Witch Chat - .hack//Gay Undertones

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offtopic / .hack//Gay Undertones

I will admit for my part I kinda like that Ovan's plan, though ultimately well intentioned, was cruel, stupid, malicious, selfish, and dangerous on so many levels. Because like, Ovan has done things over the course of this game already that are frankly pretty monsterous and manipulative and if the game was wholeheartedly "but he had a good reason" that would be really shitty even if yeah, textually speaking he did

considering his real life job, his plan is stupid

But My Sister Man is very much ehhh on well-intentioned

I mean it's the same intention as Haseo's motivation for the vast chunk of the game--the desire to rescue shino

00:30

I think the game is basically positing that Ovan is actually not all that different from Haseo was at the start of the game, when you get past his airs

Zedd-Repulsa

considering his real life job, his plan is stupid

so on this point

I think it's maybe just about the presentation

Shaiapouf

I think the game is basically positing that Ovan is actually not all that different from Haseo was at the start of the game, when you get past his airs

arguably yes but at the same time he literally caused all the shit

Mysterious Stranger "Cyouni"

arguably yes but at the same time he literally caused all the shit

I mean he never attacked anyone cause he wanted to, that was the phantom arm dealy

I absolutely agree with the intention of that parallelism but it doesn't come off imo

I mean physically

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EMOTIONALLY he manipulated a lot of people entirely on his own

I'm not very clear on what tri-arm even does

Evil Murder Arm

Ovan's villainous reveal feels kind of rushed and weird in comparison to how the game lovingly presents Sasaki

like doctor strangelove

it's shaggy-dog-y

They definely don't let ovan really breathe as a villain in Vol 3.

like I think maybe what the story needed is like

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you find all this out about Ovan in Vol 2

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that actually he's had a Lost One longer than anybody!

Ovan's player is named Masato Indou, who once worked as a Network Administration Bureau investigator. He has met with Shino, and seems to keep in contact with her outside of the game. He also has a younger sister named Aina.

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Also the fact that he does all this while being a Network Administration Bureau investigator. is just

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wow you really made some choices

and then you do an un-reveal, where the thing is that there was no greater master plan than "I just want to save my girl more than you wanted to save yours, Haseo"

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in a really fucked up kind of way

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that would've been a solid way to play things imo

Yeah that would have been a more competent version of what they are going for.

I can like that, rko

how do I get hired as a jrpg script doctor

As I have said before, being a .hack fan is being a fan of an idea of .hack that you imagine in your head rather than something that actually exists

00:34

because the aethestics are so cool

there's a fuckin video essay

and there are great ideas all around it

there's a lot of video essay

but the execution basically always leaves something to be desired

I once, briefly, RPed Ovan. so I have thought about all of this a lot

I am so sorry

bring the thoughts

No one should ever have to be in that mans headspace

like I think the Citan comparison is really funny now because Citan had like

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out-planned all the masters in existence really

I can't believe ovan got you defending citan

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lmao

I agree with his intents but not remotely his actions

Yeah that's where I am zedd

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Like there is "the ends justify the means" but my god no they do not remotely. Being sad does not give you the right to play puppetmaster like this and cause a global catastrophe.

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which, again, haseo says outright

I mean if the game was really competent, it would be drawing a sharp comparison between how Haseo is Growing Up and Ovan is failing to do so

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and how in fact all of the villains are basically just being children

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and how maybe the internet makes us little babies, etc.

not for nothing is Ovan a 25 year old acting like the father figure to a 17 year old

word

archaeo

and how maybe the internet makes us little babies, etc.

Sakaki: And I'm Sakaki!

lol

I can't help wondering about Ovan and Aina's family

I do sorta miss the simplicity of sakaki

like why is he her caretaker

I mean that's all of the problem

as a note on my point about the contrast, from the wiki

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According to an interview, Ovan's character was designed to be the exact opposite of Haseo. Ovan is a mysterious, tanned adult, while Haseo is a pale, teenage-looking youth. Ovan's white and blue color scheme runs perfectly contrary to Haseo's black and red.

Sakaki is complicated despite being presented as a simple dumb villain

And Ovan is simple despite being presented as a complex genius (edited)

Ovan plays himself off as a master manipulator and cool glasses guy but his motivation is just like

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god damn

I mean I was just summing up your point, you're completely right

"I really wanted to save my sister, and I thought the best way to do that would be to manipulate my only friend after I killed the only other friend he and I had"

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oh for sure

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that was a "god damn" directed at Ovan

yeah for sure

anyway it's got good bonse

Ovan: I am extremely smart

bones* but that's a good typo

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yeah The World is full of people who are really sure they're geniuses

Yeah

I also can't help but wonder how much of Ovan's "beat me, Haseo" is because he feels awful for putting family and friends into a coma

C.C. Corp: We Invented The Peter Principle

~~and then there's sakaki~~

Hell all this happened because another 20 something tried to become a digital god in the game's background

that's a good point zedd

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it is interesting that Ovan's plan is precisely calibrated to destroy himself apparently

yeah

also to be "consumed" by Haseo

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again

Like he actively chose a plan where he would become The Villian

I'm not sure how much of the plan involved implosion

with his giant pulsating

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cannon

Vs digital god

you don't do that unless you absolutely have to, which Ovan really didn't, or if you have some serious issues

Shaiapouf

you don't do that unless you absolutely have to, which Ovan really didn't, or if you have some serious issues

please read The Indiana Story, which I'll write probably!

he tries, and almost succeeds, dying

I think that's why Ovan does, in the final balance, work for me? Because this whole game is fundementally about really fucked up broken people given way too much power in the digitial space

I feel very confident I have solved this fictional problem by applying the principles of Kurashiki Mindset

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it's elementary really

Its an interesting contrast to the og .hack games, which are mostly like, sci-fi mystery with fairly normal people

00:43

trying to figure out why this game is so haunted

oh for sure

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they just also only do a passable job at like, nailing why people want digital godhood beyond "there's a girl I like who is in a coma"

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or "I am 10 years old and a sociopath"

In 2007 the idea that you would want to be come a god of the internet was just taken for granted

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it was very in vouge

yeah but they all basically showed it sucking is the thing?

I mean and so does .hack

Serial Experiments: Lain makes it seem promising in a very dark way

it doesn't work out great for any of them

right

and look what happened to people who wanted to become gods of the digital world

it's just up there with other modern technophobic fables that kind of baffle me, ngl

today, in 2022, we call them bluchecks

lol

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lmao

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fucking bravo

and you see how it worked out for them

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don't tell wc I dunked on them

pfft

in general, I have an interest in self-loathing villains. this is a fun series for that

Anyways in conclusion whether Ovan Sucks (affectionate) or Ovan Sucks (derogatory) or some combination of the two, he absolutely sucks.

I also hope I can finish The Indiana Story in time for you to read it Zedd

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as opposed to like, finishing it largely after I'm a weird AI in space or something

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hopefully you'll still have the same email then

oh right the thing I was going to say

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there is a great line in FF14 that sums it up for me

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which is

"yes, the ears are an erogenous zone"

Someone who basically did a genocide talking to one of his victimized survivors,

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who asks him why he did it

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and he gives an insanely selfish and self-possessed reason

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and when the victim is like "what, for that"

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the culprit says "Would it be better if I had a good reason?"

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That's ovan

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Would it have actually been better if he had a good reason?

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I don't think it would, actually.

see that's the thing

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it's still a writing choice

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but it's a really lazy and easy move and it feels lazy and easy if you don't do something like FF14 and hang a good lampshade on it with a cool line

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or, better yet, work the fact that there's not a good reason into the themes of the work

true

which .Hack//GU honestly makes a really good effort at doing!

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but falls short in some critical ways that are like, yeah you were also pioneering episodic JRPGs for the playstation 2

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turns out telling a story that way is not the simplest thing I bet!

I mean honestly if .hack was about to handle its themes as expertly as it would like to I mean it would be Greatest RPG story of all time, Final Fantasy 14

huh

but that's asking a lot

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lmao

sure yeah fair

00:52

I mean so it goes

as you said, pioneering episodic JRPGs for the playstation 2 got up to some wild shit

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Not for nothing would this games nearest contemporary be Xenosaga

which also told an interesting story in a way that was not nearly up to what was necessary to tell said story

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but worse

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like GU has a lot more going for it

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Xenosaga kind of sucked

I admit I also really like Xenosaga, but I admit I just have bad taste

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And GU at least like, is a product that did not obviously get massively rewritten multiple times over the course of its release

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so it has that going for it

Xenosaga has saggy gamefeel

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I don't think I have better taste than you, I also have like, written Homestuck fanfiction this week

hmm

but I do think Xenosaga is def. a rose-colored glasses thing

01:00

though in its defense it did have some interesting ideas and there were definitely parts of the first game that gave you that good Xenogears feeling

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it just got kind of lost in the candy-colored 2000s anime look and totally lifeless battle system

I like the first game for being weird if almost unplayable, the third game at least has some really neat stuff and feels complete on its own terms. and the second game uh....has things in it I like

tbh I played through maybe 10 hours of 2 and then drifted off to something else, if that

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I maybe watched a friend play 10 hours of it while I smoked his weed

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I maybe watched a friend play 10 hours worth of cutscenes he torrented while he smoked my weed

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frankly I don't remember how it went down but I didn't have a strong desire to finish the series

https://twitter.com/feraljokes/status/1525006150915211266?s=20&t=u04vjekh5k2XDgoxzZ0t7g

Jake Flores (@feraljokes)

Lot going on here

02:08

Thinking about Harold developing AI because of weird sex stuff

Last Time on .hack, Ovan did something Incredibly Cool and also Incredibly Stupid -- he reboot the internet.

22:14

Lets see if that has any long term complications

22:16

with my friendship now officially ended with ovan it's time to update my desktop wallpaper

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22:17

oh wow this one is raw

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22:18

Salvador Aihara actually responds to this one lmao

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oh, and this is some nice fanart of uh us?

22:25

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Aww!

anyways, despite the fact that uh, all that happened, there is, for now, no new news articles to read

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so lets jump into emails

22:29

as an aside I really want to know more about Kaede because she is low key such a strange person

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22:30

anyways, emails

22:30

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22:30

First, what you would expect

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oh hey, look who woke up

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22:31

Unfortunately, Alkaid appears to still be in a coma...

Subject: I'm back, bitches

Shaiapouf

Unfortunately, Alkaid appears to still be in a coma...

nooooooooooo

22:31

my hopes and dreams

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22:31

SIGH. It seems like the Lost ones are waking up gradually, based on what was said

22:32

so even now that the cause is resolved, you're still just waiting for the day when the people you want to return come back

22:32

poor atoli, still worrying

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i mean mood atoli but also :(

somehow I don't think I got a new form just for the post-game

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LK, you don't know what's coming next, right?

22:33

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22:34

haseo: Shino and Alkaid are still unconcious.

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I mean I vaguely know that Alkaid makes it back somehow but I don't know any details

Kuhn has a long email for us

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