#i was just thinking about how fucking cool that watsonian reason for act 1 being so good is

[quadrantadvisor]

Thought about Inscryption for five minutes and got obsessed again. Specifically thinking about the insane difficulty hike between act 1 and act 2 and how so many people get turned off by it and what that means in universe. Like you go from a roguelike that lets you slowly make choices to build a deck with insanely overpowered cards to a pack based deck builder which forces you to pare down the glut of cards you receive into something useful.

And the reason for that is. The deck builder was the base game. But Leshy thought that his way you would have more fun. He didn't want it to be too hard to approach. He purposefully eases you in, teaches you one thing at a time, makes your choices simple, lets you make as cool of cards as you want. He sets up an atmosphere and a story that he hopes will add to the experience, because Leshy's priority was never winning, it was making the card game as fun as it could be. And he succeeded! Act 1 is everyone's favorite part of the game!

I will never get over how incredibly the game handles Leshy's character. He starts off as this intimidating figure, the game's antagonist, and always comes off as being a bit strange and off-putting. But when you're thrown into Act 2 you get to see him as he is, a game character who values the people around him and playing a good game with you. And in Act 3, trapped by P03, you find that you miss him, you miss his atmosphere, you miss how much you could customize your cards, you miss how much he cared. P03 wants something from you; Leshy wanted to do something for you.

And when you reach the finale. Leshy gives you your deck back, compliments it. Seems nostalgic for the times you had together. It feels like being with an old friend again.

The scales disappearing could not be more of a gut punch in that moment. I could cry at Leshy saying that we don't need to keep score.

I'm not trying to say that I think the other acts are less fun by like, design. I don't actually think they're as rough as some people claim, it's just very hard to suddenly have to be playing a new type of game and sometimes you end up resenting it even when you get used to it. But it really does make that moment powerful, how different it feels to be seated across from Leshy that last time. You're back in this place where, despite how foreboding it may have seemed, the game was easiest, friendliest, the most rewarding. And Leshy is so vulnerable, and you know, suddenly, that like all the scrybes, he just. Loves playing cards. He loved playing cards with you.

#sorry I'm just crying over a gross old woods man #this is rambling nothing i am so tired #i was just thinking about how fucking cool that watsonian reason for act 1 being so good is #leshy is just good at making the game fun for you and it hurts me #i love him #my rambles #inscryption

[copperbadge]

bisexuhowl replied to your post “Infinity War: A Review As Long As The Movie Itself”

Spoilers so I’m throwin’ it beneath a cut...

thanks for the review Sam, very thoughtful and helped condense and explain some of my feelings about the film. in addition to those, i felt that some of the earlier movies (thor: ragnarok and CW in particular) were cheapened in IW, due to the nature of the beast. like, the whole emotional rollercoaster and eventual hope of ragnarok was undone in 30 seconds. i understand why, but i don't like it. 

I do feel like this movie deliberately undid a lot of stuff done in some previous films. I don’t really understand the reasoning behind some of it. Like, what’s the narrative point of giving Thor back his eye? He lost it for a super important and mythologically symbolic reason, and to just have him pop a new prosthetic eye that’s been up Rocket’s butt into his face in place of the eyepatch was a weird choice. There are other “fixes” too where I’m like “Hey you just totally rolled right over that cool thing that other movie did” but I can’t remember them at present. 

But that’s always the problem with a two parter, maybe it’ll be meaningful next time round? 

In relation to your thoughts about tony being the centre of the whole arc, how did you view his actions in the movies since avengers 1? i thought it was pretty clear that his fear from seeing space full of hostiles drove him to see the bigger picture and attempt (rightly or wrongly) to prevent it, or at least protect earth. that's why i was so surprised at the anti-tony sentiments floating around in the last few years

I mean, I love Tony Stark, so I’m perhaps biased. I think he made some poor decisions and I think occasionally he acted out of emotion when he thought he was being rational, but honestly, the flaws in a person are often what makes them interesting to watch in a narrative sense, and those flaws don’t ruin the character for me. Probably because they are flaws I know myself to have as well.  

Some of the anti-Tony sentiment probably stems from the fact, precisely, that there is a LOT OF HIM in movies where his name isn’t in the title. Like, if I didn’t care about Iron Man and he kept fucking showing up everywhere in movies about other superheroes I did care about, I might get annoyed too. 

And I think a lot of the anti-Tony sentiment comes from Civil War. But I also think Civil War can’t really be examined from a Watsonian perspective because it’s so ludicrously highly-designed as a story -- it’s tough to vocalize it, but what I said about being on the side of the reader in the comics version of Civil War I think still applies to the movie version. I can’t take the writing in it seriously because the plot is so based in suiting the very specific wants of a writer rather than telling a good story. (Another reason I don’t like Iron Man 3, I could give a shit about Shane Black’s stupid Christmas fetish and his creepy rape fantasies). 

Ultimately, though, having just realized that Tony is at the heart of the larger MCU arc, I don’t really have a strong bedrock of thoughts on the movies since Avengers 1, I’d need to go back and rewatch. A few of them I didn’t care overly much for -- Iron Man 3, Avengers 2, some large swathes of Civil War -- but I’d need to review them to say anything more intelligent about them.

#infinity war #infinity war spoilers #spoilers #iw