the message in the bottle is the booze

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 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'm sill playing the hell out of The Wild Hunt.

( More thoughts on the Witcher, and games as storytelling devices )

I'm still playing the third Witcher game. It's still good - although at this point I've met more of the major female characters, and oh boy.

( more rant )

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Semi-related to the above... I was telling these thoughts to a friend last week, and I said something along the lines of: "I normally hate coffee shop AUs, but it would be hilarious to write a coffee shop AU for the Witcher and just stick a sword right through the heart of the male power fantasy."

Then we discussed what kind of drinks the characters would order. She suggested Geralt would order black coffee, since that's a man drink, but I suggested the opposite: That due to his high metabolism*, he'd go for the venti breve with syrup and whipped cream.

I'm also pretty sure that Emhyr would be corporate and engaged in a ruthless campaign to expand the franchise into territory currently held by Caribou Coffee (Radovid) and struggling indies (Roche).

(* Is this just fanon? Eating a lot is a game mechanic but I don't remember it being explicitly stated.)

I just watched the first part of an official gameplay trailer for Cyberpunk 2077. When I first heard about this game, I was pretty interested - I like the genre of game, I've always had a weakness for cyberpunk, and I'd heard some good rumors about it.

So, within the first ten minutes of gameplay:

We rescue a naked, brutalized, and perfectly physically attractive woman, hauling her out of an ice water bath

we introduce our player character. She is in her (skimpy) underwear. There is a long panning shot up her naked legs to her tasteful side boob. The camera shifts to a view from behind; she is wearing a thong, giving us an unobstructed view of her perfect ass.

It's the second one that really got me. Once you start to notice how often attractive female characters are framed this way, it's really hard to stop noticing it. But do the men doing it realize what a trope it is?

As this was all happening, the narrator was going on and on about how gritty, realistic, and immersive their game will be. It tells you a lot about how deep in they are in the male gaze. It isn't reality-breaking for them at all, because it's actually how they see women.