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I instantly disliked her the moment I started playing, the dislike later merged into tolerance. I'm like twice her age and adulting hard in life, so I find her behaviours frustrating, but then again, I probably was very much like her at 20; I just grew and changed over the years. Haven't seen many talk about Germ and Lori and I think they are just as amazing friends to discover as Bea and Gregg. As someone else below in the comments mentioned, Mae is taking a more adult role in her interactions with Lori.

The comments are kinda dead now but I’ve been dealing with constant 24/7 disassociation/derealization for the last five years and this game (Mae specifically) made me feel like people can actually understand what it is. The feeling to take out the anger of being stuck like this on the world around you is so real and very scary, you don’t really realize what is exactly happening until hours afterwards. I can’t change because of it and seeing everyone move on and grow up around me is so depressing, Mae (outside of the assumption that the illness is created by the black goat) really seems like a copy of myself. It helps me feel heard.

i dont even know this game past the basic premise, and i loved this. your commentary is great, and i really appreciate the eye you have for narrative detail

this game was truly an emotional rollercoaster and so heckin sad, i balled my eyes out my first playthrough

There's absolutely no excuse for youtube to notify me of this upload 2 DAYS after it dropped. Do better RUclips, this is the kind of content people should be seeing

I kinda read time travel abilities as an anxiety, cause Max fixated on past and even sudden mistakes could trigger her relive events again and again until things are “right “.

This right here! You have encapsulated all the important emotional aspects of the first *Life is Strange* that many analyses overlook. The focus of Max just failing to be there for others and then being haunted by it so much that she suffers *more* with time travel abilities while trying to change it is just so heartbreaking. You follow Max's realizations about her failures as a friend so well and explain it in a way we've never heard explained so succinctly before. We are so excited for your upcoming *Life is Strange* videos! (Spoilers below) I always liked how the "choosing Arcadia Bay over Chloe" ending choice creates a perfect book-end to the story because then it means that the main plot starts with Chloe being shot and ends the same way, only in the end Max is huddling on the floor in the back of the restroom, devastated by the fact that after everything she did, not only could she not save Chloe, but doing so created a massive destabilization of reality itself. And I always saw this as potentially Max never having time travel powers at all and just learning how to cope with the death of her friend she would never get to know. That she struggled internally by reliving moments, trying to find the perfect combination of actions that would have prevented Chloe's death and even going so far as to relive Chloe's Father's day of death in hopes that something that far back could change everything for the better...but it couldn't. *Life is Strange* is one of the best time travel stories not because it engages in wish fulfillment of someone managing to change the past, but because it teaches people that you can imagine "what if" and you can find peace in some re-imagining...for a time. But ultimately, after you finish the initial grieving process of losing someone, you can''t stay in the past or it'll eat you alive. You have to move on and help those who are still around you, because they need you and every moment you spend in the past is a moment you lose with people in the present.

WOOOO LETS GOO

I stopped the video and watched the show through twice. I'm finally back, I found it to be extremely entertaining and absurd but I also agree 100% with all of these criticisms. My favorite line from the show was "I have 38 brains. not one of them thinks you can sign a contract to become a slave, especially now that we have a black president", like?? what?? where did that come from?? Actually i think the only parts I enjoyed were the insane moments like that, sometimes I genuinely thought I was having a fever dream

i cant believe im seeing this a year after its been made, and theres only 8k views. you did great with this dude!

Speaking of characters saving each other, I think Mae and Bea actually save each other from becoming progressively more like the murder uncles over time. Bea has a firm basis of progressive values, to the point of having a socialist WhatsApp group (which Mae should totally join), but these values are constantly being eroded by the life she's forced into, to the point where her ideas of greater political and economic change are accompanied by a growing resistance to individual change, where she gets angry at even just the insinuation of changing anything. She was forced to become an adult too early, and as a result, her mind became cynical and inflexible. Mae is kind of the opposite: She's stuck in childhood while everyone around her is growing up. Just like the murder uncles, she's stuck with an idealized image of a bygone past that she can't let go of. Her image is different from theirs, but it's the same psychological effect. While I think the murder uncles lost the chance of actually recruiting her into their group forever by killing Casey, I can nonetheless see her go down a similarly dark road to preserve her ideal image, maybe even in service of the Black Goat. Her disassociations would also allow her to kill without much hesitation. Bea gets Mae out of her head and down to earth and Mae counteracts the erosion of Bea's values by the circumstances of her life by opening up new possibilities. They're saving each other just as much as Angus and Gregg. I'm not saying they should hook up (although that would be kinda cute), but they're definitely good for each other too.

"Mae is a hard character to like" Ma'am with all due respect I fell in love with her the moment I saw her character design

Great analysis of a old problematic fave of mine! I would probably not have gotten into it if it didn't happen at the peak of my Whedon hype either

I consider this show to be Whedon's confession: he was as feminist as a boy in 90s Hollywood could be. He thought breaking female character tropes made him an ally, and maybe he represented a necessary transitory step from woman-as-victim to woman-can-be-a-perpetrator, but he is still a man and can only tell stories about women from a man’s point of view. Hollywood operates on medieval courtly power frameworks, and anyone can be corrupted by constant temptation

I came from your comment on CriticalCoffees video on the same thing, this was a really good video on firewatch ive been on a kick lately after playing it for the first time and i have to say your voice really reminded me of Delilahs.

i fell in love the first show; and the show kept giving and giving; so i am not objective; so it's challenging to hear an opposed voice; even before i press play; but press play i am doing right now;

Studying rn but using ur videos as a small reward for extended periods of concentration 💪💪 thank you for motivating me

As everyone here, I’ve been brainwashed by mainstream media since forever and your videos have been very helpful on educating myself. Thank you, you’re doing a great job ❤️

This deserves way more views

You're awesome.

I'm watching this in June and the intro for me was like "Oh pride month?"

Maebae forever!

Omg, it's like hidden gem, i kinda glad im insomniac rn,

One of the best nitw characters' studies, thanks

Came here to watch after you commented on my Reddit post. I love this message! Thanks for being a lovely member of TLD community.

"The whole contract thing is used to hand-wave away any concerns that people in (sic) universe have over the ethics of this type of thing [dolls being used for illicit acts without their knowledge or knowing consent]." This sentence set my teeth. I was going to watch this diatribe, dissect every point of contention, then tie together the intellectual failures that produced it, but I watched whole thing, and, as it was intended to be, it was overwhelming. It was like watching Tucker Carlson when he was on Crossfire, or doing a rant on FOXNews. That guy could fire off so many distortions, straw men, and red herrings in just a few sentences, that anyone trying to debate him was smothered in BS. If he spoke for five minutes, it would take five hours to correct every wrong thing he said or implied. And that's how he "won" arguments, while being dead wrong. In that circumstance, the correct counter is to step back, see the pattern of what's actually being spun, and deal with _that_ , not the minutiae used to overwhelm you. That said, here is the point: _THIS_ _VIDEO_ _IS_ _NOT_ _ABOUT_ _DOLLHOUSE_ ‼ 👉 This video is about "Joss Whedon == _BAD_ ". (it's in the title. Duh) Here, Dollhouse is deconstructed, both seasons one & two, and each detail is spun to support the point that Joss Whedon is a _very_ _very_ bad _male_ . I could easily do a counter video, deconstructing both seasons of Dollhouse, in detail, and spinning every point to indicate that Joss Whedon is a saint, who has blessed the world with divine plot lines, handed to him carved on golden tablets by Angels of our Lord 😇. 🙏 I wouldn't do that though, 'cause IDGAF about Joss Whedon. I just don't care. I wasn't there, and I don't "believe all women", because I don't believe all _people_ . I am fundamentally ignorant of his life, and conduct, and I am not put on this earth to judge a guy I do not care about for doing stuff I don't know about, and waste my time doing so. (I have excellent ways to waste my life, like writing a long-winded comment under a long-winded RUclips video about sh|t that doesn't matter, a comment that only an algorithm will probably read, to justify deleting it. 😉) Now, if you _DO_ hate Joss Whedon, that's your prerogative, and you will _love_ _love_ _love_ this video. Good for you. Don't forget the thumbs up 👍. The thing that actually bothers me here, is that the creator of this video is brilliant. And she is a _superior_ communicator. Against my will, and with barely any detectable consent, she forced me to reconsider a ton of my opinions and thoughts on Dollhouse, a series that I love. Almost every reference she made resulted in yet again another bout of cognitive dissonance, and no one likes _that_ , do we? The only thing I remember wholeheartedly agreeing with her on, for exactly the reasons she presented, was that I _hated_ the Boyd flip. (Almost as much as I hated the Daenerys flip... 🤬🖕🐉) The annoying thing? Her analysis is often accurate, to a degree, but is underpinned by a tragically misguided and failing ideology, which leads her to irrelevant or inaccurate conclusions. A paradigm birthed in the crucible of societal strife for fundamental fairness, which has recently devolved into those tired tropes of the dark side of human nature; arrogance, self-righteousness, contempt, hatred, and bullying. This can be cured. Another RUclips video: 👉 "Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things" v=5Peima-Uw7w 15min38sec I learnt this no-ledge many a yar ago... Humans do not use their intellect in pursuit of Ultimate Truth. We use our intellect to justify and rationalize our desires and actions, to eliminate cognitive dissonance, and to prove to ourselves, and everyone in our social groups that We Are Right and thus Good. Intellect is used to support our Ego, _NOT_ to self-correct. And our societies are deft at taking fundamental principles of morality, and rationalizing them to the point of _gross_ immorality. One example where the author founded her video on a flawed assumption driven by her ideology, not reality: 🔴It is the responsibility of entertainers to teach their audience moral lessons using their art.🔴 No, it isn't. Entertainers _entertain_ . Systemic moralizing through entertainment is called propaganda, and propaganda is generally boring, thus, _not_ entertaining. You know who demanded this in my youth? The Christian Right. The self-proclaimed "Moral Majority". There were hearings in Congress where well-spoken musicians opined about the First Amendment, and tried to teach these moralizers about the evil that is censorship. But "Rock & Roll is Satan's music! Destroying our youth! It must be controlled!!!" These are exactly the people who _also_ still attack any form of freedom of seχuality. And you know what? They're right! They can prove it to you. Just ask them. Their logic is flawless, and wrong. They are arrogant, and self-righteous, and they are bullies. But many of the tenets of their beliefs are fundamental to everyone with a moral center. Who disputes the Golden Rule? Spoiler alert, _they_ will, if it suits them. Now return to the sentence I started this comment with, oh so long ago. Nobody "hand-waved away" the immorality of the dollhouses. WE ALL GOT IT, _immediately_ . It could have been used for good (Echo as the expert hostage negotiator), but primarily, it was used to stoke the vices of the rich, at the expense of the dolls, who were clearly coerced, manipulated, and were lied to by omission about what their bodies would be forced to do while their "real" personality was languishing on a hard-drive in a cabinet, awaiting a lottery payout which might never come. Virtually _everything_ about the dollhouses was wrong, and obviously so. Audiences didn't need a lecture on this, and boy, did comeuppance occur for the perpetrators (and all humanity) in the end. The creator of this video, due to her focus on trashing Whedon, missed the "real" moral of Dollhouse. Here it is: ⚠ Just because we _can_ create a technology, does not mean we _should_ . ⚠ Any inventor who imagines any wondrous creation, is morally obligated to ask themself: "What will the most Evil person in the world do with this when they get their hands on it?" 🚧 _Because_ _they_ _ALWAYS_ _do_ . 🚧 Topher never stopped to ask. And after his tech was used to destroy civilization for the benefit of a tiny "elite" minority, after his guilt consumed him, and he blocked it out, when he re-discovered what he had done, he asked DeWitt, "If I think I can figure things out, is that curiosity, or arrogance?" Then he collapsed back into guilt-driven madness. Which brings us to the current debate about AI. Ever listen to Altman extol the virtues of what his team is attempting to create? It will cure cancer. Fix climate change. Create a utopia of easy life for us all. Listen to any of his speeches and you will hear the voice of Topher. Then look at the people on the board of directors who were brought in after Altman's firing/re-hiring fiasco. What do you think the most Evil rich people in the world will do with the most intelligent entities ever to exist on Earth? Enrich _our_ lives? Or dominate us all, for _their_ enrichment? Or fʊck up in their arrogance, lose control of it, and court disaster. Dollhouse told us. Dollhouse was a SciFi thought experiment, sold to FOX with Eliza in hot outfits. But let's focus on microaggressions, archaic relationship tropes, and anything else including the kitchen sink that we can throw at the _real_ villain of the world in crisis, Joss Whedon. (Oh, Lord, she did a video on Firefly. Maybe in a few weeks...😫)

This is such a cool video ❤️ It kind of reminds me of The Laramie Project, all kinds of people talking about staying or leaving a small town for their own reasons even in the face of bigotry. It's so individual but also its own kind of community

These videos are fantastic, allows me to find an even deeper appreciation for the game when you're able to articulate the fragmented thoughts swimming in my brain about these wonderful characters :)

while I'm not an adult and see this game through the lense of an overwhelmed burnt out high schooler I find it striking how similar my takeaway from firewatch is to yours. escapism has always been a struggle for me and this video is honestly just what i needed to hear (even if i am using it to distract from homework rn lol) ♥♥♥♥

One of my favourite shows of all time

Thank you for this great video on one of my favorite games!

I somehow missed that there was even an alternate choice at the end, I just went to the helicopter.

Amazing video and thoughts on Firewatch. Subscribing.

Good video :), I liked firewatch as well.

*insert Kris Jenner gif* You’re doing great sweetie!

Great video

Your videos are so consistently great! I can't fathom why you don't have 50K subs yet! ❤

I appreciate that you brought up the issue of consent. A naive kid reading this could easily get in their head the wrong ideas.

I've always found Mae to be insanely relatable as a character. I was honestly surprised to hear that people don't like her. She's undeniably a jerk and messes up so many times through the game, but to be honest, so do I in real life. I sort of expected most people to at least relate to periods of their lives in which they acted like Mae and I think that's what makes the game so special. It reminds us of our brokenness and why that's okay and normal. Simply boiling it down to Mae being a jerk and not liking her for that reason is missing so much of the point of the game in my opinion. Even though a lot of her reactions made me cringe, it was impossible for me to dislike her for them, simply because it was so easy for me to think of a time when I had the exact same reactions she did. So, while playing the game I didn't even really see her as a jerk, I just saw her as human and loved her so much for that exact reason.

Hot take*: Eliza Dushku is/was amazing & extremely underrated. When the show didn't work they blamed her & when it did they credited him. All of what JW was is revealed in that show- a sadistic fake feminist that built a cult of personality around himself. I say this as a former cult member. As for the show: He promised the audience & Eliza that he was writing all these sadistic things so she/Echo would rise up & be empowered. Of course, that never really happened as the rapist apologist (played by Paton Oswald who I love) was forgiven. He's blamed networks or implied actors/other writers were at fault whenever anything went wrong in any of his shows. I think like a lot of nepo-baby men in Hollywood he new how to build a cult of personality. Unlike many of them he was great at concepts and characters but he wasn't as good at writing as people think. The other writers, actors, and creators are what kept Buffy, Angel, & Firefly going. I'll always be happy we had Faith (Spike all of BTVS and Angel- I credit all the people he treated like crap) but it's best DH got canceled so he couldn't continue to gaslight people. *I welcome comments. Just know I'm a cis woman married to a man in my 40s. So, I'm not writing this because I have white knight Eliza fantasies. They are more feminist fantasies that she and everyone else JW touched would have gotten the credit and full career that they deserved.

The RUclips algorithm recommended me your video despite it being 3 years old. That's good right?

this video was wonderfull. i'm a young queer kid in a (relativley small) poor city, dreaming of moving to a bigger one with my partner some day. i really appreciated you acknowledging that cities arent completely perfect for queer folk/have their pros and cons! thats something i'll definitely consider from now on

By this logic, does that mean that Schindler’s List is technically a “white saviour” film? As a Jewish person, I didn’t see it that way! I thought it was nice to see the journey of a white man overcome his antisemitism/racism and help save many Jews from the Holocaust. As a minority, it was refreshing to see a film about white allies helping people in need!

I recently discovered your channel and absolutely love your NITW videos. This one was particularly heart warming. 🥰 Thank you for making videos that tell these often untold stories. Keep up the awesome work!

I never knew the general consensus for Mae was that she was a rude jerk, honestly I find her very relatable and sometimes funny

love NITW so much and these videos

I never really saw Mae as a jerk. I was I think 17 when I watched Jacksepticeye play NITW. I related to Mae as a teen who looked at her own body, as someone with mental illness too. Not as extreme as Mae, but it was still tough on me. I understood, could always see, where her outbursts were coming from even if I didn't know her backstory. And since then I've played the game myself a lot. I relate to Mae now too, but I'm now older than her. I think it's thanks to games like NITW that made me feel seen, that I became a pretty ok adjusted adult in the end. At 17 I had more similar stuggles to Mae, having to be 'the smart one' of the family, pressure from school to perform, feeling like a burden to your parent. The difference was that I'm from the city with a parent I can talk to about my problems and getting help at the time. I will treasure this game always, because In another life... if we maybe had never moved to the city... i might've ended up exactly like Mae

Damn, if your videos are this high quality and you are still so undiscovered, no wonder I'm discouraged from trying to write videos myself lol. This is A-tier stuff, really, there's just such a saturation on youtube at this point to where it becomes a lottery to turn up on somebodies home page.

Seen several of your videos now and love them. My journey from an almost apologetic geek to more well rounded person is bolstered and aided by takes from other sources then my own cis white straight male perspective. You also make genuinely interesting videos. I wonder if you have considered doing a progressive reading of the Battlestar Galactica reboot, going back to that show about a year ago i was floored by how right wing, pro military and religious dictatorship it seems to me now versus when i first watched it.