- A Nice Steak Purchased At Fry's
- Shrugging Off An Existential Crisis In A Way That Doesn't Affect You
- Megaman X
- Realizing That The People Most Invested In Your Hobby Are Also The Ones Ruining It
- SKIN
Monday, June 20, 2016
ARBITRARY LIST OF COMFORT FOOD
Sunday, June 19, 2016
positive emo (SMTIV)
the below introduction contains spoilers for SMTIV and references to suicide and depression also I am no longer depressed so I decided to post it incomplete
I've been struggling through depression lately over the last few months more than I usually do, which has been tough. For a life insert: I've been working night-shift for the last year and change, which has contributed a lot to the depression I've been feeling. You miss out on a lot of things, the sun among them. Even while I'm writing this, the glimpse of the sun I got was while it was disappearing over a mountain.
The denizens of Tokyo in Shin Megami Tensei IV have lives a lot worse than mine could ever possibly be. Not only do they have to constantly be mindful of the fact that a brutal death is waiting around likely every corner (if they don't starve) they've never seen the sun before.
That's not really what drew me to start playing SMTIV though! It was actually complete happenstance that I even ended up here. More real life insert: Usually when I am depressed there is a shortlist of games I play. Almost all of which focus entirely on positive emotions; imagine lots of teenagers with their hands on their hips trying to solve some mystery.
My shortlist is mostly games I have an emotional connection to for one reason or another. I am a sentimental goofball and up until just a few years ago, I didn't have an interest in things that were based out of negative emotions or despair.
Look at it this way: I didn't even really start reading books until after highschool, so imagine the worst motherfucker upset at 'art games' as me from the years of 13-18. Even still after not being that person, I tended to avoid things that weren't, I dunno, build for entirely positive purposes unless I was already happy.
Instead of crawling back to the sunlit vistas and friendship-togetherness of Chrono Cross or Final Fantasy VIII's morality play of learning how to be a better person, I sort of accidentally fell into Shin Megami Tensei IV's fucked up world where every plot development seems to directly deal with fucking up the life of someone else.
One of the first plot twists in SMTIV comes as a revelation to the player about the nature of the world where the game takes place. A character called "The Black Samurai" has been giving people illegal literature that contains references to worlds where people don't live by a strict caste system or have alternative political or religious systems to the ones they live in.
This, in most cases, causes people to either go insane and die, or turn into violent and bloodthirsty demons, in the literal sense of the word.
I didn't even realize I was helping propagate a ruthless caste system until a little while ago, at a little less than halfway through the game. This ruined Tokyo and the world sitting ontop of it is built out of alternatives though, It's not like the game has so far railroaded me into one path over the other.
Every turn in the story brings with it more decisions to be made, and uniquely SMTIV's offerings of moral choices have made me actually stop and put down my 3DS on more than one occasion just to think.
When the decisions are this weighted and larger parts of the narratives and whole characters weigh on your actions and responses, it lends more credence to how oppressive the game feels. Maybe it would be purely enough if like some of the games in the same series that came before it, the game was mainly about how it was constructed around the plot, but SMTIV's whole existence as a game from start to finish is opressive.
Alternatives that I'm given aren't much better: going a more chaotic path quickly turns you into the kind of person who affects a ruthless, might-makes-right kind of approach to the world. You can become the fascist god-emperor of the post apocalypse world!
I've been struggling through depression lately over the last few months more than I usually do, which has been tough. For a life insert: I've been working night-shift for the last year and change, which has contributed a lot to the depression I've been feeling. You miss out on a lot of things, the sun among them. Even while I'm writing this, the glimpse of the sun I got was while it was disappearing over a mountain.
The denizens of Tokyo in Shin Megami Tensei IV have lives a lot worse than mine could ever possibly be. Not only do they have to constantly be mindful of the fact that a brutal death is waiting around likely every corner (if they don't starve) they've never seen the sun before.
That's not really what drew me to start playing SMTIV though! It was actually complete happenstance that I even ended up here. More real life insert: Usually when I am depressed there is a shortlist of games I play. Almost all of which focus entirely on positive emotions; imagine lots of teenagers with their hands on their hips trying to solve some mystery.
My shortlist is mostly games I have an emotional connection to for one reason or another. I am a sentimental goofball and up until just a few years ago, I didn't have an interest in things that were based out of negative emotions or despair.
Look at it this way: I didn't even really start reading books until after highschool, so imagine the worst motherfucker upset at 'art games' as me from the years of 13-18. Even still after not being that person, I tended to avoid things that weren't, I dunno, build for entirely positive purposes unless I was already happy.
Instead of crawling back to the sunlit vistas and friendship-togetherness of Chrono Cross or Final Fantasy VIII's morality play of learning how to be a better person, I sort of accidentally fell into Shin Megami Tensei IV's fucked up world where every plot development seems to directly deal with fucking up the life of someone else.
One of the first plot twists in SMTIV comes as a revelation to the player about the nature of the world where the game takes place. A character called "The Black Samurai" has been giving people illegal literature that contains references to worlds where people don't live by a strict caste system or have alternative political or religious systems to the ones they live in.
This, in most cases, causes people to either go insane and die, or turn into violent and bloodthirsty demons, in the literal sense of the word.
I didn't even realize I was helping propagate a ruthless caste system until a little while ago, at a little less than halfway through the game. This ruined Tokyo and the world sitting ontop of it is built out of alternatives though, It's not like the game has so far railroaded me into one path over the other.
Every turn in the story brings with it more decisions to be made, and uniquely SMTIV's offerings of moral choices have made me actually stop and put down my 3DS on more than one occasion just to think.
When the decisions are this weighted and larger parts of the narratives and whole characters weigh on your actions and responses, it lends more credence to how oppressive the game feels. Maybe it would be purely enough if like some of the games in the same series that came before it, the game was mainly about how it was constructed around the plot, but SMTIV's whole existence as a game from start to finish is opressive.
Alternatives that I'm given aren't much better: going a more chaotic path quickly turns you into the kind of person who affects a ruthless, might-makes-right kind of approach to the world. You can become the fascist god-emperor of the post apocalypse world!
The Speed Dating Panel
oh gosh you don't even understand the kind of exhaustion that wracks your body after an event like phoenix comicon. it is the kind of thing where the phrase 'oh gosh' immediately comes to mind because I have been dryly swearing and quipping about every unfortunate interaction (there are many) that happen there for four days that it started bleeding into my regular work life.
heads up: if you're coming from The Website this is where i seem strikingly condescending about the things i like if for the purpose of serving my own cynicism
the con was great - really it was. we had a blast from start to finish. we drank with dudes that ran a hentai website and talked about the shit we've seen in life. i get a sense that the webmaster is a hell of nerd who's simply found a niche that can serve other people well enough to keep him afloat.
i went to a speed dating panel and met a number of great women but unfortunately had to miss the queer /lgtbq speed dating panel afterwards but like
god there's a thing i have to talk about
The Guy who runs the speed dating panel is a massive man with a predictable chinstrap beard whow as dressed as a jedi the entire convention with a requisite plastic lightsaber. at the beginning of the speed dating panel he made a point of saying that for the sake of stirring up the atmosphere and easing some of the shy nerd boys (well, men) into being comfortable his articulate jabs would come only at the expense of the males in the room
and then anytime a woman did anything they were the person being directed at. the reason I'd go back though is because the women were routinely laughing at his jokes, while the men were angrily stewing as he took attention away from them.
he talked about finding love and happiness at a convention - a place where nerds gather and talk and buy and commiserate and drink, as being not just possible but proven. at one point after the conversations were over with our partners, i watched a young dude (probably 18) who i assume has shitty opinions about women in fandom balk and storm out as he found himself not receiving any contact info from any of the 25+ women he spoke to for the entire hour. he exclaimed "i fucking KNEW this would happen" with the shrillness of someone between adolescence and adulthood
while the orchestrator balked with a "yeah yeah, get the fuck out of here."
he stormed out
kicked the door
and all the women laughed
-sk
heads up: if you're coming from The Website this is where i seem strikingly condescending about the things i like if for the purpose of serving my own cynicism
the con was great - really it was. we had a blast from start to finish. we drank with dudes that ran a hentai website and talked about the shit we've seen in life. i get a sense that the webmaster is a hell of nerd who's simply found a niche that can serve other people well enough to keep him afloat.
i went to a speed dating panel and met a number of great women but unfortunately had to miss the queer /lgtbq speed dating panel afterwards but like
god there's a thing i have to talk about
The Guy who runs the speed dating panel is a massive man with a predictable chinstrap beard whow as dressed as a jedi the entire convention with a requisite plastic lightsaber. at the beginning of the speed dating panel he made a point of saying that for the sake of stirring up the atmosphere and easing some of the shy nerd boys (well, men) into being comfortable his articulate jabs would come only at the expense of the males in the room
and then anytime a woman did anything they were the person being directed at. the reason I'd go back though is because the women were routinely laughing at his jokes, while the men were angrily stewing as he took attention away from them.
he talked about finding love and happiness at a convention - a place where nerds gather and talk and buy and commiserate and drink, as being not just possible but proven. at one point after the conversations were over with our partners, i watched a young dude (probably 18) who i assume has shitty opinions about women in fandom balk and storm out as he found himself not receiving any contact info from any of the 25+ women he spoke to for the entire hour. he exclaimed "i fucking KNEW this would happen" with the shrillness of someone between adolescence and adulthood
while the orchestrator balked with a "yeah yeah, get the fuck out of here."
he stormed out
kicked the door
and all the women laughed
-sk
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