#now are the afterimages that irrevocably shape the perception of an entity that did not exist until you hit New &

[felikatze]

i think the reason i love silent protags a lot because the limitation of this staple necessitates indirect storytelling. yes it's primarily a device to allow player inserts and roleplaying, but a character's inability to state or directly show how they feel forces one to analyze much more.

when speech is filtered out, you need to reverse engineer what they could've said by how other characters reacted. Multiple choice dialogue options become concurrent thoughts in the character's mind, different facets leading to indecision, with the player only truly deciding which thought comes to the forefront.

definition comes through body language, idle animations, emotive portraits and noises of exertion. if a choice is railroaded, was the protagonist forced into it, or did they decide without player input? what do the available gameplay styles say about the character you've created? what does it mean to accept every single sidequest?

like, well and truly, making a nothing character is impossible, even in video games, because saying "yes" when asked to save the world, that's already a decision, isn't it? there is already an implication, a shadow of belief and value, in the act of playing.

#feli speaks #thinking abt rejuv's interceptor of course but also thinking abt a lot of things #man. thinks abt how aevis' trainer card used to look smug but all his vs portraits are nervous #how arianna is eternally peppy but axel is excited and alain seems angry while aero just seems uninterested #that the presentation of these designs builds a semblance of personality for differnet flavors of player insert #which is then eventually delivered on that these WERE separate fleshed out people and what you're seeing what you're PLAYING AS #now are the afterimages that irrevocably shape the perception of an entity that did not exist until you hit New & #Game. it's. fascinating to me ok.