Trabia Garden

Once again, having watched a performance of The Book of Mormon, I've been unable to think about anything else for the entire following day. Here's a post of brief notes about the musical (let's be honest, mainly about best boy Kevin Price) to get some of these thoughts out of my head.

- This show is ridiculous, but it has just enough sincerity to work. It's really important to have that first night at the mission, when Elder Price finally sees Elder Cunningham as a person, rather than an inconvenience, and tries to comfort him.

- I love Elder Price's incredibly high-energy, showy, over-the-top performance of 'All-American Prophet'. At one point he moonwalked across the stage and got a cheer from the audience.

- Elder Price's smile is disconcertingly radiant. This may be more Dom Simpson than the character, I suppose, but it very much fits the character to have a smile that's perfect to the point of being unsettling.

- 'Heavenly Father, why do you let bad things happen? More to the point, why do you let bad things happen to me?' remains one of my favourite lines in the entire musical. God, I love Kevin Price in all his self-absorbed glory.

- Leanne Robinson was great as Nabulungi, and her delivery of 'I hope he gets to baptising me soon' brought the house down. Actually, there's a video of her performing 'Baptise Me' here! (NB: one of the comments is 'This has to be the most blasphemous thing I have ever seen. I pray for every one of your souls that watched this without being convicted of its demonic agenda', which is very funny but does also remind me I should mention that this song is pretty blasphemous, if that's a concern.) It was a great cast all around, really, even if my focus is biased by the fact that one of the characters hits all my weaknesses. Speaking of which, your brief reprieve from hearing me ramble about Kevin Price is now over.

- Elder Price's faith as a Mormon is so tied up with his faith in himself as the Most Special Person. He can't believe in one without the other; when he loses faith in one, he loses faith in both. If God exists, Elder Price also has to be destined to impress him. (I love his declaration that he'll 'do something incredible that blows God's freaking mind'. I'm fonder of this kid with every reminder of how self-obsessed he is.)

- When Elder Price returned to the mission after losing his faith, dishevelled and disillusioned, Elder McKinley fixed his tie for him, which was a cute little detail. I don't remember that in the 2019 performance, although it's possible I just didn't catch it.

- Elder Price telling Hitler and Genghis Khan 'I left my companion; I'm way worse than you'! Kevin Price: an overachiever even when it comes to hating himself. He always has to be the top at everything, so, if he does something bad, it can't just be bad; it has to be the worst.

- Relatedly, you should never play competitive games with Kevin Price, because there's no way he isn't a sore loser. He always strives to be polite, so he'll try very hard to be gracious, but he will absolutely seethe internally. You'll play Mario Kart against him, and he'll go 'oh, ha ha, hey, I lost again, what are the odds?' while gripping the controller hard enough to damage it.

I don't think I'm going to start writing fanfiction for this musical again, because I don't have any ideas, but we all know what happens when I say that.

At one point in Bravely Second, you fight an evil baker. Most of his moves involve quickly whipping up a poisoned cake and throwing it into your face.

Prior to the fight, Tiz ate a tart that Evil Baker had made. Tiz rhapsodised about how delicious the tart was and then turned into a ghost. He didn't die, note. He just turned into a ghost. We cured him of his ghosthood by throwing a bucket of hot water over him.

VIDEOGAMES.


Last night, I dreamt that the Frye twins of Assassin's Creed: Syndicate were the protagonists of Supernatural, rather than the Winchester brothers. I sort of feel this crossover needs to exist. One night, Evie hears someone moving around in the home she shares with Henry. She goes to accost the intruder; it's Jacob; she goes 'what on Earth are you doing in India?'; he goes 'EVIE COME AND FIGHT GHOSTS WITH ME :D'.

Frederick Abberline plays the role of the well-meaning police officer who’s pursuing the Frye twins, having concluded, entirely reasonably, that they’re responsible for the mysterious killings that crop up wherever they go. (Possibly having concluded entirely correctly. I'm not sure whether the Fryes are still assassins in this universe.) Jacob likes to tease him by leaving little notes and clues behind. Possibly the notes end up becoming oddly flirty.

Poor Abberline. He’s anxious enough as it is without a serial killer developing a weird fondness for him.


On an entirely different note, here is an extraordinary WikiHow article: How to Pretend to Have Ice Powers. Some of my favourite lines:

This article will help you convince others that you have ice powers.

Have some winter jewelry like snowflake charms or other wintry patterns. You can wear necklaces, earrings, rings, bracelets, bows, or anything else that strikes your fancy - but take it easy; don't wear all these things at the same time or you'll look like you're trying too hard and people will be suspicious.

If you don't have blue eyes, get blue eye contacts. Every person with ice powers has blue eyes. They should be bright blue or ice blue, and if possible, they should have a snowflake pattern in the iris to be even more believable.

Wear summer clothes in the winter. If you do, it'll look like the snow or cold doesn't affect you, which is true of people with ice powers. Just make sure you're not shivering all the time - then, people will notice.

Pay attention to wintry topics in others' conversations. Act aware whenever you hear someone say "winter" or "snow" or something like that.

Whenever you watch a movie where someone has ice powers, take a small glance at your hands for a second.

So now you know! Use your new ice powers responsibly, guys.

I'd completely forgotten everything that happened in 'The Song Remains the Same'. On rewatch, I have no idea how I managed to forget, because that episode is everything I ever wanted. I'm so glad there's a time-travel episode in which Sam gets to come along! His awed, heartbroken 'you're so beautiful' absolutely tears me to pieces.

I think I was drifting away from Supernatural when I first watched the fifth season, which may explain why I don't remember it very well. But I'm still not sure how I forgot an episode that contained TIME TRAVEL and MARY WINCHESTER and SAM ON THE VERGE OF TEARS, all of which are firmly amongst my favourite things.

The fifth season is really very good. I didn't realise that the first time I saw it, due to the aforementioned drifting away, but I can definitely see now why so many people count it amongst their favourites.

Much of the season is deeply depressing, unsurprisingly, but 'Point of No Return' is one of the very few Supernatural episodes with a genuinely uplifting ending. The entire episode is pretty great (Zachariah has so many amazing lines! Like Chuck, he's a character I really didn't appreciate enough on my first watch-through), but the ending in particular makes me smile. Sam's faith in Dean is so lovely, and it's wonderful to see Dean find a little faith in himself through Sam.

(I'm really curious about whether Castiel's puzzled expression in response to Dean's 'blow me, Cas' means he took it as a literal request. It wouldn't be the first time Castiel interpreted something too literally. There are undoubtedly five hundred works of fanfiction about this.)

Lucifer's conversations with Sam in 'Swan Song' are fascinating. He really does seem to have a genuine fondness for Sam, however twisted.

I had to laugh at a comment I stumbled across somewhere online recently, where someone said that they 'shipped Sam/Lucifer... but only in AUs, because canonical Sam/Lucifer had all sorts of power imbalance issues. If you don't want unhealthy pairing dynamics, don't 'ship people with Lucifer!

(On the subject of 'Internet discoveries that amuse me', my favourite response to the question 'Can you juice bananas?' on WikiAnswers: Yes absoulutly ive done it so dont believe anyone who says u cant juice bananas because they are wrong as usual.)

I'm becoming increasingly frustrated by a tendency amongst gamers to go 'there are implications that this character may not be straight, but I personally believe that this character is straight, THEREFORE ANYONE WITH A DIFFERENT INTERPRETATION IS WRONG'. It's something I've seen a few times, but it was the GTA Wiki article on Trevor Philips that finally made me snap:

Many of his sarcastic [sexually suggestive remarks towards men] have been misinterpreted as sincere statements by players.

IT'S NOT A MISINTERPRETATION

IT'S JUST AN INTERPRETATION

Someone in the article's talk page said, 'Hey, do you think we should mention the possibility that Trevor might be bisexual?' and got the response, 'I think you take what Trevor says far too seriously.' Look, I haven't played much of Grand Theft Auto V (I am the world's worst Grand Theft Auto player; I attempt to play it as law-abidingly as possible, which doesn't really work), but I've seen enough to be fairly certain that 'Trevor has a sexual interest in men' is not an unreasonable conclusion. Still, perhaps I'm wrong! It's not like you ever see him in bed with a man, after all.

All right, sometimes you do see him in bed with a man (who then starts sobbing and apologising to his girlfriend), but perhaps I'm just misinterpreting.

Do heterosexual male gamers try to dismiss this possibility because they feel it'll make it harder for them to identify with Trevor? Trevor Philips is an incredibly horrible person. If that's the point at which you start finding it hard to identify with him, I don't ever want to meet you.

This isn't the first time I've seen this. In The World Ends With You, is Joshua actually gay or does he just flirt with Neku to fuck with his head? Either is possible! If you don't think Joshua is gay, that's absolutely fine, but don't try to claim that people who do think he's gay are deluded. In Final Fantasy XIII, I don't personally interpret Fang and Vanille as lovers - their relationship feels more mother-daughter to me - but I can absolutely understand why people do see them as lovers, and their interpretation isn't any less valid than mine. Different character interpretations can coexist! So long as canon doesn't contradict it, anything is fine. Can't we all get along without dismissing perfectly valid possibilities in supposedly-factual wiki articles?

(If you think Trevor Philips is as straight as y = x, to be honest, I do think your interpretation is slightly less valid than mine. But it's not quite on the level of the 'why are you writing Doctor/Jack/Rose fanfiction? Captain Jack Harkness is straight' review I once got.)

This goes the other way, of course. It's valid to think that Enjolras of Les Misérables shows no interest in women because he is gay or asexual, but it is also valid to think that he shows no interest in women simply because he's busy planning a revolution. Some odd sections of the Les Mis fandom try to claim that 'shipping Enjolras with a woman is morally wrong. It really isn't! (I don't personally feel that thinking 'hey, these two fictional characters could hypothetically make an interesting couple' is ever a moral issue, even if canon leaves no room for interpretation - you can 'ship Kurt Hummel/Santana Lopez if you really want to - but I find the Enjolras/Éponine controversy a particularly perplexing case.)

Hilariously, someone's started an e-petition to bring Kingdom Hearts III to the Wii U and PS3, because obviously Square are planning to release it on the most powerful consoles available purely out of spite. Why don't you demand a SNES port, while you're at it?


The Kingdom Hearts III announcement inspired me to resume my Kingdom Hearts replay, even though we probably won't actually be seeing III for a good while yet. I was at the first Hollow Bastion visit. Thoughts!

- The second Riku fight in Hollow Bastion? The one in front of the Keyhole, where Riku's wearing his grass skirt I ALWAYS DO THIS. Riku isn't wearing a grass skirt! For some reason he's always in a grass skirt when I picture his odd purple getup in my head, but when I pay attention to his clothes I can see that it is, in fact, a decidedly non-grass buttcape. Anyway! That fight. The one where you don't have Donald and Goofy with you. The one with a mile-long unskippable cutscene preceding it. The one I'd been dreading ever since landing in Hollow Bastion. The terrible fight.

I didn't have any trouble with it this time. I beat it quite comfortably on my first try.

It was weird.

- Dragon Maleficent, on the other hand, was a bit of a nightmare. Eventually I had to run back to Traverse Town and beg the moogles to make me something with really good defence.

- Some day I'm going to count up all the characters who've been literally inside Sora's heart at one point or another. By now I think it must be in double figures. Kingdom Hearts III will be set entirely inside Sora's heart.

- ♥ RIKU TRIES TO HOLD ANSEM BACK ♥ I'D FORGOTTEN ABOUT THAT ♥

- (I've mentioned that I really, really love redemption stories, right? Rikuuuuu. The poor kid never really manages to escape from his guilt after this game.)

- 'Don't worry, Sora,' Leon says. 'If anyone can save your friend, you can.' But then if you talk to him again afterwards he mutters things like 'Maybe it's hopeless for ordinary people to oppose the darkness', of course, because Squall is terrible at being reassuring.

- It's strange to replay the first game, because the plot is so straightforward compared to the ridiculous mess it's since become. AND ALSO SORA'S BABY VOICE.

- It's also strange in the light of my realisation a while ago that, although I'd always thought of Sora/Kairi as a canonical couple, it isn't one. It never strays beyond subtext. Kingdom Hearts is very much about friendship and very much not about romance, which I think is quite nice. I feel that the first game toyed with the idea of making the Sora-Kairi relationship romantic, but then later games scrapped that and gave all the relationships in the Riku-Sora-Kairi friendship group the same weight.

I suppose it's possible that the Sora-Kairi relationship might become romantic in Kingdom Hearts III, but it would honestly surprise me by this point. (Unless I was correct in concluding that the Riku-Sora-Kairi connections were all weighted equally, but failed to clock that in fact that's because they're all weighted romantically? Maybe the next game is going to be all about their ménage à trois relationship. HOW DISNEY.)


There was a time in my teenage years when I didn't really have much patience for Sora. Looking back, I don't understand why I didn't love him from the start. He's such a sweetheart! As I've grown up, I think I've become much more kindly disposed to relentlessly cheerful, optimistic characters.

Something in Dream Drop Distance that I think sums up Sora perfectly: almost exactly sixty seconds after meeting Neku for the first time, Sora says, 'Why don't I just help you out as your friend?'

Oh, Sora. ('Do you trust every total stranger you meet?' Neku asks. He has a point, especially considering that he's been vaguely hostile during most of the minute they've been acquainted; the first thing he says to Sora is 'Shut it.' But still Sora considers him a friend within seconds, because he is Sora.)

The theme of today's entry is 'television shows beginning with M'.

Misfits: oh, no. How have I managed to become emotionally invested in Misfits? How did that happen? This is such a bad thing to be emotionally invested in. You just had to go and be adorable, didn't you, Kelly and Seth? Thanks, Kelly and Seth. Now I actually become distressed when bad things happen in Misfits, which is always.

Merlin: every so often I remember that this was an actual scene in an actual episode of Merlin and just boggle. To any non-watchers who have heard about Merlin and thought 'well, it can't possibly be as gay as everyone seems to say it is': you are incorrect. (Here, if that wasn't, er, romantic enough for you, is the same scene set to soaring violins. Oh, Internet.)

On a more serious note about the Merlin-and-Arthur relationship: here (Scene 59, starting at the 2.16 mark; the link (found via lozenger8) should take you straight there) is an incredibly lovely deleted scene from the first episode of the fourth series, when Arthur believes he's going to his death. Bless them.

The Mentalist: has anyone made a montage of all the times that Patrick Jane gets punched in the face? That would be my favourite montage. I would watch it every day. Possibly every hour. I love you, Jane, but when people punch you I cheer.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: I'm going to specifically talk about episode 2.09, 'Sweet and Elite', so you may want to rush off and watch that before reading if you haven't seen it yet. I'm not really being terribly spoilery, but just in case.

Thoughts on the episode: I really like Fancypants! I hope we see him again. I loved it when Rarity was watching the Wonderbolts in great excitement and Fancypants, with a little fond smile, was watching her; it was clear that he really enjoyed seeing somepony being genuinely enthusiastic about something after spending so much time with ponies who simply affected interest in everything he said.

I don't really 'ship anypony in Friendship is Magic, but if I did I suspect I would 'ship Fancypants/Rarity. I think they would be good for each other. Fancypants, being surprisingly relaxed and down-to-earth considering his social status, could help keep her grounded; Rarity is a pony willing to disagree with him, which I think he needs.

I have been listening to 'The Pony Everypony Should Know' more or less solidly since I saw the episode, whoops.

WATERLOO ROAD WHAT

NO

THAT IS THE WORST PAIRING EVER

I GENUINELY DO NOT THINK I COULD HAVE COME UP WITH A MORE HORRIBLE PAIRING HAD I TRIED

And to think there was a scene in the episode that made me hope there might be half a chance of Tom/Karen. Alas, no; Tom/Karen must remain the baseless pairing of my heart, and instead we get the worst pairing ever. It's as if the writers went, 'Oh, hello, Riona! Would you like a piece of delicious chocolate cake? Yes, I thought so. Well, sadly we have no delicious chocolate cake to offer you, so we're going to hit you with sticks instead.' Is it absolutely necessary to bring out the sticks, Waterloo Road? I'm not entirely certain that the two things are substitutable.

Yes, all right, almost none of you watch Waterloo Road and so chances are this entry won't make any sense to you, but I had to express my disapprobation somewhere.


Oh, before I forget, I meant to make a quick note on the tennis yesterday. It's very difficult to get me to care about tennis most of the time, but dangle an Isner-Mahut match in front of me and I won't be able to take my eyes off the scores. I was so hoping they would play for another eleven hours, or at least that Mahut would win this time (he's my favourite because he looks like a porcupine), but alas no.

I want to write fanfiction set during the eleven-hour match last year, in which the world ends around them and Isner and Mahut don't notice because they're absolutely focused on playing. Isner hits the winning shot and falls to the ground in victory, and as he gets to his feet again he notices, for the first time, the eerie silence in the stands.

(Yesterday, I found out that Mahut was six foot three and went 'hang on, that can't be right, he's so much shorter than Isner'. And then I looked Isner up.

John Isner is six foot nine. How is that even a real height?)


And back to X-Men!

I'm quite amused by the way the appetite of fandom constantly expands to demand slightly more than it's been given, no matter how much it's fed. James McAvoy claims he had sex with Michael Fassbender four times, and the primary reaction I see on Tumblr is 'NOT ENOUGH TIMES'.

On that subject: James McAvoy, you massive troll. He and Misha Collins should work on something together. They'd end up competing with each other to see who could render the largest number of fans unconscious.

Here is a delightful thing I watched recently: the X-Men: First Class trailer redone with footage from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. No, seriously, it's beautiful. If you're wondering 'would that really work?', the first shot will give you your answer. Many thanks to nightfire_kvala for the link!

I think X-Men: First Class is officially my fandom of the moment. I wonder how long it'll be before I try to cross it over with either Silent Hill or Pokémon. Either could be fun, where by 'fun' I mean 'fun' in the case of Pokémon and 'completely devastating' in the case of Silent Hill.

...my goodness, Silent Hill was made for Erik Lehnsherr. But, then again, so was Magneton. Decisions!

Charlie Brooker on sharing a bed:

I find it difficult enough to face people during the day, let alone at night, when I'm trying to sleep. Whenever I share a bed, I find it impossible to nod off without turning my back on the other party. I can't lie there breathing toward someone else's body. They might move and accidentally kick me in the mouth or something. And I can't lie on my back or on my stomach all night – that's just weird. I think it's down to slight claustrophobia. I can't seem to sleep without having a free line of escape, and all my limbs devoid of restriction. Even on the coldest night, I have to keep at least 30% of my body outside the duvet (roughly 30%, anyway; I don't measure it. I'm not a psychopath). So at least I'm not a duvet hog. That's one small point in my favour. On the downside, I have a tendency to wake in the night and scream and stab people.

From this article, in which Charlie Brooker and also some people who are not Charlie Brooker talk about their preferred sleeping positions. I can think of no earthly purpose such an article can serve besides providing canon for RPF writers.

I can easily imagine that David Mitchell also has trouble sleeping when facing his bedfellow. Therefore, when Brooker and Mitchell hypothetically share a bed, they sleep on far sides, turned away from each other, with as much empty space between them as possible.

For reasons I cannot begin to fathom, I find this mental image completely adorable. No discernable physical affection or even physical contact of any sort between two misanthropic, atypically attractive men sharing a bed: apparently incredibly cute? Mitchell is frowning slightly in his sleep, and that just makes it cuter.

Until the stabbing begins, obviously.

(I feel a bit guilty for thinking about this, I have to confess. I can write real-person Pokémon crossover AUs quite happily, but the moment I begin to contemplate the physically possible my RPF guilt kicks in. (This is probably not helped by the fact that Brooker has admitted to frequently Googling himself. In the hopefully-unlikely event that he sees this: er, hello, Mr Brooker. I don't really think that you and David Mitchell are sleeping together. Just - just so we're clear.))


Entirely unrelatedly, I saw this posted on a messageboard yesterday. It is my favourite chain comment ever.

i am a heron. i ahev a long neck and i pick fish out of the water w/ my beak. if you dont repost this comment on 10 other pages i will fly into your kitchen tonight and make a mess of your pots and pans

Amaaaaaazing. (Should any of you wake to find your pots and pans a mess tomorrow, I can only apologise.)

Something that struck me whilst playing Shadow of the Colossus: A COLOSSUS'S FIST if you call Agro whilst fighting a Colossus, Wander's cry is much more urgent than it is when you call her in a Colossusless situation. It's a tiny detail, but a rather nice one.

Also, if you're not holding a weapon and press Circle whilst riding Agro, Wander will pat her neck. It is sort of adorable.


The eleventh Colossus is so tiny I am not sure it really counts as a Colossus! Many months ago, I dreamt that I was fighting a 'Colossus' of about the size of a cow and was amused when I woke up by how thoroughly my subconscious had missed the point of a 'Colossus'; I hadn't realised it was foreshadowing.

Then I fell off a waterfall twice on my journey to the twelfth. It was embarrassing and rather horrible. Struggling helplessly against the current! I'm sorry, Wander.


After defeating the twelfth Colossus, I managed to swing the camera at such an angle that it gave me a close-up of Wander, and then paused, puzzled, when I noticed that he appeared to have black veins on his face. Had those always been there? He seemed quite young; it struck me as an unusual character feature.

Then I read up to where I was in twilit_wanderer's gamelogs and realised that she'd been commenting on the weirdness of Wander's appearance for some time; I'd kept thinking, 'hmmm, I didn't notice anything, but I'll check that out the next time I play,' and then completely forgetting.

So I reloaded the game, steered Wander into a corner so the camera could have a good look at him, looked up an image from the opening for comparison, and, no, I'm not imagining things. His hands and face and neck are veiny; his clothes are dirty and tattered; his hair is matted and almost black (it was red when the game began). With every colossus Wander kills, his appearance deteriorates just a little more. His girlfriend, meanwhile, is looking far more vibrant than she used to.

I think this is basically the awesomest thing in the world. It's horribly unsettling, of course, but it's such detail in such a minimalist game. I'm trying to think of another character whose appearance gradually evolves over the course of the game, and the closest I can come up with is Seifer's trenchcoat becoming tattered in Final Fantasy VIII.

(I was terrified that one of the effects of Wander's slow transformation was that he NO LONGER AFFECTIONATELY PATTED AGRO WHEN HE DIDN'T HAVE A WEAPON EQUIPPED, OH NO, but then I realised he just didn't pat her when she was actually moving. Thank goodness. Wander's love for Agro is so true, and I would be immensely distressed were he to stop caring about her.)


On the subject of awesome details in videogames: I've never played Left 4 Dead, a zombie apocalypse first-person shooter, but I've looked at screencaps, and this made me laugh really hard. Even in a world of immense danger and no Internet, you can't escape anonymous trolling.

(image source: cowgirlmaxwell's comment in zarla's L4D picspam (fascinating, but beware of many, many, many large images).)

As I seem to be rediscovering old fandoms and anime, I thought I would rewatch DN Angel, which I have not seen for at least five years.

I had forgotten how much I love Satoshi and his ridiculously creepy crush on Daisuke. The poor boy! (By 'the poor boy' I mean poor romantically-doomed Satoshi, rather than Daisuke, although Daisuke does have to suffer Satoshi's rather unnerving affections.)

After watching the fourth episode (dear Satoshi: please stop pretending that you lose your hold on Krad around Daisuke because Krad is somehow 'reacting to Dark's presence'; it is because you are madly in love with Daisuke and you know it), I scrolled down a bit and thus stumbled across what is possibly my new favourite quote from a YouTube comment:

homocidal does NOT mean gay, it means you like killing people.

Oh, YouTube, you never fail to amuse and depress.


Note to self: when you're back in London, start playing Metal Gear Solid 2. After all the things I've learnt about it from browsing TV Tropes and firefly99's journal, it seems to be:

a) the most confusing game ever created, and
b) completely awesome.

From the Wikipedia article:

The storyline explores many philosophical and cyberpunk themes in great detail, including meme theory, social engineering, sociology, artificial intelligence, information control, conspiracy theories, political and military maneuvering, evolution, existentialism, censorship, the manipulation of free will and the nature of reality.

In a videogame! I can't miss this! I become terribly annoyed when people say that videogames are incapable of depth, or take an 'oh, it's a videogame, of course it's not going to have a real storyline' attitude; it'd be nice to be able to point and say, 'YEAH, WELL, THIS VIDEOGAME CHALLENGES THE NATURE OF REALITY.' (I can already say 'FINAL FANTASY X MADE ME CRY', of course, but it's always nice to have more cases for the argument.)

I am, I suspect, going to be completely rubbish at playing a stealth game, generally being more of an RPG/platformer/action-adventure person, but it wouldn't be the first time I've played a videogame purely for the themes it explores (see also: Silent Hill 2).

If you have any stories of times videogames have made you cry (er, storyline-wise, rather than out of frustration; the ending of Final Fantasy X certainly did it for me, and oh the prologue of Kingdom Hearts II, and I became a bit teary during the final boss fight in Ōkami), or times they've made you feel guilty for an action you took as a player (asdjfghfjdhsggh I'm sorry FFVI Cid I didn't know), or times you've picked up a game you wouldn't have played otherwise because things you'd heard about the plot interested you, please share! Because videogames are a legitimate storytelling medium, and it is very frustrating when non-gamers dismiss the emotional effect they can have.