concept: a death god that is actually surprisingly supportive and on the side of the good guys, supporting actions and promoting policies that will lead to the kingdom growing and thriving instead of being destroyed, because the more the kingdom grows, the more people there are, and the more people there are the more people will eventually die, and when you’re an immortal god of death, you know there’s no need to rush. you’ll get them all in the end
i like how the responses on this post are cleanly split between “hey this is a great story idea i love it” and “this is absolutely terrifying”
It’s sad that toxic game culture is so prevalent cuz like. As someone who has ended up in random matches with kids before, I can attest to how fucking easy it is to reverse and un-teach shitty attitudes in kids.
Example: I downloaded Friday the 13th because it’s free on psn. I dunno how to play, so I just enter quick play and I’m matched with 3-4 kids on mic. Immediately on mic they’re shitty and disparaging to each other. They laugh at each others deaths, they actively work against team mates and self sabotage, they call each other “fags”, etc. From the sounds of the voices they cannot be older than 13-14.
I put on my mic and just decide I ain’t havin it. I am nice. I thank them for barricading doors or leaving me items. When they break free from Jason’s grasp I say “good job!” or I try to help them. One kid survived for most of the match by himself. When he dies, I tell him he did a fantastic job.
The mood shift is practically INSTANT. These kids almost immediately stop being dick heads. They start encouraging each other and being kind. After the match all of them try to friend request me. Which should tell you a couple of things:
A) kids want to be kind, and they want to have a nice time playing games. But encounters with adults like me or so rare that they’ve trained themselves to instantly put on a toxic, shitty, defensive veneer when encountering any new person online. It’s literally just THAT EASY to not groom a horrible gaming community, it’s just that NO ONE does it.
B) the speed of which they all tried to friend me was cute, but paints for me such a sad picture? Like these kids are SO desperate to find people to play with who aren’t crappy jerks. They played with me for 10 minutes TOPS and all instantly tried to reach out to me.
tl;dr: The kids are alright. Adults are shit heads.
I cant agree with this post more
The thing. The thing about kids. The thing about kids is that they learn a) very quickly and b) CONSTANTLY. Their brains are super flexible and they don’t have decades of experience – the latter meaning they have both fewer preconceptions and less perspective. It makes them both extremely vulnerable and extremely adaptable, and if you, An Adult, deliberately or carelessly use this to encourage them to think the world is a nasty, cynical place…well, then, that’s a self ful-fuckin’-filling prophecy, innit?
Because that kid, in the short term, is gonna feel bad, and they’re a person, and making people feel bad cos you can’t be bothered not to is Evil. And that kid, in the long term, has that much more likelihood of being nasty and cynical, and passing that on to other people, and so on and so forth.
Be good to kids, whether you like them or not, both because it is the right thing to do, and because it will cut down on the number of assholes you have to put up with when you’re old.
Be good to kids, whether you like them or not, both because it is the right thing to do, and because it will cut down on the number of assholes you have to put up with when you’re old.
jinlinli 