Me w ppl I don’t have a crush on: babe, baby, hun, dear, love, light of my life
Me w ppl I have a crush on: pleased to make your acquaintance good sir, my good colleague.
Me w ppl I don’t have a crush on: babe, baby, hun, dear, love, light of my life
Me w ppl I have a crush on: pleased to make your acquaintance good sir, my good colleague.
For how much the ways and methods we consume and navigate art and information for the past dozen-ish years, there hasn't been much of anything that tries to convey how it feels, the sporadic multitasking and constant taking in of data on top of whatever background noise we put on top of that, most of our senses are taking things in constantly just because we can let them.
It's easy to forget what would be an incomprehensible mess of chaotic jargon is routine for a good chunk of us now, show this to a victorian child etc etc, it's practically on the same level of dissonance as an infant's understanding of the world compared to an adult's, only, the latter is still very new when taking all of human history into account.
Little Ghost's first couple hours (and undoubtedly the rest of the game when it comes out) are a very notable and unique exception.
Little Ghost ascribes itself as a metroidvania about platforming as opposed to combat, which is certainly the quickest way of describing it in Gamer terms, but there's quite a bit more going on here.
It's hard to find a definitive catch-all slogan to describe it because it feels like so much. It's like a Knytt Stories-esque exploration through a massive spread-out collage scrapbook with knickknacks and artifacts from seemingly every and any art period. It took me until I looked further into it to realize the more modern stuff were cameos from other indies because they fit in that well.
It reminded me a lot of how it felt playing LittleBigPlanet 2 as a kid with little to no context to the references and callbacks it kept making to art movements and aesthetics, accompanied with a licensed soundtrack that spanned so many genres and time periods.
All you can really do from that perspective is take in what it evokes in you, in the case of LBP 2, those feelings further solidified my faith in video games as an instrument of communication, of expressing and remixing ideas that have been around for potentially centuries and recontextualize it to make it accessible and open to nerdy PlayStation kids. I'll definitely have to write a proper thing on LBP someday but that's the gist.
It was actually around the time I had started thinking back on it that I unlocked a podcast with Negativland's Mark Hosler on copyright law and his time doing stuff with the band. I kinda had to step back a bit to process it because it was just so surreal.
One of the biggest, most influential groups of my adolescence (who are literally all about recontextualizing media and art to make their own statements and works) were in a game that was both doing the exact same thing alongside its own unique art and asset, but was also overwhelmingly reminding me of when the exact same thing had been done a decade ago with the same floaty platforming.
This might sound dramatic but it really did feel like most of my inspirations were coming together in this game that I just randomly stumbled across, and not in an intellectual property crossover way, like an ideological one.
It's obviously not the most unlikely meshing of inspirations and ideas, but it's hard not to feel a serious understanding with what it's going for by fusing all this together into its own piece of work with this synergized of a balance between original and Stolen™ assets.
While I do really want to keep just finding more ways to gush about this game's open-ended nature, the way ideas and stories form naturally in your head while wandering around finding more art to look into, there are a couple of fairly major issues.
The controls are real slippery, and not in a way that feels intended by design. Maybe it's just a controller sensitivity issue but Ghost would keep turning to the left the moment I let go of a direction and it looks a little jank, particularly while moving right.
It also threw me off a bit how hard and tight-knit the level design is, I've been playing platformers most of my life but even this had some tough bits.
It doesn't jive well with the vibes that I presumed were a lot more relaxed than this, on top of deaths (and in-game sound effects in general) being pretty loud and cutting through whatever you put on in the background. It's not great, it feels like a particularly harsh punishment for messing up which I guess I can understand if that's the intent but it's not very nice either way.
Overall though, I can't pretend it hasn't been on my mind since. (been 3 days since I played as of this writing)
I only did half of everything there is in the demo but what I got resonates a lot with me still.
It felt like getting into a big Wikipedia rabbit hole or aimlessly wandering around a library. For how much there is to take in and how much you know you'll never have the time to get around to, it is very affirming to know a lot of our past as weird art-creating creatures still serves the foundation of so many things in and outside of its own niches. It's easy to forget the value of everything we create when it's so often having to be made under awful constraints. (or worse, algorithms)
You forget it's out there and people will see it and it might earnestly change them, for better or worse, in mild or life-changing ways. Ways sometimes strong enough that it becomes material itself, to be used and replicated in more literal ways than copyright wants to allow.
Our ancestors are probably a little weirded out by the extent we actively steal and rip each other off (a lot of artists now are still weird about it despite at least half of our current output being directly transformative works) but it'd be nice to see the day where it's all a legal, global standard, even if that'll make it less cool to do.
We're in a weird spot right now law wise that's on the verge of changing drastically again but I want to be optimistic. There's certainly no way we're gonna have a mass exodus on Amen break samples or vaporwave albums with stolen Sailor Moon screencaps for covers.
We've already developed too many subcultures and aesthetics that revolve around this fundamental aspect of creation to have it just disappear, it's as embedded in us as art from any past generation and will only continue to be more so in time.
The only real question left is to figure out what you want to do with it.
i guess i'll never really become myself as long as i live in these lame white walls. they'll keep throwing darts at all my fingers so effortlessly that they don't even notice, and then they'll get shocked when I don't want to caress their heads. do they want their hair to get all tangled? unfortunately it's a learned trait, one that will hopefully die with them and their darts collection. at least i hope so. my aim is terrible.
i guess i'm tossin', and turnin'!!! i'm decomposing in here. every day that passes i feel a little more like a dead plant than the one before. the chair stinks so hard yet i wish i didn't have to constantly get up and down for that, of all things. i want to take every single one of those silly cardboard boxes that get past the gates every 30 minutes and smash them so hard i'll scare their younger cousins away.
i don't know where to clean,, i have to make my mind up. between my rubbish'n psychic puke!!! i can't read anymore, i don't understand any single sentence in there. i'd fill your silly little phones with complaints if i had no regards for your personal time. i can't do everything on my own here. legal babble is like a lifted truck for bald men who think crossing their arms is a sign of power. pig latin and a love for fancy black ties. i want the wiggly cursive back
at last! a gentle lady taught me that i'm a plant, yet not an entirely dead one. plants actually hate your basic empty void thing and Marie Kondo ruined an entire generation of moms. plants hoard and try to fill their grave with water to hang out with their plushies a bit more than planned because if i have to plant my roots here i want to sing and make a little silly cave with my little silly roommates i saved from various poorly lit basements. it's going well, i'll become a very nice tree and the broadcast poster will love it for sure. i need to hug tigger again and let him tell me that i'm actually doing good. the darts are lying and deep down i know they are but it's hard to admit. my little cave is very good and it will follow me inside new wall mazes whenever that'll have to happen. let's have a toast for the colourful walls cause we're going to fucking obliterate this mediocrity void. keep on drivin'!! and be the plant you deserve to be
dozens of dapper streaked gentlebears elegantly clap with their little paws everytime she comes back to her little abode. it’s not her only one - she has a bigger, more colourful one too, but it’s these small walls in particular that make me forget i really live elsewhere for now. notebooks full of russian sentences and botched kanjis are just an evil ploy to keep me away from home; the bear with the sweetest nose told me that, and i believe him. really, i’ve known that since first seeing the apparition of the chocolate rabbit.
collecting trips and tickets that remind me of those soft hands on white walls and those soft hands on my red cheeks. i love that old big bulldog, i really do, but i secretly wish she'll be able to take his place forever someday. he can stay by the side and have a chat with the bears, talking about cozy houses and faded patches as we live out all the memories that have only existed in movies beforehand.
i've delicately wrapped the flowers inside a sheet of paper, and now i’ll let the elder gods take care of them until they’re ready to rest alongside their older, purple sisters. i will hang the tickets on the walls so i can feel her kisses everytime i glance at them.
i’m reading your comic once again, looking at the images over and over just like I often do with your artwork in general. beautiful engravings and drawings dance out of your fingers as you effortlessly paint perfect memories with those crooked little smiles. there's a lot of magic inside your bones
sugurugetos
stormborns
snowghoul
yousharknotpass
