the message in the bottle is the booze

I am going to be crossposting to Dreamwidth and LiveJournal. If you're doing the same, let me know so I can drop you off my default filter on LiveJournal. I'd like to make this into my primary journal, so if you're active on both I'll follow you here instead.

EDIT: lololol bye LJ

About "grant access," since we're all probably going to have to get used to that being its own designation now:

I rarely post anything that I would be uncomfortable having strangers read, but sometimes I do lock things because I want to keep them off of search engines or make sure that real life friends, family, and coworkers don't see them.

If I've granted you access, and you don't know me, it's nothing personal and I won't be insulted if you choose not to add me back. But, I'm here to talk to people, so I'd be thrilled if you do.

EDIT OVER A DECADE LATER: lololol twitter

If I've added you recently, there's a good chance I saw you jumping off of the same sinking ship and thought, hey, I wouldn't mind sharing a lifeboat with that person.

My current fandom interests are mostly danmei, but I like to post about whatever it is I'm currently enjoying. My posting here is sporadic because most of my old friends have moved on, but I'm hoping to build up a fandom circle here again.

I think I have the profile page mostly finished. Now it's a matter of choosing a layout that is both accessible and not eye-watering, and making the announcement!

If anyone wants to look over the profile to see if there's anything that jumps out as unclear, please do. I'm trying to keep the length down so it's not overwhelming, so I don't want to add a lot of pre-emptive clarification, but if something is outright confusing I can reword it.

little_details

A couple of years ago one of the writers for Bungie confirmed that Saint-14 and Osiris are a couple.

So, I play Destiny a lot, but this was easy to miss - or rather, let's say, misinterpret. Destiny has always struggled with its story. It has a sprawling and often deep lore, but most of it is in lore cards and flavor text, rather than being something that you witness in game.

Saint-14 and Osiris are a bit of an exception here: We see more of their interaction and we even get to help Osiris rescue Saint-14. It was clear that they cared deeply for each other, but you could avoid interpreting it as romantic if you wanted to because that part wasn't made explicit. There was a lot of speculation, and it was confirmed - out of game - that it was romantic. Cue a lot of discussion about "queerbaiting."

I didn't really agree with that analysis. Back then, interpersonal relationships just weren't a big part of the story, which was more about "there is a threat to the solar system that you must stop by either stealing this macguffin or killing this boss." They probably could have found a way to mention it explicitly, but it also didn't feel like they were being coy about it when they didn't.

But then the game moved on and those story missions aren't even available anymore. A lot of players never saw it.

This week, their relationship was made explicit in a cut scene. They kiss! It is a little clumsy (Destiny really puts too much into cut scenes), but it's cute.

This feels bigger to me than it maybe is. I mean, I remember the early 2000s. Maybe it's because of the type of game. I think Saint-14 and Osiris might be only NPCs we interact with who are in a romantic relationship with each other, unless you count Zavala and his wife, who only appears as a ghost. They're also two of the more interesting NPCs, especially Osiris - who starts out as an arrogant asshole but then becomes more nuanced over time, giving him approximately 1000 times more dimensions to his personality than many other NPCs.

I'm also just amused that the sweatiest PVP mode, Trials of Osiris, is named after a gay murder grandpa and is currently being run by his boyfriend.

Right now I just hope that they do something special for Valentines. Let them have a candlelight dinner cutscene while they watch the Valentine's Day death matches they've organized. (There's a special doubles pvp mode especially for Valentines' Day, which means a lot of very competitive pvp players end up entering ambiguously romantic pair-ups with their buds in order to do murder together.)

I've noticed that a lot of people have trouble with the difference between criticizing a trend and criticizing an individual instance of at trend. That is, they think that because a trend is problematic, every single example that fits the trend must also be.

So someone criticizes a comic because the bisexual character has both male and female lovers, but it turns out that the creator is a polyamorous bisexual woman who has had relationships like that.

So someone criticizes art of a lesbian couple for making the darker-skinned character more masculine than the lighter-skinned character, but it turns out that the artist is a masc lesbian woc.

So someone criticizes a story because a gay character dies, but it turns out that the author is a gay man who is drawn to tragic stories, and other characters die too.

And so on. They assume that the reason for the trend is the same as a reason for an individual piece of work, without any evidence other than that it appears to fit the trend.

It's just one particular type of black-and-white thinking I'm noticing a lot more lately. Some people just can't hold both of these things in their head at once: That over-representation can be a problem while representation isn't, or whatever.

It's a lot harder to point fingers if you think this way, though.

I told a friend that I thought CD Projekt Red had improved their portrayal of women, but not by much; I described it as baby steps. She asked an interesting question: What would giant steps look like to you?

That made me sit and seriously think about it.

( discussion of sex work, sexual violence, and narrative tropes. spoilers included )

I've been playing AC: Origins a lot lately.

I bounced right off of it when it first came out, but then I came back and gave it another try. I've finished the main quests, the first DLC, and am working through the second (and last) DLC.

Today I reached a point in the last DLC that was amazing, and I'm glad I wasn't spoiled in advance. ( Is anyone else who hasn't played this yet ever going to play it? )

I usually don't care much about spoilers. But I'm learning that I might want to start avoiding spoilers for games. I didn't read any spoilers for AC: Origins before playing it, beyond some basic facts about the premise and gameplay, and I think it's really improved the experience.

I ... uh ...

If you haven't watched this, I highly recommend it. Not because it's good, but because it's hilarious. I especially recommend watching it while live chatting with a friend who shares a love for terrible but bonkers TV.

The tone of the entire series, episode to episode, scene to scene, is non-stop DRUMS! CHOIR! PRIMAL SCREAM!

I watched it expecting something like Castlevania because it's done by the same animation studio, but it has absolutely no subtlety or self-restraint. Castlevania could be entertainingly extra too, but it also had things like characterization and storytelling. They both have a penchant for "edginess" but Castlevania's edgy moments are more earned.

I think it could have been an actual good show if it was longer. There was simply no time at all to make us care about the characters and their conflicts. As it was, it was just crammed full of:

(a) exposition

(b) more exposition

(c) seriously is the exposition over

(d) tragic backstories (told though more exposition)

(e) the female gaze

(f) tropes turned up to 11

( In case you don't want to be spoiled for the, uh, plot, I'm putting my favorite moments behind a cut. They're not super-spoilery, because I'm keeping details vague, but I dunno you. )

I actually hope there will be fanfiction for this series. The thing is, we know almost nothing about most of the characters. We see very, very little of their lives and their relationships outside of the (very compressed) events in the series. There's a lot of room for for fun.

P.S. Hermes looks like a penis.

Oh hey, this is still here.

I need to make an end-of-the-year round up post to record the big changes in my life - but that can wait for the actual end of the year.

I finished Ghost of Tsushima a while ago. Without any spoilers: I recommend this one if you like this type of game.

The jokes about it being Assassin's Creed: Japan aren't entirely baseless. There's definitely a formula that both are following. There will be very little about the gameplay that surprises you. That said, Ghost of Tsushima puts its own twist on the formula. I also really liked the design of the combat system.

It's a really beautiful game and the storytelling is better than I expected.

I also finally got back into playing AC: Origins. I started to play it a long time ago and bounced off - I think because I just found Alexandria a little dull, and that's the first major city you travel to. But now I've finished the main story, the first dlc, and almost all of the side quests. I've started on the second (and last DLC) and am actually already feeling nostalgic. I'm going to miss Bayek and the more Egypt-y parts of Egypt.

It's also a really beautiful game, but it took me a while to care about the world beyond the pretty graphics. It takes a while for the characters' connections to their country and landscape to shine through, and that's what really makes world building compelling, IMO. It just took a while to build.

Bayek. ;_;

I'm starting the year off right, by procrastinating on work I really need to do!

( The year in fandom )

My introduction to The Witcher and its universe was the third video game - you know, the one that makes it onto near every list of the best video games of the decade. I started to read the books just a couple of days ago.

I binged the Netflix series last night and have some thoughts:

It really, really wants to be Game of Thrones. It has the same style and tone. The problem is that the story doesn't really support it. The pacing of the show is all wrong. They're trying to fit in too much, so when something big happens, it doesn't have very much impact.

There's also a strange tension between the monster-of-the-week elements of the source and the larger plot. The show moves so fast that they don't have time to do both, but they try. It doesn't really work.

I've heard from a couple of friends who haven't played the game or read the books that the show is confusing. It really is. Hell, the way it jumps around the timeline confused me sometimes.

Then there is the gratuitous T&A. The game had this too, of course. But the way they do it in the show, it just seems like more "we really want to be Game of Thrones." Sorry, you can't. You need more than the two seasons Netflix is going to give you for that.

There are some things I liked about it though. The focus isn't on just Geralt; Ciri and Yennefer get as much screen time. Ciri is boring, but Yennefer's actress (Anya Chalotra) is great as Yennefer. Henry Cavill as Geralt... I'm not sure what I think, but I don't know who I'd want in that role instead. He did alright.

(Though there is an aspect to Yennefer's character that I REALLY WISH men would stop writing, and wish wasn't so heavily emphasized on the show. It basically is treated as her sole motivation and arrrrrrrrgh.)