CuriousCat Archive Page 201 of 202

  1. Do you prefer 3D or 2D animation? Do you think 2D films will ever make a comeback to cinema?

    Rationally, there's no reason to prefer one over the other, but in my heart of hearts I think I'll always prefer 2D. Don't get me wrong, I love them both, but the more understandable the process is the more it can impress me. For all the digital enhancements, I understand, on a gut level, ink and paint on paper. I know what's hard to draw and I can tell when an animator is showing off. Ditto for stop-motion. I don't understand as much about how animation works on computers. I thought Coco was beautiful, but apparently there were like 8.5 million unique light sources in one of the wide shots of the afterlife, and that's amazing, but I never would have assumed that by looking at it.

    A beautiful image is still a beautiful image, and the shot in question sure did make me gasp, but 2D gets that tiny bit extra because it feels comprehensible (aided at least a little by being an occasional animator myself).

    I don't know if 2D will ever make a comeback, I'm just glad it's not dead.

  2. Are there any pieces of media that you loved in your younger years but are embarrassed about now? For me I feel ashamed that I loved South Park when I was a teenager.

    There's a lot of media I've grown out of - in high school I loved blink-182 and Fight Club was my favorite movie for a loooooooong time - but I don't feel a lot of embarrassment about it. Everybody's gotta come from somewhere.

    You know what it's like? The first time I ever really fell for someone was in high school, and after a lot of pining and longing I told her how I felt and she took me out for hot chocolate and let me down easy. We're still friends. So far as first heartbreaks go, that's about as good as it gets, and I'm glad that I calibrated my taste in partners on someone kind.

    So that's me with media I used to love. You didn't stay my one and only, Fight Club, but I'm glad you were my first.

  3. How did you get through your early 20s?

    I dunno, fam, it's like that scene in Dunkirk. All I did was survive.

  4. Hi, this is the guy who sent you that question awhile ago about writing for video games! I was wondering if you knew of a place online I could possibly venture towards to interact with independent developers? I am certainly not asking for a "magical button" of some kind here but I wanted to know for sure if there was such a way.

    Back in my day, those were the TIGSource forums (https://forums.tigsource.com/). I don't know how active it is these days compared to when I was hanging out there, but at least a few known devs still frequent it. If there's a specific tool you use, there's usually a community built around that as well, like the Twine community, the Inform community, the Game Maker community, etc.

    A lot of big cities have indie meetups as ell. Here in Boston we have the monthly Boston Indies, Women in Games, Boston Postmortem, and some stuff at MIT. I don't know where you're based, but there may be something nearby. Sometimes things are posted on meetup.com.

  5. What would you make of the argument that the Cornetto trilogy argue that growing up and taking responsibility are not necessarily the same thing as fitting a proscribed societal role? That society at the moment/at their moment (2016 felt like a day they'd measure epochs from) was inherently juvenile in its desire to be adult?

    I think the filmmakers might make that argument, but, if that's the argument they wanted to make, I don't think they make it very well.

    Like, the Cornetto Trilogy is three movies that are, on the surface, about manchildren being thrust into abnormal circumstances that would compel them to grow up - a pretty standard, Adam Sandler-y steup. But the twist is, each movie ends with the manchild actually being SAVED from having to grow up.

    Thing is, if we wanted to argue that it's about rejecting society's definition of adulthood, the pressure to grow up would have to come from society. Shaun in Shaun of the Dead feels some anxiety about being a 28-year-old burnout, but the actual pressures he feels just come from people in his life. His girlfriend wants him to change simply because their life is making her unhappy; his stepdad just wants him to be a better son to his mom; his flatmate just wants his asshole friend to move out. Nicholas in Hot Fuzz is SO GOOD at his prescribed role that society wants to ship him out as quickly as possible; the society he ends up in has a role that doesn't suit him, it's true, but their murder-cult is hardly a stand-in for society at large. And no one in Gary's life in The World's End is really pressuring him to get a job or make something of himself, they just want him to stop ruining the lives of everyone he interacts with.

    So unless we want to argue that "people wanting anything from you" equals "SOCIETY," mostly these are men who make their loved ones unhappy, not men who are out of joint with society at large. Society at large is actually kind of indifferent to them.

  6. Do you think using blurry irony and confusion with someone you are friend with who is leaning alt-right is a good way to later open a toughtfull convo about how shitty those these rethorical methods actually are ?

    I feel like the people who are most susceptible to blurry irony and confusion are the least likely to follow an argument that begins with blurry irony and confusion. If you think they are someone you can reach, maybe just talk to them without messing with their heads?

  7. What do you think is the last good season of The Simpsons?

    Official consensus is 8, but I dunno, maybe there was a good season somewhere after I stopped watching?

  8. What are your views on linear "cinematic" games like Uncharted, The Order 1886 etc?

    I haven't really played any. I have watched Let's Plays of all 4 Uncharted games, and the Tomb Raider reboot, and found them interesting. The gameplay never looks that interesting to me so I can't tell what playing them myself, rather than watching them, would add. But, then, a lot of people say the same thing about the adventure games and walking sims I love, so whatevs.

  9. What do you think of South Park?

    It's trash.

  10. I don't really have a question. I just wanna say #IanLivetweetsHisHomework and #IanLivetweetsHisResearch are absolutely the best hashtags on Twitter.

    Especially when it's freudian-derived nonsense that I'm deeply thankful I don't have to read myself but is still interesting to hear about.

    Thanks. :)

  11. What do you think is one of/the big thing thing missing from most games discourse/discussions especially on YouTube/Twitter that's holding us back from better evaluating games and getting to caught up in bullshit and trivial evaluations?

    The kinds of analyses of games I want to see ARE being written and shared, so the problem I have with The Discourse is that so much more attention is paid to stuff that I don't think is interesting or useful.

    Obviously one of the biggest problems is demographics. Most of the complaints I could lodge against games culture could be solved by less homogeneity of voices. Too many straight white dudes relying on the same delivery methods.

    But, even among the straight white dudes, I would like to see us get past "consumer advocacy" as the default mode of criticism. I get a lot of comments below my gaming videos where people are confused as to whether or not I'm recommending the game, and I'm like, whether or not you should buy the game is the LEAST INTERESTING THING I could say about it! I think a lot of the gross tribalism and defensiveness among gamers is tied up in this idea that we are customers and the customer is always right. I would like to see us engage in games more as pieces of culture and less as products, and for us to expect more kinds of criticism than just product reviews.

  12. You are graduated in what?

    Like, I really appreciate your videos, and I think you approach things with some psychology base.

    Also, great content... again...

    I have a Bachelor's of Fine Arts in Interrelated Media.

    I spent a long, LONG time in art school, and have no formal training in psychology, sociology, or philosophy. All my experience with academia has been either self-taught or finding the good critical theory courses at my various colleges.

  13. Earlier, you mentioned disliking PTA's fixation with "asshole and his relationships", picking just two of his recent films as examples in addition to Phantom Thread. What are your thoughts on his films focusing on far more genial protagonists like Inherent Vice and Punch-Drunk Love, as well as a film of his with no clear protagonist, Magnolia? (and btw, which character were you referring to as an asshole in The Master: Joaquin Phoenix's or PSH's?)

    Anderson has always fixated on complex surrogate family relationships in unexpected settings, going all the way back to Hard Eight. What's changed over time is how monstrous the people at the center of those relationships are. His ensemble pieces - Boogie Nights and Magnolia - acquit themselves somewhat because the monstrous qualities are scattered across multiple characters, though Tom Cruise in Magnolia is exactly the kind of douchebag Anderson wants you to empathize with.

    I'd actually say Punch Drunk Love is the beginning of his protagonists becoming outright monsters. It pains me to say it, because I ADORE that movie, but it is so telling of how Anderson thinks of love that he romanticizes so many things that should be major red flags. Adam Sandler's character is exactly the kind of stunted rage case that will feel rescued by the love of a good woman right up until the moment the endorphins wear off, and as soon as his old habits kick in he will probably start beating his girlfriend because, damn it, it was her job to keep him from feeling this way. It's a movie that thinks telling your sister you're going to murder her if she doesn't give you a girl's phone number is standing up for yourself. Ugh.

    Anyway, I was referring to Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Master, but it would apply just as much to Phoenix.

  14. If you could transfer your brain to a robot body at the cost of all your senses except sight/sound and all the biological urges that give your life structure (sex, food, sleep, etc), would you?

    Today? Probably not. But ask me again when I'm 80, staring death in the face, and haven't enjoyed a meal, had a good night's sleep, or had sex in a decade.

  15. Did you ever play Curtain? The weird neon walking sim about dysfunctional Scottish lesbians that made the game blog rounds forever ago? I thought I remembered you making a “Thoughts On...” post for it but I can’t find it

    I didn't play that but it sounds awesome.

  16. I started reading The Authoritarians at the same time as you did and I was conflicted between feeling like what it described did accurately reflect my understanding of reactionary and authoritarian movements and being concerned about if Altemeyer's was scientifically rigorous (and if that even matters, if he's right)

    Did you find yourself thinking about this when you were reading his work?

    I'm no statistician, but he goes into the terms of the studies and shares a decent chunk of the math in the endnotes, and it seemed rigorous enough to me. He also points out that he has the broad agreement of the psychology community, and mentions by name the few people who have disagreed with him if you want to seek out dissenting opinions.

  17. What was the last AAA game you played? What was the last AAA game you really got excited about?

    Are Switch games considered AAA? I feel like I can't tell where the margins are anymore. If yes, then Breath of the Wild was the last one that jazzed me up, and Mario Odyssey is the one I'm playing now.

  18. What do you think about the Auteur Theory? I really hate how modern critics bash it and I also think that Pauline Kael's Circles and Square had really weak points.

    To love Kael is to disagree with her. She had a tendency to take a number of valid points and then take them a step too far. A healthy skepticism of Auteur Theory is sensible, as the auteurists made a lot of sweeping statements that ignore how collaborative film is and how stale many auteurs got over time. A wholesale rejection of Auteur Theory is a bit sweeping as well.

    Frankly, filmmaking means having a personal vision that you try to bring to the screen, and also means working in service of, and collaboration with, the script, the actors, the crew, and the producers. An auteur is someone who's primary focus and success is the first thing, a journeyman's primary focus and success is the second one, but every filmmaker is doing both, always. "Auteur" is just a useful term for the far end of the spectrum.

  19. Have you played What Remains of Edith Finch? Probably my GotY 2017 (though I haven't played Breath of the Wild or Odyssey).

    It's on my list of games to play.

  20. What are your general thoughts on AI and robots? Do you think they'll positively or negatively impact the economy; and if robots start taking over low end jobs, what do you think is the best solution for workers?

    I try not to make predictions, especially about something as fickle as technology. I remember too many thinkpieces about how Google Glass was going to shape the future. I can't say how AI and automation would change the work economy - outside of the trucking industry, it seems the jobs that are most likely to be automated have already been shipped overseas anyway - but since there are serious POTENTIAL consequences I think it's a good excuse for workers to prepare for them. If we anticipate the AI revolution by unionizing and demanding universal basic income and then it never comes, I'm not seeing a downside.

  21. What should I play first, Iconoclasts or Celeste?

    It doesn't matter which you play first, just play them both and play them now.

  22. Do you ever use public-transport? And if so, what is your biggest pet peeve?

    My mind says the failure of cities to pay for transit infrastructure, throwing our tax money at failed highway construction projects or just dropping taxes for the wealthy and leaving us with a train system that keeps getting both worse and more expensive, like seriously Boston how do you have money to pay for The Big Dig but somehow every winter your trains break down because you have no reliable method for cleaning large amounts of snow off the tracks and have to borrow track-cleaning machines from New York, climate change is real and this is only going to get worse and the people who can least afford to be late are the ones who can also least afford your fare hikes, can you please just put my taxes into something that actually makes my life easier?

    But my heart says bus drivers who pump the brakes too hard.

  23. What is your opinion of Israel/Palestine?

    I oppose the occupation of Gaza and support a two-state solution, but have not researched the situation thoroughly enough to offer a more complex or constructive opinion.

  24. Favourite bad movie? Good movie you just couldn't get into?

    Feel free to swap with other media if they give more interesting answers.

    Gonna swap media and admit that I could never get into Undertale, and, despite featuring all the flaws that make me dislike the rest of their music, I unironically love Clarity by Jimmy Eat World.

  25. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

    It doesn't work when I can see the thumbnail, friendo.

  26. Sincere question about Three Billboards because I don't know anyone I can really talk to about this.

    (Potential spoilers) I agree with a lot of the criticisms and the racist history of Dixon should have gotten more treatment. But I don't know if I agree that Dixon gets a redemption arc and thus excuses that character's racism? He doesn't get his job back. He's not in any better social standings than before. And ultimately his arc happened because the one white guy he respected (emphasis on White and Guy) told him to maybe stop being an asshole which I found to be generally pretty realistic. People don't potentially change when people they don't respect (in Dixon's case minorities) call them out but they could potentially change if the people they respect do.

    I saw Dixon's arc as a racist chauvinist who at the end realizes he's actually not the good guy because that's how he thought of himself basically the entire movie. Even when he's given the opportunity to do something good towards the end, he gives something up (getting beat) and realizes how people of his type (the rapist who beats him up) treats those they don't respect.

    I thought that's a more interesting way to develop that character than to make it unambiguous by, say hypothetically, turn him into a KKK member and have Denise shoot him because he's a bad person and a racist and that's that.

    Am I wrong?

    You're not wrong, I wouldn't say, but I feel you're missing the main point about audience identification. Dixon doesn't get a redemption arc in the sense that he regains his job and earns the respect of his community (though he does get a pat on the back from the cop who fired him), but he is redeemed in the eyes of the audience by becoming a point of identification. He goes from being an obstacle to a person we care about; getting his ass beat while trying to do the right thing is a pretty classic screenwriting trick for humanizing a character.

    I think we can argue, at best, that Dixon's arc is a somewhat more nuanced version of a lot of the same old screenwriting problems. If we wanted to actually engage with the complexity of a racist cop trying to become a better man, we might have given more than a handful of lines to Black characters.

    For me, I feel the thing that gets missed is that the movie does make some commentary on the whole idea of a redemption arc, and on the idea of the crusade to achieve justice. It's a movie about what happens when justice doesn't come, but you NEED it? Mildred targets Willoughby because she NEEDS someone to blame, even though he's doing all he can. Dixon targets the rapist in the bar because he NEEDS to redeem himself, but the guy isn't the actual perpetrator. Mildred teams up with Dixon not because he's become a better man but because she NEEDS an ally, and they both go off to (maybe) kill the guy from the bar because they NEED someone, anyone, to pay.

    Everyone's trying to create the justice they see on TV in a world that simply won't provide it, and they're all settling for messy, petty revenge as the next best thing.

    I still think it was largely the wrong way to go about this theme, for all the reasons people have expressed (seriously, a movie about how cops fail to provide justice that's all about white people?), but it is too bad that some complexity gets shaved off in the discussion.

  27. What’s your plan to prevent the heat death of the universe?

    Positive thinking.

  28. Whats the tastiest carrot you ever ate?

    ...are you asking the carrot's name?

  29. What did you think of Fight Club, especially the twist (did you figure that one out too?), and have you ever watched any found footage movie you enjoyed?

    I was in high school at the time, but I remember thinking "something is going on here" about midway through the movie. It's not the kind of twist a reasonable person would see coming, though. Fight Club is a movie I adored when I was 16 and have had more and more problems with as I get older, but none are to do with the twist.

    As for found footage (I think we talked about this on Twitter), most found footage movies are horror films and I don't watch many of those. I thought Chronicle was pretty good, though it probably would've been stronger without the found footage gimmick.

  30. Generally, do you like Nolan?

    Kiiiiiiiiiiind of?

    I can't deny he's, in many ways, brilliantly talented. Memento is still one of my favorite movies, but, even there, you can see some of his worst tendencies slipping in (he only needs one twist to make his point but he can't resist adding a second twist that accomplishes little and strains credibility). He also has no talent for directing action so I really wish he'd stop making action movies.

  31. What’s a good book on film theory? Been trying to better understand films.

    Cinema Studies: Key Concepts by Susan Hayward is the best place to start for a broad overview.

  32. Expand on Cloverfield plz

    I could list my grievances but they're all variations on, Am I really supposed to believe that all the major events involving this monster happened to be caught on tape by the same dickhead who refuses to put down his camera, and am I really supposed to think it's clever rather than half-assed that they don't explain anything about the monster in the whole movie, and am I really supposed to care about any of these assholes?

    Not disparaging anyone who enjoyed Cloverfield in spite of these things, I just felt the movie didn't think much of its audience.

  33. Terrence Malick: yay or nay?

    Never made it through a whole Malick.

  34. How would you rank this year's Best Picture nominees?

    Ranked:

    1. Get Out - if this movie won Best Picture I would be floored but they gave Best Picture to Moonlight last year and I don't think they can be not-racist twice in a row.

    2. The Shape of Water - I might write something someday about how Guillermo del Toro has remade The Devil's Backbone three times in different genres and I've loved it each time, but The Shape of Water is not my favorite version.

    3. Three Billboards - Liked it when I saw it, opinion has deflated since, I think some of its nuance is being lost in the criticisms, but I also agree with all the criticisms.

    4. Dunkirk - People keep calling Nolan's ticks part of his genius but I think they get in the way of him just telling the damn story.

    5. Phantom Thread - I do not get what the hubbub is about. It's very handsomely made, but I'm tired of Anderson's fixations. There Will Be Blood is ostensibly about capitalism but is actually about an asshole and his relationships. The Master is ostensibly about Scientology but it's actually about an asshole and his relationships. And Phantom Thread is ostensibly about romance amid 50's high fashion, but guess what it's actually about? Ending didn't redeem it for me, I actually think it makes it uglier.

    6. Lady Bird - Haven't seen it, but I want to.

    7. Call Me By Your Name - Haven't seen it, but I want to.

    8. Darkest Hour - Haven't seen it but I might, someday, when it's streaming somewhere for free, maybe?

    9. The Post - Haven't seen it, don't care.

  35. What music have you listened to recently?

    What's your favourite holiday destination?

    What's the most recent thing that's made you happy?

    My music habit for years was built around listening to music during my commute. Working from home, my music habit has kind of fallen off. (Ditto my reading habit.) The most recent album I really got into was Spectra by Chipzel: http://chipzel.co.uk/album/spectra

    I can't afford vacations. The only place I go for the holidays is California to visit my mom, and I don't make it every year. Once in high school we did Christmas in Florida because my sister was working there and didn't have enough vacation time to come to us. Florida was cool.

    I just rewatched The Last Jedi earlier today, and while I wouldn't call it a "happy" movie, it is everything I wanted from a new Star Wars and it makes me so happy that it exists.

  36. Recently, I've become more engrossed with learning about game design as a thoughtful and creative experience (despite having no experience or leaning towards computer coding) and I love your videos. So I wanted to know what'd be the proper way to possibly and maybe eventually integrate my yearning to write into a different industry (video games) that nevertheless always has a lot of potential when it comes to telling a good story? And I also want to ask, how do game designers in general feel about collaboration with people outside of the industry such as writers?

    I'm not in the industry, but I've talked to some devs about it. The less money a project has, the more willing they are to work with green talent, I've found. And if you want to get into game writing, the first thing you should do is make something very, very simple on your own. Make a little Twine game and post a link to it when applying for a game writing gig. Hell, I know a guy who wrote a Choose Your Own Adventure in Google Polls as an audition piece. There's a lot you can do with narrative without coding anything.

  37. What is the worst film you ever saw?!

    Nothing you see in theaters can approach the lows of being a Media Arts major and having to watch pretentious student work. So I'll just share some bad moviegoing experiences:

    I figured out both twists in The Prestige halfway through the movie. All the scenes that are carefully written to seem like people are about one thing and you're supposed to realize they're talking about another the second time you see it? Those were really obvious and corny. And now I've had to listen to every film critic talk about the movie's "brilliant" sleight-of-hand for over a decade.

    I've fallen asleep during Big Fish twice. The first time was in the theater. Never made it through the whole thing.

    I saw Attack of the Clones on opening night in a packed auditorium full of Star Wars fans. I think I was the only person in the theater who didn't like it. When we left, there was a line out the door for the next showing, and someone asked, "Was it it sick?" I said, "Don't ask me," and walked away while he said "It WASN'T?!?!" My ride home was a car packed with people talking about how badass it was watching Yoda do flips. No movie had ever made me so depressed.

    Cloverfield is the most I think I've ever felt a movie insulted my intelligence.

    The way I saw Mulholland Drive was with a friend's insistence. He couldn't really remember how it ended, but swore up and down that it all made sense in the end. This is the worst possible way to watch Mulholland Drive. (Also it was the middle of the night and I'd been eating these sugar-free gummy candies all evening that my friend had in the house and they gave me horrible intestinal problems.)

  38. What’s a song you’ve always wanted to see used in a combo video that you never have?

    I desperately want to make a Smash Sisters combo video set to this song.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q25VFMlbSYw

  39. I'm noticing some of your political criticisms can follow two characteristics. When talking about the right, your criticisms essentially "these peoples' core beliefs are a threat to the good of humanity" and when talking about the left (or rather certain minorities within the left) it boils down to "some of these folks might take to a place I don't think is productive" or "I personally wouldn't do this."

    Do you believe that the left is, basically at it's core, inherently right and the right is inherently wrong?

    I try not to think of either party as "inherently" anything; political realignments happen, fundamentals shift, party's change. A political party is a tool for getting certain things accomplished.

    I consider myself a progressive. I have a lot of problems with the Democratic Party, but, if I want to achieve anything progressive, they are the unequivocally the only party I can work with. When Republicans hold power, most of our work is damage control, and anything we achieve is in spite of them.

    In this country, bigots and authoritarians are also vying for power. And, for them, the Republican Party is unequivocally the best party to work with. I don't know why it's the case in most countries that fascism finds purchase with conservatives, but that tends to be what happens. Democrats are not immune to authoritarian thinking, but authoritarians get more bang for their buck with Republicans.

  40. So to that end how do you feel about Leff’s admitedly churlish “hbox is killing melee” attitude? Is it fair to say his style is unhealthy for the game because its not fun to spectate or play against? That he forces Fox out of players who don’t otherwise play Fox (armada, Plup, even Axe was forced to try Yung Link) is odd as both a player and a spectator. Was curious about your take. Esp in light of Leffen and his little tantrum at G5

    Well, Leffen's tantrum is at least partly to do with his apparent crusade to insist to the world that HBox is an asshole in person? Nothing I've heard implies that he's damaging the community, it's just "was rude to a fan" shit, so even if it's true I don't know why it's my business. But anyway.

    There is nothing HBox could ever do to kill Melee. There was a point in last year's EVO where the Melee stream cut out for about 15-20 minutes, and during that time there were more people watching a blank screen waiting for Melee to come back than were watching Grand Finals of Guilty Gear on the other stream. That's how many people spectate Melee. It's not going anywhere.

  41. How do you feel about amsa's gradual rise?

    I think my love for aMSa has been demonstrated.

  42. How happy are you that Plup saved Melee?

    Here's what's interesting to me about Plup:

    Azen's time came and went. Ken's time came and went. PC Chris' time came and went. KoreanDJ's time came and went. Either their skills waned or they plateaued while everyone else got better around them.

    The thing about the Five Gods? NO ONE IS GOING ANYWHERE. Leffen and now Plup have entered the Pantheon of Godhood, but no one is falling OUT of the Pantheon. The only one of the Five to have disappeared is PPMD, and it wasn't because he fell off, he left because of a medical condition, at a time when he was vying for best in the world. He's still promising to come back!

    I don't know if this is because the meta hasn't changed as much in the last ten years as it did in the ten before, or that how big Smash has gotten means the Gods can afford to keep optimizing because Smash is a valid career path now, or what.

    So, in answer to your question, I was very happy to see Plup finally achieve what so few have (and taking out Armada at Genesis 5 3-0 with a LIGHTNING KICK), and, yes, I know that "save Melee" pretty much just means "beat Hungrybox," which, whatever. But, honestly, I don't know if it changes much? One more God isn't that much of a shakeup, and it makes me wonder what the future of Melee is. A slowly increasing number of greats with a gradual shuffling around of who's on top? Or will people still rise and fall, just on a much longer timeline?

    Or will PPMD come back and body everyone so hard all the Gods retire? Time will tell!

  43. If a movie theater let you run a double feature a day for a week, what movies would you want to play together?

    I'd spend 5 days working through The Dekalog and then spend the weekend on the Cornetto Trilogy and Baby Driver.

  44. Do you believe in the 20GX dream?

    If the dream is just Falcon winning a major, then yes! But if the dream is that the 20GX crew will be the ones do it? Well, let me tell you what I loved about Lord:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4Nog8uSAfo

    Watching this set is where I realized something about Lord's play style, and why I thought for a minute he'd be The Next Big Thing. We tend to think of Falcons as being in two camps, the West Coast style of Isai, SilentSpectre, and the Norwalk boys - which is very flash, very read- and punish-heavy - and the 20GX style - which is very optimized, more about reactions, option coverage, and chain-throws.

    What I realized watching this set is that Lord is 20GX on offense and West Coast on defense. Optimal when going for the stock, flashy and unpredictable when trying to interrupt a combo.

    Now, unless something changes, Lord isn't going to be the Next Big Thing because he's not really trying to be. But the two best Falcons in the world - S2J and Wizzrobe - are starting to mix the two styles together. Wizzy's only doing it a bit, throwing in a few more reads here and there, but you see S2J picking up a lot from both the 20GX crew AND even flashier, even more read-heavy Falcons like n0ne.

    If Falcon's ever going to win a major, I think THAT'S the way he's going to do it.

  45. As a fan of narrative focused games, are there any visual novels you particularly like?

    I think the only VNs I've played all the way through are Digital: A Love Story, Snatcher, Read Only Memories, and Dream Daddy. They're all good, though.

  46. How would you rate Falcon’s Peach and Puff matchups?

    I think, in theory, Falcon beats both Peach and Puff, but realistically when we talk about Peach and Puff we're really talking about Armada and Hungrybox, and Falcon mains DO NOT beat Armada and Hungrybox.

    I will say, both S2J and Wizzy have come close to taking sets off Armada, and until a few months ago "close" was the best anyone outside of the Big Six could do. As for Hbox, everyone resorts to Fox for that matchup, and that seems like a dead end. Hbox's Top 8 at every tournament is an unbroken series of Fox/Puff matchups, and he's getting a lot more practice optimizing his end of that fight than any of the Foxes are. I think, if people want to take Hbox's crown, they're going to have to look beyond Fox, and Wizzrobe has shown that 20GX Falcon's are a threat.

    Honestly, I can't speak to the metagame as well as players, commentators, and Tafokints can, so to some extent this is just me saying what I WANT to be true, but deep down I hope that the dominance of Hungrybox and Armada makes Falcon more viable, because I love him so.

  47. When you put it that way (about communities and exclusion), I think it's valid, and I do agree. My line of thinking was that passive transphobia can escalate if people are excluded by defacto, even if they aren't hostile, and due to the fact that it hasn't progressed to hateful reactionarism yet, it might be more productive to try and educate them instead of labeling and excluding them immediately. As for me drawing out the distinction between hateful and ignorant people, I wasn't implying that it's unfair or hard for them, only that it's potentially harmful to the cause in the long run to exclude them instead of trying to educate them first. Lastly, I don't think "making community members sacrificial lambs" is a fair way to word my proposition. What I brought up was the prospect of not dividing already existing groups, not injecting trans people into negative communities (the implication of "sacrificial lambs", as I understand it).

    All that being said, I do sympathize with your point of view now. Thank you for your thoughtful replies.

    I think it's still appropriate to remove those folks from the group for the sake of the marginalized, but I do think some nuance is good. Exclusion from the group doesn't have to mean everyone in the group stops communicating with them, and if that's the way a community is going, it's worth it to push against it. If you think someone can be reasoned with, keep talking to them. Reason with them. Let them know re-admission to the community is possible if they can understand this core value, and encourage your community to welcome them back if they can show growth.

    I would say to just center the needs of the marginalized. If you're going to bring a once homophobic person back in, it's the queer people who have to be convinced that they get it now. And if they can't come back, well, keep talking to them and maybe they can be of use in another community where they didn't burn a bridge.

  48. This is something that a lot of people don't really talk about and I'm curious to know your thoughts on this. Why is conservatism in Europe(mostly Western Europe) so different and more moderate compared to American conservatism? I noticed that European conservatives tend to be more open to change and are willing to work with left wing parties. Why do you think this is the cause and when do you think America will start acting more like Europe?

    Well, here in the States, the particular flavor of racist, sexist, classist, and authoritarian conservatism is pretty tied up in the history of US racism. I can't speak much to how things are in Europe (though between Brexit and Le Pen I'm not sure European conservatism is doing so hot, either), but, in the US, a Democrat pulled us out of the Great Depression and, for 30-odd years, Democrats basically owned Congress. But when Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and Goldwater ran against him on a segregationist ticket, suddenly racism was a partisan issue. The Republican Party regrew its base by siphoning white voters out of the Democratic Party; they did the same with sexists and homophobes during the Gay Rights and Women's Lib movements of the 60's and 70's.

    Basically, the Republican Party came back to power by becoming the party for disgruntled privilege, and the Democrats have become the de facto party against that (not that they're particularly cut out for the task). This has nothing to do, really, with traditional conservative or liberal beliefs; nothing to do with the size of the government or how much money should be collected. It's jut a party being out of power for a long time and appealing to bigotry and small-mindedness to gain it back.

    So maybe in countries that don't have the fucked up relationship American whites have to the history of US slavery, that is less of an issue?

  49. Plup club?

    Hfam

  51. Having grown up in a conservative area I probably unquestioningly absorbed and internalized a lot of propaganda regarding the Iraq war and the Bush administration. This, despite teenage me's best effort to remain willfully ignorant and apolitical. What's the best primer for post 9/11 politics from a leftist perspective?

    It's really hard to recommend a primer because I grew up in California with liberal parents. When 9/11 happened, I didn't need a primer. So I can recommend primers on specific subjects - A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby K. Payne for financial precarity, Don't Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff for countering conservative rhetoric, Republic Lost by Lawrence Lessig for campaign finance - but I've never needed to read a general introduction to leftist politics.

    Unless you mean, like, LEFTIST-leftist, in which case (though it's hardly post-9/11) The Lion and the Unicorn by George Orwell.

  52. Which two thirds of the Cornetto trilogy?

    I love Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

  53. Sometimes I wish I was a FISH MAN so that great fire could come out of my gills but then other times I wish I was brave enough to own a 1970s Volkswagen Passat like the one my parents owned when I was born so I could stick a rollcage in it and a racing seat with a very safe harness and nets and stuff and drive around in it while wearing a helmet and a HANS device for added safety and then rock up one day at Brands and go as fast as I can down Paddock Hill and then probably get a lot of gravel underneath me but hopefully I wont wind up like Timo when Marcus went over the pin because that would be painful and bad but instead I want to feel like I am a bee flying through the air except on the ground, but I can't risk going up north and embarrassing myself with my southerner accent which would get me very judged because they don't like us (and with food reason), so instead I will not visit the excruciatingly narrow park (I am also worried it would be claustrophobic, like Squidward) and instead I will become the one who phones a friend like on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and with that friend I shall visit Germany (I went there once before and it reminded me of Sonic 06 which seems offensive but at the same time the architecture was notable), and we shall not be FISH MEN, but instead we shall be MAMMAL MEN, unless she is a woman.

    Should I take my meds or swallow a tree?

    I worry that taking my meds will just make me feel more manic.

    I, too, enjoyed The Shape Of Water.

  54. Do you like Deerhoof?

    I saw them open for Radiohead once, but I only remember the Panda Panda Panda song.

  55. Do you like Aphex Twin?

    Yes.

  56. Do you have right wing friends or friends who are right leaning?

    Not anymore.

  57. What are you favourite films/who are your favourite filmmakers? Are there any you'd recommend for fans of your content?

    Brick
    Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
    Hedwig & The Angry Inch
    Tokyo Godfathers
    Mad Max: Fury Road
    Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
    The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
    Moon
    Out of Sight
    Six Degrees of Separation
    Margaret
    Three Kings
    The Talented Mr. Ripley
    This Must Be The Place
    Chopper
    Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke
    Snowpiercer
    The Handmaiden
    Brazil
    Primer
    The City of Lost Children
    Wall-E
    Pan's Labyrinth
    2/3 of the Cornetto Trilogy
    Most things by Don Hertzfeldt

    I'm really unnerved that this whole list is male directors, most of them white. That is a problem I should address.

  58. Gran Turismo is actually so damn wholesome if one thinks about it. There's no crash damage in it because the guy who created it is scared of car crashes I think (totally reasonable), and all the menu music is pleasant, listenable, smooth jazz; and one of the tracks has the Loch Ness Monster and a monkey.

    What other games are surprisingly wholesome?

    Dropsy is the most wholesome game I've ever played.

  59. Your answer about ideologies is fundamentally wrong, because "ideology" is a concept and as any concept it works when most people agree on it's definition and the most common definition of "ideology" is that it's a system of ideas. And system by definition can't consist of one part. So your answer about single ideas like "murder is wrong" is not an ideology, it's just a one idea and one idea is not an ideology. Please respond.

    OK, you can see how I'm using "murder is wrong" as a shorthand for the larger system of morality that assumes human life has value and should be protected, which *is* an ideology, and my larger point stands.

  60. Want to netplay with one of your viewers? Admittedly I'm a sterotypical 19 y/o fox main but I'm working on a ness secondary

    Ha, thanks, but I'm not looking to get my ass handed to me by a 19-year-old. :)

  61. Do you have an opinion on audio dramas and their recent slight bump in visibility and popularity? Special and unique storytelling medium? Redundant and obsolete to Film/TV?

    Uh.

    ...

    I liked the tape that came with LOOM.

  63. Speaking of Smash, do you play or follow Project M at all?

    I don't follow it, but I've played it. I dunno, it seems their solution to "Fox is OP" was "now everyone is OP," which isn't quite my speed.

  64. Do you think that the people who railed against Anita sarkeesian will ever come round and apologize for it all? Like ever own up to their mistakes regarding their behaviour? I worry that we're always going to have the same gamergate crowd for decades :(

    Some of them may come around. More of them will exit the game without admitting fault. Some we are stuck with until someone takes away their microphones. I think very few will ever apologize.

  65. Flipping your previous questions on whether sports can be art. Do you believe ANYTHING can be a sport? There's a lot of debate amongst sports fans about what "is" or "isn't" a sport. The most obvious being Poker, eSports, and Fishing as things that ESPN broadcasts but many feel shouldn't be called a "sport". What are your feelings on that? Do you think anything can literally be a sport? What separates "sport" from "leisure" from "activity" from "art" from "games"?

    Heh, I think at that point it's not worth getting hung up on labels. Whenever you come up with a definition, you are going to create edge-cases. I think sometimes about whether or not the publishing of Kurt Cobain's journals make them art. If the person writing it didn't think he was making art, and no one was intended to read it, then is it? If people consume it now the way they would consume any other work of written art, then is it art? When did it become art? Who is the artist, Cobain or the publisher? I think these questions are interesting, but I don't think they're going to change the definition of art; it's an edge-case.

    I think we can generally agree on things that are sports (e.g. football) and on things that are not (e.g. me in bed in my PJ's answering this question), so having a label is useful. But there probably isn't a hard line between sport, leisure, activity, art, or game, and the stuff in the grey areas is going to raise interesting questions. I think that's just part of labeling stuff.

  66. Have you ever designed a game, or thought about designing a game yourself?

    I think about it constantly, have several specific games I want to make, and have tried several times. One day.

  67. Thoughts on the rest of Park Chan-Wook's filmography?

    I've only seen The Handmaiden and Oldboy. I think he's an excellent filmmaker, though I sometimes question his decisions as a screenwriter. (That said, I'm starting to wonder if my Western perspective is the wrong one for evaluating his work.)

  68. Hey, you got a curiouscat, congrats! Anyway, onto the question.

    Do you have any favorite video and/or written essays that you'd recommend to anyone looking to get into games criticism?

    Tom Bissell's essay on L.A. Noire (http://grantland.com/features/la-noire/) and Chris Franklin's video on Bioshock Infinite (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ2cSKBFBDQ) are, in many ways, the reasons I got into this business.

  69. Do you think any ideology can be harmful in many ways? Ideology is not interested in empirical truth and facts. Isn't it better not to adhere to some ideology, but to think beyond ideological constructs?
    To put it simply, to prefer philosophy over ideology. Because in the end ideology is just a set of beliefs and ideas(which rarely are factually true) to control people.

    Living free of ideology is neither possible nor desirable.

    The belief that murder is wrong is an ideology. The belief that slaves should be freed is an ideology. The belief that humans have rights is an ideology.

  70. Who are your favourite Melee players outside top 6? And why is it n0ne?

    My heart belongs to Jeapie.

  71. As a follow up to your question "if athletes started thinking of sports as an expressive art form, would they play differently?" I'd perhaps like to bring up the subject of drifting.

    Drifting is completely different from other forms of motorsport in that the aim is not to drive fast or consistently, but instead spectacularly.

    Similar to diving, gymnastics, or figure skating in many ways. But what is interesting is how it developed.

    One of Japan's top circuit racers got bored of merely going fast and wanted to drive in a more aesthetically focused fashion, eventually essentially abandoning traditional tin-top racing and creating a whole new sport in the process.

    The thing is though, to many, myself admittedly included, there is arguably more aesthetic appeal in the accidental beauty, so perfectly exemplified in 1990s touring cars, that in contrast the delibrate artistry of drifting somehow seems fake.

    Perhaps the real question should be "can delibrate artistry detract from aesthetic appeal?"

    Would knowing that Slartibartfast actually won an award for designing the Norwegian coastline somehow detract from the beauty we see created by millenia of erosion and geological activity?

    This is sort of like the question of which is more beautiful, a photograph of a landscape or the landscape itself? Myself, I don't have trouble appreciating both accidental and deliberate aesthetics. A photograph can never fully replicate seeing a landscape for yourself. But what's interesting about the photograph is that it's the landscape after it's passed through someone's mind. What did it pick up along the way? Why did the artist choose this angle, this time of day, this landscape? What did they want me to see? If I come up with interesting answers, I find these questions immensely satisfying.

    This is not to rebut you - appreciating the unintentional is a wonderful thing! But I enjoy both rather a lot.

  72. I want to know your opinion of Breath of the Wild, if it hasn't been asked before. Myself, I think it's overrated and it isn't what I think a Zelda game should be, but I'm curious to know what you think.

    I loved it.

  73. What did you think of Life is Strange: Before the Storm, if you've played it?

    Still waiting either for it to come out on a platform I own or for me to get a decent PC that can actually run games.

  74. Watching your "things of beauty" video on Melee made me think of the sheer aesthetic appeal I get from watching this:

    https://youtu.be/qA2P0tiQJdM

    I don't know if it's something you get at all, but do you think there is really any true division between sport and art?

    Something I poke at in both The Artist is Absent and Tomatoes is the idea of art as a certain type of conversation between creator and audience. One of the points made by Duchamp's Fountain (intentional or not) is the idea that a urinal in an art gallery and a urinal in a men's room are identical in construction, but one is art and one is not. The difference is context: a urinal in a gallery provokes a different conversation than a urinal on a bathroom wall.

    When I argue that "nothing can't be art," I mean that literally ANYTHING can be put in an artistic context and create that conversation. So the only reason I would say "I don't think sports are art" is because I think, by and large, neither the people performing the sport nor the people experiencing it are thinking of it as art, and so they don't have that conversation. There's really nothing stopping them from having it, it's just not the context we have created.

    So: sports CAN be art, but I don't think most people are experiencing it that way.

    It does lead me to wonder: if athletes started thinking of sports as an expressive art form, would they play differently?

  75. What's the story behind your "ass danced off by danskin" video? It's funny how you have all these thoughtful, analytical video essays and then this one goofy, albeit well edited, dance video on your channel. Was it just a one-off student film or do you have a hidden passion for dancing? Cheers!

    I was hoping to just put all kinds of video projects up on my YouTube channel, so before I uploaded This Is Phil Fish I threw up my favorite video project I'd done at my old college. I figured there'd be more goofy project like that down the line, but TIPF blew up so dramatically, and I started putting so much focus on video essays, that now doing anything else would seem very incongruous. I've considered making a second channel for projects like that, but there's no way to migrate the Ass Dance Off without losing all the comments and analytics, so it just kind of stays there as this weird glimpse of what the channel might have been. Could still make a second channel if I ever find time to make goofy projects.

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