetyouback / better than revenge and robin / never grow up i definitely should be going with a london song or the black dog but hey. whatever

[kaiserouo]

can i get on his shoulder if im being annoying enough

[bananastarion]

When I finally meet someone who plays a game I like, but they don't care about the characters, story, roleplay or exploration they're just in it for min-maxing and/or speedrunning

[xxplastic-cubexx]

thinkin bout magneto's lil list of aliases from that One Shot of his government file or w/e in 97 and how it lists the three main men who've played him (David Hemblen, Ian McKellen, Michael Fassbender) and kinda cackling at the idea 1.) if they included All his names 2.) having 'michael' on that list twice

[crezz-star]

C'elen was shooketh

C'elen in bg3 story is a daughter of country side ex-noble family. so she's been pretty sheltered and taught how to be a lady. but when her parents went bankrupt, her father offed himself and her mother died of depression, she was left to fend for herself and lived alone for a while, learning how to use the axe to protect herself from wild animals or monsters. She lived beside a river and pretty much a tiny simple home, it was the only home left from her parent's riches.

So she haven't really met that much people nor mingle much and just bases off her knowledge from the romance novel books she read when she was younger, as well as her concept or romance and s-x from more adult oriented novels she read in secret and what her teachers taught her that such things was only to be done to the person you have been betrothed with.

[cryinginthedeep]

natalie wee, "least of all", Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines

(x, x, x, x, x)

[daylighteclipsed]

ive been replaying kh1 (going thru the whole series on steam since i never got the chance to play all the games) and i was struck by something a bit odd. i have been dyinggg to talk about it

it's about kairi and her past.

i don't think she's a replica or construct necessarily

but in kh2 there's a parallel drawn between her and sally in halloween town; and the same i think could be true in kh1.

sally is a Frankenstein monster/doll made by the doctor. the entire plot of Halloween town centers around the need for the dr to make a "heart" which requires memories from Sally (the scene of her picking the forget me nots looks a lot like kairi holding a flower for aqua too)

sora takes interest in the project to restore a heart to the heartless too because of his desire to restore Kairi's heart.

i havent really come up with a coherent thought about what this means.

but given that we know kairi was experimented on in a way that involved her heart, it just seems suspicious that this parallel was made twice to her and a doll that was stitched together and animated by a mad scientist.

shes also compared to chirithy in kh3, which from my understanding were created by MoM for keyblade weilders; and to Pooh, who is a toy/story book character that came to life

given too that Kairi already has a weird thing going on with her heart, it just seems possible that theres something..more to it that i have yet to piece together. and its driving me crazy

NO, WAIT… ANON YOU’RE COOKING. Idk what it all means either, but those parallels are so good and so true. Cause there definitely is something artificial about Kairi’s heart, even if just partially. It was experimented on, like you said, and it looks completely different than the organic hearts we see, and I suspect that’s why we’ve never seen Kairi’s heart station. Because it’s (at least partially) artificial. It would look totally different than all the other heart stations and would probably give away what’s going on.

[homestuckreplay]

FAKE BANDS (they are not real)

(page 1307-1327)

THERE IS A MIDNIGHT CREW ALBUM!! According to Hussie’s 4 February 2010 newspost, this came about because the Homestuck music team make way more music than is actually needed for Homestuck, so albums like this are another way of promoting that music. This one’s theme is ‘dark jazz’ and is written as though the Midnight Crew were a band, which… maybe they are when they’re not planning time heists, I don’t know. Either way I really like this album, and I think it captures the characters well and is a good fun time. Hollow Suit was a highlight on first listen and Hauntjam is also a total bop, but there is a lot of talent in every song.

Back in the comic, the whole Midnight Crew has gathered in the same room as Lord English’s SECRET VAULT (p.1155) and has engaged in an extensive shootout with Biscuits and Eggs. Following a few explosions, the only Felt members left to defeat are Clover, Cans and English himself. We are definitely heading towards the final showdown of this intermission despite having two characters who haven’t even been introduced, and I’m no clearer as to how it will end.

‘You're sure as hell not going to drive all the way over there, so you just shoot at them in person’ (p.1307) is an amazing reminder that the Midnight Crew know how to drive. Their getaway van was mentioned on page 330 and I forgot because it is so silly and goofy to imagine (complimentary) (there is no way Deuce’s feet would reach the pedals).

Much like fighting 10,000 rats, Biscuits and Eggs are sort of unbeatable just due to there being so many of them, even though as individuals they are barely a threat. Luckily, Slick comes in with the crowbar, and marks a distinction between ‘Felt members who have inherent powers’ (Itchy, Doze, Trace, Clover, Fin, Snowman, Stitch??, Sawbuck) and ‘Felt members who have a magic item, but might just be regular guys’ (Die, Crowbar, Eggs, Biscuits). The magic items are especially interesting because I feel like the beta kids might end up finding/unlocking captcha codes for similar items as they get further into the game.

Although every Eggs has a timer, destroying the current timeline’s Eggs’ timer sorts out the whole mess. He's easy to deal with, but again Biscuits is secretly the smartest and best Felt member and proves an unexpected challenge. His oven might be the most powerful item here because it’s immune to Crowbar’s crowbar, which puts some limits on an otherwise gamebreaking item. I like the idea that some things are powerful specifically because they don’t have time powers, which can be a weakness as much as a strength. I think Slick would like this idea too. He and this oven could get along.

Boxcars’ attempt to eat Eggs is a powerful moment and makes me love him as a character. Definitely one of the funniest pages in this intermission so far, and kind of reminds me of WV being unable to resist eating every green thing he finds. And hey, that timer went off a lot, those eggs are cooked, Boxcars has been at all this for a while and is probably hungry, and eggs are full of protein. Perfect, no notes.

On page 1310, Slick charges at the current timeline Stitch (who is in the background about to set fire to Slick and Droog’s effigies) and attacks with both the horse hitcher and Snowman’s lance like the mounted cavalry. The caption reads ‘This is incredibly delirious biznasty’ and links directly to a page midway through Problem Sleuth, featuring (apparently) Death attacking Pickle Inspector in a similar way, with the caption ‘This is incredibly silly!’ (PS 791). I believe this page was less obviously referenced earlier in Homestuck, where John charges down the stairs on his pogo mount brandishing hammer and shaving cream, with the caption ‘This is incredibly dangerous!’ (p.497). But this reference to ‘delirious biznasty’ comes from elsewhere in Homestuck – Dave’s bro’s computer shows a program with this name, featuring an icon of a cool skater. This same icon is in the narrative text below page 1310, along with the Problem Sleuth link and ‘delirious biznasty’ caption.

So, why? I love to close read and to notice small details, and I totally understand the drive to reference previous work. In this case there’s no reward for making these connections, there’s no new understanding of the story or hint to the future that gets unlocked by making this link (I don’t think??) and the joy is just in seeing all the red strings link up in a fun shape. Which I think is cool in moderation (the level is fine right now), but if there’s too much of it, I want it to mean something.

I am SO excited that we learn more about Clover! He is so jittery and has a lot of interesting things to say about luck. Apparently, ‘mirrors that tick and have numbers and tell time’ are ‘the worst kind of mirror to break, luckwise’ (p.1323), which could mean that tampering with time (or, more literally, destroying clocks) causes bad luck in some way? The description of Clover as ‘so lucky the gun will probably jam’ if he gets shot makes me think luck might be a literal, measurable value and one that can be adjusted, just like in some video games and tabletop roleplaying games. Who’s to say Sburb doesn’t program a luck stat into its NPCs (and players?)

Clover’s ‘hee hee’s would be so annoying if I was enemies with him, but I’m not, so I think it’s very cute and fun. ‘You don't have to be all that unlucky to get whacked around with a newspaper. It's sort of a gray area.’ is another very good intermission line. I gotta agree, if I got whacked around with a newspaper by a rival I would consider it more a funny story than an unlucky day. It also suggests that Clover’s one downfall is pranks, which are funnier than they are unlucky, which we’ve already established is something Slick is bad at (but Deuce could totally handle).

Finally, a moment that stuck out to me:

He begins spinning a fanciful series of riddles illuminating the true path to opening the vault. Mysterious music fills your ears as your mind assumes the shape of a pretzel. (p.1324)

I'm thinking always about the multimedia aspects of Homestuck and thinking especially today about the imagination as one of its mediums. Like the reader command format is explicitly asking the reader to imagine what will happen next in a far more active way than in any other stories outside of computer text based adventures and (again) tabletop roleplaying games. Clover's riddles are a small example of this happening in the text as well, where we don't get an image of Clover on a vision quest surrounded by glowing polygons, but fill in the blanks anyway. I don't have loads to say about this right now but I might circle back to it someday.

[in-study-hell]

Malik, how do you hold all that girlboss energy in so few polygons?

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

perhaps my most #cancelable videogame take i can post on this website is i think that the kind of people who say that anyone who picks the "morally wrong" or "mean" options in video game dialogue should, as a player, feel bad about their own choices/morals in real life. is that those people are just another flavor of the kind of dudes who play Disco Elysium and get mad for not being rewarded for picking the facist options. both of these groups are reducing games to "a thing I want to agree with me and everyone else who doesn't either suffers or does not have the option to play a character who behaves otherwise" rather than "a medium where you get to (or even Have to) explore different kinds of characters in order to experience the full depth of the story and characters in it."

When I want to pick options in a game that are mean, negative, arrogant, or ignorant, it's because I want to explore what would push a character into becoming that kind of person. Sometimes I want to see how the NPC characters who I-The-Player like/agree with react to someone who is fundamentally different from them. I think it's GOOD actually when the narrative allows you to push limits and especially when it has the option to then punish you for it in some way, such as losing options/routes later on, or companions straight up abandoning you for your choices. It DOES often make me deeply, viscerally uncomfortable to make choices in a game that are so counter to my own, but it means I get to experience that discomfort in an isolated environment and also think about what it means, what would push the character or even yes a real person into actually feeling those things. And I get to play with what ways the narrative could challenge them/make them grow over the course of the game--or on the other side, it can let me make a character who does start off more open/accepting but let the events of the narrative push them into being more reactively closed-minded instead.

I like that we have invented a medium where you can play a game multiple times and experience it differently depending on the character you play as. Books and TV and movies are all static--the greatest draw of games to me is the ones that are responsive, that can tell a slightly different story every time--when other characters in the game respond differently to you because of it, or some paths open up and others don't. And so yes it did disappointment me when a franchise that previously had these elements, Dragon Age, did not include them in the most recent installment. I don't think games should have options where you get to just hit a button to say something racist with no consequences or exploration into why a character would do that. but like, if i can only ever play a game as an upstanding person who is morally right all the time in basically the same flavor for every dialogue. I only get to truly play that game Once, you know? And I only get to see the way the companions react to someone they like and trust. And never really go deeper than that.

So like... I just sit and think about the scenes you can get in Inquisition. with Cassandra breaking down, because she fears she placed a would-be tyrant at the head of a powerful organization--that she searched and searched and chose wrong. Of Varric who is desperate to convince you not to become a monster, like the last person he feels betrayed him. Vivienne intentionally pissing you off because she wants to see how far you'll go when angered, how much she has to worry about your reactions. They say so much about the companions, what they fear most, and where they will draw the line. And especially in Inquisition, at these crisis points--you don't have to double down. Your character can have a come-to-Andraste moment where they go "woah... is that really how people see me? is this what i want?" and I think that kind of option can do way more for encouraging actual players to examine the choices they make in stories, more than locking the player into supportive, non-aggressive options does.

now. do i think all games execute these flavors well? no. writers and devs will have their own biases and blind spots, even if they are otherwise well-intentioned. and I don't think the ends of the scale need to extend from "absolute angel" to "horrible bigot", because the real complexity of course lies in the middle. I am not asking for games to let me be bigoted at every turn, what I want is games that let me make the protagonist deeply flawed in one or more ways--fearfully closed-minded to things outside their upbringing, or afraid of change to the status quo, or who want to advance their own aims regardless of consequences to others. I actually agree that the game was correct not to include any options for disrespecting Taash and their personal journey for example, but I do wish... idk maybe that we could have had a scene where if for instance the player character avoided outside-world missions relating to clearing away blight, they could confront us on how this might devastate the natural world and its creatures like dragons, and push us into trying to resolve it. Or in the other direction, if you spend the (currently meaningless) time giving money to background NPCs begging in the cities, Neve could could have a special cutscene thanking you for your attention to people otherwise beneath notice. You know?

And of course not every game can do this, I can write those sentences up there that represent hundreds of hours of dev time, of course they can't do it all. But the prior games usually did have at least a little of this, and that was enough to make me really fall in love. I KNOW the tumultuous development cycle, restarts from scratch, interference from higher-ups all contributed to why Veilguard was unable to hit those same marks this time. And we probably won't ever know how much of the loss of options/reactivity was intention vs a side effect of these things. But I wish people wouldn't frame players who miss these aspects as insane/morally corrupt. When for most of us it's because we genuinely enjoy challenging and exploring these aspects of reality in fiction in a way entirely unlike what we actually support in real life. i fully acknowledge not everyone desires to play this way. and that's fine!!! i am glad people can enjoy doing a "good" run each time that brings them joy. but for me it really limits the potential bounds of my enjoyment i guess. I like media that is complicated and messy and makes me think, and extra so when I get to see how playing that way impacts the greater story around it.

[liorlenn]

Im not entirely into au for kcd and in general i just prefer sticking to its canonical elements but i do admit the concept of a minorly fantasy leaning au with a vampire Henry (in conjunction with the “vampire” in kuttenberg) intrigues.

But this is mostly because I think it would make for an interesting character study. I genuinely think Henry would just… continue to do what he’s doing (ofc he’d rescue hans, vampirism be damned amiright). I think the overall plot of the game would still play out largely as-is. It’s the way that individual interactions would be altered that’s scratching my brain a bit thinking about it.