Uncharted Letter
samsnow sent me this email about her Uncharted feelings. I have since played the games with her, and they are a gift, as is she. I'm putting her email online as a reference / pimp post for my 2013 Yuletide Letter.
AAAAAAAAAAAH, I've fallen passionately in love with a new fandom, one you probably don't know, and I must absolutely tell you all about it... which as ended with me being totally obsessed with Nathan Drake.
Who is Nathan Drake, you might ask? Here he is: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/845/drakeu2.jpg/ . He is the hero of the video game saga Uncharted and he is just THE COOLEST CHARACTER EVER. I don't even know where to start. Okay, so, the Uncharted games are a lot like the video game equivalent of the Indiana Jones movies. Nate is a thief scouring the earth for mythological gemstones and the like, so the games are part exploration, part puzzle solving, part action. What makes them so great, though, is how amazingly well-written they are: all the characters (including the female ones!) feel very real and human and relatable, and you just fall in love with everyone as soon as the game starts. What's really cool is that Nate is seldom alone, which means he's often accompanied with one of the aforementioned cast of characters, and as the player-as-Nate searches the environment for clues, etc, Nate and the other characters keep talking and exchanging silly jokes and it's just the best thing ever. Also, Uncharted 2? Slashiest game in the galaxy. But more on that later.
Let's first get to the really important part, which is why Nathan Drake is so awesome. Well, think Mal Reynolds if he hadn't become dark and bitter. Nate is a smartass action hero, but, like Mal, his "smartassery" is not about bragging but about self-mocking. For instance, when confronted with fearsome opponents, Nate will NOT say a typically super-cool line underlining how much of a badass he is. Rather, he will say hilarious things like "I will kick you to sleep!" He spends most of his time behaving like a three year old on crack, never seems to be able to say anything without an adorably lame joke in it, is constantly voluntarily looking for trouble but never forgets to protect and care deeply for each of his partners in crime, and is overall the biggest dork in the world. For instance, at one point in Uncharted 2 where you play Nateaccompanied by a female character named Chloe, you come upon a rooftop equipped with a swimming pool. Of course, I jumped in the pool - who wouldn't? - and Nate started shouting to Chloe: "Marco? Marco? Ah, come on! Marco?" until she sighed heavily and answered "Polo". There are too many instances in the games of Nate being an adorable dork for me to list them here, but just know that when you consult the journal Nate carries around with him and notes clues and observations in, you find out that most pages are about serious observations, but then, as you flip through all the pages, you come across the DORKIEST DOODLES IN THE WORLD. Think Draco in DDG, and multiply it by ten. The silliest and most hilarious doodles are about Nate's mentor and long-time friend Victor "Sully" Sullivan - for instance: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v228/rionaleonhart/victorgoddamnsullivan.jpg; and: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v228/rionaleonhart/scareometer.jpg.
After playing Uncharted 1, I was so fascinated with Nate and his budding love for this awesome female character named Elena that I started playing Uncharted 2 expecting to be even more invested in Nate & Elena (my first het OTP, OMG). Boy, was I wrong. The game has made me care for Nate/Elena, for sure, and brilliantly so, but it has also made me care for Nate/Chloe, and... for Nate/Harry. Because, see, the game starts with the sudden appearance of this thief guy, Harry Flynn, offering a "job" to Nate (well, the game really starts with Nate dangling from the carcass of a train wagon suspended over a cliff, which is the typical kind of situation Nate finds himself in, but anyways). You'll only have to watch this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eLsYkPhicU - from 0:01:10 to 0:01:42 to realize that this is the Slashiest Introduction To A Character Ever. And it gets better: the whole beginning of the game is spent with Harry, which means that as I ran around, Nate and Harry kept bantering and saying the silliest things and never missed an opportunity to touch each other, like so: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ9wbD1qLi0&feature=BFa&list=PL511AEC0F9949C841&lf=results_video (from 2:20 to 07:05 should give you enough of an idea). And then came the slashiest scene in the history of video games. Ready? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoQs_-ONcGY . Yep.
Of course, the game being entitled "Uncharted 2: Among Thieves", I've been betrayed twice so far by my partners. The first one to betray me was Harry (but I'm not really mad at him, he's a thief and he has a psychopath for a boss who would easily kill him if he failed at his mission, so of course he had to steal from me the treasure we were supposed to be stealing together - Nate is very mad at him, though, and still manages to be adorable while angry: 4:30 - 4:46 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TukIJLVRz0U&feature=BFa&list=PL511AEC0F9949C841&lf=results_video ); and the second one was Chloe (it turned out later on that she was only pretending to be betraying me in order to save my ass, but anyways), which was when Sully said to Nate: "You sure know how to pick 'em", which struck me as an almost explicit validation of the Nate/Harry relationship. I mean, you only say that kind of line to someone when they have been betrayed by their love interests several times, and the only other time this has happened in the Uncharted saga is with Harry Flynn.
And then there's Uncharted 3, which could just as well have been titled "Nate's and Sully's epic platonic love story". Since I haven't finished the second one, my brother only let me play the beginning of U3 so that I would not get spoiled, and the beginning chapters feature 14-year-old!Nate meeting Sully for the first time, and they're SO GOOD:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_0yDxuBCOs&feature=relmfu (from 0:30 on); http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8pBMFA2z2A&feature=relmfu. I didn't want to see slashy potential between Nate and Sully, I did NOT, since Sully is the closest thing Nate ever had to a father and thinking of them together is kind of disturbingly incestuous, so I chose to just ignore the many moments in U2 so far when Nate has called Sully "gorgeous" and told him he has a great ass, but U3 DEFINITELY has a slashy Nate/Sully vibe to it, and it's so well-written that I'm kind of okay with it now, to the point where I'll say "ewww" one minute and 'awww" the next. (As you have probably inferred by now, these games develop ship potential between Nate and ALL of his thief partners - talk about fan service).
Sorry to ramble on for so long, but a video game with truly awesome characters is a rare thing, and one with slash thrown in on top of it all an even rarer one. I have never before fallen with such intensity for a fandom since HP and Firefly. Uncharted is truly made of win, and if you're interested in seeing more of it and you can't find someone with a PS3 to play it, then the walkthrough videos on Youtube can be watched just like you would a movie, so seamlessly the cutscenes and the gameplay scenes are intertwined (I would definitely recommend watching U2 and U3 - U1 is good, but not as good as the other 2). Or watch only the cutscenes, if you prefer. Or don't watch anything at all - I just needed to vent my excitement for a while, so just ignore me if this game saga doesn't tempt you at all. All I'm saying is, I know which fandom to offer and request on Yuletide for next December.
AAAAAAAAAAAH, I've fallen passionately in love with a new fandom, one you probably don't know, and I must absolutely tell you all about it... which as ended with me being totally obsessed with Nathan Drake.
Who is Nathan Drake, you might ask? Here he is: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/845/drakeu2.jpg/ . He is the hero of the video game saga Uncharted and he is just THE COOLEST CHARACTER EVER. I don't even know where to start. Okay, so, the Uncharted games are a lot like the video game equivalent of the Indiana Jones movies. Nate is a thief scouring the earth for mythological gemstones and the like, so the games are part exploration, part puzzle solving, part action. What makes them so great, though, is how amazingly well-written they are: all the characters (including the female ones!) feel very real and human and relatable, and you just fall in love with everyone as soon as the game starts. What's really cool is that Nate is seldom alone, which means he's often accompanied with one of the aforementioned cast of characters, and as the player-as-Nate searches the environment for clues, etc, Nate and the other characters keep talking and exchanging silly jokes and it's just the best thing ever. Also, Uncharted 2? Slashiest game in the galaxy. But more on that later.
Let's first get to the really important part, which is why Nathan Drake is so awesome. Well, think Mal Reynolds if he hadn't become dark and bitter. Nate is a smartass action hero, but, like Mal, his "smartassery" is not about bragging but about self-mocking. For instance, when confronted with fearsome opponents, Nate will NOT say a typically super-cool line underlining how much of a badass he is. Rather, he will say hilarious things like "I will kick you to sleep!" He spends most of his time behaving like a three year old on crack, never seems to be able to say anything without an adorably lame joke in it, is constantly voluntarily looking for trouble but never forgets to protect and care deeply for each of his partners in crime, and is overall the biggest dork in the world. For instance, at one point in Uncharted 2 where you play Nateaccompanied by a female character named Chloe, you come upon a rooftop equipped with a swimming pool. Of course, I jumped in the pool - who wouldn't? - and Nate started shouting to Chloe: "Marco? Marco? Ah, come on! Marco?" until she sighed heavily and answered "Polo". There are too many instances in the games of Nate being an adorable dork for me to list them here, but just know that when you consult the journal Nate carries around with him and notes clues and observations in, you find out that most pages are about serious observations, but then, as you flip through all the pages, you come across the DORKIEST DOODLES IN THE WORLD. Think Draco in DDG, and multiply it by ten. The silliest and most hilarious doodles are about Nate's mentor and long-time friend Victor "Sully" Sullivan - for instance: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v228/rionaleonhart/victorgoddamnsullivan.jpg; and: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v228/rionaleonhart/scareometer.jpg.
After playing Uncharted 1, I was so fascinated with Nate and his budding love for this awesome female character named Elena that I started playing Uncharted 2 expecting to be even more invested in Nate & Elena (my first het OTP, OMG). Boy, was I wrong. The game has made me care for Nate/Elena, for sure, and brilliantly so, but it has also made me care for Nate/Chloe, and... for Nate/Harry. Because, see, the game starts with the sudden appearance of this thief guy, Harry Flynn, offering a "job" to Nate (well, the game really starts with Nate dangling from the carcass of a train wagon suspended over a cliff, which is the typical kind of situation Nate finds himself in, but anyways). You'll only have to watch this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eLsYkPhicU - from 0:01:10 to 0:01:42 to realize that this is the Slashiest Introduction To A Character Ever. And it gets better: the whole beginning of the game is spent with Harry, which means that as I ran around, Nate and Harry kept bantering and saying the silliest things and never missed an opportunity to touch each other, like so: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ9wbD1qLi0&feature=BFa&list=PL511AEC0F9949C841&lf=results_video (from 2:20 to 07:05 should give you enough of an idea). And then came the slashiest scene in the history of video games. Ready? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoQs_-ONcGY . Yep.
Of course, the game being entitled "Uncharted 2: Among Thieves", I've been betrayed twice so far by my partners. The first one to betray me was Harry (but I'm not really mad at him, he's a thief and he has a psychopath for a boss who would easily kill him if he failed at his mission, so of course he had to steal from me the treasure we were supposed to be stealing together - Nate is very mad at him, though, and still manages to be adorable while angry: 4:30 - 4:46 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TukIJLVRz0U&feature=BFa&list=PL511AEC0F9949C841&lf=results_video ); and the second one was Chloe (it turned out later on that she was only pretending to be betraying me in order to save my ass, but anyways), which was when Sully said to Nate: "You sure know how to pick 'em", which struck me as an almost explicit validation of the Nate/Harry relationship. I mean, you only say that kind of line to someone when they have been betrayed by their love interests several times, and the only other time this has happened in the Uncharted saga is with Harry Flynn.
And then there's Uncharted 3, which could just as well have been titled "Nate's and Sully's epic platonic love story". Since I haven't finished the second one, my brother only let me play the beginning of U3 so that I would not get spoiled, and the beginning chapters feature 14-year-old!Nate meeting Sully for the first time, and they're SO GOOD:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_0yDxuBCOs&feature=relmfu (from 0:30 on); http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8pBMFA2z2A&feature=relmfu. I didn't want to see slashy potential between Nate and Sully, I did NOT, since Sully is the closest thing Nate ever had to a father and thinking of them together is kind of disturbingly incestuous, so I chose to just ignore the many moments in U2 so far when Nate has called Sully "gorgeous" and told him he has a great ass, but U3 DEFINITELY has a slashy Nate/Sully vibe to it, and it's so well-written that I'm kind of okay with it now, to the point where I'll say "ewww" one minute and 'awww" the next. (As you have probably inferred by now, these games develop ship potential between Nate and ALL of his thief partners - talk about fan service).
Sorry to ramble on for so long, but a video game with truly awesome characters is a rare thing, and one with slash thrown in on top of it all an even rarer one. I have never before fallen with such intensity for a fandom since HP and Firefly. Uncharted is truly made of win, and if you're interested in seeing more of it and you can't find someone with a PS3 to play it, then the walkthrough videos on Youtube can be watched just like you would a movie, so seamlessly the cutscenes and the gameplay scenes are intertwined (I would definitely recommend watching U2 and U3 - U1 is good, but not as good as the other 2). Or watch only the cutscenes, if you prefer. Or don't watch anything at all - I just needed to vent my excitement for a while, so just ignore me if this game saga doesn't tempt you at all. All I'm saying is, I know which fandom to offer and request on Yuletide for next December.