[OOC] The Absent King

[Life in Stasis]

@Life in Stasis I'm sure she was sick beforehand. My apologies for sounding like one of those crazy-Christian ''all games are evil'' people,

@Errant Son

Oh no, I didn't think that at all. If I sounded sardonic, my bitterness was aimed more at the media and that girl's judgment, not you.

but the Undertale fanbase is quite crazy. I've read some of their Tumblr stuff when it got posted on one of my favourite steam groups and decided they are all crazy people. It seems inherent to the game to me at this point.

@Errant Son

I think this is just generally true of fan bases. Even shows and games I like can accumulate an obnoxious following. People really like to fixate to an extreme, unhealthy level. C'est la vie.

[Errant Son]

Oui mon copain. That much is true. I'm an avid fan of the Vikings series and used to follow TWD and GOT but stopped for obvious reasons, as the best characters with the most interesting stories tend to die while the ones that bore me live on. C'est aussi la vie. However the fanbases for that are often just as bad, though given their less.. ''depressed'' nature the fanbases revolve more around making weird fanart, making strange pairings ('shipping') and such rather than actual depressing thoughts or even thinking about killing sprees, which has been the case in the Undertale fanbase.

I don't even understand how the casual gaming scene got to Undertale as it is a very specific game genre and definitely not a super good game gameplay wise. The only thing I can imagine being fun is the storyline, which I must admit piqued my interest.. the characters are well written and I liked the design that involved karma-runs where you can choose on killing people. It's an interesting system that I hope to see in other games. We need more games where there are multiple approaches to the same problem.

[Life in Stasis]

It must have that secret "something" that appeals to someone of a certain mentality. A few other franchises come to mind that don't especially stand out to me, but have somehow specifically inspired a massive following. To keep my thread clean I'm going to avoid mentioning those shows because I want this to be a good weekend.

People like what they like. This is where I'd say "I don't judge", but I absolutely do. Everybody does. But this wouldn't be the proper setting to air all of my complaints. Because I have a lot of them. And honestly I don't want to alienate anyone.

One thing I will say is that the tragedy of any canon that goes on too long is that it often loses touch with the concepts that made it great in the first place. I'm not a fan of Game of Thrones or Walking Dead, but you can see how the fans are complaining more about the shows as they go on. Not only are there fewer surprises, but when the story writers run out of ideas, they veer from faithfulness to their core concepts and just wing it with something completely off the wall. Sometimes it's great, but usually it's crap.

I watched one particular show for several seasons, but I could observe where the writing got away from itself. The worst part was that the characters were still pretty well written, but they were being put into ridiculous scenarios. It felt like an insult.

Parks and Rec is a good example. I enjoyed the show through all but its last season. The penultimate season ended on a very high note and it wrapped everything up nicely, but they went for another season. All the characters became awful caricatures of themselves and the stories were just so try-hard crazy.

Bit of a rant, excuse me.

[Errant Son]

I think the one show that always kept me laughing was the Office, and that was mostly because each episode was just a new skit or situation, and not a continuation of the last in most cases. Despite that the characters were persistent and there was a backstory (no matter how silly it was at times).

One particular idea for a show I read once that had me intrigued was a show where every episode is a completely unrelated story, with the next episode not even mentioning the characters in the last. That would last an entire season with basically a new episode being it's own story and basically being it's own show. Then in the season finale, the episode would reveal that all episodes were connected somehow and that they were chronological too, so ep. 1 caused ep. 2 and so on. I think that'd be amazing to watch even though the concept sounds strange as hell and definitely wouldn't gather a lot of attention at first.

And I shall stop mucking up your thread now then.

[Life in Stasis]

And I shall stop mucking up your thread now then.

@Errant Son

No no no! You're good, that isn't what I meant at all. I don't mind chatter in the slightest, I just felt my own thoughts going in a dangerous direction. I have a lot of strong opinions and the impulse to blab about them, and I don't want to drive away the RP's players by being a dick.

The Office was pretty good. Some seasons dragged for a bit, but they did recover from their slumps pretty well. The addition of James Spader to the cast was excellent (god that man is funny). The show had a very satisfying finale and ended exactly where it should have. Rainn Wilson was fantastic too, though I can't help but feel sorry for him now. I think that was the peak of his career.

But I'm sure he's doing fine. He's got to have gobs of money.

The idea you mention sounds a little like Twilight Zone (and its cousins Tales from the Crypt and Outer Limits), especially the movie from 83 (which is fantastic if you haven't watched it, it's aged really well), though normally the show didn't tie anything together.

I really enjoyed the first season of American Horror Story (the second was okay but had terrible parts, didn't get through the third). I liked that the concept was every season was its own story and cast of characters. What I enjoyed most was seeing the same actors in different roles. A villain in the first season was a hero in the next. And god Jessica Lange's acting is just terrifyingly genius (if very typecast, but that's how those things go).

[Errant Son]

To be honest, I don't watch much series/movies anymore. The TV has become more of an accessory than a utility in my house, and what little I watch I obtain from the internet. Most of my interests has been in anime lately (though, I like to think I'm not a weeb.) I liked the art of 'Garden of Words' specifically and it had an interesting story. I was a bit creeped out by their character selection though.. If you have time, definitely look up some art of that anime. It's a short 42 minute movie, but the art is phenomenal.

[Life in Stasis]

Thank you for the suggestion. I'll think about it. I like about half a dozen animes but all of those are from the late 90s to mid 2000s (I think one is a little later). I haven't really liked anything in years and I don't know if I've just grown out of it or if everything is just terrible now.

[Errant Son]

Everything is just terrible. It's all 'look how cute my waifu' anime nowadays I find. :( I really like the more serious anime that don't revolve around fan service. Girls und Panzer was relatively okay, but that's just because I'm into warfare and the anime had nicely drawn realistic looking tanks.

Another anime I liked a lot was Non Non Biyori, though I doubt that is your cup'o tea.

[Life in Stasis]

I think the names alone are making me cross-eyed.

There was a time when I defended anime as a medium, not a genre. You can't just denounce all of anime, it's not all the same! Every story is different and complex and the only thing that remains the same is the look!

Now I've become what I hate and I'm pretty okay with it. Younger me was a passionate idiot.

[Errant Son]

Welp, the only issue I have with that is that I watch anime but besides that I agree with you. Anime as a genre has a cesspit for it's fanbase with weeaboo's everywhere. Not only that but just has terrible writing most of the time. I used to watch Naruto and at the time I liked it a lot being a 14 year old, but now that I'm 19 and look back I'm just thinking, man, how did Kishimoto decide to write this crap and call it canon?

All anime is pretty much the same.

[Life in Stasis]

All anime is pretty much the same.

@Errant Son

With a few exceptions, I've come to find that that's true.

The anime fanbase was always pretty big since I got into the internet scene, but I do think it has grown since then. I remember it used to be a really big thing that people would teach themselves japanese and really get into the japan culture. I'm not sure if that's still a thing and frankly I don't want to know.

But like we were saying, c'est la vie.

[Errant Son]

It still is a large thing and I hate it. Especially because those people are really annoying. Because they try to learn the pronounciation from an anime, all 40 y/o men try to sound like 12 year old girls. It's really awkward and it's the reason I shy away from anime discussion.

[Thortimer]

It's like lumping all American drama/television into one category simply because it's full of live actors. Sure, there's a lot of crap out there, but that's because so much of it is made. Kind of insulting to both genres to lump all the ideas together and call them anything. You know, if you care about labels and shit like that. I got tired of that shit a long time ago. I just watch what interests me, damned be what anyone thinks of it. Although that Idolmasters Cinderella Girls is a guilty pleasure of mine, I have to admit.

[Life in Stasis]

I just watch what interests me, damned be what anyone thinks of it.

@Thortimer

Good philosophy.

I confess one of my guilty pleasures is sad country songs. Any country song about somebody dying. I don't like country music, in fact I hate it, but if it's a song about someone dying in a fire or losing a lover, I completely lose my composure. It's stupid and these songs are crap but it appeals to some very American piece of me, I guess.

[Errant Son]

@Thortimer watching what you want is generally a good approach to life I find, and a way of living that I try to maintain as well.

[Thortimer]

Do what you love, love what you do, I always say.

[Errant Son]

Too much trouble, I always say. About anything. :/

[Lyaer]

Aww I liked Undertale a lot. Fun story. Fascinating metastory. Mechanically and thematically it was something that JRPGs desperately needed. I'm sort of glad it got absurdly popular because it raises the probability that more future game designers will take some of its lessons to heart (not that I'm dying to see the inevitable clones and fan spinoffs).

In hindsight I'm not that surprised it got super popular with a certain kind of fan, since aside from its actual admirable qualities, it poked the drowsing mammoth that is Earthbound/Mother fandom pretty damn hard, and also Toby Fox does some of the music for Homestuck.

Not that I blame anyone for not liking Undertale (or the Mother series, or Homestuck). They all definitely have some serious flaws. I think for me something about the sort of tongue-in-cheek aesthetic of works like these helps my brain give itself permission to shut off some of its more critically minded faculties and let me enjoy the works on their own terms. I have a lot of trouble doing that with most things anymore, so I find it inestimably valuable. But I think if you're brain doesn't respond that same way, these quickly become a harder sort of work to get into.

EDIT: Did I just fixate on something from the previous page of discussion and start ranting about it like it was still on topic? Yes. Absolutely.

[Errant Son]

No problem. The videogame discussion is one that never dies. People still argue over whether pac-man was a good game idea or not. I'm sure you can get away with a single page of history.

[Thortimer]

@Lyaer I really got into Undertale because Toby is quite the composer musically. Such great, memorable, thematic work.