#the kinda manifest destiny portrayal of turtle island in the games + racist portrayals of indigenous turtle islander spirituality

[revolutionarysuicide]

tbh video games are a weird exception for me where i can't stand other forms of media having reactionary politics, like i can't look past it to try enjoy it despite the politics, it just ruins the experience for me, but for video games idgaf lol as long as the gameplay is fun i'm good. i mean i did write like 10k words criticising the reactionary politics of life is strange but that's different cause lis is a telltale game and basically just an interactive movie like there's not much gameplay to compensate for the writing and the politics of the writers. normal games are mostly gameplay and you can kinda ignore the writing if you don't like it. not that gameplay is apolitical, obviously the way the gameplay is designed is political too, but ig it's easier for me to ignore it if i can be distracted by the fun-ness of the gameplay? idk. but generally i'll play games with whatever strategy is most successful for the objectives of the game, like if the goal of the game is to make the most profit possible i'll play as a capitalist, if the goal of the game is to conquer all the land i'll play as a coloniser, if the goal of the game is to overthrow the bourgeoisie i'll play as a communist lol. anyway my main source of income in my rimworld games is harvesting and selling prisoners' organs

#tbh i only wrote that lis essay bc i enjoyed the games enough to pay attention to them and care about the fact that the politics sucked #dont ask for a link to that essay it's on a deleted blog and missed out a lot of things i would include now if i were to write the same #essay. also it focused more on the like coexist trump is a cheeto type liberalism in the game when i think the bigger problem is honestly #the kinda manifest destiny portrayal of turtle island in the games + racist portrayals of indigenous turtle islander spirituality #<- dont take that as some serious crit to argue with i would need to replay the games if i wanted to criticise them properly #also the rimworld example is a joke i dont think thats an example of reactionary politics bc the whole like. #organ harvesting and human leather chairs aspect of the game is like just a morbid joke #the messaging isnt that organ harvesting from prisoners is good #for rimworld it's probably the base assumption of space colonisation taken for granted w/o ever considering the exploitation necessary for #that to be possible. & portraying the places where u settle ur colony as being uninhabited; a land without a people etc #they did add pollution to the game in the latest dlc but it's only for if you use the like mech robots to work/fight for you #not for space age stuff in general #still the funnest game ever tho honestly