the stranger the better

The new God of War was announced at PlayStation’s State of Play and will be the first game not centred around Kratos.

The coolest thing about the trailer that was shown was two gods who appear to be the antagonists. Sekmet from Egypt and Begtse from Mongolia.

After two games with Norse gods, and wider current culture being obsessed with all things Norse mythology, it’s pretty refreshing.

There was a part of the gameplay I didn’t care much for, and that was two(?) companion characters - The first being the Sword.

The sword seems to talk in the trailer, and I genuinely hate the trope of ‘weapon protagonist uses having a personality’. It existing as a character will no doubt push the writing into Marvel territory with insufferable quips. I’ve never seen this done well.

The second is…a cube…called Frank Phranque. Voiced by the Jack Quaid who plays Hughie in the Boys.

It’s a choice. I’m not sure if it’s a good one, but we’ll see how it plays out. Unfortunately from the gameplay shown, it’s another quippy character. I’m maybe just a bit tired of that style of writing.

But my criticism is completely offset by the unfortunately expected misogynistic ramble from fucking ‘Gamers’ who have never known the touch of a woman.

We’re already seeing shit memes flood the internet and they’ll continue long after the game’s released.

From a broad sense, it’s now more difficult to criticise the game earnestly because any initial impressions about talking weapons and…cubes…will get co-opted by people producing this shit.

Crossroads

This one is about the contrast of beauty and pain, nerevars inner conflict of having to prioritize his goals of becoming king over his adoration of voryn, about nerevars past and why he does not want to be in love, his fear and trauma, about voryns dedication to nerevar and attempts to comfort him even when he does not understand him, the tenderness between them. The strip on the left is hard to understand if you dont know my headcanons, but it is supposed to be nerevars past "lover" I also just really wanted to draw nerevar in pearls, i usually portray him as quite a traditionally masculine character so i wanted to make something different this time. This artwork may look a bit different because i decided to use yet another different brush on this and the process was quite messy, i never did the lineart stage. I kind of dont like how messy the anatomy for nerevar is, atleast it always looks wrong to me, but whatever

Yes i did say last time im gonna work on Sil and yes i did infact get distracted

close ups:

here's what you actually want in a thrift store:

in a rich town

run by a church

staffed exclusively by little old ladies

I say this with so, so much care: Real queer shit written by real queers can and will sometimes make you uncomfortable. That's one of the defining features of weird, independent queer media. And weird independent media more broadly. Art that comes from true individual passion and authenticity has edges and bite to it that mass market corporate products intentionally do not. Has a rawness that can offend.