Ami AngelwingsJan 31

#QuestionOfTheDay what's a piece of fiction that really blew your mind/impacted/changed your perspective/taught you an important value as a child/teen where that impact/perspective/lesson isn't particularly unique or groundbreaking but it was your first encounter with it and it's meaningful to you?

everybody has to have their first encounter with a concept, no matter how obvious/tropey/overplayed etc, at some point in their life. So don't be ashamed if your answer is like "this episode of a cartoon show taught me not to hate ugly people" or something. This is a safe space for sharing. At least I will try my best to keep it as one.

#fiction #TV #television #movies #film #books #comics #comicbooks #anime #manga #videogames #TTRPG #CCGs #musicals #poetry #music

Show threadSilverGMJan 31
@ami_angelwings Perhaps a bit more groundbreaking than you thought, but I'll always remember the first time I played Spec Ops: The Line as a teenager. That game taught me, better than anything else, that actions had consequences. Specifically <spoiler alert>, when the main character resorts to using white phosphorous to wipe out an enemy camp, only to discover there were refugees sheltering with them. It really smacked me in the face with "this is what happens when you do the wrong thing."
Show threadAmi AngelwingsJan 31

@SilverGM I love Spec Ops The Line, I discovered it much much later in University because I study militarization and demilitarization, and it was regularly mentioned in academic papers as an anti-militarization video game and I had my friend @MattyF play it on stream and it was an amazing experience that really shook him to his core.

I also read a YouTube comment where the commenter said he played the game at a time when he was seriously considering joining the army, and after playing it he didn't enlist because he realized he's not as good a person as he thought and he wouldn't be doing good in the army.

Show threadAmi AngelwingsJan 31

@SilverGM @MattyF I also love just how unrelenting the game is. The gameplay is just good enough that it won't frustrate you to stop playing but the levels aren't "fun", they're a grind, and you just keep grinding and killing and it's a slog and at the end the game even asks you why you kept going

And like it changes the player mindset too, first like just getting used to doing horrible things and also feeling like "you have no choice" which is a common justification in war.

Like @MattyF shot and killed all those civilians who were throwing rocks at him. He said later that he thought he had no choice, the game was forcing him to do another war crime, "I guess it wants me to be a bad person". And I asked if he even thought about shooting into the air to scare them off and he said no.

Show threadAmi Angelwings
@SilverGM @MattyF even the counters that some players say "I'm just doing what the game tells me to" echo justification from soldiers, I'm just doing what my job is, what my orders are, I have no choice
Jan 31 at 10:58pmWeb