MONKEYNOHITO'S PROFILE

Y'know, whatever someone might say about the quality, I think you did a really great job of posting an intriguing set of screenshots. There's a funeral, a jerk running his mouth and an exotic jungle spring. They're each dramatic moments from a broad spectrum of experience where even some of the best games only show you'll be walking around and fighting stuff.

RE: Accountability/responsibilty, etc: I fully support free expression in the appropriate forums, but that also means supporting people's ability to respond. If you want to spout off certain things, people will hold you to it and whinging about thought control when people simply disagree is juvenile. The silent majority won't engage a broken argument, they'll just tune it out. Remember we're taking about entertainment here too, no one needs to pay for the privilege of getting pissed off and offended no matter how much an artist is impressed with themselves.

Otherwise, I suppose I did run my mouth a bit on Pratchet, sorry about that. I have to admit I don't have enough experience with it in context to really go one way or the other. It still has the flavor of territory that didn't need to be covered though, something that removes the mystique a bit. I mean, we don't need to see every character shit themselves as a toddler and establish it as an important part of their canon.

As an aside, I saw Wreckit Ralph yesterday and thought the FPS chick was an interesting character in light of this sort of stuff. She seemed like a goofy cliche at first, but then I don't think you can actually get away with that strong of a female character in a AAA game these days. She seemed a little older, experienced enough to have a romantic history and developed a romance with a supporting character. She was also mean as hell and -right- about everything she bitched about. She was most definitely a mature woman and a badass and I couldn't see that character being a bad thing to happen to a real FPS.

I find the best characters are written as people first and everything else second and that's the all-around best way to break out of those comfort zones and still do a service to the stories and concepts. Everyone can relate to that fundamental humanity on some level, it's how we end up with classic characters from the entire width and breadth of human experience, not a checklist of surface traits and stereotypes, though those can be a helpful tool to translate human nature.

Pratchet doesn't really go that route. Instead of thinking, how does Lara Croft respond to rape, she thinks, what happens if I rape Lara Croft? All she has done is make it a more dangerous place for female protagonists, further cementing the notion that female characters should be intrinsically tied to that bullshit as, what, the most dramatic aspect of female sexuality?

Triple A publishers make the same mistake with their parade of gritty soldier clones and Brosephs, they tell a white straight male writer, 'Hey, write us up a white straight male doing a bunch of white straight male stuff,' and what are they supposed to do with that even if they supposedly fit into the mold? What would you do with that? A shameless Mary Sue is about the best case scenario there.

I'm a big crybaby about games and all, so I usually can't remember anything particularly traumatizing because there's so much. The weirdest thing I think is sad is when Norn makes friends with the wild werecat in Atelier Iris. It's just sad how they can't really hang out and have fun together and communicate quite like they naturally would because Norn's been assimilated into human culture. I feel like there's an awkwardness there whenever they happen to run into each other because of the culture clash.

I was totally robbed of my feels the first time I played FF7 though when my brother said, 'make sure you unequip Aeris here, she dies permanently in the next scene and I'm not sure you get your stuff back.'

Here's a cute fairy I sketched for practice:



BTW, This was all done digitally in GIMP. :D