#we don’t talk about game 3.

[atsr-studios]

Yayyyyyy!

[milkywayes]

GARRUS VAKARIAN: DATABASE IMAGE ACCESS. > PT. 1 : 2160, 2166, 2170. > all files backdated according to user preferences: (terran_coordinated.calendar).

[thepriceofsurvival]

I know once you start looking at numbers in AFTG you can’t stop.

And yet here is another post about it.

The number 5 is consistent in especially TSC. Small things, like tries to get up when Jean wakes up at Abby’s and tries to run, five numbers programmed into Jean’s new phone, five Trojans at the first meet/party at the house.

And bigger things, too:

Kevin was 9 when he came to Evermore, Jean was 14 (5 year difference)

Jean fought Riko with blood and teeth for 5 months until he didn’t have the strength.

Jean stayed at Evermore for 5 years.

Jean and Kevin’s numbers add up to 5.

“Five volunteers to break him in, Zane’s betrayal to destroy him, and one promise that kept him alive despite it all.”

And, of course:

A cool evening breeze. Rainbows. Open roads. Teammates.

Friends?

Five reasons to stay.

[volitioncheck]

nvm this is still on my brain. kim does not like to watch harry suffer… to say that kim takes satisfaction in harry’s pain is a huge misconstruing of his character.

the “getting thrashed like a schoolboy” line comes from a board game, lol. it’s a tease, not a cruelty. there’s never any line that implies that Kim enjoys seeing Harry taking actual morale damage.

he can be amused if you fail a check, but the check is always relatively inconsequential, and again, Harry isn’t taking damage in these.

Failing to pry the trash bin open:

Failing to shatter Ruby’s lorry window:

(also in both of these examples he only responds smugly if you choose for Harry to stubbornly dig in his heels. if Harry gets huffy, Kim teases. If Harry backs down right away Kim won’t rub it in, which feels significant to me! it reminds me of that recent post goin around about Kim meeting your energy!)

and here’s some reactions to failed checks where he does take damage.

Failing the jump to get your cloak:

Failing to break down Plaisance’s door:

he’s not laughing if Harry’s taking damage because he’s not a dick lol.

aaaaand here’s some other instances of morale/health damage and kim’s reactions.

alternate dialogue for failing the harbor jump:

after the call with precinct 41:

seeing bullet holes in the wall:

most significant examples to argue this point for me come when harry has done something to jeopardize the RCM’s image. which kim goes on and on about the importance of maintaining— and yet even here, he still extends worry and assurance.

telling Billie about her husband and handling it badly:

hardie authority check failure cock carousel:

aaaaand the car. this line is one of the most mask-off kim moments we get in the game in my opinion, honestly.

tying this back to the schoolboy line— that line doesn’t show up if you have a negative reputation with Kim. if you have <1 rep, it gets replaced with him calling it “about four hours of our lives that we'll never get back,” lol.

it’s affectionate ribbing!! twisting it into anything else is bizarre 2 me lmao!

anyways. kim is a foil to every other cop we meet in the game specifically because he doesn’t view harry as a punching bag or a lost cause. gottlieb does nothing but sling jabs and glib jokes about harry’s health. torson+mclaine and the others laugh at harry’s panic attack over the radio. in response to harry’s suicide-by-car attempt(!!!!) jean yells about RCM budget. all kim’s lines in response to harry’s check failures and health-damage are consistent, explicit textual contrast against the callousness of the rest of the RCM. twisting kim’s character here requires a bad faith interpretation of the whole game.

[lulu2992]

Hoyt Volker, the actual main villain of Far Cry 3, to everyone since Vaas was first introduced:

[quibbs126]

I love how like 90% of the “Sonic 3 spoilers” tag is just stobotnik related

I mean yeah, that is the first thing I looked for when I came back from the movie yesterday, but still

[autistic-katara]

u guys won’t believe how normal i acted yesterday when one of the kids i volunteer with was making miraculous references during part of a game

[boag]

Help💀

[bi-panic-at-the-disco]

I like how whenever I watch AstralSpiff or Backseat play a new Poppy Chapter it’s pretty clear what game that they devs had been playing before hand lmao,, Chapter 4 being very clearly referencing to the Resident Evil 4 underground factory insect fights with how it was framed

[caulfect]

y’know. something that gets overlooked often is kate’s video, and the confirmed implications of it.

whether you believe nathan assaulted kate or not, this doesn’t take away from the fact she was canonically sa’d by multiple boys at the vortex club party. there are no names given, but we know this is undoubtedly true due to the video’s existence as well as everyone talking about the contents within said video. we also know that kate was visibly out of it in the video given max’s remarks when she finds it on victoria’s computer, and that passed out girls are a common sight at vortex club parties given the unresponsive student across hayden at the end-of-the-world bash :

regardless of where you stand on nathan’s involvement, it is undoubtedly obvious that kate is a victim of sexual assault. she was drugged and then mauled by a group of boys who could probably tell something was wrong, but just didn’t care enough to check. after all, as victoria puts it, people get wasted all the time … how are they supposed to protect or care for every which one of them? ( excuses! )

lis:1 in general has always handled sexual assault with nuance so rarely found in media. they do not make harsh lines in the sand about what ‘counts’ or not. they do not make a show of brutalizing the women on our screen via borderline fetish content like most do when discussing themes of rape. instead, there are undertones : max in lis:de, for example, treats the dark room like a sexual assault trauma specifically. she also goes through her own victim blaming by harping on how attractive she found jefferson, how much she wanted to marry him … this occurs in her nightmare as well, where max behaves as though she wanted what happened, what jefferson did to her, when we know she didn’t. obviously, max was not raped. she was not kissed or groped. but there is an underlying sexual gratification jefferson gets from framing her -- there are perverted comments whispered in her ear, she’s being posed with her purity being talked about, and she is being photographed in a vulnerable, helpless state. it just paints a picture. max comes out of it well aware that jefferson was into it, into seeing her that way, and he moved her while she was unconscious and took his sick photos and that’s enough for the trauma to settle in the sexual assault category. most people wouldn’t count it as that, but the game itself does. the dark room has always been a heavy handed look into young girls being abused and preyed on by older men. it is not shocking that it’s one big metaphor for sexual abuse as well, especially sexual abuse that is demeaned and invalidated by others, sexual abuse that isn’t believed. cue jefferson’s whole character. a man who is too perfect and beloved to suspect. a man who told kate to her face that she’s just seeking attention and likely enjoyed what happened to her. a man who got away with such remarks.

the newspapers go out of their way to claim there isn’t any evidence of sexual assault among the victims, and i believe that’s because they weren’t assaulted in the only way the public cares to look, which is penetrative sex. i could also see the article lying, as papers do, but i think it paints a more prominent picture of how weird people are about sexual assault victims and how downright demanding they are about what counts, what doesn’t, and what’s okay for victims to do or say about their own experiences. it is all rather disgusting, honestly! and i’ve always been enamored by the more complicated, unpopular takes lis:1 took with that plot. i feel like to harp on sexual trauma that genuinely isn’t confirmed and to then ignore the girls’ actual sexual assault ( jefferson, the vortex club ) does a rather huge disservice to the game’s more interesting themes. to put it plainly, it’s a major simplifying tale of the story.

[allpromarlo]

why is hoyo forgetting that trailblazer is the mc of this game

[emmacosmic23]

Damn…

Sorry I just realized Shadow missed out on pretty much all of KISS’s discography

Like I don’t know when he was out in his coma but I know he was in his coma for fifty years right? Okay so that means he went into his cryogenic sleep in 1974 right?

There’s like, a 1/12 chance he didn’t get to hear KISS’s first album and for some reason that makes me sad. Of course him losing his best friend makes me sadder but like…I need a video of this hedgehog reacting to KISS

[bleue-flora]

@error-dream-was-found, WIP Thursday huh?… well see I actually got writing done this week and I’d honestly love nothing more than to share some but it just spoilers way too much soo… I guess enjoy the most recent thing I wrote that doesn’t have major plot giveaways :) and… ya know what I’m not even gonna tell you what it’s from…

There was nothing safe about the corner, nothing that made it cozy or softer than the rest of the harsh surface of the cell, and nothing that could keep Quackity and Sam from getting to him. But there was something comforting about the spot between the chest and the wall, not just because the chest was much cooler than the scorching obsidian, but because there was something so stupidly and mortifyingly comforting about cowering in a corner.

There was a sense of protection, one he didn’t have in the water hole or near the lava. There was something about being pressed in by both sides that made it feel like it was arms instead of jagged obsidian and splintered wood. It wasn’t safe but it was the closest he had, and if he squeezed his eyes and pressed enough he could almost feel like he was safe, safe in someone’s arms instead of alone.

It was stupid, but that was all he had. It had to be enough. It had to be.

When the chair got involved or rope or chains pinned him down, it made it so much worse, robbing him of yet his last freedom and comfort, taking away the only thing he had left to take.

And even now, now that he has agency again and food and days without Quackity and access to the sky and the world beyond, sometimes he finds himself back in the corner. Curled up alone in his fortress pretending he’s safe when nowhere is safe.

Beds are soft, but they weren’t his only companion in his darkest moments, they weren’t his hiding spot. They are no hiding spot at all. On a bed one is exposed. And no matter how soft and cozy a bed is, it's not comfortable like the corner is. It doesn’t provide the same illogical safe that the two walls pressing upon him on both sides do.

A bed can break, people can leave, but walls remain steadfast and dependable, almost impossible to destroy. The best loyalty to watch his back. The walls don’t judge the tears sliding down his face, or his whimpering breathes. They don’t judge his flinches and shaking and fear. They just remain. Unlike people.

“Dream!” A voice screams on the other side of the lava.

Tagging uh… @elmhat @simplepotatofarmer @catsandgoodbooks I guess and as always whoever wants to join in.

[rottenbrainstuff]

BG3 playthrough - what I found on the road of the shadow-cursed lands

Spoilers under the cut.

Sigh, here’s the stuff I was dreading: the first dead tiefling refugee found on the road: Elegis. She was in charge of opening and closing the gate after Kanon was killed. She was always so nervous. During the siege, she was very frightened but she fought well. She was apparently killed by an ox that was possessed by the shadow curse.

Then farther along in a big group I found:

Rechel, Amek, Xeph. These three were the most angry at the druids, back at the grove. They ran away from the grove on their own the night before the siege and left everyone else to their fate. Looks like it didn’t save them. I wonder if they reunited with the other refugees on the road, or if they died first and their bodies were found later by the group.

Asharak. Zevlor’s second in command. He was teaching the kids their sword lessons. He seemed like a nice guy.

Ikaron. Okta’s son and the guard posted inside the hollow. He was gruff and stiff in the grove, with the air (to me) of a kid taking his new job too seriously, or perhaps a kid who had to grow up too fast and doesn’t know how to relax anymore. During the siege he was furious about the group that left and was arguing with his mother. He mentioned since him and his mother had no ox, he’d be pulling a cart himself! At the party I finally got him to relax and enjoy a pint. I liked him.

Memnos. He tried to talk Arka down from her anger after Kanon died. During the siege I found him in the ritual grove praying to the god of death, because he was convinced they were all going to die. Even though he was scared, he still went and stood at his post.

Kaldani. She was a guard at the gate. Cried over Kanon’s body when he died. During the siege she was building barricades. She always seemed more tired of this shit than frightened.

Toron. He was tending the oxen at the grove. Probably he would have been the most scared when their ox fell to the shadow curse, he would have known first that something was very wrong.

I took all their bodies and laid them to rest on one of the cliffs in the monastery, the cliff with that other grave already on it. It’s a beautiful view overlooking the valley, with the sunrise dappling the rocks, and some little white flowers growing out of the grass. Left wine for an offering. This spot is peaceful and bathed in sunshine so they’ll never be afraid in the dark again.

I wish I could have talked to even just one of the corpses. Maybe I couldn’t save any of them, but I wish I could at least know what happened.

[koifrog]

Sees an advertisement for a set of fanmade V*ilgu*rd merch that includes stuff for Luc*nis, Emm*rich, and………. the concept of the F*de

😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑

[lulu2992]

I’ve just found this interesting 10-year-old video I don’t remember ever seeing before in which Dan Hay, former “shepherd” (term they half-jokingly use in the interview) of the Far Cry series discusses the past but also the future of the franchise, a few months before the release of Far Cry 4. Mark Thompson, narrative director of the game, is also interviewed.

When he’s asked if he has “any interest in unifying the larger world and creating a larger meta-story between all the games” and if they’re all “in the same universe”, Dan Hay answers he’s “just gonna smile at that”, and after talking a bit about how invested the team is and how smart he thinks players are, concludes, “But your question is very intriguing, and it makes me smile.”

He then happily explains Far Cry is “near and dear to [his] heart” (he even has it tattooed on him because he lost a bet) and that he “[plans] on working on it for a long time” because he “can’t think of anything else”.

That was in 2014.

In June 2021, it was officially explained that Far Cry games were only loosely connected and each had their own world. In November 2021, Dan Hay left Ubisoft.

I don’t know what happened (or even if anything happened at all) and don’t blame the Far Cry 6 team for their decision to create a new timeline to tell their story (they didn’t really have a choice after the ending of Far Cry 5), but I admit I’m a bit sad we never got to see the full extent of that “meta-story” they clearly had in mind 10 years ago...