In the swamp there’s a Zelda-style switch that opens a door for a limited period of time. I think I just need to approach it from a different angle.
Also the polyominos which I suspect are used somewhere I haven’t been yet.
I think adults and young adults think dick doodles are funny, because they feel juvenile and “dumb” and uncomplicated–essentially, they enjoy them sincerely for the reasons they did as a child while also being aware of how “dumb” they are. The latter awareness actually heightens the former naivete.
Little boys like dick doodles because they’re profane and personal and declarative. The essence of humor is subversion, and a common subversion is the violation of what one is not permitted to declare. For a young boy, a penis is something evident and yet unspoken. Every boy is aware that they have one and equally aware that they cannot acknowledge it publicly–a maddening contradiction that is itself absurd. For a kid, all clothes are the Emperor’s New Clothes and the pressure to disavow nudity is one of the central anxieties of acculturation (for both genders, I think).
So for young boys, a penis doodle is eminently relatable in a way that few things can be at that age. Dicks (and for that matter “toilet humor”) are the reference comedy of male childhood.
And let’s not forget that it is–afterall–a cartoon in the purest sense of the word: a figurative, representative rendering of a real life thing, aesheticized in such a way as to be formally humorous. Dick doodles are cute and friendly. They represent how a child sees his own flaccid member, irrespective of its crueler caricature, first by a society of shame, then by the catacysm of their own lust, and then by attribution of the social responsibilities incumbent upon patriarchs.
In short, dick doodles return men to the time when a penis was an innocent thing.
All that said, I’ve never found them funny.
And I do see the prevalence of the dick doodle meme as a symptom of patriarchy. While not intentionally aggressive, it represents a sort of partisanship towards the male gender. We live in a world in which men get to declare their sexuality and identity to the extent that an in-joke on the topic is an understood cultural phenomenon. When I see a dick doodle, it’s like seeing a Soviet flag etched in a desk. It doesn’t offend me, but it’s like seeing a declaration of self that I can’t relate to.
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hugely agree w/ this post except I do like and relate to them (though I think their maleness is probably more relevant and worth objecting to than a soviet flag would be today, so I’m not sure that’s the best analogy)
It was hard to think of a flag that works :/
I guess I could have picked some other kind of symbol. But maybe the problem is that effective symbols point out the central fallacy of analogy: namely that A =/= B.
Anyway, yeah: for some reason they’ve never done it for me. But I think I have a weird relationship to gender. As a kid, I was genuinely horrified by the maleness offered by sitcoms and stand up comedy, which were my main sources of acculturation. It just seemed like this terrible fate: being dumb and gross and lazy and terrible at sex and unempathetic, etc. I think I subconsciously decided not to buy into maleness at a young age, which is probably why my mannerisms and voice/vocal patterns read as crypto-gay. I think part of the construction of the conspicuously gay dude has its roots in a feeling of fundamentally not relating to the construction of masculinity at a young age.
So yeah. Armchair sociology–what could possibly go wrong?
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This is also the thread in which I reveal that I have always been a secret Bubsysexual.
There are thousands of us, and we cannot be silenced forever.
I also relate to this except that I identify very strongly with the sort of sheepish, perpetually-emasculated, raging-against-the-dying-of-the-light-that-was-stupid-anyway maleness that’s put forward by eg Knausgaard, which also lets me like Dan Conner a lot more than when I was a kid and that sort of maleness seemed like the opposite of self-regard and introspection.
so hooray for adulthood having given me a means by which to appreciate drawings of dicks
Okay, about an hour and a half in. Found the movie theater. Also found one of the hexagonal notes earlier, but on my way back there my girlfriend started feeling really sick. She’s not normally into games, but this is something that’ll run on my laptop, so I thought it’d be something to enjoy together on the couch. And having two people staring at the puzzles seems helpful too.
Looking online, a lot of people are feeling queasy playing this, and there’s talk about patching in a FOV slider and reticule. Hmm. Anyway, might continue alone in a bit.
Opened one yellow box so far, on a cliff by the water near the boathouse-thing.
I got stumped (ha ha) on the puzzles in the area with the pink trees near the windmill just after figuring it out when there was a tree without an apple. I’m guessing the tree the panel represents is somewhere on the other side of the island…
There was a panel on the ground near the movie theater that looked exactly like one on the ground in a hidden area near the starting area. I solved them both but I don’t know what they do or what the yellow triangle/arrow on them means.
Really enjoying it so far, but I hope this motion sickness issue gets fixed. Not sure if I’ll be able to stick to it without company.
What should be the spoiler policy in this thread, btw?
I am also playing this on the couch with my fiance and it’s very helpful to have a second set of eyes. She lost the thread and went back to reading Ringworld when I was in the swamp, though.
I think discrete descriptions of the section followed by spoilers works. I appreciate @Chevluh concealing The Big Thing.
RE: panels on the ground I’m not so sure those are arrows. I’ve found several more.
Hint RE: trees look at the shape of the pictogram on the panel.
It looks like the FOV is adjustable in some settings file; that could help!
http://www.gamerevolution.com/faq/the-witness/how-to-fix-the-field-of-view-fov-on-the-witness-pc-version-121961
Spoiler anything that talks about the process of solving puzzles (or surprising discoveries). Talking generally about areas I think is fine!
Re: pink trees, that one took me a while to realize what I needed to do to solve it. The one thing I might say is that you’re already looking at the right tree; you don’t need to second-guess that aspect.
Has anybody opened the yellow box above the greenhouse? I can move the elevator inside, but I think I’m one floor shy of my destination.
Whoops, yeah, got it now. That was easier than I thought.
I got a movie that wasn’t the one that’s been mentioned. It was a clip from a BBC documentary with a guy talking.
Messing around with the FOV a bit now. We’ll see how it goes…
i can’t believe you managed a tmkfpost about dick doodles :B
I can relate to the rejection of/disgust at “maleness” from a young age. it’s why i’m now genderqueer! that said i’m also bi sooo it’s safe to say i’m okay with dicks
I had a friend in college who was an RA and she put up a big sheet of paper on the wall of her hall for people to draw their dicks/boobies/etc. on instead of on the bathroom mirrors and stalls
Yeah, I’m nonbinary myself. I was mostly joking in that previous post of mine, but I’m glad it led to those gender posts, because they were super good.
I am entirely comfortable with my bog-standard masculinity and – to quote stuart murdoch – heterosexual to the point of boring myself, but I still think they were good!
I’m planning to spend most of my evening playing this game. Puzzles were sort of rolling around in my head at work. I’m very excited to see what else is in the swamp area! That’s definitely been my favorite sequence so far; maybe because it sort of reminds me of Slitherlink or Picross.
Oh, I want to figure out the tree temple, too. I got stuck on what I think is the last puzzle in that area.
My evening is set, too.
I have a craving for novelty in exploration so this game is holding my interest like very little else in a long time. I also enjoy the puzzles intrinsically, which seems to be the determining factor in enjoying the package.
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Studies have shown that huge throbbing cocks are one of the most exciting things for straight-identifying men when watching porn
Penises and butts are cool
I dunno about this game but it sure seems like a lot of people were ready to instantly damn it to H.E.L.L. and back again because Blow has said a lot of stupid stuff (??)
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I’ve got seven boxes now, ie enough for the endgame (314 puzzles+64), will try tomorrow. I’ve found exactly one frustrating puzzle so far, in that the placement is really finnicky (EDIT: looks like it may be a bug, other people are encountering the same issue). I know i’m doing the right thing as I completed a harder variant of the exact same puzzle but for some reason it just does not want to place the line where it should - I see it jumping back and forth.
Well, there’s also the fact I’m color blind so a recent wave of puzzles that rely on red/green icons have been a problem. Otherwise, still super enjoyable.
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