okay i have always said i will not Discourse but since i give no fucks anymore fine fine i will bite i will join the club i will give my dlc Thoughts

i am perhaps in the minority here but i genuinely did not have a particular problem with anyone’s characterization, for two reasons:

1) a lot of what i’ve seen claimed to be “out of character” is not, in fact, out of character, it’s simply an oversimplification of character. it tosses an approximation of past lore at the wall in the lowest common denominator for expedience and, in the process, changes the meanings if it’s taken in a vacuum. john “tells the teachers” about their father’s abuse when the book of joseph implies that the bruises were simply discovered on him ( since with most given ages/timelines it would be extremely doubtful john would have been able to coherently explain to any authority figures what the situation was at home, anyway). jacob is implied to have killed old man seed instead of canonically committing arson because “they were taken from their birth home and put in an even-worse foster home” as an explanation for him ending up in juvie was too convoluted for this context (though this negates the entire point of john even having told anyone about their father).

we see a similar combining of backstory elements with john, which is the passage i’ve seen complained about the most. i disagree with the premise that the killing itself is out of character — john seed canonically stalks, harasses, tortures, abuses, and murders innocent people, including women, all the fucking time in canon. it’s very much implied that he does sometimes simply kill out of rage/because he gets carried away; given that this is john when he is theoretically cleaner, more sober, and is putting forth an effort to channel his rage, misanthropy and sadistic tendencies into something productive, it stands to reason this could have, and would have, happened prior. i said this sort of jokingly yesterday, but the only thing particularly out of character is the manner in which he communicates it and his expressed fears to joseph (which could be attributed to attempting to manipulate him/get sympathy, but is more likely simply lazy writing in communicating that he left his old life and joined joseph because he viewed it as a chance of redemption/salvation; like the alteration of jacob going to extremes to save his brothers at the compromise of narrative integrity even within the dlc itself, it crams the fact that john was struggling prior to the project into one exchange). canonically he was historically a drug addict, sex addict, a misanthrope, petty, vindictive, and opportunistic — (having leveled rome, he was not merely punching up). he is also a sadistic murderer with extreme envy and resentment towards anyone who he views as joseph holding in higher esteem (the deputy, faith); none of this is new. it’s simply condensed. unless you believe that the people of hope county were really kinda asking for it, or reject the fact that john was canonically implied to have regularly gotten carried away because of his personal enjoyment and gratification from inflicting suffering, or think that his handling of mary may and joey hudson implied he was a feminist king, the only thing that’s out of character that’s depicted is the fact that the man who essentially staved off any legal action against the cult/protected himself and leveraged control/joseph professes could probably get the nuke codes from the president if he tried is sniveling to joseph about how he’s going away. (what is true is that he broke down sobbing when joseph found him, consumed with professed self-loathing, and did in that sense join the project to “save himself,” but here the implications of his own self-awareness or self-hatred is confined to “i didn’t want to, i didn’t mean to.” a statement of questionable sincerity).

(edited to add that yes, taking things in a vacuum absolutely does change the character in critical ways; i’m simply stating that what’s depicted isn’t outside the realm of aspects of these characters from the perspective of what we’ve been given).

which brings me to the second reason i truthfully have little to complain about, in spite of the fact that all characters but joseph lack the dynamism and complexity that they have when considered across extensive material (the book of joseph, absolution, far cry 5; the lore has always been spread across mediums and occasionally inconsistent/irreconcilable and required a degree of piecing together the most cohesive narrative on an individual interpretation basis).

2) this is a hypothetical dlc that takes place entirely inside joseph’s mind. it’s his perceptions versus what the voice shows him as reality. if faith is too one-dimensional cast in the light of innocent victimhood, it wouldn’t be particularly surprising even in the hands of better writers with more time & resources; that is how joseph sees her, compounded by his own guilt (even joseph’s hallucination of faith, completely removed from memories or visions, says “you didn’t know me” when joseph professes that something isn’t like her). even were it treated as a canon resource by fic writers, it’s only particularly useful in terms of writing joseph’s outlook. that would have been the primary takeaway even did it not have its severe (but probably inevitable in a 3 hour dlc with different writers covering a span of lore across various mediums which has always been of dubious consistency) oversimplification problem.

and that is where i close this essay no one asked for <3 

Is this me posting ONCE AGAIN about Security Breach?

YES

Spoilers

Spoilers

SPOILERS

SPOILERRRRRSSSSSSS

Ok

Yup

Are the people who don't want to be spoiled gone? Good. Cool.

So. Last time I covered a lot of bases but I've returned to cover more. Mostly the DLC. I want stuff for the DLC and I'm going to share what I want and that's spoilery.

Ok so:

-Saving the animatronics

Very self-explanatory. Roxy, Monty, and Chica look like they were made to be my besties, therefore THEY MUST BE MY BESTIES. LET ME HELP THEM. LET ME PUT THEM BACK TOGETHER. PLEASE.

-Bonnie

Glamfred deserves his bunny buddy back. Ok???? OK????????????????? BRING BACK HIS BUNNY BUDDY!!!!!!

-ok but like actual character development please

All these little titles are gonna be very self explanatory. Character development! Michael got a fairly tropey multi-game character arc so why can't Gregory and Vanessa (or one or the other) get a quick one? A little teensy character arc??? Gregory becomes just a little nicer to the animatronics after seeing the good in them! Vanessa just is

Vanessa

I don't have any ideas for Vanessa, but make her an actual character!!!!! Who's nice and actually does want to help but is also Vanny I guess!?!?!?!

Idk anymore

Kinda upset that Vanessa is Vanny

Oh yeah and the whole reason I made this post but didn't say it was the reason I made this post:

The favorite character and the best one himself whom was previously mentioned:

Haha I'm stalling:

Michael

Seriously please bring this man back plz

Steel Wool listen to me please just 1 more game

Ok time to be serious now there are legitimate reasons as to why I think he should come back and I will explain them now:

-His father came back so reasonably he should too

Reasonable. Literally, Vanny dug his corpse out of a Pizzeria fire years after it happened (?) and shoved it into an equally trash looking rabbit costume. If his corpse survived, so did Michael's, and as far as I know, remnant will do the job just fine if he did die.

-Uhm oh yeah why is his room in the Pizza Plex

Excuse me you cannot put Michael's room in the Pizza Plex and then have the player play those special CDs about Vanessa and her therapists in HIS ROOM and expect me to think that is COINCIDENCE. NOT IN THIS SERIES, STEEL WOOL, NOT IN THIS SERIES.

-oh yeah not to mention the Pizzeria him and Henry used as the trap is just

There

Under the Plex

That alone should say enough

Ok so uhm I'm going to say this now: while I do want Michael to come back 100% for this dlc, and I'd love some more content, I don't want them to overuse him. He's had 3 games (not counting fnaf 1 because nobody is for sure) and while I would love for his character to be actually like fleshed out beyond what we kind of know (as in I want more voicelines) I don't think that means he should be overused. I'm sick and tired of his stupid dad and I don't want to become sick and tired of my favorite character. He shouldn't be thrown in at every available opportunity just because people love him (although I suppose William keeps coming back because more people like him and obsess over him and Michael's there for 3 games cuz he's one of the few semi-hero kind of characters.)

I don't really know what kind of character in the whole protagonist-hero spectrum Michael's supposed to be in so I'm going to say he is in none of them. He doesn't seem to be morally gray because he is hunting down and trying to stop a villain but these acts are spurred by spite and anger, and also pretty sure at least one act of arson has been committed by the dude so idk

Long story short there's stuff I want for the dlc and its called character development and Michael

The Flaw In L.A. Noire’s Legacy

Cops, robbers, a grand murderer and....shitty arson cases make up the wonderful game known as L.A. Noire. 

Originally released on the XBOX 360 and PS3, L.A. Noire set itself apart from the criminal-driven Rockstar Games kind of game. Here, you play as LAPD detective and war hero Cole Phelps as he rises through the ranks of the police force apprehending criminals and the like. 

Now you’d think that makes for a great game right? Well you’d be about 99% correct, except for one major flaw that Rockstar Games fans (Especially of L.A. Noire can’t seem to get past) and especially more that it’s been remastered for the PS4 and XBOX One

What is this flaw you ask.....it’s the arson desk. Now compare homicide to arson in this game. Homicide has Cole on the trail of the B.D. killer or what he presumes to be the Black Dahlia Arson has you solve shitty house and property fires and you only play as Cole for 2-3 cases if you’re counting the DLC case Nicholson Electroplating. Vice builds up to what we think may be a climactic bookend to the game only to have Phelps busted down to arson due to infidelity with a German broad. 

Now if you’re playing the game, what would you rather have be a satisfying conclusion, catching a serial arsonist you served with in World War II that went crazy or solving one of the most legendary murders in all of history? If you chose the latter, you at least have more sense than the developers of this game originally intended. 

It’s not how and why the arson desk is bad, it’s why in the ever loving crystal meth fuck does it end the game? Hell, you don’t even end the game as Cole, you play as one of his old war compatriots Jack Kelso who’s an investigator for a life insurance company. That’s about as boring as going to a concert who you presume is headlined by Shinedown but gets bait & switched last minute with Kenny G. What would you rather have, a New York strip steak or McDonald’s? 

Also, the ability to play in black & white shouldn’t just be an option, it should be the focus of the damn game. This isn’t some modern-day police adventure with the characters of 21 Jump Street, this is noir, where seedy and sultry murders are everywhere and you could tell the innocent from the guilty with one swift glance and a piece of hard evidence and that’s another small nitpick with the game....the interrogation system. 

See, in order to get the conviction (As The Rageaholic said in his review, which I’ll link below), you’ve got to have the exact piece of evidence that links them to the scene of the crime or you redo the interrogation for billionth fucking time starting from the top in hopes of pinning down the pinko Commie for murder, arson, or whatever the fuck crime he or she has committed. I mean I should be able to nail a kiddie rapist to the floor with less evidence than what this game requires but no....because someone at Rockstar decided that this was actual police work, and on top of the arson desk being a pile of unmitigated shit, it holds L.A. Noire back from being one of the best and possibly innovative games of the damn decade. 

For all its’ faults, L.A. Noire isn’t a bad game. It’s a good game plagued by bad decision making. Start with arson and end with homicide and make interrogating suspects a hell of a lot more intriguing. 

The Rageaholic’s L.A. Noire Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck6abSg4860