Escapist Puns

The surface appeal of the '80s is obvious: the music was great and the fashion was out of control.

But just as the '80s were marked by MTV, malls, and Madonna, they were also plagued by the nearly decade-long reign of President Reagan, the AIDS epidemic, and the last vestiges of Cold War paranoia. One of the most popular pop songs of the decade was "99 Luftballoons," an upbeat pop song about nuclear annihilation. But the young members of the '80s community are savvy enough to acknowledge the era's faults, and after interviewing several of them, it's clear that their love of the '80s goes well beyond an affinity for Caboodles or synth.

Coupled with their passion is a yearning for a time when adolescence was synonymous with freedom.

Less meticulously curating feeds, more hanging out with your friends at the food court.

"It was kind of like the last decade before social media, cell phones...internet," explained Anja Arvesen, a 19-year-old who goes by @offbrandpollypocket on Instagram. "Obviously it's easy to romanticize something that you never experienced. But it sounds nice, in theory, the way people interacted."

There have never been more ways than now to interact with friends, family, and strangers.

But for a generation whose lives have been dominated by social media and smartphones — and the hypervisibility and hyper-curation that has come with it — it’s not a leap to understand the appeal of a more analog past. The carefree sheen of the 80s represents a pre-algorithm fantasy marked by spontaneity and authenticity, in comparison to someone born in 2002, who can be GPS-tracked by their parents and has had their biggest adolescent milestones snatched away from them by a global pandemic.

Despite the influences, or how and when they came into their '80s lifestyle, the one constant wasn’t so much their love of acrylic sweaters or their Depop finds, but rather the wistfulness they all have for the decade and its youth culture.

"You could have big hair and nobody would judge you for it... you could wear the craziest, brightest colored clothing, and everything was really over the top," Sky said. "I feel like, in this generation, it's very minimalistic. Everything has to be perfect and airbrushed."

"You actually went to the mall, you hung out with friends," explained Jessie, whose last name has been withheld. "You socialized with people. I feel like it was a time when people were finally able to be themselves."

**"They will never know j

https://youtu.be/unVQfv71UlY?t=215

Most I ever see on te2 is 300ish and the subreddit only gets posts like once a day....

The context here is I'm 21 and crawling up a wall bc my internship went remote due to covid right after I moved back into my uni dorms for it. So, idk, trying to find something that doesn't feel like complete and total isolation rn, and isn't contributing to my post-workday headache. Maybe something fantasy/sci-fi, and fairly light-hearted?

I haven't read YA since I turned 18 bc I had a whole maturity complex for the longest time but some of my recent faves:

1. Six of Crows (heard it got a sequel trilogy, actually?)

2. Gideon the Ninth (technically shelved in the adult area, and is a surprising comfort read for me)

3. V. E. Schwab's writing in general

4. House in the Cerulean Sea

5. Murderbot novellas

I also love comics of both major publisher and indie variety. My fave writers in that area are prob James Tynion IV (specifically, his horror) and Mariko Tamaki (both quieter works like Laura Dean and her current big-pub work, currently enjoying Crush and Lobo as it's finally hitting streaming).

Anyways, I have a uni town library card with Libby/Hoopla access and accs with dc/marvel streaming apps. So, yeah, I can prob look around a lot of recs (unless something is really popular, in which case there may be a line in Libby). Thanks!

Okay so I just recognized an extremely familiar sound in ♾ on MOTS and The Escapist from Viva. For reference, The Escapist is the the theme from Viva, heard in Life in Technicolor and Death and All His Friends. The beginning synths from ♾ sounds exactly like the notes and rhythm from The Escapist. Listen to ♾ first then Escapist. I found it’s easier to hear it in the Escapist when listening to it second.

If MOTS is MX ii, could this be a lead in to MOTS ii being Viva ii???

Let me know if you can hear the similarity too!

I don’t have any one online to play with and there is only 3 people online on the versus mode, so playing that way seems pretty bleak. Anyone willing to help me get the online trophies on Escapists 2? Will return the favour of course :)

So i have escapists 2 on my computer, my friend gave it to me for my birthday and he brought it on steam, and it works and i have pinned it to the taskbar, and there is a link on the desktop, the link on the desktop opens epic games saying i have not brought it on epic games, but its the steam version. and the only way to open it is from the icon on the taskbar, because its not in my files, when i search in cortona it doesnt show up, the files arent even in my %appdata% folder(if there is a file name that you have tell me so i can see if its somewhere else). What do i do to find the file?

late to the party

watched a couple of videos without getting big spoilers. the game has good reviews but i have a few questions to ask:

1. is the game worth the money?
2. does the game take up a lot of resources? i changed to a laptop a while ago, its 4 years old and it doesnt work the best. im worrying that it will lag because theres not a lot of space on it. (118gb max, 19,1 gb left)
3. will the game run smoothly on a laptop like this?
4. is the escapists 2 better than the original version (the escapists)? Is the first one good despite there being a sequel?

• this Popheads thread about Melanie Martinez kinda triggered a minor meltdown as not only were people making subjective judgements (when this was implying objective was intended) about if she'd ever get big or not based on their opinion of her music but they were triggering my "just go back in time and fix the thing" impulse with talking about how maybe she might have had a chance if the allegations never happened (if you don't know what those were all you need to know is there were allegations and they turned out to be false after a blip of media brouhaha (but not even enough to get the story featured on any entertainment news shows)) and she hadn't taken four years to release her sophomore album and some people said her Cry Baby character was fake and unrelatable and that because of the character who supposedly only existed as "a mouthpiece for Melanie's social commentary" no one really knew who Melanie herself was an artist but the "herself" these people (who of course probably didn't know her) wanted her to be musically sounded a lot more like they wanted her to be Olivia Rodrigo and some people said Billie Eilish basically blocked Melanie's niche even though that'd only be true if Billie stuck with the general sound of her first album (as Billie's second album's comparisons were less people like Avril Lavigne and more people like Jewel) and some people said (connected to the allegations) that she has some kind of little kid fetish and that her dressing the way she did in her videos (aka this person's never heard/seen K-12) was the equivalent of a guy walking his girlfriend on a leash at the mall in terms of blatant public kink display (haven't these people ever heard of an extended metaphor before)

• Pretty much all of my major fandoms are in some weird state of limbo; Doctor Who, Homestuck, Magic: The Gathering and Overwatch are all feeling kind of like "the lore is happening too much to keep up" or it's just in super-mega-ultra-flux and in addition to Doctor Who and Homestuck again, Miraculous, Ace Attorney (not anything current just people having issues with the issues it raises about Japan's legal system) and the works of both JK Rowling and Rick Riordan are getting accused of being problematic which I hate because I feel like I can't engage (never mind self-insert) with a fandom where "the universe is fundamentally broken and wrong" in a way I

Having a stressy overwhelmed time right now and would love some suggestions for some good escapism. Either YA or something not too intellectually demanding pls! I'll take adventure, sci fi, fantasy, horror (if it's not too scary), romance (if there's no sex), or anything else u think might be good. thank you! x

I'm thinking of making a game in the same style (including camera perspective) as The Escapists and The Escapists 2, but I'm struggling to come up with any ideas as to what the game would be about.

What would the player be doing, where would the player be, and what is the player's goal, for example.

This isn't needed, but bonus points if you are able to come up with an idea that would allow for multiplayer where a few friends can get together to play either together or against each other.

who ever has the escapists 2 then they can play my prison

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2721620579

I'm in the mood for something truly escapist! By escapist, I mean a movie which sucks you in and makes the world around you disappear until the credits roll.

To give you an idea, I really enjoyed Aniara. It felt like I was also on that ship, with Earth having been long since forgotten. I quite liked Сталкер (Stalker) for those Zone scenes, which felt so otherworldly. I loved Journey To The Center Of The Earth as a kid, as it made you feel like there was much unexplored below (the remake loses that sense of wonder).

I love games like the Myst series, where you wander through environments which are almost familiar, but foreign enough that you feel a bit "untethered". I loved the foggy surreal realm of Silent Hill (both the game and the first film). The uncertainty of what is real in films like The Matrix and 2001: A Space Odyssey creates a dreamlike tone that is lovely to float away with.

Hopefully I've been clear enough about my ideals of escapism. What suggestions do you have for my next mental getaway?

i just got the escapists 2 from epic games and while playing the tutorial it keeps freezing particularly when i am about to beat the other prisoner, the picture freeze but when i move i hear the sound of moving, what can i do about it?

My favorite books are nonfiction that can transport you to another world. The Lost City of Z is probably the only book I’ve read more than twice.

But I find nonfiction as a genre to be more often than not either dry or preachy.

Any recommendations for a nonfiction book with a nice narrative that can transport you? I’m thinking about Devil in the White City, Unbroken, In Cold Blood, Into the Wild, Born to Run, those kinds of books. I feel like a good, escapist nonfiction book is generally hard to find.

This is mostly a problem with custom maps but my issue is with trees and bushes (mostly). When I find a good escape route, get all the items I need, and then when I go to escape there is a wall of trees and bushes blocking my path.

I try to complete prisons fast by using crowbars, and iron bars for walls, and files for wire fences. So when I escape I don’t have a backup plan.

I try to look at the preview image before going into a prison but sometimes the image doesn’t show the whole prison.

There are some points on the map that are unclear. An example is of me preparing an escape and thinking what I was going to break through was a wall, was actually cell bars which are impossible to break.

I get why the devs did this. So that the map wouldn’t be to cluttered, and to encourage players to explore more of the prison. So, in the official prisons this worked fine, but in custom prisons some people tended to be lazy and made prisons feel unnatural and cluttered.

TLDR: The escapists 2 map is unclear and none of the objects show up. You never know if something is blocking your path unless you have already failed your escape.

any help appreciated

Hello to my favorite community! I’m getting ready to go through some major life changes and I’m struggling to cope with the transition. I want some recommendations for novels or story collections that you feel are truly immersive to provide a distraction I can get lost in. I want books that will provide an escape to the day-to-day mess I’m going to be dealing with in real life. Thanks in advance.