#and there are so many games out there (literally disco elysium and life is strange) where that's a core mechanic

[northern-passage]

hey. have you all heard about this. they’re making a squid game reality tv show. like an actual squid games. have you heard about that. did you hear about amazon also planning a disco elysium tv series, and a life is strange tv series? of course we already have rings of power and then over on HBO we have the last of us and then wherever that shit halo show is streaming. and don’t forget all the star wars spin offs whose taglines are “the revolution will be televised” while being streamed by one of the worst media companies of all time who uses their billions of dollars to support bigots in the government and create military propaganda. have you heard about the booktok industry plant? have you heard about that author who gets their agent to spoon-feed them tropes so they can write the most soulless, bland fanfic that they can then repackage as a YA novel (she’s a new york times best-selling author btw) have you heard about all of that?

the creative industry is so discouraging right now. sometimes i really struggle to find any motivation at all when i see the way certain stories are treated - completely bastardized, milked for all their worth (and then beaten like a dead horse just for good measure) or otherwise you have creators that clearly could not care less, nothing but a cash grab with a pretty coat of paint, usually piggybacking off of trends or just using a pre-existing media (because then you already have a pre-existing fanbase. easy money!) and i’m not going to pretend like i understand how all of it works, what the process is from book/game to movie deal to netflix show but i will say i hate that this is the “goal” now, that this seems to be the expectation with so much art these days, whether the creator wants it or not.

it’s all just so... bleak.

#anyways. sorry i saw the squid games thing this morning and snapped i guess #obviously im under no delusion that any of this would ever apply to tnp or anything i write at all #but it's still really discouraging. it's still hard to find the motivation to create in this kind of grim capitalist environment... #especially when it comes to games which are already underappreciated #and i really dislike the games to movies/shows trend #the level design the mechanics the music the art style all of that is just as integral to the story as the dialogue and narrative itself #games are a way to experience a story it's a different way of telling a story. it loses meaning when you strip that away. imo #as someone who 'makes games' i guess. #like with IF the whole POINT is the player interaction #the choices #and there are so many games out there (literally disco elysium and life is strange) where that's a core mechanic #the last of us it's the opposite #the lack of choice and the railroading of the player is a core mechanic #it's not the same when it's just some actor in a costume. the player is part of the narrative. it's important #sigh. anyways support indie creators i guess #personal

[szif]

(disco elysium spoilers. for the ending.)

but this is literally the thing that is good about it i think. like we turn into disgusting actual cops who just ache to arrest some random man (a soldier, remember that) who decided to just kill another random man (a soldier from the other side, remember that) and we barely even give a fuck about the situation it was in or the political segment that caused all of this or how this was all not really caused by this one guy but like an avalanche of history and decisions made by people not present there + we are literally taken out of our "fun cop runs around and does stuff :)" and we get hit with what we kind of are. and all of the things we have learned, and the connections we've made, and all the history we unearthed from it gets tossed aside (well, not really, but bear with me) in the player's perspective. i mean, here, it's being said that it's a "random ass old man on a random ass island". like it's such a strange situation for the game to put you in, and i saw so many people state how "underwhelming" it is. i dont know, it was kind of a lot for me to take in that im just gonna arrest this man when i kind of understand where he's coming from?? when i have learned all about what has been going on around here? when i feel like i am no fucking authority over this thing im just a shitty cog that hurts and hurts and hurts and hurts people?? i went through all of this and had all this talk with all these people who just do what they can do and oppose or support each other, all for it to come down to just me ruining this man's life even more? it is so disgusting. but then if we had an ending that actually felt kind of good (how would you even make that?) then i do not think i wouldve really liked this game that much. i mean literally how would you close it, if not to sever all the ties you've had and get a reminder of what you really were? you can't really keep up the "oh, im just a silly little thing running around" when you're about to solve a murder and been through the tribunal and it's your actual job to just finish it.

#disco elysium #okay why not. lets use the tag. i want this game to be organized on my blog.

[yakuzacasual]

Game of choice

Round of rapidfire late-night thoughts based entirely in my own gaming experience of a european, and things i've gotten through osmosis.

What kind of games they play with Yagami, Kaito, Sugiura, Higashi, Tsukumo, Mafuyu, Saori, Hoshino, Kuwana

Yagami needs his mental stimulation, with how many cases of his end up being a literal wild goose chase. He would totally be into Layton games and maybe even Ace Attorney if we feel a little on the nose. Eventually falls victim to the Spike Chunsoft pipeline from Danganronpa, through AI: Somnium Files, to Zero Escape series. 999 is now his favourite.

Kaito only cares about multiplayer shooting games with his buds. Rainbow Six Siege, Battlefield, PUGB you name it - he probably tried it. Aside from CS:GO, he was banned from ever trying CS:GO by Sugiura. Got roped into Fortnite along the way and although he clearly enjoys it, he keeps complaining it's clearly for kids.

Sugiura plays pretty much anything popular - Minecraft, Fortnite, GTA, Valorant - usually just to kill time. He doesn't care all that much about having "experiences that will change the trajectory of his life forever", as Tsukumo puts it. What only a handful of people know, however, is that he is absolutely INSANE about Mirror's Edge. Go figure.

Higashi will let his history nerd run wild and will put his hands on anything samurai period drama adjacent. He's been through things such as Ghost of Tsushima, Ishin and will brave the toughest of challenges in Sekiro and Nioh for his dose of the good shit. Recently he's been even caught trying out Katana Zero and despite not being his usual kind of setting, he ends up loving it.

Tsukumo is a League of Legends youth survivor and years clean of the cancer that enveloped him. These days he's neck deep into jrpgs and visual novels of all kinds. Most notably, he is THE Xenoblade Chronicles fan and has played literally every entry in and adjacent to the Megami Tensei series. Refuses to talk about Persona though, absolute SMT truther.

Mafuyu is the absolute casual girly player, with hundreds of thousands of hours in between things like Fashion Dreamer, every Sims generation and a touch of Splatoon when nobody's watching. Was there back when Flash games were a thing, where she would spend all evenings on the dress-ups and Devillish Hairdresser. Probably played Stardoll or something.

Saori finds herself lured into the strange appeal of Cultist Simulator, which somehow escalated into her being insane about Lobotomy Company and Library of Ruina. I don't know either. Suffice to say, she enjoys card and management games, with a bit of weird fucking lore on the side. At times she emerges from her solo player cave to kick people's asses in Dead By Daylight - she can WRECK with any killer.

Hoshino was there for the Giant Dad phase and has, ever since, remained one of the greatest, most viscious Dark Souls PVPers. Bro used to have absolutely no mercy with his neigh beast skill in the game and if you squint, he might've won a DS speedrun competition once or twice. These days he only logs in to help in multi (think along the lines of Let Me Solo Her) and will not shut up about Disco Elysium.

Kuwana is yet to recover from Hotline Miami brainworms even though it has been literal years. He has tried his hand at similar recommendations like Superhot, Ruiner or Ultrakill but nothing has ever stuck quite the same way. Ends up replaying the games every year like a religious ritual. Might end up getting into Katana Zero, but ends up so pissed with the ending he vows never to give chances again.

#ryu ga gotoku #yakuza #headcanon #imagine #judgment imagines #judgment #lost judgment #yagami takayuki #masaharu kaito #sugiura fumiya #higashi toru #makoto tsukumo #mafuyu fujii #saori shirosaki #hoshino issei #kuwana jin

[gascon-en-exil]

I've not been able to post as much as I'd like lately for a number of reasons, but because someone asked about it a few days ago I think I can now put together a list of my five favorite Disco Elysium characters. There's still significant bits I haven't played, because it's been surprisingly hard to motivate myself to continue my second playthrough (maybe because all the major plot points and a lot of the dialogue will still be the same?), but I think I have enough of an impression between my first run and other stuff I've read to make this call. In no real order:

Klassje

As I said, she's up there, although not at the top. Her backstory is somewhat relatable, and I like how she initially looks to the femme fatale of this noir-like story before that starts to unravel. It can be (intentionally) hard to parse her through the detective's obvious attraction to her, and in a future run I'd like to see what happens if you go through with trying to arrest her. There's a lot of good moments in her dialogue about the complexities of sexual consent and what it is to care for all-around terrible men.

The Smoker on the Balcony

An obvious one - purely by being himself he awakens the detective's latent bisexuality. What's not to love? It's funny that his sugar daddy will disclose his name and profession even when he's caught at the site of their encounters, yet you'll never learn the Smoker's real name. I also find it interesting that (as far as I can remember) he's the only character to call the detective gendarme. There's an entire essay to be written - very likely not by me, though - on the many ways that DE uses the French language, and while with the Smoker it just seems like a random quirk it's still something that stands out.

Plaisance

Not at all one I expected to like, but there's a delightful absurdity to Plaisance that I can't help but find entertaining. Her fraught abuser-and-abused family situation, her silly attempts at getting the detective to buy from her, her dislike of most of her own products and even the bookshop concept, her casual racism insidious in how mundane it is, and her strange ideas about the Doomed Commercial Area (that may have turned out not to be so strange? Honestly the game starts to lose me when it gets into the stuff about the Pale.) all make quite an enjoyable merchant NPC.

Tiago

The "crabman" of the church only has one scene, and it's a strange one where he's judgmental of the detective's vices despite his clear obsession with losing himself in a nearly religious sense to the Pale, but he's such a distinctive and odd presence that he can't help but be memorable. I like that he never appears again after the club kids set up in the church, but everyone there knows he's still up in the rafters. Eerie - and oddly easier to understand than the dramatic scenes involving the hole in the world.

The Washerwoman/Isobel

Much more stern and knowledgeable than she initially lets on, and someone who provides both a place of refuge for the detective (and Ruby) and who acts more like a community leader than most of the authorities in Martinaise. She immediately sees through Evrart's scheme to force out the residents of the fishing village, but can be made to sign off on the plan anyway because she intends to stand her ground. Another unexpected choice, but she was the most grounding presence in the areas beyond the water lock which is something the detective sorely needs in a time when his home and most of his former life is literally unreachable.

I can't finish this post though without mentioning Kim, who's such a significant and dynamic figure in DE that it didn't feel right to lump him in with NPCs who spend almost all their time in static locations responding to a relatively small number of dialogue trees. Kim is so much more than that, and while that also somewhat curtails his ability to react negatively to what the detective does (from what I've read there's only one situation where he'll abandon you out of anger, and even then it's only temporary) that's more than made up for with the many ways in which he gets to interact with the story and help the detective pick up the pieces of his life. To place Kim in this top five would have seemed inadequate to everything he is, essentially.

#Disco Elysium

[fangsmyth]

GET TO KNOW THE BLOGGER.

can be used for RP  &&  non-RP blogs to get to know a bit about the person behind the screen

1. FIRST NAME  :  quinn or byleth i’m good w either

2. STRANGE FACT ABOUT YOURSELF  :  i’m so flexible it literally hurts my joints and was once mistaken for rheumatoid arthritis

3. TOP THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU FIND ATTRACTIVE ON A PERSON  :  dyed hair, good somft cheeks, freckles...... Freckles 😳

4. A FOOD YOU COULD EAT FOREVER AND NOT GET BORED OF  :  pasta

5. A FOOD YOU HATE  :  uh... most??? but fr oysters disgust me

6. GUILTY PLEASURE  :  making too many ocs!!!!

7. WHAT DO YOU SLEEP IN  :  whatever. sometimes just my undies sometimes nothing sometimes pjs i could be wearing a garbage bag and sleep just fine

8. SERIOUS RELATIONSHIPS OR FLINGS  :  i mean i’d LIKE a relationship but my confidence petrifies the souls of many

9. IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN THE PAST AND CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT YOUR LIFE,  WOULD YOU AND WHAT WOULD IT BE  :  not go to scad i’ll tell you that for free

10. ARE YOU AN AFFECTIONATE PERSON  :  oh absolutely not

11. A MOVIE YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN  :  promare........

12. FAVORITE BOOK  : And Then There Were None, The Vampire Lestat

13. YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO KEEP ANY ANIMAL AS A PET, WHAT DO YOU CHOOSE  :  axolotl!

14. TOP FIVE FICTIONAL SHIPS   (  IF YOU ARE AN RP BLOG  ,  YOU CAN USE YOUR OWN SHIPS AS WELL  )  :  i ain’t tellin like 80% of my ships are ocs/canon or ocs/ocs it takes a village

15. PIE OR CAKE  :  caaaaake

16. FAVORITE SCENT  :  frankincense... or dragon’s blood... pretty much any kind of incense

17. CELEBRITY CRUSH  :  lil nas x don’t judge just flip through his twitter account

18. IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE, WHERE WOULD YOU GO  :  roooome? japaaaaan? h

19. INTROVERT OR EXTROVERT  :  you see i thought i was an ambivert but then i was told i couldn’t leave my house so i guess i’m an extrovert apparently bc this shit SUCKS

20. DO YOU SCARE EASILY  :  yeah don’t fucking touch me with your jumpscares or bugs i got killed by a tarantula in animal crossing and haven’t touched the game since

21. IPHONE OR ANDROID  :  i’m a clown i could go either way

22. DO YOU PLAY ANY VIDEO GAMES  :  oh too many i’ve been playing ffxiv a lot, i still kind of like league, i have my heart set on getting back into playing disco elysium and whispers of a machine soon, backstage pass was underrated, bastion has stuck with me for 27 slutty, slutty years

23. DREAM JOB  :  ideally a ux/narrative designer for a game development company, but even better if it’s a company that i founded and am running

24. WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH A MILLION DOLLARS  :  mooove to toronto and set up shop there. maybe travel a bit?

25. FICTIONAL CHARACTER YOU HATE  :  not gonna put out any names bc i love myself and don’t wanna get killed but with every modern fire emblem game there’s at least one character that’s really popular that i Cannot stand

26. FANDOM THAT YOU WERE ONCE A PART OF BUT AREN’T ANY LONGER  :  oh god trauma center i lowkey miss those games though

tagged by  :  idr when i snatched this it was in my drafts and i’m trying to avoid the work i have over break

tagging  : whoever wants to fuckin do it what am i your dad

#ginger lemon radler ( ooc ) ;; #pull my trigger ( memes ) ;; #i am....... Trying to come back i am SO sorry ;_; #long post //