New Tanks for Nothin vid!
Jul. 9th, 2025 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
malyminOne of my favorite youtube channels. Rarely updates, but when it does you get to hear about constructed aquatic ecosystems, and it's fun.
malymin
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prokopetz_feedI recognise that this may be a controversial opinion on the “everything is better when girls” website, but I feel like making the action-adventure game protagonist’s obligatory tutorial/exposition-providing bratty little fairy companion a boy is underexplored territory.
You can tell how unutterably dire the situation is because people in the notes are unironically citing shit like Daxter from Jak and Daxter and Wheatley from Portal as examples of the type.
It’s a bit striking how many of the counterexamples folks are trying to come up with are either a. funny animal sidekicks, which is admittedly an archetype that often functions as the masculine counterpart to the bratty fairy companion, but is in no way equivalent to it; or b. aliens/robots/inanimate objects who aren’t gender-coded at all and are basically only boys simply because they’re not girls. There’s a time and a place for that, but it doesn’t fill this particular gap!
Closest I got after thinking about it a bit was the little demon that hovers behind you and revives you from The Messenger. It’s a questionable example, as if I remember right he only really explains his own mechanics and not things about the world or plot generally, and he’s kinda got one of those monster shapes that looks less clearly male and is more male by default. He is at least contrasted later by a female demon of the same kind though, so it’s not solely a matter of assuming.
This is starting to feel like an extension of that thing where when someone designs or draws a monstrous humanoid fantasy race, the men are all very bestial looking while the women are shapely and more athropomorphized.
If the ultimate conclusion of this line of reasoning is that we ought to have both more female companions who are weird little monstery things whose designs aren’t obviously gender-coded and more male companions who are eight-inch-tall twinks in miniskirts, you’ll hear no objection from me.
We are not in the business of being reasonable.
Jul. 9th, 2025 12:54 pmprokopetz_feedInadvisable video game premise #137: metroidvania where the access to later areas is gated not by physical barriers, but by social convention. You need the invisibility upgrade not to circumvent surveillance, but because there’s a guy who will trap you in a conversation you can’t extricate yourself from without being rude if he sees you.
Even if you manage to avoid getting stopped at the door, you suffer damage over time for being conspicuously under- or over-dressed for a given milieu. The “environmental immunity” upgrades consist of a series of outfits of varying circumstantial appropriateness and formality. At one point you have to hellrun a black tie venue in blue jeans.
why inadvisable? this sounds amazing actually?
maybe not a metroidvania game, okay, I get that, but for a storygame this would be a perfectly reasonable, even useful mechanic.
We are not in the business of being reasonable.
(More seriously, it needs to be a metroidvania specifically because it’s goofing on a particular set of genre conventions. If you make it a visual novel, you’ve removed the whole point of the exercise!)
prokopetz_feedInadvisable video game premise #137: metroidvania where the access to later areas is gated not by physical barriers, but by social convention. You need the invisibility upgrade not to circumvent surveillance, but because there’s a guy who will trap you in a conversation you can’t extricate yourself from without being rude if he sees you.
Even if you manage to avoid getting stopped at the door, you suffer damage over time for being conspicuously under- or over-dressed for a given milieu. The “environmental immunity” upgrades consist of a series of outfits of varying circumstantial appropriateness and formality. At one point you have to hellrun a black tie venue in blue jeans.
prokopetz_feedInadvisable video game premise #137: metroidvania where the access to later areas is gated not by physical barriers, but by social convention. You need the invisibility upgrade not to circumvent surveillance, but because there’s a guy who will trap you in a conversation you can’t extricate yourself from without being rude if he sees you.
prokopetz_feedI have to admire certain people’s willingness to make themselves look like fools in public pulling out endless edge cases and well-actuallies in an effort to argue that extremely obvious and well-established trends don’t exist. Usually they’re not even trying to make a particular point – they’re just doing it for the love of the game!
(“Well actually Ezlo is” come on, folks. In a series that’s so notable for its ann
Jul. 9th, 2025 08:04 amprokopetz_feedI recognise that this may be a controversial opinion on the “everything is better when girls” website, but I feel like making the action-adventure game protagonist’s obligatory tutorial/exposition-providing bratty little fairy companion a boy is underexplored territory.
You can tell how unutterably dire the situation is because people in the notes are unironically citing shit like Daxter from Jak and Daxter and Wheatley from Portal as examples of the type.
It’s bit striking how many of the counterexamples folks are trying to come up with are either a. funny animal sidekicks, which is admittedly an archetype that often functions as the masculine counterpart to the bratty fairy companion, but is in no way equivalent to it; or b. aliens/robots/inanimate objects who aren’t gender-coded at all and are basically only boys simply because they’re not girls. There’s a time and a place for that, but it doesn’t fill this particular gap!
Does ezlo from Minish cap count?
Me: *remarks on how many of the offered examples are inanimate objects or otherwise non-gender-coded non-humanoids who are only “boys” because all non-humanoid characters are male by default*
This joker: Does this guy count? *cites a talking hat*
(“Well actually Ezlo is” come on, folks. In a series that’s so notable for its annoying exposition fairy companions as to be synonymous with the trope in many people’s minds, the only two who use he/him pronouns spend 99% of their respective titles transformed into non-humanoid objects. This isn’t a counterexample to the point that I’m making here.)
prokopetz_feedI recognise that this may be a controversial opinion on the “everything is better when girls” website, but I feel like making the action-adventure game protagonist’s obligatory tutorial/exposition-providing bratty little fairy companion a boy is underexplored territory.
You can tell how unutterably dire the situation is because people in the notes are unironically citing shit like Daxter from Jak and Daxter and Wheatley from Portal as examples of the type.
It’s bit striking how many of the counterexamples folks are trying to come up with are either a. funny animal sidekicks, which is admittedly an archetype that often functions as the masculine counterpart to the bratty fairy companion, but is in no way equivalent to it; or b. aliens/robots/inanimate objects who aren’t gender-coded at all and are basically only boys simply because they’re not girls. There’s a time and a place for that, but it doesn’t fill this particular gap!
Does ezlo from Minish cap count?
Me: *remarks on how many of the offered examples are inanimate objects or otherwise non-gender-coded non-humanoids who are only “boys” because all non-humanoid characters are male by default*
This joker: Does this guy count? *cites a talking hat*
prokopetz_feedTragic: that long-form porn AU fic featuring your favourite pairing has digressed into thousands of words of abstruse worldbuilding in order to properly contextualise and textually justify the author’s unbelievably specific kink, and it’s not good worldbuilding.
prokopetz_feedTeam Cherry announces Hollow Knight: Silksong delayed due to unexpected difficulties with PS Vita port.
Wii version’s still good though right?
prokopetz_feedTeam Cherry announces Hollow Knight: Silksong delayed due to unexpected difficulties with PS Vita port.
Hey if it’s okay can you link the post to the delay due to ps vita port having difficulties?
Wait a minute.
(*searches up PS Vita*)
Oh. Well that’s on me.
prokopetz_feedTeam Cherry announces Hollow Knight: Silksong delayed due to unexpected difficulties with PS Vita port.
prokopetz_feedI recognise that this may be a controversial opinion on the “everything is better when girls” website, but I feel like making the action-adventure game protagonist’s obligatory tutorial/exposition-providing bratty little fairy companion a boy is underexplored territory.
You can tell how unutterably dire the situation is because people in the notes are unironically citing shit like Daxter from Jak and Daxter and Wheatley from Portal as examples of the type.
It’s a bit striking how many of the counterexamples folks are trying to come up with are either a. funny animal sidekicks, which is admittedly an archetype that often functions as the masculine counterpart to the bratty fairy companion, but is in no way equivalent to it; or b. aliens/robots/inanimate objects who aren’t gender-coded at all and are basically only boys simply because they’re not girls. There’s a time and a place for that, but it doesn’t fill this particular gap!
prokopetz_feedI feel like the language of the metroidvania genre has painted itself into a corner, a bit. Players will look at an environment that damages them continuously just from being there and think “oh, that means I’m supposed to come back later after I find an upgrade that makes me immune”, and don’t get me wrong, it’s useful to be able to clearly signpost that, but also, sometimes you want the player to suffer.
If I ever make a metroidvania there’s going to be a mandatory hellrun when exiting the starting room just to let people know where they stand.
prokopetz_feedI feel like the language of the metroidvania genre has painted itself into a corner, a bit. Players will look at an environment that damages them continuously just from being there and think “oh, that means I’m supposed to come back later after I find an upgrade that makes me immune”, and don’t get me wrong, it’s useful to be able to clearly signpost that, but also, sometimes you want the player to suffer.
prokopetz_feed
ALTNot posting this one on the other thread because it’s technically not a proper sbubby, but I figured, like, I’d already gone to the trouble of editing the font, so.
prokopetz_feedI recognise that this may be a controversial opinion on the “everything is better when girls” website, but I feel like making the action-adventure game protagonist’s obligatory tutorial/exposition-providing bratty little fairy companion a boy is underexplored territory.
You can tell how unutterably dire the situation is because people in the notes are unironically citing shit like Daxter from Jak and Daxter and Wheatley from Portal as examples of the type.
prokopetz_feedI recognise that this may be a controversial opinion on the “everything is better when girls” website, but I feel like making the action-adventure game protagonist’s obligatory tutorial/exposition-providing bratty little fairy companion a boy is underexplored territory.