#this is just pettiness ignore me

[iheartbookbran]

My favorite part about the Debling plot was Penelope and Cressida doing the most over there top cat-fighting in order to win him over, not because they genuinely liked the guy, but because they wanted to escape their families and also lowkey just hate each other.

[agnes-come-back-challenge]

I love that everyone in TMA is just. Unremarkable. Jon isnt a heroic character; he's self-loathing and depressed and he exhibits the same self-pity as I do when I'm self-loathing and depressed. He doesn't stand out for his strength of will or quick-thinking or virtue. He's a good person but he stops trying to stay human when it gets uncomfortable. He's everything that a regular person is when theyre trapped in a horrible situation and it's ugly and insufferable and Real.

[ruporas]

being a little petty (ID in alt)

[shokveyv]

shut up

[relaxxattack]

rereading the hivebent commentary makes me so annoyed that people are never really willing to analyze the actual effects that alternian culture clearly had on every troll, especially the highbloods. pretty much the only troll who ever actually gets taken in the context of her upbringing is vriska.

no one ever seems willing to think about the character arcs of trolls like equius and terezi, who are also bluebloods with extremely hypocritical and toxic understandings of the people around them-- equius is boiled down to a gross creep who is just like that naturally and definitely didn't get it from his society in any way, whilst terezi is scrubbed of virtually all her flaws and turned into a strange sort of based love interest character who is all about being gay and too cool to be tricked by any of the alternian propaganda. quadrants? classism? how silly! terezi would never believe in stupid shit like that. she's quirky! and GAY!

despite the fact that equius and terezi both obviously have much, much more to their personalities than that-- and the alternian empire is informing way more dangerous things about these kid's beliefs than "kiss annoying people".

[triglycercule]

thinking so much about horror and dust,,, gosh these SILLY goobers theyre so EYDAGHGGG!!!!! compliments to eachother,,,,,

i need them to make puns about topics that absolutely nobody should be laughing about and then DIE cackling because no waaay the punchline was a human's execution :333 (phantom papyrus is shaking his head in dismay)

need them to share stories about shitty experiences with humans and for horror to be impressed by dust's ability to keep coming up with new ways to kill his human and then for dust to also be impressed by horror's ability to handle with all different types of humans!!!

they make eachother food but dust poisoned horror's food and horror added rusted nails to his so theyre just like no you first you really should eat first i wouldn't wanna be rude no but i INSIST! they both know. it's a fun little game isnt it??? horror gets a bit scared of having to eat the food when dust's eyes turn red and cyan but it's okay because then he can just shove the shitty eggs he made into those eyes because theres literal NAILS cooked into it

sometimes they fight because thats normal and dust is annoyed at horror for hating undyne because she's a good person who just wanted to help others and horror's getting pissed because DIDN'T YOU LITERALLY KILL HER DONT YOU JUST VIEW HER AS EXP WHY ARE YOU DEFENDING HER!!! and they bicker back and forth and dust is really starting to wonder why he even empathizes with horror atp.... but its ok after a little quarrel they simmer down and move on. they dont change opinions at all the fight was for nothing

but then there's also times when they just wanna confide in each other because likeeeee theyre both shitty people who fucked up their undergrounds by their own accords and miss how peaceful life was back then. dust tells horror stories of life back before the human came because horror doesn't really remember it that well anymore and horror speaks to phantom papyrus through dust so he can pretend that this is just a conversation between sans and papyrus and everything's okay for just a moment. they both linger onto their memories of how things were before everything went to shit even though horror can barely remember and dust hates his previous self back then,,,,,

dust thinks horror's sooo much better than him for not literally mass murdering everyone but then goes around and stink eyes him for forcing his snowdin to eat humans and then leave the rest of the underground to starve. WHY DIDN'T YOU DO BETTER HORROR WHY DIDN'T HELP EVERYONE ELSE. horror scoffs because even though he kinda lowkey gets dust's philosophy of saving everyone and stopping the human through gaining LV he still killed everyone??? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO THEM YOU IDIOT SHOULD'VE JUST FOUND ANOTHER WAY OR LET IT HAPPEN!!! the way they understand eachother on paper but then in reality despise what the other did,,,,,

ok SO WHAT if they encourage eachother's delusions. SO WHAT if they pretend the past never went away so WHAAAAT!!! it doesn't matter at least they found someone who can match their freak,,,,,, dust and horror peak duo PEAK DUO DARE I SAY OK

[girl4music]

Eh… Xena has her moments but lesbihonest.

Gabrielle is the jealous one of the two of them.

[nectardaddy]

goodbye fuck ass people that unfollowed once I said I was going by they/them now

rest in piss

[sophiethewitch1]

www!reader WILL call batman a pussy for not killing on her private twitter. she does it like every other day. its cathartic

[micawla]

Magnus Bane, actively ignoring Alec since he won’t acknowledge their relationship: Alexa, please play Good Luck, Babe! by Chappell Roan

[writeouswriter]

Girl, help, the book authors are trying too hard to be "hip" with the fleeting "teen lingo" and trends again, immediately dating their works before they're even released

[glossolali]

happy 2nd mighty nein finale anniversary everyone and don't forget molly is alive 😌💜💜💜

[hells1nfern0]

Everyone whos saying they pulled a 5 hour long bait and switch on people just for the hl2vrai trailer. It wasn't just a bit for that it was so much more than that. Everyone is switching on a dime calling it such a good joke or staying stuck mad and pissy about it. Genuinely it was a fun stream. It was something the RTVS team clearly had a lot of fun making, they put 3 years of work and planning into it. There is more to them than HLVRAI. They never directly said it would be HL2VRAI.

But honestly though. I can't blame them for teasing it as such. If YOU put 3 years of effort into something would you allow it to just get ignored by everyone because it isn't what everyone cares about you for. Or would you want to make sure all the people started liking you for it initially would see how you grew.

BrBaVRAI was the same thing that HLVRAI was supposed to be. A fun stream with friends.

It isn't just for you man. It's supposed to be something fun and if you genuinely threw a shitfit about it or if you gave up on it called it unfunny, mid, or even bad. Only to turn around once you got what you Wanted.

You do not deserve what the RTVS crew will make.

You do not deserve HL2VRAI

EDIT: Honestly I don't care about most of the shit people are upset about. Yeah its fine for them to troll you they're known for that. Don't treat their work like it was always shit up until the point they gave you the shit you were waiting for. Just because you wanted a Twix doesnt mean a Snickers doesn't taste just as sweet. They aren't morally bad people for a prank that upset you.

[mortalfollies]

9 Favourite Albums - Choose 9 & then tag 9 people! Or you can do nine singles or EPs, whatever lol.

Tagging @cactus-bag @catsafari25 @labyrinthal @sleeeepy-demon @retourne-toi-eurydice @belladonnafey @scorpius-rising @cry4judas @atuans @nicey-sandokan @evyes no obligations feel free 2 ignore

Albums listed (and me rambling) under the cut

TIME - ELO: my mum's favourite album that i first Properly listened to when i was 13. it's just the best sci-fi concept album ever....i love you jeff!!

13 Tales of Love & Revenge - The Pierces: sexy indie duo, most known for the song Secret, which isn't even in the top 5 of the best songs of the album. a treasure from when i was 11, and just figuring out i like girls.

Greatest Hits - The Eagles: again, my mum's interests becoming my own. it was really hard to pick between this and Long Road Out of Eden, but ultimately the greatest hits r that for a reason.

Laurel Hell - Mitski: my fave mitski album, heat lightning is underappreciated!!! and yeah just. its about solitude. recognition but not in the way you wanted or expected. emotional rollercoaster. im not eloquent enough to describe it and mitski does it better in under 2 minutes anyway.

Strange Trails - Lord Huron: again another hard toss between this and long lost but st wins out purely bc the transitions rule, and meet me in the woods + the yawning grave make me crazyyyy. so happy i got to hear those live in jan. lord huron is like what if a cowboy was also a ghost. thats the only way i can describe it.

Electra Heart - Marina and the Diamonds: i am not immune to music i heard at 12 years old. shame she's never made anything as good as this again.

Are We Having Fun Yet? - Black/Colin Vearncombe: another one of mum's. She found this guy when someone at Sanity was playing the album over the store speakers. loved it ever since, and introduced it to me. wistful ballads, jazzy touches, a little bit sexy.

Coyote Stories - The Crane Wives: this was a 2016-18 discovery maybe? i just know i was in school. im into folk indie i cant help it.

Wasteland, Baby! - Hozier: shout out to afro-elf for posting about movement n the whole ep, which is what spurred me to actually try this dude's music. and now i love him. but wasteland baby is immaculate: no skips, he roars in some songs and is as gentle as drizzle in others.

[redactedshapes]

Alright let's go - Ramblings regarding Saga, in comparison to Jesse and "The World"

if anyone feels like expanding on any point please do, I'm gonna leave this text as it is because otherwise it's gonna torment me for weeks

I don't recall in which interview, a couple writers said Casey was developed because Saga needed someone to bounce ideas off of and/or because she needed something to externalize her personality without relying on awkward exposition (or something along those lines).

And that's kind of noticeable if you compare Saga's and Jesse's treatment from a writing/presentation stand point:

Jesse as a character is far more obscure and details about her inner life are limited, while Saga is established and very detailed without relying on exposition.

Jesse, from a technical standpoint, suffers the "new character introducing an audience to a new IP" syndrome if you will.

Jesse's past is presented in vague details and a general sense of direction: finding Dylan who is a stranger to the audience. Her inner monologue is to Polaris and it works as exposition but by Polaris' nature there's no back and forth.

When Jesse talks to a character it is always a one-to-one conversation, and an important portion those are about the history of the FBC, asking questions that require exposition. Not to mention there's no interaction between the main cast other than with Jesse.

Some information can be inferred from Jesse's "epilogue" lines after the end of the game. But that's about it regarding the main text.

And that goes in line with the thematic difference I feel between Control and Alan Wake games - the former (heh) is about The World, the later, about the people in it.

Overall it can feel quite isolated and lonely, or well, mechanical. You have to fill in a lot of info yourself. And I believe the writers identified this and tried to change where they could with Foundation and AWE - with the way Jesse and Emily are far more comfortable with each other as they joke and tease during their dialogue, and getting a deeper look into my beloved Langston's personality (which is quite self-aware because lmao, finally it's Jesse who's at the end of a one-way "conversation").

But Saga's has an already established and rich life before the story and details bleed all through the text.

A partner and friend she's known for years and their history is spoken and written, there's no need to infer and fill in details yourself that much.

Their relationship is detailed enough in "side tidbits" (all of her Mind Place stuffs) and in actual conversations, which often enough involve a third party.

Casey works as exposition for Saga's character but, by virtue of Casey being character apart from Saga, the information is introduced far more organically (and arguably, in a more detailed way).

Remedy also gave Saga a huge advantage Jesse didn't have: The Collectible and Missions menus are hers.

So not only we get to hear Saga's thoughts on the current situation, we also get a sneak peek into her mind and inner life.

Some people in Saga's life also have a detailed enough history that they stand on their own rather than solely working as Saga's motivation because the story requires them to be at stakes.

Dylan is, technically, a stranger to Jesse, she's clinging to the past idea of him: we are motivated to find Dylan because we're told to care about him. While Logan and Casey are present in Saga's life and we get more details upfront to care for them.

Saga got curious, shit started to go down and we want them to be safe because otherwise it'd be painful for Saga.

Unlike the ghosts that Trench and Darling were to Jesse, Saga gets to actually talk to Tor and Odin. And well, the entire plot of the game is her undoing and confronting Alan's work on her life, rather than cleaning the mess done by the previous administration that are now gone and cannot be held accountable for.

And I suppose that's another improvement in the writing: the Hiss as the antagonist force is basic (and if you've played Mass Effect they're nothing new, and to me they're the least interesting part of the wolrdbuilding). There's not much room to maneuver, so Jesse's got one way to fight them (so far).

Saga could've gone several ways in dealing with Wake, and we see her struggle when she's about to give the Clicker to Alan/Scratch, she didn't mince her words in that confrontation and she had all the right to go even further. And yet she kept it together, unwilling to fully give herself to despair.

AND!

She chose compassion in the end!

And, honestly? Their final conversation is such a good and rich detail.

Saga's motherhood could've remained as basic reminders to the player that she has a daughter who's the victim and that's your motivation girl! As well as her silly jokes because parents do that sometimes teehee.

Saga's compassion is informed by her motherhood but not limited to it. As a mother she knows that everyone needs someone who believes in them unconditionally, as a daughter she knows how good a reminder of your good qualities can be, and as a detective she knows how to gather, read and act on information.

So when she reminds Alan that he had defeated the Dark Presence before and that he can do it again, she's not saying it because she's desperate, and she's not being patronizing due to Alan's loneliness and isolation.

She's saying because it's true.

And she doesn't rub his missteps and mistakes on his face. She knows how to get the point across without being mean.

She needed very little guidance: information to fill in the blanks of her life from Tor and Odin, short and vague phone calls from Alice, and a portal to the Writer's Room from Ahti. (Rose's lunchboxes were technically not necessary but she gets a honorable mention.) I don't know if there's enough information to conclude whether the reminders that helped her find a way out of the Mind Place were sent by someone else or came solely from her own resilience, and either would be neat, but I would like to think there's someone who's been looking out for her the same way she's been looking out for other characters.

And she's not flawless, but in working her flaws I believe the writers treated her with well deserved respect. She's not a caricature and the story has enough characters being tortured, any more and it'd feel cruel and it'd be permission granted by the horror genre anyways (although, to be honest, I believe Cynthia's treatment was a tiny bit too cruel and that's mostly due the last stage of her boss fight).

I love her first conversation with Norman because she's being a bit patronizing (I believe that's the correct word?), but he's like, nope! No dementia here! Not cool you brought it up :]

Her Nightmare Mind Place is as explicit as it gets. And the few times she loses it are not unearned. I love it when she gets frustrated with Rose and her "Oh fuck this", as well as her pained "My daughter is dead because of you. What is wrong with you?" to Alan in the holding cells.

Her biggest flaw is being a fed.

She's an extremely well put together person and integral, rich character. Her pain and suffering are palpable and the developers did an excellent job in showing it without being cruel (or well, knowing where to place the cruelty *cough* the white man *cough*).

And that's, in general, where I'd call attention to the leaps in improvement to Remedy's writing, right alongside the development and treatment Alice got, and the departure that is from Marshall in Control (the one character of color of any sort of relevance to the story, who got the least dialogue or details about her life and involvement despite being part of the old guard, and that gets killed in the end).

-

I have the same criticism (affectionate) with Control and Quantum Break: the world, its history and other characters are more interesting (to me) than their protagonists.

I wanted to get far deeper into the inner lives of Beth Wilder, Paul Serene, William Joyce and Martin Hatch than Jack's. William's and Beth's specifically, the one who ruined everything and the one who's struggling with the fact it can't be fixed, respectively. Sure I got my fix from the novel, but that is not part of the main text, so my comment still stands.

Ahti and Polaris/Hedron's goals, The Oldest House and all the places and events and phenomenon it connects to is what makes my mind wander. Jesse's involvement with all of them and her relationships with other characters remain only as possibilities at the end of the game.

I would feel far less affection or attachment to either Jesse and Jack if it weren't because of the sibling element. That's my huge bias/weakness there I'll admit.

But with Saga, I do care about her entire world, everything and everyone that surround her. She likes weird, morbid stuffs and romance stories, she's extremely curious which got her in trouble but was responsible enough to go deal with it.

As a new protagonist character that stands right next to a well established one as Alan Wake, I think there's very little Remedy could've done to make her better.

She's just amazing, Remedy and Melanie Liburd deserve so much praise for her.

-

The only gripe I have about her treatment is extremely petty and it's the same I've had in previous games, which is technical - she could've had more animations that showed her body language given she didn't have as many live action scenes (and also watching some of previous Melanie's work, she's got an incredible voice range for certain emotions that weren't explored in the game). But that's a matter of presentation and technical development.

AND

Remedy flexed the leaps in improvement they've gone through already! I mean, Saga's animation of picking up things anyone???.

So here's hoping they got more plans for her and they include more live action.

[empty-blog-for-lurking]

I truly love and am jealous of fans can write and create well written fix-its/reboots of vld which are well balanced and focus on all characters. Cause all i am capable of is coming up with half formed balls-to-the-walls ideas with two nearly unrelated scenes held together with a red string but is still guaranteed to piss off 99% of the fandom if they were canon