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Thank you CJacobs, for making me anxious to see this video all day, after I've done the important stuff for the day. I honestly wish I had money to give you, that was brilliant. True art, I would even say.
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May 31, 2017 05:18
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....Convergence?! Well that explains why I have the desire to cosplay a certain bobcat and wax noir-ly while making ear wax candles from freshly harvested Unitologists.
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May 31, 2017 05:29
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If, for some reason, you have the sudden realization that you have no idea what a Shakespeare is, convergence is also to blame.
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May 31, 2017 06:26
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Shei-kun posted:Alan, I know you're in Washington, but that doesn't mean you have to toke that much Actually you do, it's the law.
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May 31, 2017 07:33
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Blind Sally posted:If, for some reason, you have the sudden realization that you have no idea what a Shakespeare is, convergence is also to blame. altman be praised
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Jun 1, 2017 00:41
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BioEnchanted posted:Tort CJacobs posted:Retort You also have to note that Cynthia and the Well Lit Room are parts of Alan-writer's story. Real Cynthia, the one met in the diner at the beginning may not be the same Cynthia. Alan-writer may have changed the person into a character to interact with Alan-character. Cynthia's first appearance does lay foundation for her character to be justifiably paranoid, but does not completely establish the trait. In her first appearance, she just appear to be some "crazy" old lady, telling people to be careful in the dark because, paraphrasing from memory, "you can hurt yourself in the dark". The game leaves enough doubt that I find fascinating. Much like other parts I've discussed, I feel this is an important detail in the story that becomes more interesting the more you dwell upon it. Unfortunately, I don't think many people took the time to view the game's story from a perspective other than a vehicle to move Alan from fight to fight with a bit of intrigue. Either Cynthia, at the beginning, knew enough about the Dark Presence to have already constructed the Well Lit Room and monitor the town's lightbulbs as a defensive, or she is just an eccentric, whom Alan-writer incorporated into his story because it made sense. Through the TV glimpses, we have heard Alan-writer saying that this mysterious power still has rules. Alan-writer needed a character to guide Alan-character at this particular juncture and the story dictated that the most likely candidate is the unsuspected crazy lady. We have enough clues--her early wariness of the dark and the luminescent paint that reveals her involvement--to not doubt her being a character who would maintain the Well Lit Room. Even though her appearance borders on being Deus Ex Machina, it still fits within the grander scheme of the story. Whether, and if so to what degree, Remedy intentionally wanted the game to mock story telling conventions, Cynthia's appearance makes sense. Alan-writer completely changes real people to fit his needs in the story, which may or may not be the most horrific aspect of the game. Cynthia may have also been this aware of the Dark Presence before Alan-writer's involvement. Alan-writer may not have constructed all of Bright Springs' backstory. After all, he found the box of Thomas Zane's writing before he encountered the Dark Presence in the lake. In this case, Alan-writer must've been made aware of Bright Springs' history. This adds another layer, having Alan-writer more aware of the world than Alan-character. Alan-character, for whatever reason, had to be made clueless. Cynthia could've been just another character made paranoid by an earlier encounter with the Dark Presence. She could've become Bright Springs' silent protector after Thomas Zane's disappearance. The Dark Presence did exist before Alan-writer jumped into the lake and out popped Alan-character, but the degree to which the Dark Presence existed remains questionable. Alan-writer may have unleashed more of the Dark Presence's influence in an attempt to write a fun story.
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Jun 1, 2017 01:01
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Mr. Highway posted:Alan-writer completely changes real people to fit his needs in the story, which may or may not be the most horrific aspect of the game. If this is true it could mean that the Anderson brothers weren't going senile before they met Alan, they might have just been two old guys who like rock music.
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Jun 1, 2017 06:31
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Skippy and I discuss this at pretty great length in the next episode, but one of the things I find most fascinating about the story is that they never actually clarify if either Thomas Zane or Alan himself are even real. Because for all we know, Alan is just a character dreamed up by Zane to get his revenge on the darkness for stealing his love and converting her into its puppet. Alan came to life because that's what writing in the dark place does and Zane wrote himself out of existence so that the darkness couldn't touch him in the meantime. But the opposite also could be true, because for all we know (again), Zane could just be a character dreamed up by Alan! Narrator-Alan has already demonstrated on TVs etc that he needs some form of guidance to make it through the story because being trapped in the dark place has rendered him pretty bonkers, so he can't guide himself. So maybe he co-opted Zane for his own needs, turning a random bunch of poetry books he found in a shoebox into a fully fledged character. CJacobs fucked around with this message at 08:20 on Jun 1, 2017 |
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Jun 1, 2017 08:16
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This point is where the game narrative disappears up its own rear end, finding a secondary rear end in there up which to disappear.
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Jun 1, 2017 08:35
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Tasteful Dickpic posted:This point is where the game narrative disappears up its own rear end, finding a secondary rear end in there up which to disappear. "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's rectums all the way up!"
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Jun 1, 2017 15:39
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The Unlife Aquatic posted:Actually you do, it's the law. 
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Jun 2, 2017 03:22
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CJacobs posted:
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Jun 3, 2017 12:44
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 Thank god the standee survived!
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Jun 3, 2017 12:50
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AHHHH IT'S THERMY! I'm so glad Thermy will also be made whole!
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Jun 3, 2017 17:43
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I recognize almost everyone, but who's the long-haired lover from Liverpool next to Thermy?
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Jun 3, 2017 18:11
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Tasteful Dickpic posted:I recognize almost everyone, but who's the long-haired lover from Liverpool next to Thermy?
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Jun 4, 2017 02:51
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Well, the cat's out of the bag on my twitter so I may as well let it out here, too. I told you I had a surprise for you and I do! You have a little something to look forward to in addition to all the other stuff I've got planned. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I will. For those keeping track: The CJacobs LP Menagerie posted:Alan Wake's American Nightmare (next) CJacobs fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Jun 5, 2017 |
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Jun 5, 2017 23:23
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I like that game and I hope you have fun with this new project. I'm excited for this.
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Jun 5, 2017 23:40
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Wow! I can't believe you have time for another LP in between murdering your neighbors children! Unless child murder is the reason you ended up in Silent Hill. RIPJacobs. Have you planned any co commentators or is it a chill solo run through fog city? Is Fae's sparkly pen available for a death / bad joke counter?
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Jun 6, 2017 03:18
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Oh man, Silent Hill. I remember that I played Silent Hill 2 when it came out on PC, and relatively soon after that played Silent Hill. The first game was never released on PC as far as I'm aware, so I played what was essentially a fan-port. I think it came with an emulator that was specially configured to run Silent Hill. I might have even played it using an actual joystick, believe it or not. Man that was a long time ago. Since then I've seen VB's LP of the game, but that was a while ago now too. How are you going to play it, out of interest?
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Jun 6, 2017 04:12
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I can't wait for CJacobs to finish his Crash Bandicoot LP.
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Jun 6, 2017 04:15
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Blind Sally posted:I can't wait for CJacobs to finish his Crash Bandicoot LP. I keep thinking about going back to that someday! But every time I do I think about how 100%-ing Crash Bandicoot 1 is an unholy pain in the rear end and then I don't want to do it so much anymore. Antistar01 posted:How are you going to play it, out of interest? Gonna be playing it quasi-blind. You see, my Silent Hill game timeline goes like this: Silent Hill 4, I've never played Silent Hill 3, I played on stream a year or two ago Silent Hill 2 I haven't played in like 4 or 5 years Silent Hill 1 I haven't played in almost 10 years So I'm going to probably do a quick run through it to get reacclimated and then just do a straight-shot blind-ish live commentary playthrough. Then I'll go in an add bonus gubbins after the fact.
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Jun 6, 2017 04:19
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You could do a casual thread run of Crash Bandertoot that isn't 100%! Also, if you've never played Silent Hill: Downpour, it's really good!
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Jun 6, 2017 04:27
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That does sound like a good idea! And yeah, I've played Downpour and it's not as bad as people say it is! I've played all of the Silent Hill games save for 4 specifically because I have never actually owned it. I hear there is a PC port but it's rear end even with a fanmade overhaul fix patch thingo so fuuuuccckkk Also,  Took this for posterity. How time flies.
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Jun 6, 2017 04:32
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Wait, you're the one who took that picture? I've seen that floating around the internet, thought it was pretty funny. Didn't know that was yours.
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Jun 6, 2017 07:13
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I can't take credit for it, no, just took an updated version for posterity.
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Jun 6, 2017 10:00
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Let's Play sad Cause that's what Silent Hill makes me. 
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Jun 6, 2017 11:33
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   You'd better watch out, kids! Always brush your teeth before bed or the spooky Thomas Zane ghost will come out of your closet and write you into a corner in the night!!
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Jun 6, 2017 11:51
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One thing that I always assumed was that people touched by the darkness remember Thomas Zane. The lamp lady obviously remembers him as a real person and while the town itself has mostly forgotten him outside of a spooky story or a local legend Tor and Odin remember him too, calling Alan Tom whwn they talk with him like they are old buddies. They probably either interacted with him the same way Alan is, or they are old enough that they actually knew Tom when he encountered the Dark Presence. It's worth noting that the dark presence appeared as Barbara Jagger to them as well, much like with Alan, but they know her as Baba Yaga, because mythology and such. Regardless of the quality of Alan's overall writing, he must have some chops to set up the meta-narrative between him and Zane. And while I think they could have gone more in detail about Zane and what he did, I think leaving it an unsolvable question as to whether or not Alan wrote him in or was written in, was an excellent story beat. And it's a bit of a shame that the rest of the game doesn't quite live up to all this buildup.
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Jun 6, 2017 20:58
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It is a bit, yeah, but I still firmly believe even the weakest parts of the game are still fantastic on the whole. I really like that even Alan is unsure if he's a character, even if it's just one or two throwaway lines. And whether he's right or not from a narrative standpoint, it's true in the gameplay. Technically speaking, we aren't playing as the real Alan right now anyway, we haven't been since the start of episode 1!
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Jun 6, 2017 21:06
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Blind Sally posted:I can't wait for CJacobs to finish his Crash Bandicoot LP. I'm waiting for the Official Ty The Tasmanian Tiger LP to start.
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Jun 6, 2017 21:12
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CJacobs posted:I can't take credit for it, no, just took an updated version for posterity. Ah, okay. Also, RE: the best episode, due to the combined efforts of your music video and your lack of hindsight, I'd have to say that this episode was the strongest one. I say this as a consumer of silly nerdy things on the internet, that the addition of silly awesome nerdy things to this episode has boosted it above the other. I can no longer be objective about this.
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Jun 6, 2017 21:19
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By the way, the thing I was gonna mention (that I forgot) about shoeboxes is that Zane's specification of a shoebox is pretty important! You see, the Clicker is stored in a shoebox... but we've seen one other such shoebox before! So I think it's kinda cool that Zane gave himself the perfect loophole for writing himself out of existence, but continuing to exist. He just put his writing in a shoebox and bam it's like he never left!  But again, for all we know, it only is that way because Alan may have penned that in to allow the Clicker to exist. So who knows!
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Jun 6, 2017 21:24
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Well, Alan being a fictional character would explain why he's such a crappy author.
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Jun 6, 2017 21:31
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So, to prepare for the inevitable bonus video on the subject, here are the different theories on who is a character and who's not, and what the implications for the story would be: Alan and Zane are both real: This one is the most obvious, least crackpot-esque, and is almost certainly true. Just because, really, it's the simplest explanation. Zane got trapped by the darkness in his attempts to save Barbara in the 70s, and so that it could not use him as its puppet he wrote himself out of existence with its power. This, save for anything stored inside a shoebox. There he placed the Clicker, imbuing it with the power to erase the darkness (we haven't seen how it does that yet). He wrote that someday Alan would come upon this shoebox and use it to beat the darkness at its own game, just as he failed to do. Alan is a real person and came to Bright Falls with his wife, making the same exact mistake. An unlikely coincidence, a coincidence nonetheless. The only thing shaped by Zane in this theory was Alan's childhood fear of the dark, lending a reason to the Clicker's existence. Or maybe he already was afraid of the dark and Zane just took advantage of that, who knows. Alan is real, Zane is not: This theory is probably the least plausible because there are a lot of conveniences that'd need to take place for it to happen as in the game. In order for this one to work, a whole lot has to be chalked up to Alan writing as such. A short list in chronological order follows: - Zane and Barbara coming to Bright Falls and all of the stuff that happened to them therein, written by Alan to eventually give himself a way out of the Dark Place. Think of it like a prologue to the actual novel, with the fake protagonist's story giving way to the real one. - Tor and Odin coming under the spell of the Dark Presence could have happened without Alan writing it, but he would have to have changed it so that it took Barbara's form. Everything else that happened to them would have to be shaped around their message for Alan about Cynthia Weaver, although again that could just be him writing in a way to defeat the darkness. - He wrote the Clicker into the story from his own life experiences, and this is the part that lends a bit of credence to this theory. Pretty much everything related to Alan himself, from the fakeout at the psychiatric joint to his reason for coming to Bright Falls in the first place, could reasonably have been written by him. The Alan Wake Files goes into great detail about how Alan didn't just write Departure as the story we are playing through in the game. He also wrote out full lives for basically every inhabitant of Bright Falls that would one day become relevant, how they became a Taken et cetera. He wrote the foundation of the place and several of its key townsfolk. He wrote about people he reasonably couldn't have had control over during the events of the story as we play through them, and all of that is confirmed canon. The Dark Place gave Alan a lot more power over the world than we see in the game, so he may very well have used it to plop down a whole new party inbetween Tor and Odin and himself. Zane is real, Alan is not: This one is the mind-bender, but it also would make just as much sense. As I said above, basically everything in the story that is directly about Alan could have been written by him... but the opposite is also true, in that EVERYTHING could've been written by Zane. Departure as a whole could just be a frame story for whatever Zane wrote before he poofed out of existence. His attempt to get back at the darkness, to give someone else a chance to defeat it where he had none remaining. Think about how similar they are: Alan and Zane are both famous authors, who valued the love of their lives and came to Bright Falls for a reprieve; their muse was literally swallowed by the darkness below the lake, and in their attempts to save them, they too were taken prisoner. That's where Zane's story ends, but we can glean what may have happened after that from Departure. Zane wrote a poem- the same poem he reads a bit of to Alan in the game's introduction -that brought Alan into existence and plopped him in the exact same scenario. But where Zane is a poet, Alan is an author, and thus he has the versatility and leeway to write his way out of the Dark Place. And it fits almost perfectly. If Zane's events were real and Alan's were not, then it'd make sense how the Dark Presence would appear as Barbara, Tor and Odin would write about Cynthia Weaver, and so on. Everything that is in the game world independent of Departure could still exist without Alan. But the game's events require him to be there, and that is where his independence as a character (once he's been written to life) comes in. CJacobs fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Jun 6, 2017 |
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Jun 6, 2017 22:00
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CJacobs posted:By the way, the thing I was gonna mention (that I forgot) about shoeboxes is that Zane's specification of a shoebox is pretty important! You see, the Clicker is stored in a shoebox... but we've seen one other such shoebox before! I was going to ask about whether it was one shoebox or any shoebox that's immune, but this seems to answer the question. And I bet the reason Zane is a cryptid is because a bunch of people probably had some of his books stored away in shoeboxes, and once Zane wrote himself out you have all these peoples with multiple copies of books from a writer no one knows about. If it were just one set then people could pass it off as a hoax, but having so many people (presumably) having identical copies of the book raises questions that aren't as simply brushed off.
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Jun 6, 2017 22:28
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CJacobs posted:~theories~ 
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Jun 6, 2017 22:59
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From now on, I'm calling your "Like Subscribe Comment" voice the CSauce Voice.
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Jun 6, 2017 23:09
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 I have achieved a fail state. Ten seconds into her plot dump, you can walk on those boxes and fall down the floor. There is no way out.
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Jun 6, 2017 23:24
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A bit of probably really dumb  I had while watching the video:-Alan's mom claimed to have gotten The Clicker from Alan's father, who he never met. -The clicker was created by Zane to help Alan defeat the darkness -Alan had never met (or heard of) Thomas Zane prior to the events of the game Is Zane Alan's father?
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Jun 6, 2017 23:41
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