good writers are perverts

i mean that something in the act of visualising a thing they want and turning it into reality is ultimately made better, more viscerally effective when the writer is an out and out pervert. when you can see like "wow this dude cares a little too much about the subject matter". and in that intensity we get hyperreality, as all fiction is; even realistic fiction bends the nature of true life to remove the worse bits and intensify the bits we get off to

there's a running joke for, like, quentin tarantino or other big name film directors where it's like "oh hahaha isnt it wacky that the director's got a foot fetish" and you can freeze frame a particular shot where the heroines feet are bare or whatever and be like lol lmao foot pervert

but, this is good! watching a film/reading a book/playing a game is fundamentally watching someone's self-gratification, and if the creator isn't true to themselves, isn't honest - pulls their punches or couches it in irony or "haha isnt this wacky" then it fucking sucks

the passions that drive hyperreal representation of a creator's fetish - whether its showing hog, feet, or a composite of many things - they're the same thing that makes media feel close to the bone and powerful. that raw honesty of like "yeah i'm into this. i care an unnatural amount about this subject matter. join me" makes for something good.

it's fun to *recognise* when that's the case, too.

there's the other joke about identifying a creator's fetish:

I think that a lot of small indie games have this sort of "spot the author's fetish" element, in that it tends to be a) subject matter and b) the element of the game that is most comprehensively, lovingly made with everything else in support. a game with barebones images and music but with engaging gameplay; a gorgeous UI supported with merely functional plot and mechanics; intricate mysterious worldbuilding with stolen music and plain art.

i think some people are basically coming around to this, like, greater comfort in owning up to being a pervert about something. shout out domino club

"being sickos about X" sort of thing, where sickos is the meme of a pervert looking in on something that excites him. the author is sickos about a subject, and indulges himself; the audience are sickos about his indulgence, self recognition via the other - yeah haha sweat really IS that hot, thanks for putting it into disgustingly indulgent words so i can see what you see.

i think when writers are afraid to be perverts that they make bad work. they make the work that can't stand by itself, collapsing on interrogation or challenge; or too many contrasting and unconfident voices have averaged out to a sort of perversion of the commons, indulging only the safest and most unoffensive fetishes to render on the screen.

because when art displays the common fetishes of heterosexual matrimony, fast cars and big guns and big-but-not-gargantuan breasts, labouring under capitalism, even such apparently inoffensive things such as sexless wholesome romanticism, perfect bodies that refuse to fuck, a prioritising of soft uwu safety over any kind of flavour - these absolutely are fetishes.

every day you are smothered in the common perversions of so much of society, endless generic creators indulging their endless generic fetishes while denying that they are in any sort of way perverts.

"to pervert" is to lead away from what is considered natural or acceptable, and "fetish" is a form of sexual desire linked in an abnormal degree to a particular object, behaviour, or context. this implies that there are normal, reasonable, measured ways to like things, acceptable behaviours, and any deeper interest in a topic - whether it sexual or not - is unnatural. we lived through the "its uncool to like things" era, with its deep detached irony and painful lack of wholesale enjoyment, while all the sickos were happily making their fucked up art and being called perverts or geeks or otaku for it.

but you are kidding yourself if you think normal, reasonable, measured people who carefully toe the line of not being into something TOO much make art that is enjoyable in any way. at best it is inoffensive and forgettable; at worst it is bland to the point of pain, oppressive blanket of normality that you will utterly fail to remember and will never keep you awake at night.

successful and critically acclaimed mainstream creators - directors like tarantino or verhoeven or carpenter or cronenberg, writers like joyce or wilde or murakami, game developers like taro or suda51 or kojima - they're all sickos in multiple ways that play out throughout their work, and that rules. do you think they would have been anywhere near as successful if that self-accepting drive to indulge perversions was tampered down under an insecurity or effort to remain normal?

i'm posting this from the domino club account because i feel like as a team of gamedev sickos, it's most representative of what i think is a Good Attitude to making games. creators in varying states of unhingedness and a sort of raw indulgent "yes i am into this and here is my game about it" delivery, whether in a sexual way or else a perversion for nonsexual topics and themes. honestly i'm kind of ruined on other games by it.

making stuff as part of domino club has been a gradual realignment and commitment to being a gamedev sicko. that's the outcome of this manifesto: keep being a writer pervert and channelling the stuff i'm slightly too into, not pulling punches but going yeah. this rules amiright