#vidya GAEM

[bobbuscus]

do yal still like the lisa games

[waiterwaiterpercolator]

.......... three shells in the bathroom

[chocobizcuit]

[zahra-hydris]

want to start a new galemancer in bg3 but also... coral island 1.0 is finally out

[laguzisa]

i hope that in a few years that pokemon fans regard scarlet and vilet or whatever as one of those "so bugged it's good" as with many of those early "modern/HD games"

[waiterwaiterpercolator]

That sounds terrifying

[primaveraludica]

UNA DEFENSA UTILITARISTA DEL SIMBOLISMO

Primavera Lúdica viene del nutriente de una gama de autores de la llamada sophia perennis y sus comrades que, simplificando, presentan una noción del símbolo no como mera metáfora sino como una versión elevada (espiritualmente) de tal. En la teoría estética de Faretta, analizándola en términos comunes a todos, lo que sucede es que la metáfora se vuelve símbolo tradicional; lo que vale no es hacer uso de metáforas de cualquier tipo, sino específicamente (aunque no solamente) metáforas de un símbolo arcaico: el círculo, la cruz, la simbología de la alquimia (colores), simbología animal (la serpiente, por ejemplo). Roberto Calasso diría que, a través un proceso algo menos metódicamente descrito a comparación de la teoría de Faretta, la obra “capta” a los dioses, se vuelve trascendente. Como en una especie de proceso casi de epifanía, la obra “absoluta”, en términos de Calasso, es la que cataliza al numen lo suficiente como para que cuando experimentemos sus partes nos produzca el erizamiento (que es la experiencia de lo numinoso, el estremecimiento de Lewis, el terror de Jacob frente a la escalera en Bet-El; el terror a lo divino). Nosotros adscribimos a esta forma de ver el arte, pero aquí vamos a hacer una apologética más utilitarista.

El simbolismo (o lo metafórico) para el artista es primeramente lo que le permite rellenar huecos de inseguridad. Siempre que se hace una obra “porque sí”, o improvisadamente sin ningún sentido (en la acepción concreta de la palabra, que no es lo mismo que significado; el sentido es una dirección, “apunto hacia…”, el significado es algo que debería ser concreto, pero que nunca vamos a conocer como espectadores, y creo que ni como artistas, aunque podamos conocer el móvil, es decir, el motivo personal), siempre que se obra de forma meramente superficial, es decir, como artesano material antes que artista íntegro (sin intención de ofender a nadie), hay un grado de inseguridad respecto a lo que creamos. No necesariamente se trata de una inseguridad valorativa, aunque no negamos que pueda ser así en algunos casos (es decir, que a menos que haya un fin simbólico, no pensemos que sea algo “en serio”). Sobre todo se trata de una inseguridad moral. Ser moral (y ser tradicional en un sentido antropológico, no político ni social) se trata de tener una administración íntegra de las cosas que hacemos. Todos los aspectos de la vida (sexualidad, ocio, trabajo, estudio) forman parte de un orden sagrado y una relación con el universo. Si adscribimos al cristianismo, por ejemplo, no podemos tomar los dogmas que nos caen bien y desechar los dogmas que nos caen mal; esto sería usar la Biblia para confirmar lo que ya éramos, por ende no sería confirmarse como un hombre moral-tradicional sino como un solipsista. El conocimiento que se presenta como un placer tiende a ser una ilusión. El tener una organización íntegra de nuestras acciones implica que todas las cosas que hagamos estén en tela de juicio moral, que todas obedezcan a una finalidad única, que “apunten” hacia algo trascendental (tienen un sentido). Para el cristiano, ese “algo” sería la salvación. Así se entiende que exista una inseguridad moral en el arte. A veces, esta inseguridad es tan grande que nos vemos empujados a ser cada vez más explícitos con nuestros mensajes (Killers of the Flower Moon y Silence de Scorsese, por ejemplo). Si se es moral, no se soporta el pensamiento de que cada momento en que se hace uso de la plataforma del arte, no se está diciendo nada. Aun así, esto no quita que sea regla común para todos el hecho de que las personas no se sienten cómodas siendo sermoneadas. Por ende, si queremos comunicar una verdad a la audiencia, debemos imprimirla de forma sutil, para lo que la metáfora es método ideal (y el simbolismo más aún, puesto que es siempre universal, y no depende de un soporte histórico local, sino de conocimiento sagrado, o si somos ateos, del inconsciente colectivo jungiano[1]).

Si usamos la metáfora constantemente estamos “reduciendo el azar a un número parecido a cero”, como diría Faretta; esto se daría no con el uso típico de, por ejemplo, “…estaba rojo como un tomate!”, que sería un modo excesivamente didáctico y obvio, sino con una especie de solapa paralela entre una línea argumental material y una línea simbólica: es decir, por ejemplo, en mi plano pongo en un puente a dos personas, y en principio no es más que eso, dos personas en un puente, pero simbólicamente puede ser el puente como símbolo de unión entre mundos ajenos (el puente en El exorcista, por ejemplo). Esto soluciona mucho porque podemos librarnos de los sermones (y de la pedantería) a la vez que conservamos el juego superficial (y un sentido trascendental). Podemos tener una escena de acción desenfrenada que a la vez esté comunicando simbólicamente otra cosa más; estamos aprovechando el espacio. Imaginemos por otra parte que no tenemos ninguna finalidad moral, en este caso también para el artista perfeccionista el lenguaje simbólico es una herramienta muy útil, puesto que amplía el terreno sobre el cual trabajar: ya no sólo hay que perfeccionarse técnicamente, sino también poéticamente. Para el perfeccionista, todo criterio que achaque las opciones que uno tiene le resulta una táctica para, valga la redundancia, la perfección. Aprender sobre técnica y aprender sobre todo lo demás. Todo esto no quiere decir que tengamos que actuar robóticamente, como quien basa todas sus historias en el camino del héroe, sino más bien actuar como en un “caos controlado”. Como hacer crecer un árbol sanamente, podándolo, pero dejando después que crezca por el misterio de la naturaleza, no por pegar con pegamento ramita por ramita. También supongo que algunas personas argumentarán que el criterio de lo simbólico puede excluir una opción que para el criterio de lo técnico sea la mejor: yo respondo que el verdadero robot es el que supone que hay una “opción óptima según la técnica”. Siempre hay factor de decisión instintiva, incluso viéndonos acorralados por la búsqueda de congruencia simbólica y magnificencia técnica. Si lo entendemos así, entendemos que hay siempre más de una “opción óptima”. Al hacer todo esto estoy amputando toda trascendencia per se del operar simbólico, para que se vea como algo más que inminente charlatanería (que no lo es). Si quitamos toda trascendencia espiritual del operar simbólico, nos encontramos, queramos o no, con un método objetivamente profundizador. El simbolismo no resta nada, siempre suma algo. Hay una especie de vil ardid en las personas que se repugnan cuando alguien elige hacer una interpretación compleja de una obra aparentemente simple (los que leen esto por los videojuegos sabrán que este es, lamentablemente, el caso con Dayo). Que El exorcista trate sobre valores tradicionales perdidos no va a impedirte de disfrutar de la emoción del terror. El exorcista con o sin interpretación simbólica es, materialmente, la misma película. Esta es la maravilla técnica del simbolismo, comunica cosas profundas sin necesidad de aguar el espectáculo.

POSDATA 1: MAGNIFICENCIA

¿Por qué esforzarse en hacer una obra maestra? La respuesta realista, probablemente, sea orgullo, pero tratemos de encontrar una razón más trascendental. Si hablamos en términos de operatividad (es decir, que el artista tiene la responsabilidad de dar un mensaje para mejorar el mundo en algún sentido: espiritual, social, político, religioso etc.), no deberíamos preocuparnos necesariamente por la magnificencia técnica. Las películas de Marvel son técnicamente inferiores a una película de Steven Spielberg, sin embargo las últimas películas de Spielberg tienden a no tener un éxito comercial tan grande como Marvel. En este aspecto, Marvel presenta una plataforma mucho más útil en la inmediatez para dar visibilidad a un mensaje importante, por el simple hecho de que más personas están viendo sus películas. Esto es verdad, pero como dije, sólo en la inmediatez. Hoy en día seguimos leyendo a Franz Kafka, H. P. Lovecraft, Heráclito, o Edgar Allan Poe, y no porque hayan tenido un éxito inmediato e ininterrumpido hasta el día de hoy. La materia que conserva estos textos no es la del espectáculo marvel-iano, que no posee otro modo de llamar la atención más que sirviéndose de las modas fugaces (personajes que adscriban a causismos del momento como el feminismo, o chistes que resuenen con el código de humor del momento), sino algo más. He hecho énfasis en el aspecto técnico, y es verdad que seguimos leyendo a Poe, por ejemplo, en gran parte porque es técnicamente genial, pero no solamente. Posiblemente lo que haga trascender a un clásico sea que opera con símbolos, lo que nos exige una constante renovación de nuestras interpretaciones (ya que buscamos afianzar cada vez más el sentido que buscamos en la obra). También puede ser la sensibilidad con la que describe la condición humana. Son distintas cosas, pero evidentemente producto de un trabajo de aprendizaje e impresión de complejidad de parte del artista. El punto es que vale más dotar de “algo más” a la obra para hacerla trascender temporalmente; el conformismo de Marvel y demás artistas los condena a nunca ser revisionados, por lo que nunca serán clásicos. De nuevo, hablando en términos de operatividad, resulta que la formula Marvel no es tan buena a largo plazo para cambiar el mundo, porque si contamos las relecturas, independientemente de la cantidad de personas hoy vivas que lo hayan leído, Shakespeare es infinitamente más influyente. He aquí mi intento por explicar una razón por la cual intentar complejizar nuestro arte. Si no somos artistas perezosos ni bohemios de línea caótica, solipsista, von-Trier-eana nos regocijaremos, luego de esta reflexión, en la propuesta del simbolismo, la de la construcción de múltiples lecturas a través del uso de símbolos metafóricos (preferiblemente símbolos tradicionales, para más universalidad).

POSDATA 2: IDÓLATRAS

Primero que nada quiero advertir que esta reflexión tiene como propósito, si bien a medida que avanza se va por las ramas, advertir que cuando tenemos una visión positiva absoluta de todo el corpus de obras de un autor, debemos desconfiar, porque esto puede ser síntoma de la falta de criterio.

¿Por qué es incorrecto perdonar todas las obras que haga un artista, por el hecho de ser él? No sólo porque la falsa investidura del autor no garantiza calidad, sino también por una simple cuestión lógica. Si el artista cambia con el tiempo (cosa común), eso quiere decir no necesariamente que su calidad varíe, puesto que rara vez un artista reconoce que su arte ha entrado en decaída (si es que tal cosa existe), sino que su metodología se transforma. El artista no hace peor arte con el tiempo, sino que toma una dirección de transformación que él cree con seguridad que es una evolución positiva. Si nuestra óptica permanece la misma a lo largo de todo esa duración de supuesto empeoramiento, lo único que sucede es que la óptica se descalibra. Elaboremos un ejemplo extremista. Si nosotros basamos toda nuestra teoría estética en Who’s that knocking at my door? (1967)  de Martin Scorsese, con todo lo que conlleva, es decir, tenerla como modelo no sólo por lo simbólico sino también por lo formal (tecnico, musical, actoral, político), es inevitable que para la siguiente película, por el simple hecho de ser distinta en alguno de estos aspectos (tiene distinto soundtrack, por ejemplo) nos parecerá una peor película. El criterio de cada uno, si es que vale de algo, debe estar basado en la observación, es decir, uno echa un ojo a la historia del arte, toma lo que le gusta (o le parece más bueno éticamente) y arma una teoría. En mi caso, mi obra predilecta en el videojuego es Disco Elysium, y la mayoría de mis criterios tienen resonancia positiva con ella. Aún así, puede suceder que con el tiempo Robert Kurvitz evolucione su modus operandi y a mi me parezca que sea algo negativo, por el simple hecho de que opera distinto que en Disco Elysium. Por otra parte, yo he dicho que mis criterios tienen resonancia positiva con Disco Elysium, pero no que todo mi criterio está basado en el análisis de esta obra; mi criterio está basado en la reflexión producida de la observación de muchas obras, con intención de construir el estrato mental de una “élite” de buenas obras (porque un criterio estético siempre es polémico, es decir, decide entre algo considerado “bueno” y algo considerado “malo”, necesariamente). Es por eso que puede suceder que el autor de mi obra predilecta pueda con el tiempo crear obras más afines a mi criterio.

Un ejemplo a corto plazo también puede ser Robert Eggers, director de The Witch (2015), The Lighthouse (2019) y The Northman (2022). Eggers, en The Witch se despliega como un autor que sabe separar la congruencia argumental del mensaje simbólico, separando las “dos historias”; en The Lighthouse esta diferencia se difumina pero no desaparece, por el simple hecho de que la cámara retrata la óptica de un narrador no confiable que puede tener visiones paranormales sin que resulte contra-diegético (podemos ver esto en los cuentos de Poe, que es una gran influencia para Eggers); en The Northman, las diferencias están totalmente pervertidas, por el hecho de que los sucesos argumentales oscilan entre mundanidad y mística, en una relación confusa. He comparado estos únicos tres largometrajes de Eggers bajo cierta óptica de “sutileza”, es decir, una óptica que intenta establecer una gradación de la misma por las relaciones que se establezcan en el argumento entre una línea superficial y una línea simbólica (véase el concepto de las dos historias de Pigna, Faretta o T. S. Eliot para esclarecer esto). Si estamos en contra del equilibrio 1ºhistoria - 2ºhistoria, la última película nos seducirá, y si estamos a favor, la primera (y en The Lighthouse todo un espectro mixto, en el que, por otra parte, yo me encuentro). El punto de todo esto es que se vea cómo una óptica lo único que hace es producir “desfases” o “descalibraciones”, que no necesariamente sea algo malo, porque no tenemos por qué idolatrar a los autores. Los autores son escurridizos, a menudo cambiarán su modus operandi obligándonos a tomar la decisión de aniquilarlos o aceptarlos. Lo que debemos hacer, sin necesidad de claudicar nuestro criterio (en el que, seguramente, tanto trabajamos), por otra parte, es lograr un entendimiento. Yo, personalmente, no acuerdo con el modo de hacer cine que tuvo Eggers en su última película, pero siempre que uno empatice intelectualmente sabrá que siempre hay algo que se intentó decir. En política también sucede lo mismo, véase, que los liberales creen que los socialistas son demonios a favor de la opresión por defender al Estado, y los socialistas creen que los liberales son demonios a favor de la opresión por defender al Capital. No es mi intención vindicar un relativismo político en el que no creo, pero hay que observar que a nivel personal (que nunca, y enfatizo esto, nunca es un nivel intelectual ni político; recordemos la diferencia que Schmitt hace entre enemigo político y enemigo personal) por lo general se mezclan las cosas.

[1] Hoy en día, desde los acercamientos a la cuestión de la simbología tradicional que se hacen desde otras ramas científicas, está la biosemiótica. Si bien en estado primitivo, la biosemiótica se está encargando de demostrar que los símbolos tradicionales tienen una capacidad de transformación comprobable en nuestras acciones.

[scrrufffy]

Anyone remember Dinner Dash? I vividly remember the SpongeBob version of that game and recently saw someone playing the original live. Does anyone know where you could find a version to play online?

[waiterwaiterpercolator]

Mixed reactions

My friend downloaded a gun mod

[waiterwaiterpercolator]

Absolutely fucked up and not at all surprising that ea has reactivated sims 2 for a wacky price. Not fixed bugs they said they would. Introduced NEW and HORRIFYING glitches like sims just straight disappearing from existence. And now we're not allowed to download it for free anymore.

[lassieposting]

Absolutely obsessed with the ecosystem and interpersonal political implications going on in Poppy Playtime right now, like.

What we have in the Playtime Co factory is a society made up of creatures who were all, at one point, human. And while it's stated that the experiments have varying levels of intelligence and ability to recall their former lives, we know that a lot of them, if not all of them, retained at least some of their humanity post-transformation. For example:

Most of the experiments are angry, resentful and vengeful towards Playtime Co - they understand they have been wronged, and they are capable of holding grudges.

Poppy and the Prototype seem to have the same end goals (putting a stop to the experiments and saving the innocents being used in them), but diametrically opposing views on how to go about achieving them (the Prototype is a gritty realist who knows no war was ever won without bloodshed and is willing to cause collateral damage in the name of his cause, where Poppy is far more idealistic, moderate and morally opposed to/upset by the deaths of the Playtime Co employees). This dispute has escalated far enough that the Prototype apparently shut Poppy away before the Hour of Joy could begin, and Poppy now wants the Prototype dead for what she sees as a crime equal in atrocity to Playtime Co's - they are able to understand ideologies, have ideological disagreements, and strategise against each other.

Huggy Wuggy, who seems to be only slightly more intelligent than a predatory animal, can still write, and uses the ability to try to guide fleeing prey in the wrong direction - that suggests he uses the vents to hunt on a regular basis, and he's clever enough to use basic deception.

On the subject of Huggy Wuggy, when he escapes the facility, his first instinct is to go home.

There are also numerous examples of the experiments being able to form and maintain social bonds, and work together:

Mommy Long-Legs is described as "nurturing" and "motherly" towards the other experiments, as well as the children. She's placed in the Game Station precisely because her desire to protect and care for the children outweighs her hatred for her captors: she won't act aggressively in front of them.

DogDay says that he's "the last of the Smiling Critters", implying that the Playcare originally had a full complement of Bigger Bodies Critters and that they were all able to coexist peacefully.

Kissy Missy and Poppy clearly have a friendship, with Poppy willing to charge into unknown danger to help her friend.

Miss Delight originally calls the other teachers her sisters, and she's horrified and grief-stricken by her own actions when she turns on them.

Miss Delight and CatNap form a non-aggression pact that seems to include some kind of respect for territorial boundaries, as Ollie claims that CatNap usually avoids the school. That's Miss Delight's turf, and he clearly respects her space, even though it technically falls inside his own territory.

The Prototype - who's usually kept in isolation and under surveillance precisely because he's known to be violent - was on multiple occasions set loose in a room with at least CatNap (and potentially other experiments) without bloodshed. He's even confirmed to have patiently tolerated CatNap lowkey imprinting on him and following him around like a duckling.

The Prototype also opts to save Theo Grambell's life, knowing damn well that to do so means sacrificing his shot at freedom. There is no reason for him to do this other than caring for Theo.

Again, DogDay is the last of the Smiling Critters. Despite the fact that there would have been six of them, and one of CatNap. Working together, they should have been able to overpower him easily, and the fact that they couldn't makes me think that either a) there was a big confrontation in which CatNap either arrived with or was able to call out for backup or b) CatNap became an infinitely more capable strategist and picked them off quietly one at a time, using skills he'd have to have learned from someone.

Anyway. My point here: these were originally people, with all the associated moral hangups and emotional messiness, and they retained a lot of their humanity post-transformation. And they were on the same side, to begin with. During the Hour of Joy, they all turn on the workers together.

But after that? The complete breakdown of that unity and those complex social relations into an essentially animal ecosystem, and the psychological impact on the surviving experiments, fascinates me.

By the time the game starts, the experiments have run out of food, and they've begun turning on each other out of desperation. The Bigger Bodies monsters, previously social and cooperative, have been forced into direct competition for food, and as a result they've largely become solitary apex predators with fiercely-defended territories, where they can pick off smaller, weaker experiments at will. There's some evidence of cooperation and coexistence between predators - Bunzo Bunny and the Mini-Huggies survive ten years in Mommy Long-Legs' territory, possibly filling the scavenger niche and surviving off her leftovers, and Miss Delight is tolerated in CatNap's - but the small toys we see scattered bloodily all across the factory (and the small Bunzo we see picked off by CatNap as it tries to cross a room) show that there's a whole category of experiments whose lives would've become all about hiding, and sneaking, and being where the Bigger Bodies critters aren't. The predators, driven to the edge of starvation, have had to surrender a lot of the human values and morals they had before. The prey have essentially become rodents - they're in danger every second they're not safely hidden away somewhere.

And yet!

The way they've reacted to their trauma is still so human.

Like. Take the difference between CatNap and Mommy Long-Legs.

Mommy and CatNap - Marie and Theo - have a very similar start in life. Both were children when they were experimented on and transferred into their mascot bodies. Both were orphans, and both are described as not fitting in or being particularly happy in the Playcare - Marie was bullied, and Theo is described as "odd" and "antisocial with other children".

But post-transformation, it seems Marie was largely left to, essentially, raise herself. We know that she was aggressively hostile towards staff, and gentle and nurturing towards orphans and other experiments, but we have no suggestion that anyone was caring or parental towards her. Like most of the experiments, she has a digestive tract and would have needed to eat, so she must have had a "keeper" of some kind, but she doesn't seem to have had any attachment to anyone who could serve as a parental substitute and guide her into adulthood.

When we meet her as Mommy Long-Legs, she would be a young adult - she's grown up in her mascot body. But even acknowledging that she's been driven mad by fear and isolation, her emotional development shows several damage markers you'd expect from a child so utterly deprived of love and care and guidance. She's emotionally unstable and prone to throwing extreme tantrums over small and arbitrary inciting factors, like "cheating" at a rigged game - there's very limited ability or desire to moderate or regulate her emotions. She's erratic, has poor impulse control, and when she's angry she lashes out violently at whoever is most convenient - like Bunzo - even though it's someone else - the player - that she's actually mad at. She does try to hide her disappointment at our continued existence behind her bubblegum Mommy persona, but she never quite learned to convincingly mask her emotions the way adults can. Nor has she mastered the art of making and executing a plan - when she attacks, it's all aggression - the single-minded grab-and-smash of an angry, thwarted child. Even Huggy, limited though his intelligence is, stalks the player and tries to chase them into a kill zone. But Mommy relies solely on her stretch ability - automatic, instinctive - and her sheer rage to make her the GameStation's apex predator. Left to raise herself, she never learned a lot of adult skills or survival strategies, and it's become a fatal flaw - she knows her territory, she knows where there would be machinery to look out for, but she's so single-mindedly focused on punishing the player that she completely overlooks her own safety.

Contrast: CatNap.

CatNap is also a young adult when we meet him, and if he'd also been left alone to raise himself, he'd probably have a lot of the same developmental stunting. But he doesn't, and that's interesting.

Now, let's take a very quick detour to look at the behaviour we've seen, not from CatNap, but from the Prototype. We know he's fiercely intelligent, calculating, and a tactical thinker with a talent for using his environment and anything in it (up to and including the player - he makes use of Mommy after we kill her, even though he's the facility's super predator and could easily have done it himself) to his advantage. We know he's stealthy - from how close to us he is at the close of each chapter, he's likely been tailing us from the moment we entered the factory, keeping his distance and watching us to see what we'll do and how he can make use of our actions. Some of his behaviours are strongly reminiscent of a soldier in action - I have a theory here that whoever became the Prototype had, at some point in his previous life, been a military man.

And now look at CatNap. Who has he become?

An intelligent, calculating stealth predator who uses his environment and any weaponizable thing he can get his claws on to take out his prey with minimal risk to himself. He's capable of adult logic and reasoning skills - i.e. the teachers will get hungry and harm the surviving children, so locking them in the school to fight to the death removes all but one threat, who can then be negotiated with once the children have been moved to safety. He's able to form and maintain alliances and agreements. He's even able to identify that the player is either a) not a threat to him or b) proving useful to the Prototype, and overlook his own hunger to offer them mercy: leave Playcare, or I'm coming for you.

In other words, he's grown up a lot like the Prototype.

And there's a reason for that! We know from the interdepartmental report on CatNap that for some reason, after his transformation procedure, he was allowed to socialise with the Prototype - an experiment who's considered so dangerous usually kept on lockdown in isolation under constant surveillance. And the report notes that CatNap "follows [the Prototype] around like a lost puppy" and that the Prototype "doesn't seem to mind".

Which, on its own, could just mean that the Prototype recognised Theo for what he was - a traumatized, hurting, confused little boy - and, aware that CatNap was not a threat, opted for tolerance over violence. But when you consider CatNap's history with the Prototype, I don't think that's it. Theo befriended the Prototype, or vice versa, long before Theo ever became CatNap. He was mortally injured trying to help the Prototype escape, and the Prototype gave up that shot at freedom to get Theo medical attention. They are close, and the fact that CatNap, a decade later, has assumed so many of the Prototype's traits and skills implies that they remained close for a good long while after the Hour of Joy.

Theo, aged 7, is clinging to the one person he feels safe with and protected by after a major trauma. If he follows the Prototype everywhere, he won't be left alone with the scientists. If he's not left alone with the scientists, they can't hurt him anymore. And the Prototype lets him, reinforcing the idea that you're safe with me. It's not unlikely that he feels responsible for CatNap's fate - if he hadn't taken Theo to the Playtime counselors for medical attention, the boy would have peacefully died, and wouldn't be living a nightmare - and he's stepped up to parent CatNap.

And you can see echoes of that ongoing bond in how CatNap behaves a decade later. Who taught him to hunt? The Prototype. Who taught him strategy and tactical thinking? The Prototype. Who gave him the survival skills he needed to make his way to the top of the food chain and stay there? The Prototype.

Unlike Marie, Theo had someone to protect him. Someone to play with and care for him. Someone to hunt for and feed him once the bodies began to run out, at least until he was fully capable of catching, killing and pulling apart his own prey. Someone to socialise with. And he's better adjusted - for a given value of "better adjusted", because like, nobody in this factory is even remotely okay - as a result.

And that's still so human. Despite the absolute horror-show feral animal situation they're all living in.

Just? idk man i have a lot of feelings

[laguzisa]

I just realised that Moro (Igla, 1988) and Travis Touchdown are like the same guy wtf

[waiterwaiterpercolator]

Pokemon red and blue (counts as one bc i got them together)

sims 2

LoZ link's awakening

pokemon ruby

and caesar 3

Minecraft, DDLC, Yandere Sim, FNAF, and Animal Jam 🫡

[see-arcane]

You know, all the jokes about Nosferatu looking like a Bloodborne movie makes me want to see a Soulslike-style game based primarily on 19th century vampire literature and gothic horror.

Idk, something like a game that takes place in a world where Dracula won, and follows a vampiric Mina or Johnathan Harker as they fight through a vampire infested Britain on a quest for vengeance against the Count for a pitch.

To go full Bloodborne I think all the classic undead would need some major Hellsing-level juicing up in their traits. But other than that, I can definitely see a format centered on

1) Tackling a version of England becoming steadily overrun by variations of the undead in a Dracula-ruled terrain and

2) Playing as Jonathan and/or Mina--but not yet undead! That's the ending they're trying to avoid while taking on the monsters. Jonathan is in Cryptid Mode. Mina, perhaps freshly bitten and blood-baptism'd, is running out a timer until she finally expires and rises as one of Dracula's Brides. It would give players a time limit to race against as they struggle to reach and put down Dracula before it's too late for her and for the Count's plans to use England as his colony infection point on the entire world.

And oh man. There would be so many tasty alternate endings to work with.

A) Victory! The day is saved!

B) Too late. Mina turns. Jonathan lets her take him, relinquishing his knife.

C) Too late. Mina turns. Jonathan kills his fellows to protect her from being slain. Dracula thanks him by snapping him up and turning him for himself, full bad ending.

D) Jonathan sacrifices himself to save Mina. Mina, turned already but no longer Dracula's thrall, turns him before he perishes. The vampire Harkers vanish, prepared to go full Blade against the remaining undead.

E) Victory! Baby Quincey flash forward! Everything is fine! ...OR IS IT? Smash cut to X Vampire Boss stalking up to take the throne, etc etc sequel hook, you know the drill.

It'd be so cool~

[thevanillerose]

TOUGH | YANDERE!MONDO x READER | DANGANRONPA

~ WRITING COMMISSIONS ~ ~ PATREON ~ ~ KO-FI ~ ~ NOVELS

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not own anything except my own writing. All properties belong to their respective creators.

CONTENT WARNING: Yandere / Violence / Major character death A/N: Man got hair like a corn cob but still manages to be hot???

The locker door felt like ice against your back.

Even when you'd worked up such a sweat.

He was usually angry for some reason or another, granted. But it would usually be because of something petty (like one of his numerous bro feuds with Ishimaru), and he'd usually only be letting himself get infuriated for the sake of bravado. This felt entirely different to that.

It was entirely different.

Mondo Oowada, the biker thug with a rough attitude. Handsome, gruff, tall and muscled. Not the kind of giant you'd expect to be hanging around in the girls' changing room, but yet here he was, towering over you, cornering you against the place where you had been hoping to retrieve your belongings and get out of here, just so you could go take a well needed rest.

He wasn't about to allow that. His piercing eyes glared down at you from a shadowed gaze, not just due to the one his hair cast either. It was a kind of look you had never seen him show before, not even when he'd been on one of his manly rants.

Murderous.

That was the perfect word to describe it. Simply murderous.

“O-Oowada, what are you...what are you doing in here?” you shied away from him instinctively, pressing your back even tighter to the metal behind it. At first his sudden barging in here when it was already pretty late and he was hardly welcome had seemed odd. To say nothing of how he managed to get in here in the first place. Either way, it had startled you, but now that fear was stemming from confusion more than anything else.

Teeth grit, he stepped even closer to you, his shoes almost touching your bare feet.

“Since when you start comin' here so late?”

Baffled, you could only stutter out an answer: “Th-that's...I'm usually too busy during the day-”

“Busy with what?”

“W-well I...” you looked aside quickly reaching up to clutch your arm. What the hell was going on!? Why had he suddenly come into the girls' changing room, and why was he asking you these questions? Still, despite how lost and nervous you felt, you still looked back at him and answered:

“Recently I...I spend most of the daytime with Chihiro so-”

You trailed off. Even his visible twitching was disturbingly violent. You watched with increasing tension as his hands balled up into fists by his sides.

“...Chihiro? That was the first name that ya thought of, eh? Funny...”

His head turned down a little, casting those eyes even deeper into darkness and making them glow.

“So tell me, and be honest [Y/N]. Didja hear it?”

“...H...hear it? Hear what Oowada?” you questioned with eyes as wide as ever. One hand unfurled just so he could rub it against his brow, tilting his head to the side and cracking one eye just a little further open than the other.

“Don't play fuckin' dumb with me. You just happen to be here at this time by chance? When I was planning that shit for weeks and you never once showed up before? Bullshit...”

Suddenly both hands came flying for you and you squealed. They only slammed against the locker either side of you, making it shake.

“BULLSHIT! How long have you known about it, huh? Didja come here to stop me or something?” Mondo leaned in further and growled at you, “Well too late pipsqueak because he's already fuckin' dead.”

Just like that your blood ran cold.

“Wait...what?”

“Still playin' dumb with me?” Mondo broke out into a sickening smirk, one that seemed too shaky to be very confident. “Your little lover Chihiro. I beat him over the head nice and good, heh...”

Him.

You almost couldn't register the fact that he was admitting to murder, yet you picked up on that slip immediately. Mondo must have noticed that beyond the shock you were already showing in your speechless way, and he nodded.

“Yeah that's right, he told me all about his secret. I thought maybe you only liked gals but I guess this makes sense too. Idiot, guess he thought I might be able to help him.”

You were stunned. Chihiro had confided in you about that when Monokuma brought up the new incentive with your deepest secrets. He, or really she, had seemed like she wanted to have some kind of strength.

But when it came to physical strength...Mondo still won.

And he had won. You noticed it now. A splatter of blood on his cheek.

He really killed-

-Suddenly you just lost control. You simply let your hand fly up and smack against his cheek as hard as possible.

Immediately you regretted it. Mondo remained frozen for just a second, and then suddenly his own hands were around your neck, thrusting you back with a hard bang against the locker you had already been using as sanctuary, and you cried out weakly as his grip only tightened and tightened more and more. His nails pressed into your skin hard enough that it could have broken, and you really felt like he was going to snap your head off.

“You wanna fuckin' PUSH IT with me!? Then you can join him, or her, or whatever! You can join ALL of 'em!”

You really felt like you were going to die.

“Say thanks to that bitch Sayaka for me too, I used her handbook to get in here. Clever thinkin' eh!?”

You really felt like this was the end.

“Shame I gotta waste my time disguisin' two bodies in here now. Even when you're both dead you're still giving me SHIT to deal with!”

You really felt like...you'd be seeing Chihiro again soon...

“...That's it...you won't be breakin' my heart when you're dead...”

Breaking his heart? Could it be...

...Chihiro and I...he must have been jealous.

That's why he...killed her.

And that's why he's going to...kill me.

There was no way you could fight back. Even if you hadn't been dazed and suffocating you still wouldn't have been strong enough to resist him. Your mind was lost, you didn't know what to do.

You didn't want him to kill you. Not just for your own sake.

For Chihiro's too. People had to know...they had to know the truth so that she could be avenged.

So your hand, trembling as it was, came up and graced his cheek. You ignored the dried blood upon it, trying not to think about that tragedy. You simply pressed your palm flush with his skin and begged with whatever wheezing breath you had:

“...Please...”

Mondo froze again, but this time not in furious anger. In utter shock.

It was the first time you had ever touched him like that, and you were as soft as he had always imagined. And he had imagined for so long. Imagined so many things about you, because what else could he do?

It had seemed so obvious that you liked Chihiro. That was the type you went for, wasn't it? Small. Delicate. Kind. Gentle. Nothing like him. He had been so convinced that you'd never so much as look his way, and yet he couldn't bring himself to accept it. The mere idea of you ignoring him forever in favour of that weakling made him so mad.

Monokuma's excuse for them to kill had been the trigger he so desperately needed. The bloodlust came easily then. And he thought it would come easy now too. What reason did he have to let you live? You knew everything now, so you'd only be a liability. Even if you hadn't known, he feared regardless that even with Chihiro out of the picture your heart would still only be for her. That you'd spend every passing day mourning, still never looking his way.

A foolish hope, to think you might move on and become his as he had always wanted. That you might forget about Chihiro. Killing her had been necessary in those cruel purple eyes of his anyway, whether you ended up loving him or not. Had there ever really been any other option?

No. Chihiro had to die, and surely you had to as well.

Yet...as he felt your trembling touch, he hesitated. The dazed and almost tragically dreamy look in your gorgeous eyes. Your quivering lips that seemed to be begging for a kiss. Your perfect body, completely at his behest.

If he killed you...what would he have left to live for? Surely it would be no problem to keep you alive but make sure you kept your mouth shut too?

Make sure you did plenty of other things as well. Yes...he couldn't forget.

He was the toughest. The strongest. He was in charge here.

Hah...that's right. Why do I even gotta worry?

Gradually his hands slipped away, and he let you crumble to the floor, falling into a breathless and desperately gasping heap at his feet. Mondo simply looked down at you from the shadow painted on his face and let a dark smile curl his lips, calmer now.

He really didn't need to fret in the slightest. You'd do exactly what he said. You'd keep your mouth shut. You'd throw away the memory of that pathetic loser.

You'd love him back.

Or else.

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[primaveraludica]

DISCO ELYSIUM: EL NARRADOR

Borrador para el guión del primer análisis general de Disco Elysium.

Acá, la elección del narrador es precisa, mucho menos dejada a libre elección que en la literatura. El carácter de su elección es más bien de pharmakos, de solución. El videojuego, con su filosofía de acción pilar (metempsicosis) presenta problemas nuevos de los que el autor fue consciente y por los que tomo la decisión de ser original con respecto al narrador:

El narrador en primera persona es incorrecto porque es demasiado atrevido, se extiende en discursos en nuestro nombre sin nuestro pleno consentimiento (el problema de Fallout 4). Tiende a propiciar la estrechez de nuestra libertad de elección, ya que más temprano que tarde nos hará decir cosas que nunca dijimos, rompiendo la identificación protagonista-jugador. En presente este problema se ve a flor de piel. En pasado este problema es algo disimulado, pero aún presenta inverosimilitud, puesto que en un videojuego la responsabilidad inmediata del jugador le hace vivir una experiencia más continua que en cualquier otro medio artístico, y el narrador en primera persona en pasado tiende a obstaculizar esa experiencia. No sirve por avasallar demasiado la integridad de la decisión.

El narrador en tercera persona es inútil, ya no contempla la metempsicosis, puesto que exterioriza demasiado al protagonista (que en el fondo, somos nosotros). Omnisciente o no, múltiple o no, es insignificante, puesto que el problema permanece (igualmente con pasado o presente). No sirve por alejar demasiado la figura del protagonista, que a diferencia de las demás artes, en la ficción interactiva es necesariamente un vessel del jugador. Prohibido de ser una figura ajena ni un objeto de nuestro juicio subjetivo.

El narrador en segunda persona es el más común, y es el preferible de entre los narradores convencionales. Aún así, presenta el problema de ser inverosímil en caso de ser omnisciente. No es un problema grave, realmente, ya que en general el “problema” de un narrador diegético (si lo fuese, porque podría no serlo en caso de ser consciente de por qué se elige) no es nuevo y particularmente en el videojuego no obstaculiza demasiado la identificación. Aún así, Disco Elysium lo perfeccionará más.

Pensemos que estamos hablando de un videojuego en el que el game-play es casi nulo. La mayoría del cuerpo de la obra es texto, y poco puede estar tácitamente presupuesto por la imágen como sucede, por ejemplo, en el cine o en otros videojuegos con animaciones complejas. El videojuego, entre otras, presenta esta posibilidad de gradación, visual-novisual (por llamarlo de alguna manera). En un extremo están las ficciones interactivas de finales del siglo XX, que son sólo texto, y en el otro extremo los videojuegos que nos hacen decidir sin siquiera necesitar de una caja de diálogos, sino con la propia mecánica (escasos). Fallout y la mayoría de los RPG's de acción se permiten reducir el narrador en segunda persona a lo mínimo para hacer prevalecer claramente el texto de nuestras propias decisiones (que serían en primera persona). Esto no sería tan útil en un RPG como Disco Elysium, puesto que hay mucho por describir textualmente que no puede ser descrito visualmente (por potencia técnica, básicamente; y… porque a los escritores se les da bien escribir)[1].

La solución que encuentra ZA/UM es hacer una multiplicidad de narradores en segunda persona con un grupo de narradores muy particular. La obra adopta la naturaleza de una tragedia sin coro, en la que nos movemos de diálogo en diálogo, que son siempre verosímiles y diegéticos. Pero lo mejor es el grupo de personajes que representan la mente de Harry (Mundo Interior, Retórica, et al.), ya que internan al jugador a un mundo continuo en el que es imposible escapar a la diégesis, pero sin necesidad de anular las descripciones. Ni siquiera se anulan las descripciones anímicas, ya que estamos hablando con nosotros mismos. Cómo elemento metafísico, común costumbre de Robert Kurvitz, el narrador en segunda persona que describe las acciones de la historia se traslada en el espacio y tiempo en breves ocasiones, describiendo sucesos lejanos que no vemos, y tiempos que aún no han sucedido o ya sucedieron pero no hemos visto. Esto debe necesariamente ser contextualizado en el actuar simbólico y metafísico de la obra, ya que puede ser interpretado como un despiste o una fractura en la verosimilitud del narrador, pero es puramente diegético por la simple razón de que, en el mundo de Disco Elysium, lo sagrado existe.

Notas

[1] ZA/UM como grupo revolucionario anti industria-cultural. Un grupo de estonios de segunda logran ser reconocidos mundialmente por arremeter al mundo liberal desde un lugar en el que pueden destacar, que no es lo mecánico ni tecnológico (que cuesta cientos de millones de dólares) sino lo estrictamente poético (incluyendo lo visual, de la mano de Rostov y demás artistas plásticos). Quien conozca algo la obra de Kurvitz estará conmigo en esta apreciación.