The Very Worst Part Of You Is Me.

[rionaleonhart]

I saw Star Wars: The Last Jedi recently, some months after everyone else. I don't have any massive investment in Star Wars, so I wasn't particularly expecting it to catch my attention.

I hadn't realised it had a Sense8 plot! Combined with one of my favourite things in fiction: two people, at odds, forced to interact and therefore beginning to understand each other. OH NO.

The film really needed to give that subplot more space to breathe, more interaction for them to warm up to each other slowly. Which is what fanfiction is for, of course. But I don't know the Star Wars universe well! And I don't think I'd be able to write either Rey or Kylo Ren! So I can't write fanfiction expanding on their remote, reluctant interactions! How dare you do this to me, Star Wars?


There's a bit in NieR: Automata where you're adjusting the game settings, and 9S mentions that the process is being recorded for posterity. I thought it was just a line of worldbuilding dialogue, but he's not kidding; you end up watching the recording later on! A weird, cool insight into the mind of my past self. I could see that, after changing the voice volume, I paused for a moment before choosing 'there's something calming about your voice, 9S' over the standard 'yes, I can hear you.' I could see that I dropped the music volume a couple of notches and then turned it back up, but I don't know why; maybe I was trying to see whether 9S would react to it?

I'm amused by the tales online of people who wandered off to make a sandwich during the original scene and were then stuck watching the recording for ages.

NieR: Automata is still a very strange, unsettling game. But it's got a lot of cute detail. And a lot of strange features. You can get a game-over from the menu screen.

Comments

[wolfy_writing]

That game sounds like some sort of psychology experiment, almost.

[rionaleonhart]

There are definitely parts where it might be interesting to have statistics on players' reactions. I'm particularly interested in how people respond to the non-hostile 'enemies' throwing confetti in the amusement park. How many people leave them alone? How many people attack them, not realising they're not hostile, because they're videogame enemies and that's what you do? How many people realise they're not hostile and attack them anyway?

[wolfy_writing]

Yeah, that would say something fascinating about people and behavioral habits! (Which one did you do?)

[rionaleonhart]

I didn't attack them! I went 'aww, cute, they're just flinging confetti around, I'm going to feel really bad when they attack me and I have to destroy them,' so I approached slowly, and I was delighted when I realised they didn't want to attack me at all. (I'd already become slightly reluctant to attack because some earlier enemies went 'oh no! scary! run away!' when they saw me.)

[wolfy_writing]

Aw, nice!

[dracothelizard]

I wrote one or two Star Wars fanfics and I used Wookieepedia for all the stuff I didn't know, like the flora and fauna of Dagobah: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dagobah

And lots of other stuff!

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you for the resource! I'm still not sure how well I'd be able to write the characters involved, but I suppose I could rewatch the relevant parts of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi if I decide I'm serious about this.

[dracothelizard]

You could probably also handwave some stuff 'because of the Force'? I don't know. But the pages for Kylo and Rey might have more background info too!