This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Not quite. It's a visual novel, but it's a lot more game-side of visual novels (failure modes, bad ends, some basic minigames, a meta bit where using out-of-game contexts matters). I won't pretend it's some great and mechanically deep game, but it's not the schlock that DQ was.
And in terms of story, it's favored among the tumblrite set because it's a metaphor for mental illness, but only one (short-lived ) character is specifically depressed. The rest are more psychotic, and the actual narrative for them is much more externally driven as to why they're going increasingly nuts. Will admit there's a very self-referential deconstructive bit, though it's less gooner or anti-gooner and more Undertale-like as a comment about video games in general.
If you want a plot synopsis, the Random Encounters song covers it in less than five minutes (and is very catchy).
I... didn't play every route (again, not a great game, I'm not in its target audience), but I don't remember seeing that quote, and it'd be a little weird in-context -- especially in the middle of the game, thesurviving girls are definitely not just the cute bits floating around dereferenced.
I'm also not sure those are official updates. DDLC had a big redraw thing (that got some controversy) in the COVID era, and some pretty slop ports, but I'm not seeing any talk on their reddit about anything new coming down or any new hires. I didn't think there was much left for them to do; the paid version already had some goofy 'explained too much about the setting' content thrown in as a 'secret'.
I agree that it's weird art, even by the modern standards (or even old Excel Saga standards).
I'd never seen that. And seeing it now leads down a rabbit hole of different original songs about Doki Doki Literature Club rendered in Minecraft style, at least half a dozen of which have tens of millions of YouTube hits each. Despite the creepiness of the game, there's something super-wholesome about these sorts of inventive fan communities going off and doing their own things, connected by and occasionally going viral on the internet. It's like the Chaotic Good version of the "toaster fucker problem".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link