sleepiest queer in vol'dun 🦊💤

Feels like his concept could probably use at least another go-around in the rock tumbler of introspection.
I would imagine it's probably fairly easy for someone on the Christian side of these incidents to not see the panic then and the panic now as interconnected movements, since the targets are so supposedly different.

Making it the basis for a game feels incredibly fraught at best, and only something I'd want to ever see from non-Christians or otherwise people who were the targets of the satanic panic, not people who were or are the perpetrators

I agree with you. I speak as someone raised Lutheran who left the faith both because I just don't believe in Christian cosmology, and because by the time I finally dislodged their hooks from my psyche, I'd seen one Christian after another use its precepts to disproportionately punish others for small harms while excusing their own major ones.

I have been repeatedly frustrated with this pattern in stories written by Christians--even when purporting to address the wrongs of the past, those acknowledgements only exist metatextually, but the story's own internal cosmology in which those wrongs would have been "right" is always explicit and central to the narrative. There may be genuine desire to do better, but if, in the end, pure emotional attachment to these tropes always overcomes that desire, then what's the point?

I like stories of demonic possession, as both a demoness in my own right and a member of multiple groups (neurodivergent, pansexual, trans fem) who have often been stigmatized by comparison to demons. But I like those stories, specifically, when they're told through the lenses of such marginalized groups, with all the nuance and depth those lenses tend to bring--at minimum, there's empowerment in saying, "Yes, I see the kind of monster you think I am". But when told from the outside by people whose religion has repeatedly been associated with my repression and oppression, such stories become extremely distasteful to me.

i can't really back this up, but my gut feeling is that christian media is generally Like This — it posits a world where everything every individual christian believes is true, there are no common misconceptions, no one abuses christian belief for selfish gain, etc. also the existence and uniqueness of god is painfully obvious, and everyone who doesn't accept it is just a big idiot. it's like the same framing of christmas movies vis-à-vis santa

and thinking about that now as a pattern, it's... very weird to have this common fantasy that doesn't extend any further than "and i'm right, actually" and even actively excludes the real people who are obviously wrong. i'm not sure it even has any basis in the actual text? isn't the idea of demonic possession basically catholic fanfiction?

twitter hides likes now?! ~ridiculous~

tangentially, are you still finding that site useful?

man what that is hardcore petty, even if the tweet were brand new. it's not even explicitly about him

welp

God, how insecure does he have to be to respond like that when his game’s that wildly successful?

And we share your discomfort with its satanic panic themes. Particularly in the third and final game of the trilogy, where you spend part of your time in a city. Vicious gangs roam the streets, graffiti is everywhere, buildings are broken down, and the cops are portrayed as this powerless force. Incredibly charged imagery, especially when the world of your fiction insists that conservative talking points about the devil and evil are legit.

He's handling criticism like a True Christian, I see.

this response from him.... makes your critique/concern much more real. gross.

Hey, it me, i grew up through some of the height of the satanic panic with parents who absolutely lost their mind to it but also as someone who has no particular attachment to Faith either:

I don't necessarily think a work has to directly reference and point out how bad it's point of inspiration is lest it be considered a tacit endorsement. I think it's ultimately fine to base a work on the paranoid fantasies of boomers in the 80s and 90s. Far as I can tell it's just a "what if reality was actually like that wouldn't that have been wild" thing.

We've all seen that one kinda hacky meme about satire, but at this point I kinda think there needs to be more than "this thing referenced something bad that happened but didn't go out of it's way to show that it was wrong" for me to feel concerned about it.
I think if someone gets convinced that the satanic panic was legit actually because this game depicted an exaggerated version of it, they would probably have been convinced be basically anything. In that case I don't really think it's the creators responsibility tbh.

I don't need to be told Tony's rampage at the end of scarface was bad for the same reason I don't need to be told that the satanic panic was a hoax.