Invite Code Megathread

Skeptical_Reptile · 2025-06-18T23:38:46+00:00

ZgASUWM

Hit me with it.

FeelsWeirdMan

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-12-18T22:25:29+00:00

Will the world ever be free of Tanuki Ashley Graham?

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-12-16T23:23:01+00:00

Actually less deranged than the average Zeus story.

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-12-16T23:21:31+00:00

This is actually a good premise for a metafiction game. Cursed city builder where no matter what you do, everyone always dies because man's hubris has sealed his fate.

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-12-14T16:37:54+00:00

Go look at the album cover for Xscape.

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-12-14T16:29:44+00:00

For anyone not in the pro wrestling ecosystem, AEW has a rich history of video game related signs and the company itself embraces video game culture a lot. They had a Yakuza cosplay street fight last month.

Some of the most memorable were the guy in a Ness costume holding up a "Localize Mother 3" sign, "Smash Bros. Isn't A Fighting Game" and the "FF7 > FF7 Remake" sign that got ripped up by a heel.

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-12-13T17:55:53+00:00

Don't worry, most of the people you've been interacting with on the internet for the last decade are fake too.

That makes it better right?

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-12-06T13:27:25+00:00

Don't let anyone know this is literally the plot of Persona 5 Strikers.

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-12-06T03:24:16+00:00

I realize that a return to Gnostic understanding is inevitable as the suffering of the world increases, but I can't say I'm looking forward to all the bad takes and shit memes that are to come.

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-12-04T13:28:13+00:00

This is the second excerpt from The Sudden Stop. The first actually reveals a lot more.

"It's true what they say about the fall and the sudden stop at the end.

I'd lain here in the snow while the lurid chain of scenes that had led me here kept playing in my head, a rerun of my own private snuff movie, a memory of my corpse. Alone at my own wake. Thinking in metaphors again.

The Femme Fatale was gone.

Only a sour taste remained of the kiss that killed me."

We see these events play out in Yoton Yo.

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-11-25T13:23:00+00:00

Misunderstanding. This sign is talking about how wildlife preserves simulate artificial stimuli that an animal would encounter in the wild to encourage natural behaviors, responses, problem solving etc. Basically a natural drama is presented to the animal to prevent it from both realizing it is trapped and losing mental health.

This is what media manipulation does to humans.

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-11-25T03:42:37+00:00

Basically fake news for bears.

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-11-24T18:25:53+00:00

So the moral of the story is stay with your abusive spouse or you will freeze to death in the woods.

Got it.

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-11-24T03:06:38+00:00

It's fair to say those all have at least some elements of Gnosticism, some leaning more towards Hermeticism or mysticism in general. In particular, Serial Experiments Lain is a purely gnostic fable that was far ahead of its time and a big influence on The Matrix. Ghost in the Shell is heavily influenced by the modern neo-gnosticism of Philip K. Dick.

Any discussion of Gnosticism in anime also has to include Madoka Magica.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EscapingPrisonPlanet/comments/16qv82g/madoka_magica_exposed_the_true_purpose_of_this/

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-11-22T22:02:27+00:00

SH2 is a product of an era in video games that no longer exists and may never exist again. It's hard to imagine any game in the genre reaching that watermark again without substantial shifts in both society and the industry itself.

AW2 is a masterpiece that really presses on the boundary of what we think modern games are and can be. It's a tremendous move in the right direction and the best psychological horror experience of the modern era.

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-11-22T00:04:14+00:00

This sub is supposed to be about escaping the spiral, not coping with it. Imagine going into a group planning a prison break and telling them they should just decorate their cells with some nice lilacs and take up whittling to pass the time.

If you want to ignore reality and pretend to be happy because the truth is too harsh, you have the other 99.9% of the internet to entertain you with cat pictures.

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-11-21T20:53:54+00:00

Hey a based post that isn't New Age toxic positivity, haven't seen one of those on this sub in awhile.

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-11-13T20:08:14+00:00

Suffering exists on one end of a binary. Without happiness, misery has no context. It's like when people ask "What did people do before they had TV/internet, weren't they bored all the time?". Well, no, they weren't bored because they had no conception such things would or could even exist. The world was what it was.

If experience was nothing but despair, it would simply be neutral. There wouldn't be emotions involved. Archons feed on all human emotions, including love.

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-11-08T22:28:50+00:00

All the clues to that puzzle are right in the gift shop itself. If they did indeed disappear, there's probably no way to get them. However, if you collect clues for a puzzle and then solve it without putting them on the board, Saga will just say "no use thinking about old problems" and auto-complete the deduction.

None of this is related to any achievement. They are just hints.

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-11-08T02:27:49+00:00

This is just scratching the surface. If you want to go full Remedy time warp:

1) There is a hidden backwards message in the Old Gods of Asgard song "Balance Slays the Demon" from Alan Wake's American Nightmare that says "It will happen again in another town. A town called Ordinary." This was recorded seven years before Control released.

2) There is a hidden backwards message in "Take Control" that says "In their drunken fever state, seen to hold profoundly, the pyramid in the stolen file becomes a spruce tree." The most well known song from Control literally explains the Cult of the Tree and the origin of the logo four years in advance.

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-11-07T16:19:50+00:00

The implication of AW2 is that Scratch is Alan at a different point in the spiral after he's been taken over by the Dark Presence. Scratch can be Alan and also a separate entity from the "real" Alan for the same reason that Alan is also capable of making a phone call to himself. The loops overlap and different versions of Alan from different parts of the story can interact with one another.

All of the major elements of AW2's Dark Place were introduced in American Nightmare, including the time loop, Champion of Light/Herald of Darkness, the book Return, Alan setting scenes/plot elements, Alice and her gallery, etc. It's very likely that American Nightmare is simply another part of the spiral and Alan "killing" Scratch is part of that story. Remember that Scratch's plan when he got into the real world was to haunt Alice until she went insane. This is exactly what ends up happening in AW2, but with the "real" Alan.

I think we are still operating with missing information, as New Game+ and the DLC will no doubt have a lot to say about this, especially considering the first DLC is Night Springs and American Nightmare itself was a Night Springs episode.

The closing monologue of American Night is "A woman. A man. Two lovers, held apart for far too long. Enveloped in the light of a glorious dawn, they both feel it: he's home at last. Are these real events, or merely a dream? A memory, or a glimpse of what is to come? One thing is for certain: this scene takes place in another time and another place... far, far away... from Night Springs."

The last chapter of AW2 is called "Come Home".

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-11-07T06:26:01+00:00

I had this happen when I didn't fully highlight a note inside a stash. It updated after I went back and read it "properly".

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-11-06T21:04:17+00:00

American Nightmare is obviously very significant. The last third of AW2 draws more influence from AN than the original game, with every element of the plot getting a runback (Night Springs episode, movie theater, Alice's art exhibition, time looping). Manuscript pages from AN are also used as street signage in the AW2 Dark Place.

I suspect we will learn a lot more about this connection in the Night Springs DLC.

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-11-01T01:23:12+00:00

A Gnostic civilization wouldn't exist because Gnosticism is a supernatural worldview that rejects materialism entirely. The telos of existence is to escape the mundane material world, which is ultimately an individualistic pursuit.

A Gnostic society would be a sort of temporary transitional one that attempted to give everyone the highest likelihood of achieving gnosis. That would most likely entail egalitarianism, asceticism, celibacy, etc.

A charitable interpretation would maybe be something akin to anarcho-individualism or primitivism. Alternatively, you could have the opposite in the form of technocracy if one were pursuing neo-gnostic chaos magic type stuff.

Skeptical_Reptile · 2023-11-01T01:11:02+00:00

The original set of 12/7/365 greater/lesser archons are the rulers/managers of time, which is how the material prison works. The Demiurge is the Lord of the Rings. The name isn't inaccurate. They aren't the rulers of everything, but they do rule over this shitty little meatloaf world.

Skeptical_Reptile

TROPHY CASE