magistrate

A while ago, I accidentally* started on a Detroit: Become Human reboot-style AU (which I cleverly titled Detroit: Reboot), which project I think only rionaleonhart actually knows anything about, and storyinmypocket and sholio may have heard me mention off and on. Anyway, it ballooned to ridiculous size in ways I don't fully understand, and then I got distracted by other things.

*I accidentally 2.9 MB of fanfiction... is this dangerous?

Primary among those other things was a Red Dead Redemption 2 fic which I thought I could knock out in 30-40k (HA... HA HA... Ha ha hah haaaaaaaugh... •sob•), which, as you may have guessed if you know me, I was not able to complete in 30-40k.

Anyway, I didn't notice this last night when I was finishing up my writing and heading for bed, but my unfinished RDR2 fic finally exceeded the length of my unfinished D:BH fic! I wasn't actually sure that would ever happen. Also: what the fuck.

(For the record, the "of 300,000" is not an actual aspirational goal. 300,000 words was a placeholder I put in because I like seeing the progress bar go up, and if you meet the goal, it just stays full and green and there's no visible progress. I figured that 300,000 was a nice, safe, high number that I would not actually ever reach. I am now figuring that I'm probably going to have to change it on one or both of these projects if I want to keep watching the bar move.)

So at some point last year – probably because of rionaleonhart – I wandered into Red Dead Redemption II fandom periphery, and then I watched a Let's Play of it, and then I fell headfirst into it, and then I started writing a story which I thought was going to be an easy 30-40k and which has, surprising only myself, ballooned into a multi-hundred-thousand-word project which is taking me forever to complete. I think this is the third time something like this has happened because I've followed Riona off the beaten path. I suspect she's actually a literary will-o'-the-wisp.

Anyway, I spent most of this year exerting actual financial discipline so I could save up for a PS4 and get the game, and that finally happened. And now I'm slowly playing through this thing I've written many thousands of words for. Score!

This game gets a lot of flak for being grindy and tedious in some regards, and for making decisions that prioritize realism above playability, but what I've discovered is that about 96% of the grindy tedium is actually stuff I really groove on. (I mean, let's be real, I adore the crap out of The Long Dark's sandbox mode, and that game is literally 100% "Wander around this beautifully-rendered environment, forage, scavenge, hunt, manage your temperature, and try not to get eaten". With added exhaustion, thirst, and hunger mechanics that actually will kill you, plus an injury system. Come to think of it, I'd probably love to see all of that in RDR2.) So far I've played only enough of the main storyline to get to a place where most of the map amenities are unlocked and the character who most annoys me is off somewhere and not in camp to irritate me, and I've been spending the rest of my time running around, exploring, hunting, and doing side missions.

And having shenanigans.

So many shenanigans.

I've taken to reporting them on the Horseshoe Overlook Discord, which I joined before I'd even bought the game. In the interests of posting to this journal at any point ever, I figure I'd share some of my Arthur's exploits here. (I'll use highlight-to-read spoiler blackouts as necessary.)



( On starting up. )


( On acquisitions. )


( On dealing with fellow gang members. )


( On hunting. )


( On characters doing what they want. )


( Naptime. )

A while ago, I watched Markiplier play Presentable Liberty, which is quite possibly the worst-constructed game I've ever seen. The graphics are (I think intentionally) terrible, the sound design is generic at best, the writing is clunky and heavy-handed, the gameplay looks excruciating (and is at times so incredibly boring that Markiplier just cuts it out of the video entirely), the plot is entirely composed of plotholes (which the game mechanics actively make worse) and hackneyed, obvious tropes, and...

...and despite all of this, Markiplier finds it – and I find it, watching Markiplier – an inescapably affecting experience.

So anyway, a bit ago, I followed rionaleonhart into Detroit: Become Human fandom-adjacency, because Riona is an excellent person to vicariously experience fandoms through. And... okay, Detroit: Become Human is not as bad as Presentable Liberty. Or possibly it's worse, because it reaches higher and thus has farther to fall.

Unlike Presentable Liberty, it's extremely well-executed. The graphics are good, the acting is good, the branching decision trees and their effects on the narrative are ambitious (though the game still looks extremely railroady at points), the soundtracks – three soundtracks, one for each playable character – are utterly gorgeous, the characters are frequently engaging, the environments are frequently lovely, much of the scene choreography is captivating and moving, the script... has numerous, numerous issues, but also frequent sparks of excellence, and...

Aaand the plot is made of plotholes, and structured upon a thematic scaffold which pokes through the skin of the story like a horrifically broken set of bones, in a way that's really quite excruciating to see.

( If you don't see where this is going, you may lack familiarity with my fandom habits. )

All in all, Detroit: Become Human is a game which raises fascinating questions, then fails to answer any of them. And then attempts to engage with questions which its worldbuilding consistently fails to support. I hate it, I love it, I desperately wish it were better, and because I am me and potentia is potentia, I seem to have been bitten hard by the braintic bug. Goddamnit.

...but that may be an entirely separate post.