#this is also the 70s ie serial killer time??? WHAT

[illiadofrecollection]

Louis telling his story to Daniel is really such Catholic behaviour. In the book at least he doesn't seem to care if the story is actually published. He doesn't care about Daniel as a person after either.

He wants to confess. He wants to sit in a small room and talk about the ways he has failed. It's not about the one he confesses to; one priest is as good as another, or a reporter if you're a vampire I suppose. He doesn't choose a weathered investigator who might ask real questions. He chooses (if Armand's assesment when he opens that basement door is correct and not just his being mean) mostly a beautiful face to talk to. Daniel is his pretty little priest.

And when he steps out of that role and asks to be turned Louis gets angry -- he hasn’t really been considering how a young person might react to his story really, and definitely not Daniel in particular.

[satanfemme]

[ID in alt]

ok meee :-) this is my slasher sona. he's a ~late 70s / early 80s low-budget slasher with slightly gothic vibes, and maybe leaning a little bit giallo in genre?

his name is Mutt and his "gimmick" is that he's a gay dog man (and wears a lot of leather. obviously)

hypothetical horror movie plot for him under the cut (warning for genre typical violence and tropes and such) (also some weird kink stuff cause this is my horror movie fantasy and I get to decide the level of strange eroticism)

I'm gonna summarize the story in chronological order but if it were a real movie there'd be more mystery than this ftr lol.

mutt's backstory is that he was in an intense relationship with a guy who kept him as a human pet. he tortured mutt, kept him in a shock collar, and required him to wear a muzzle most of the time. he also didn't let mutt leave the house ever (which was isolated in the woods). years of this treatment warped mutt's mind until he was both deeply devoted to his lover in a self-destructive loyal dog way, and also "insane" in the stereotypical slasher way.

one day while in a nearby town running errands, mutt's lover is killed in a homophobic hate crime. mutt knows something is wrong when his lover doesn't come home that night, so he leaves the house to investigate, and (from the shadows a distance away) he sees the police cleaning up the crime scene and his lover's body. mutt returns to his house, fashions a leather slasher mask out of his muzzle and his lover's clothes, and decides to get revenge on the people of the town.

he begins to kill a new gay guy every night in very homoerotic ways (since this is really the only way mutt knows how to exist). the homophobic cops don't take any of this seriously ofc, so it's up to a few members of the lgbt community to solve the series of murders and put of a stop to it, before they get killed themselves.

they actually wrongfully assume at first that mutt's lover was also part of the same pattern of gay murders, but eventually the homophobe who murdered mutt's lover is identified and (reluctantly) arrested by the police. so, the next time mutt kills someone, it becomes clear that there were two (2) killers on the loose, and the community member protags use that info to finally piece together the various clues they'd gathered, leading them to the correct conclusion that the first murder (of mutt's lover) was a single incident, and the serial murders after the fact are being done by someone motivated by a broken heart (ie. by this point the backstory would be fully revealed).

while all this investigating and shit was going on, mutt learned that the guy who killed his lover was arrested, and plans to go kill him inside his jail cell that night. the protags attempt to stop mutt before he gets there (to end the circle of violence and restore "peace" and all that), but in the process he kills them all one by one until just the token Final Girl is left. he then breaks inside the jail and successfully kills the homophobe, getting closure. the final girl thinks she has him, as he's "cornered" inside the small jail. but when she follows him inside, he's vanished and all that's left is the homophobe's body.

the movie ends all mysteriously like "he's still out there... and he might come back" but he's my character so I can tell u what he does after the movie. and he does NOT come back.

he still has a broken heart, but he's had his revenge and decides to leave town. he travels on his own, living like a stray dog for a long time (he doesn't take off his mask unless he really has to, so it's hard for him to interact with society. that said, when he does take off his mask to go into a town or city for something, he's completely safe from being recognized because no one ever saw his face in the town he killed people in. he's just a bit off-putting to people)

after traveling for a while, he happens upon the haddonfield illinois area, some time after the michael myers' murders took place (original halloween canon, but don't ask me for an exact timeline, I don't know or care)

michael would also be hiding out in the woods (cause it's not halloween yet. it's his off-season :-) ) and the two would run into each other, instantly clicking. two neurodivergent guys... in freaky masks... in the woods... hiding from society because they're wanted for countless murders. a real meet cute <3. they would grow closer over time.... and although michael would originally like mutt for how "empty inside" and inhuman he is (the same canonical motivation as to why he likes corpses), as time goes on and michael really gets to know mutt, their bond would become stronger and more genuine, and michael would love mutt for the person he is too :'-). and then they'd take off their masks and embrace and kiss each other sloppy style and- [comically long bleep sound effect].

and then I think the next halloween, mutt would join michael in the senseless killing :-) and they would live happily ever after and also mutt would take michael to the dang club! the end. that's my story thx for reading.

[tlbodine]

The History & Evolution of Home Invasion Horror

Here’s my prediction: In the next couple of years, we’re going to be seeing a sudden surge of home invasion movies hit the market. For many of us, 2020 has been a year of extreme stress compounded by social isolation; venturing outside means being exposed to a deadly plague, after all. 

And while many people have already predicted that we’ll see an influx of pandemic and virus horrors (see my post on those: https://ko-fi.com/post/Pandemic-and-Pandemonium-Sickness-in-Horror-T6T21I201), I actually think a lot of us are going to be processing a different type of fear -- anxiety about what happens when your home, which is supposed to be a literal safe space, gets invaded. Because if you’re not safe in your own house...you’re not safe anywhere. 

Home invasion movies have been around a long time -- arguably as long as film, with 1909′s The Lonely Villa setting down the formula -- and they share many of the same roots as slasher films in the 1970s. But somewhere along the way, they separated off and became their own distinct subgenre with specific tropes, and it’s that separation and the stories that followed it that I want to focus on. 

The Origins of the Home Invasion Movie 

In order to really qualify as a home invasion movie, a film has to meet a few requirements:

The action must be contained entirely (or almost entirely) to a single location, usually a private residence (ie, the home) 

The perpetrator(s) must be humans, not supernatural entities (no ghosts, zombies, or vampires -- that’s a different set of tropes!) 

In most cases, the horror builds during a long siege between the invader and the home-dweller, including scenes of torture, capture, escape, traps, and so forth. 

To an extent, home invasion movies are truth in television. Although home invasions are relatively rare, and most break-ins occur when a family is away (the usual goal being to steal things, not torture and kill people), criminals do sometimes break into people’s homes, and homeowners are sometimes killed by them. 

In the 1960s and 70s, this certainly would have been at the forefront of people’s minds. Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood detailed one such crime in lavish detail, and the account was soon turned into a film. Serial killers like the Boston Strangler, BTK Killer and the “Vampire of Sacramento” Richard Chase also made headlines for their murders, which often occurred inside the victim’s home. (Chase, famously, considered unlocked doors to be an invitation, which is one great reason to lock your doors). 

By the 1960s and 70s, too, people were more and more often beginning to live in cities and larger neighborhoods where they did not know their neighbors. Anxieties about being surrounded by strangers (and, let’s face it, racial anxieties rooted in newly-mixed, de-segregated neighborhoods) undoubtedly fueled fears about home invasion. 

Early Roots of the Home Invasion Genre

Home invasion plays a part in several crime thrillers and horror films in the 1950s and 60s, including Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder in 1954, but it’s more of a plot point than a genre. In these films, home invasion is a means to an end rather than a goal unto itself. 

We see some early hints of the home invasion formula show up in Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left in 1972. The film depicts a group of murderous thugs who, after torturing and killing two girls, seek refuge in the victim’s home and plot the deaths of the rest of the family. In 1974, the formula is refined with Bob Clark’s Black Christmas, which shows the one-by-one murder of members of a sorority house and chilling phone calls that come from inside the home. 

Even closer still is I Spit on Your Grave, directed by Meir Zarchi in 1978. Although it’s generally (and rightly) classified as a rape-revenge film, the first half of the movie -- where an author goes to a remote cabin and is targeted and brutally assaulted by a group of men -- hits all the same story beats as the modern home invasion story: isolation, mundane evil, acts of random violence, and protracted torture. 

Slumber Party Massacre, directed by Amy Holden Jones in 1982, also hits on both home invasion and slasher tropes. Although it is primarily a straightforward slasher featuring an escaped killer systematically killing teenagers (with a decidedly phallic weapon), the film also shows its victims teaming up and fighting back -- weaponizing their home against the killer. This becomes an important part of the genre in later years! 

In 1997, Funny Games, directed by Michael Haneke, provides a brutal but self-aware look at the genre. Created primarily as a condemnation of violent media, the film nevertheless succeeds as an unironic addition to the home invasion canon -- from its vulnerable, suffering family to the excruciating tension of its plot to the nihilistic, motive-free criminality of its villains, it may actually be the purest example of the home invasion movie. 

Home Invasions Gone Wrong 

Where things start to get interesting for the home invasion genre is 1991′s The People Under the Stairs, another Wes Craven film. Here the script is flipped: The hero is the would-be robber, breaking and entering into the home of some greedy rich landlords. But this plan swiftly goes sideways when the homeowners turn out to be even worse people than they’d first let on. 

This is, as far as I can tell, the origin of the home-invasion-gone-wrong subgenre, which has gained immense popularity recently -- due, perhaps, to a growing awareness of systemic issues, a differing view of poverty, and a viewership sympathetic to the plight of down-on-their-luck criminals discovering that rich homeowners are, indeed, very bad people. 

Home Invasion Film Explosion of the 2000s 

The home invasion genre really hit the ground running in the 2000s, due perhaps to post-911 anxieties about being attacked on our home turf (and increasing economic uneasiness in a recession-afflicted economy and a growing awareness of the Occupy movement and wealth inequality). We see a whole slew of these films crop up, each bringing a slightly different twist to the formula.

*  It’s also worth noting that the 2000s saw remakes of many well-known films in the genre, including Funny Games and Last House on the Left.  

In 2008, Bryan Bertino directed The Strangers, a straightforward home invasion involving one traumatized couple and three masked villains. By this point, we’re wholly removed from the early crime movie roots; these are not people breaking in for financial gain. Like the killers in Funny Games, the masked strangers lack motive and even identity; they are simply a force of evil, chaotic and senseless. 

The themes of “violence as a senseless, awful thing” are driven further home by Martyrs, another 2008 release, this one from French director Pascal Laugier. A revenge story turned into a home-invasion-gone-wrong, the film is noteworthy for its brutality and blunt nihilism. 

2009′s The Collector, directed by Marcus Dunstan, is another home-invasion-gone-wrong movie. Like Martyrs, it dovetails with the torture porn genre (another popular staple of the 2000s), but it has a lot more fun with it. The film follows a down-on-his-luck thief who breaks into a house only to encounter another home invader set on murdering the family that lives there. The cat-and-mouse games between the two -- which involve numerous traps and convoluted schemes -- are fun to watch (if you like blood and guts). 

In a similar vein, we see You’re Next in 2013, which starts off as a standard home invasion movie but takes a sharp twist when it’s revealed that one of the victims isn’t nearly as helpless as she appears. Director Adam Wingard helps to redefine the concept of “final girl” in this move in a way that has carried forward right into the next decade with no sign of stopping. 

2013 of course also introduced us to The Purge, a horror franchise created by James DeMonaco. If there was ever any doubt as to the economic anxieties at the root of the genre, they should be alleviated now -- The Purge is such a well-known franchise at this point that the term has entered our pop culture lexicon as a shorthand for revolution. 

Don’t Breathe, directed be Fede Alvarez in 2016, is one of the creepiest modern entries into the “failed home invasion” category, and one that (ha ha) breathed some new life into the genre. Much like The People Under the Stairs, it tells the story of some down-on-their-luck criminals getting in over their heads when they target the wrong man. However, there is not the same overt criticism of wealth inequality in this film; it’s a movie more interested in examining and inverting genre tropes than treading new thematic ground. The same is true of Hush that same year. Directed by Mike Flanagan, the film is most noteworthy for its deaf protagonist. 

But lest you start to think the home invasion genre had lost its thematic relevance, 2019 arrived with two hard-hitting, thoughtful films that dip their toes in these tropes: Jordan Peele’s Us and Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, which both tackle themes of privilege in light of home invasion (albeit a nontraditional structure in Parasite -- its inclusion here is admittedly a bit of a stretch, but I think it falls so closely in the tradition of The People Under the Stairs that it deserves a spot on this list). 

What Does the Future Hold? 

I’m no oracle, so I can’t say for certain where the future of the home invasion genre might lead. But I do think we’re going to start seeing more of them in the next few years as a bunch of creative folks start working through our collective trauma. 

Income inequality, racial inequality, political unrest and systemic issues are all at the forefront of our minds (not to mention a deadly virus), and those themes are ripe for the picking in horror. 

I know that Paul Tremblay’s novel The Cabin at the End of the World has been optioned for film, so we might be seeing that soon -- and if so, it might just usher in a fresh wave of apocalypse-flavored home invasion stories. 

Like my content? You can support more of it by dropping me some money in my tip jar: https://www.ko-fi.com/post/Home-Invasion-Stories-A-History-R6R72RV7Y

[irrevocably-delicious]

Cultivating an enjoyable video games experience with non gamers aka How do I get my non-gamer significant other to play games with me?

Video games.

Once a niche hobby of adult programmers in the 70s, before targeting 10 year old boys in the 80s and 90s, video games are now a mainstream hobby and entertainment product that has shown tremendous growth in the past 30 years. While films and serialized shows have shown some developments, with new technologies and the invent of streaming, the gaming industry has undergone a complete transformation in only a few short decades. Entire genres have been created, along with improved graphics, mechanics, and storytelling.

But with more people getting into video games now more than ever, the age-old question continuously resurfaces:

“How do I get my significant other to play video games with me?”

And it’s an understandable question! Games are an important hobby to some, and it’s nice to be able to share in that passion and joy with the person you love most. I completely understand this. I’m a cosplayer and I’ve definitely conned my boyfriend into pressing seams for me or sitting in hour long panels about EVA foam. It’s not exactly his number 1 priority, but we have fun together doing it, and he’s able to appreciate my craft a little more because of it.

Similarly, he’s not an artist, but he always helps me table in Artist Alley, gives advice on new prints to make (“If you’re going to make a niche DnD print, at least display it near the DnD stuff to be a conversation starter”) and stays up til 2am cutting stickers with me. It’s exhausting, but we have a lot of good memories from doing it together.

It’s nice to include your significant others in activities that bring you joy.

So how the hell do you convince your partner to engage with video games… if they never have before? And what kinds of games are going to give you the best experience?

Hi. Welcome. This is where I come in.

I’m not a gamer. At all. I’m awful at video games. Whilst my boyfriend was growing up and devouring every console he could convince his parents to buy, I was being a horse girl. No Halo for me today, sir, I have a showjumping class to attend. The only video game I would willingly participate in was Singstar during sleep overs, and that was because I was a musical theatre kid and knew this would be the only video game that I could completely decimate my peers with. Street fighter? No thank you. But I will wreck your shit with Stacy’s Mom by Fountains of Wayne.

But somehow, even though this is my upbringing, I have to acknowledge the fact that over the past 10 years I’ve actually played… a lot of video games. I think I’ve figured out the key. I think I’ve distilled the answer. Now obviously this is purely based on my experience, and everyone will have slightly different results, but I will now present you with my scientific anthropological findings of how you may be able to repeat this process.  

“How do I get my significant other to play video games with me?”

Now I think there are two ways to go about this.

1.       Play a video game together where both of you are holding a controller and in charge of some aspect of the game. Ie. Character, assistant, the right foot, etc.

Now I realize this seems obvious.

“You mean I can play a video game with my significant other by actually playing a game with my significant other??? Uhhhh yeah…. I WOULD THINK SO”

But hear me out. Out of the two ways you can go about this, I actually think this is the hardest way (I’ll explain why soon). My partner and I do not often play games together like this. What we usually do, and what I would be more likely to recommend is:

2.       Play a game where you (the gamer) have the controller, and your SO participates or watches from the couch.

This is what my boyfriend and I usually do, and it’s the less likely of the two options to cause arguments, fights, and tears.

But let’s first look at option 1.

Playing a game together

Do you remember when you were in high school and you had to do a film study for a semester? And your teacher would explain all the different camera shots and angles and what they meant? A low angle shot where a character towers above makes them seem intimidating. A character cloaked in shadow indicates that the character is sneaky.

Your teacher told you all this, but in reality, all of these meanings were probably pretty obvious to you. You intuitively knew what they meant because you had been raised on watching movies. You were already familiar with this language of film because it had always been present in your life.

Well guess what? Video games have a language too.

And just like film, if you have played video games your whole life, you might be surprised at just how much of this language you have absorbed, and how much of this literacy is REQUIRED to play a modern video game.

The fact that triangle is always jump, x to interact, L2 to aim, R2 to shoot, circle to crouch, square to reload… all of that is assumed knowledge that you would probably have ingested over time, so it comes completely natural to you now.

Your SO doesn’t know any of this. They probably don’t even know that the L and R buttons exist. I didn’t. I still forget.

This is why choosing a game to play together is so difficult. When you finally do choose one? You have to be patient. You cannot get annoyed when your SO has to ask every five minutes what jump is again. They may have difficulty navigating around menus and UI. They may have difficulty moving around in game. Side scrollers are pretty intuitive, but games that require you to position a camera? Ie. Most third person or first person anything? Oof. That’s hard. They might fall off a lot of bridges or stare at the ground a lot. This is a skill you have to build up. You have it already. They don’t. It’s important to remember that saying anything like “You can do it, it’s easy!” or “Why are you having so much trouble with this?” is NOT HELPFUL. It’s only going to make your SO feel stupid/bad. Remember, they don’t give a shit about video games. Their life has been just fine without them until now, and it will continue to be just fine without games. They are only doing this FOR YOU. So why would you want to make someone feel stupid for just trying to make you happy?

Treat them like a baby deer. Gently. Tentatively. You are slowly drawing them into the clearing. Any harsh comment will send them running.

Based on all this, here are some recommendations on games that work well to play with your SO.

1.    Games you are SUPPOSED to be bad at.

You know how I just talked about how there are general conventions over controls? And that it can be frustrating for your SO to learn these whilst they come intuitively for you?

Well what if you eliminated that disparity by playing games where the controls intentionally make no goddamn sense? By playing a game with whacky controls, it evens the playing field. Your SO is learning and struggling with controls, but so are you! This way your stupidity is not humiliating, it creates a sense of comradery. There’s no shame, just silliness and fun. The game I played with my partner that made me first realise the genius of this was… Octodad.

Octodad is collaborative. It’s an absolute nightmare to control, but for once my boyfriend’s muscle memory was actually a detriment. He would instinctively go to move like he would in other games, but that’s not how Octodad works. So he was rewiring his muscle memory whilst I was just a blank slate.

“Trigger to grab things? Yeah sure. Why not? I don’t know any better.”

It also hits that sweet spot of being short enough that the silliness doesn’t grow stale, and has a sincere enough story that you do become invested in the fate of the octopus in your hands.

10/10 Octodad. Highly recommend.

Other games in this genre that I feel would be worth a look:

-          Man Fall Flat

-          QWOP

-          Surgeon Simulator

-          Super Bunny Man

 2.    Hey! It’s Nintendo!

Ah Nintendo. It’s where most children start, so it seems like a logical place for a burgeoning gamer to begin. But specifically, what I want to recommend are the range of excellent Nintendo party games that are simple to navigate, fun, and often cooperative. I can’t play an FPS, but Mario Kart comes very easy to me…. Or as easy as it does to anyone. Similarly, Mario Party requires almost no video game literacy, and you can introduce it to your SO as “It’s just a board game that happens to be a video game”.

Although we do joke about Mario Kart and Mario Party being “friendship killers” because of their competitive nature and how easy it is to sabotage other players. If you are worried about these games maybe causing to much distress, I would also recommend the tried and true Wii Sports or the more modern 1-2-Switch. It has a cow milking game! It’s fun! And you can laugh at one another as you make terrible dick jokes.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND SUPER SMASH BROS. THAT IS NOT AN INTRODUCTORY GAME.

If you really want, play it on co-op team mode.

 In summary, when picking a game to play with your SO my general recommendations are:

- make sure the game has very simple controls and linear movement (if any at all)

- or have a game with bonkers controls so you can learn them together

- avoid competitive games to start. Or play competitive games that require no video game literacy. The best FPS or Tekken player is NOT going to win Mario Party. It’s just luck.

Playing games this way with my partner is fun, but not how we usually play games. This is because if I want to play a AAA title, or maybe a great JRPG I’ve heard about, I have to move on to the second method.

 Playing games where the gamer has the control and the non-gamer watches/participates via other means.

This is how my partner and I generally play games. Because my partner is the one holding the controller, navigating the game, combat and menus, I am not required to have any of that assumed knowledge I mentioned earlier.

But how can you make watching a video game compelling?

It’s actually not as difficult as you might imagine, but you’re right in that it does rule out a chunk of games. If you have grand dreams of your non-gamer girlfriend fawning over your sweet League of Legends skills… then I think you need a bit of a wake-up call. Competitive online games, FPS and sports games (such as FIFA) are generally not fun to watch. This isn’t a blanket statement! Some non-gamers could find these fun. But generally, if you don’t know the skill it requires to perform certain moves or strategies, or are unfamiliar with even the basic rules… these games just look like a mess.

Me watching someone play Overwatch: “Wow… I suddenly have motion sickness”

I find the most compelling games to watch are: Narrative driven

Think of all the games that are basically movies with some gameplay thrown in. Uncharted and the Tomb Raider reboot are just long form Indiana Jones movies. The Last of Us is a survival, drama, horror movie that makes you question your morals and how far you are willing to go to help humanity. The Witcher captures a rich narrative and lore comparable only to the Lord of the Rings films. The Yakuza series might be the best mob movie I’ve ever seen. All of these games are great and as engrossing to watch as they are to play. Lovable characters, compelling obstacles, and a good dose of spectacle keep them entertaining. Narrative driven games are my favorite to just sit and watch whilst my partner plays.

However, “narrative driven games” encapsulates thousands of titles, with some being more suited to watching than others. To help narrow down games that are enjoyable without a controller, I’ve narrowed it down into 3.5 sub categories.

1.       Games with a looser/more predictable narrative, but the visuals are just so damn appealing

2.       Choice based games – with the sub category of puzzle games

3.       Mediocre games, but they’re fun

 Each of these categories creates a uniquely different gaming experience, ranging from a cinematic “sit and watch” style, to a higher participation, more co-operative team based style. Let’s start with the first as it’s the easiest to define.

 1.    Games with a looser narrative, but engrossing visuals

Sometimes games will have a good story, but you’re just not sure if it’s good enough to sustain someone’s attention for 20+ hours. Maybe it’s a little predictable. Maybe you know the hero is destined to save the day. Will this be enough to hold my SOs attention?

And I think you are really the only one to answer that.

But let me first tell you about one of my favorite games, and probably only the second game I ever played with my partner.

DMC.

I fucking adore this game.

Eat my ass. It’s great.

But is the story that great? I mean it’s cool. Half angel, half demon boys. Long lost twin brothers. An evil demon who killed your father and has now essentially become a mob boss and corrupted your city. It’s cool. It’s interesting enough, but at the end of the day, you know Vergil is going to betray you. You know your cardboard cut out girlfriend(?) is going to be a liability. You know you’re going to defeat that demon boss with your big sword.

But god damn, if it isn’t a riot to watch. Devil May Cry has some of the most stylish and slick combat, that it’s really entertaining to just witness. You can cheer on your SO on as they climb up to a SSS ranking and maintain their combo over 5 whole minutes. The soundtrack is blasting. The level design and art direction are stunning. Watching Dante get dragged into Limbo is always an experience, and you’re never quite sure what you’re going to walk into this time. DMC still has one of the most inventive boss fights I’ve ever seen and I’m honestly waiting for another game to top it.

So, I think if your visuals are captivating enough… that can definitely save a game with maybe just a good to average story. It’s just a treat for the senses.

Other games I would put in this category would be:

- The Arkham games, particularly Arkham City and Arkham Knight. God the combat is just great to watch, with each punch really feeling brutal and heavy. The spookiness of Gotham is eerily beautiful, and finding all the easter eggs in the world is a real treat.

- The latest Spider-man game from Insomniac games

- Breath of the Wild – I just like… being in this game

-Nier Automata – this one is a bit weird. I wasn’t sure which category to put it in, but felt because of the interesting mechanics and gimmick of playing over and over again to reveal more of the world and story, I decided to put it here.

 2.    Choice based games

This is definitely my favorite type of game to play, and the one that I think is the easiest to engage with, despite the lack of controller in my hand.

The whole reason I started playing games with my partner is because he was playing a game and after a while I just… sat down… and started watching.

The game was Mass Effect 3, and I just became really involved in the story and the choices my partner was making. We have since gone back and played the entire Mass Effect series multiple times, and I feel it really exemplifies what is so fantastic about playing a choice-based game with a non-gamer.

Choice based games still allow your SO to be heavily involved. If you are letting your SO make choices, then they are still playing the game. Just because I wasn’t the one actively shooting Collectors does not mean I had no impact on our game experience. It was my choice to cure the genophage. My choice to spare the Rachni queen, and you can be damn sure that it was my choice to romance Garrus across the series. Choice based games are fantastic for keeping your SO engaged and the two of you can cultivate your own story and endure consequences together.

Obviously I love Mass Effect, but some similar games in this style would be:

-          Until Dawn

-          The Witcher

-          The Persona series – but be careful! These games are long so may not be great as an introductory game

 Visual Novels! – Visual novels are excellent for this! They’re purely choice based, and it doesn’t matter who is clicking the next button. For an added amount of goofiness, take on roles and do stupid voices. Do it. It’s great. Nothing makes me laugh harder than romancing an anime schoolgirl with an old man voice.

 They’re short, but can be replayed for a different ending if you wish. My partner and I played Dream Daddy together multiple times and were avid about who our favorite dads were. I liked Robert and Craig. My partner liked Damian and Brian. 

 My partner and I have actually just started playing a new visual novel, but along with it being choice based, I would also classify it as a puzzle/problem solving game.

 2.5  Puzzle/problem solving games

Puzzle games are great for a similar reason as choice-based games, as they keep your SO involved. Only this time they are helping to problem solve. Many times I’ve been able to figure something out before my boyfriend, so I can go “ohhhh take that, drop it here, then move that here” and it’ll work!

Currently we’re making our way through the Danganronpa series, which is a bit of a hybrid between a visual novel and puzzle game. It’s not a difficult game to control or navigate at all, so I could play it on my own, but I like playing it with my partner as we bounce theories off of one another and work together to solve a crime. I’ll remember certain pieces of evidence he doesn’t, or he’ll remember one throw away line from the opening 3 minutes of the game that is now an alibi. During free time, we’ll each pick a character to talk to, so we both get to learn more about our favorite characters.

“I wanna talk to Sakura because she seems sweet and I want her to have friends”

“Ok, then I’ll talk to Mondo because he seems funky.”

And so on. The process is collaborative.

Some games of a similar genre that might be fun:

-          Catherine from Atlus

-          Portal 1 and 2

-          The Phoenix Wright series

-          Resident evil 2 – this one is a bit odd, but resident evil 2 is almost a memory game as you work to remember all the things you’ve picked up, the pieces you need to unlock doors, and prioritize the weapons you’ll take with you. “No take the grenade rounds. If we’re going in the offices, we left that face hugger there, remember?”

Finally this brings us to our third category, and also the most difficult to explain. So I’ve just called it:

3.    Average Games, but there’s just something enjoyable about them

Sometimes games are just… fun. Sometimes the story is alright, the gameplay is repetitive, but the characters and writing are just so inherently likeable or interesting that you can keep watching. For me, this whole category was created as a way for me to justify my fondness for the Saints Row series.

Saints Row is, on paper, pretty unremarkable. It’s a ridiculous series of games about a street gang coming into fame and eventually political power, and the outlandish things they have to do to climb that ladder. Often cited as a “GTA clone” the gameplay is repetitive and almost boring at times, with most of the missions falling into the “Go here, kill people” category. The world isn’t particularly pretty or interesting. It’s just a city. One that you’ve seen a million times if you’ve played any city-based open world game.

So why do I love this unremarkable series? Why am I oddly attached to these characters?

Ultimately, I think it comes down to the characters being written with a certain amount of honesty, and the interactions between them feel genuine and oddly heartfelt. I don’t really care about rival gangs or accumulating money, but if it lets me ride in the car and have another sing along with Pierce, then I’m going to do it.

I like the weird sexual tension between the Boss and Shaundi, which only seems to become more prominent if you play as the female Boss. I love Matt Miller and him ranting about his Nyte blayde fan fiction. I like finding out the Boss has read Jane Austen.

It’s just silly and fun, with a good amount of ridiculous spectacle. It’s definitely not a series that I could recommend. It just kind of appealed to something in me. I think there are lots of games that could fit this category. Most people will say that the Borderlands series is “Alright” but it has a lot of fun dialogue and characters who keep it entertaining. Similarly, despite lack luster reviews, I know a lot of people really enjoyed the 2013 Deadpool game because Deadpool was written just like he is in the comics.

This category is the hardest to nail, and you may go through several games that you think are “hilarious” or “crazy fun” that just don’t gel with your SO. That’s ok. As you play more, you’ll eventually be able to develop a sense of each other’s tastes and what will appeal to you.

 General Advice in closing

TL;DR, here are some good parameters to stick to until you reach a consensus of what games your SO might enjoy.

-  Games with a good story and compelling characters will always be entertaining

- If the combat is long and takes up a good proportion of the game, it should be visually interesting to look at. If the combat is repetitive or boring to watch, it should clip along at a good pace and only come in short bursts. Bonus points if there’s party banter!

- Start with shorter games, then build up. It’s a big demand on someone to sit through a 60+ hour game for your first few attempts. Maybe put that Tales game on the shelf for now.

I’ve tried to keep this advice general, but obviously you and your SO will have different interests, and you should appeal to those. I love anime. I love hot boys. Due to these factors, I am more than willing to sit through a long form JRPG about two rival noble boys, as it appeals to my weeb sensibilities. This is not something I would expect others to be able to do.

I generally don’t like films about heists or organized crime. It’s just not a genre that appeals to me, so asking me to sit through Grand Theft Auto is probably not the wisest choice. I have played GTA5 for those that are curious, and it’s not my favorite. It’s definitely not bad, and I do expect other non-gamers would be entertained playing through the story of it. There’s definitely a good story there! It’s just not one that satisfies all of my needs. Just like how I don’t expect every person to love sitting through God of War or Jak and Daxter.

Getting to learn each other’s likes and dislikes takes time. Favorite movies can be a bit of an indicator, but transferring to a different medium complicates things. The most important thing is to listen to each other and be respectful. If your SO doesn’t like your favorite game of all time, that’s not a personal insult. You are likely just experiencing the game in a different way than they are, and they can’t relate to that.

Along with being respectful, obviously don’t pressure your SO into anything. Sometimes you’ll find that your SO might not want to play games with you because they had such an awful experience trying to play with their exes or other friends previously. I know I was really hesitant to ever pick up a controller again after an incident where I couldn’t navigate my character over a log, because I was not used to controlling a camera, and was made to feel really stupid and useless. I threw up my hands and said “Fuck this shit” for a long time. Your SO might be hesitant to play games with you because they worry that you’ll just get frustrated with how bad they are. You can reassure them that this won’t happen, but it’s still their choice to say no.

At the end of the day, it’s ok to have different hobbies. You don’t have to share everything. If you are lucky enough that your non-gamer SO might want to try playing games with you, then be kind, and be patient. When picking games to play together, try to pick something you can both enjoy. Go on a journey together. Have fun!

It’s a game after all.  

[delusion-of-negation]

hey anon, you don't know shit about serial killers. okay so first of all, those guys aren't most serial killers. are you familiar with aiding and abetting laws? basically, you help somebody commit a crime then you can be charged for that same crime. so you're in a gang, you don't have a gun and you didn't shoot anyone, but you helped out with two fights that went bad, and someone got shot and died both times. congrats, you're a serial killer. no, for real. there are people recorded as serial killers who have never killed anybody. and like over 20% of serial killers are just people in gangs, and iirc that makes up the biggest chunk if you divide by type. the most successful type of serial killer, ie the type with the most victims, is also not anything like those - it's angels of death, medical professionals who kill those in their care. also the most likely type to be a woman iirc. and also the least likely type to get caught. angels of death fall into two main categories - you have those with a god complex, who kill patients because they believe those patients deserve to die or are better off dead, and they're the most successful serial killers by a massive margin, we're talking hundreds of kills each and we're fairly certain rarely caught. then there's the less well-known type, who put their patients in life-threatening peril in order to save them, for attention and praise, and sometimes fail to save them and they die. everything you know about serial killers is a lie - the shady man in the alleyway who rapes and eats his victims is a statistical irrelevance, he basically doesn't exist, that's why it makes headlines when it happens, while the thousandth gang member to shoot a second person, or the thousandth carer to fail to save the disabled boy who "fell" in the river, don't make headlines. when peebee says serial killers are rare, that's correct - they boost the stats by including gang shit and stuff far from what we envision when you say that, and it's still rare. 99.9% (or around there) of first time murderers who, for one reason or another, don't go to jail never kill again. ever. killing once is rare, killing twice moreso. especially in the manner described by anon, the stats have to be boosted by kids in gangs who just drove the getaway car. women's likelihood to rape and murder and abuse and child abuse is... difficult to have exact figures for, because of social bias, reporting bias, laws (like those in my country) that specify having a penis to commit rape, and so on. and, it's worth noting, the necessity of having a penis and penetrating with it, in order to be legally counted and prosecuted here, extends to when the victim is under thirteen. an adult cis woman raping a child of any age is legally not counted as rape here. when stats have been specifically trying to get things like "forced to penetrate" and more ladylike methods of abuse included, it can come out around 60-70% of perps being men iirc. but it's not a number I'd throw my whole weight behind because so many variables fuck this up.

How many female Jeffrey dahmers, Ted Bundys, and John Wayne Gacys are out there? Let’s say the crimes of women aren’t accounted as much as men. There still is probably a ratio of 1 woman for every 10 men who do weird and evil shit. Women are NOT just as likely as men to be serial killers, rapists, child molesters, and school shooters. No one is saying men should all be viewed in this manner. But stop acting like women are committing these horrid crimes at the same rate as the men who do them.

There’s only 1 of each of those, but okay hun. XD

Serial killers are insanely rare, so it’s impossible for there to be “1 for every 10” with them, and until recently the FBI didn’t even count female serial killers, so honey, bringing them up doesn’t prove your point, it proves mine.

Same with rapists. Most places in the world do not define rape as gender nutruel (feminists even oppose doing so) so it is impossible to claim the gap is even close to that large, especially when you factor in how many men have admitted to being abused but not reporting their abuse to the fact that those reported barely get counted themselves, if what happened to them isn’t labeled a lesser crime.

The child molestors one is just funny. You know most CHILD ABUSERS are female, right? And that most people with access to children are female? And that without a father figure, children turn out mentally unwell? All that added to the fact that a female child rapist can legally force a child she raped to pay her child support if she gets pregnant from raping them, AND that most places, again, don’t define rape as gender nutreul, and it seems pretty fucking obvious the idea most are men is utter bullshit.

And school shooters? 1) again, rare, 2) you know the first school shooter was a woman, right? And 3) school shooters only prove one sex gets better therapy, more sympathy, and less harsh bullying than the other, not that one is somehow less violent. And as someone who grew up bullied by both girls and boys, I can tell you the idea that girls aren’t violent cuz they don’t get pushed to their breaking point, snap and shoot up a school as often as boys do is just FUCKING LAUGHABLE.

Actually a lot of people are saying men should all be viewed in this matter, most of them feminists.

And there’s more than enough reason to think they commit them at the same rate or more, you just prefer to not factor in that women are humans too, and that society is literally designed to let them get away with heinous crimes.

Whether that’s because you don’t want to fear both sexes or because you’re a sexist is, frankly, irrelevant. You’re still wrong.