alexalmonds

[alexalmonds]

finished closing night!! boy do i have some thoughts. and now that i've gathered them, i'm about to make my autism your problem. spoilers below.

the first part of the event wasn't awful imo, it felt like character building and just helping establish the dynamic. i know some people weren't fond of it but given that i was never really that invested in hullabaloo before this and didn't know every little detail of these characters, it was nice to get some character establishment and figure out how they all are as people. i am also a fan of slowburn character-focused horror, so that may just be a personal taste thing lmao

bryce papenbrook does a good job as mike, even though there are definitely points where he sounds exactly like nagito (namely the scene where he's shouting at margaretha in the foyer). he has a very particular way of speaking / voicing characters that make it immediately clear it's him. however, i do think he fits mike well and he definitely lays off the nagito-ness in the second part.

the rest of the cast was excellent as well. while there was a Choice made with murro's voice (he sounds WAY younger than he's supposed to be, which is off-putting and takes me out every time he speaks), it's very clear everyone knows their characters well and they all do a good job keeping their mannerisms and vocalisations unique and fitting to each role. aside from some awkward lines (which i attribute more to stilted writing than to the va's themselves), the voice acting is absolutely a highlight.

margaretha's trauma with sergi is portrayed very well imo. bear in mind i have not suffered the same abuse as her, so i can't say how accurate or good it is, but it feels like it displays that it was a terrible thing while also being respectful and avoiding being exploitative. the added layer that everyone else (except joker) liked sergi and was unaware of the abuse adds a lot.

in general, i think mike and margaretha are incredibly well-written here. i think ne could've absolutely gone the route of popular fan interpretations and completely demonised margaretha while making mike a perfect angel, and they would've gotten a lot of praise for it. but they stuck to their guns and made them both very flawed yet understandable people, and that just makes everything feel that much more real, at least to me. they're such different people with opposing goals, and their friction really comes through. everyone else is very well done (shoutout to me a couple of hours ago calling joker cute for some godforsaken reason i can't remember) and i love all of their characterisations, but mike and margie really are the standouts here.

i do wish there was a bigger payoff for margaretha using euphoria so frequently. i know it's implied to have been involved in violetta's death, and i appreciate the connection to game 5, but i wish there was a little bit more there. it's not a huge gripe though, so i won't harp on it for long.

the pacing at the start of the second part had me extremely worried; things felt like they were dragging along and being padded out for the sake of being padded out, and i was not having fun with it. fortunately, this issue was remedied about halfway through, and once things got going, i started really enjoying myself. the pacing of the first half of part two is my biggest gripe with this story.

i was noticing a lot of similarities between hullabaloo and fool's gold: hunter forms of popular survivors being announced and used as a major part of marketing for an update to the idv story. with the aforementioned pacing issues, i was really worried that hullabaloo's reveal would shape up to be similar to fg's: a kinda cool cutscene and a lame chase sequence at the very end of a long, boring storyline. however, despite hullabaloo having a much smaller part in this story than fg did in aom, appearing only briefly in the fire at the very end, i still think it's a better incorporation of the character than what they did with norton. better to have it be quick and intimidating than just kinda tedious.

every death in this (aside from joker's) felt very purposeful and well-done. violetta's death was heartbreaking. the change in animation towards the end, followed by the single sound of her machinery giving out after the screen went black, was beautiful, and hey, at least she died happy. margaretha's death pulled at a very specific and very major love i have in storytelling, that being a character choosing to die free rather than live in captivity, and the payoff of all the underwater scenes where she swims towards sergi finally coming through when she chooses to sink away from him had me losing my mind. i genuinely did not expect mike's death to be a straight-up suicide; like i said, i'm not completely caught up on hullabaloo lore, so maybe other people saw this coming, but the fact that he truly could not live with the truth about hullabaloo is such a heartwrenching yet satisfying end to his character. like i said, joker's is the only death that doesn't totally stand out, but i like that they let you put the pieces together yourself.

the chase sequence with joker was unintimidating and a little lame, and honestly it felt somewhat forced, just a way to get his hunter form in there bc they realised "oh shit right this guy's like. a hunter isn't he." i do like that they gave him back his chainsaw though; very nice little callback to the betas.

the animation of the hullabaloo fire was absolutely gorgeous and the ending had me in shambles. for a while afterwards i felt similar to how i felt after finishing end roll: drained and flat but in a good way, like a ton of adrenaline had just released from my body after some intense event.

all in all, i really enjoyed it. i can't say if i like it more than aom, but that may be the frederick bias coming through, so i'm going to choose not to rank them and just say hey. banger event. well worth the hype even with its hiccups and flaws. i always say this, but idv has some genuinely talented people in its writers' room, and i can't wait to see what they come out with next.

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Puppies

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Do i need to explain myself?

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Drawings i did this morning

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Welp this is gonna be my fixation for a month

Enjoy

[alexalmonds]

One Drink || Part 1

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ah ohmygod, I posted this on tiktok but not here lolz, anyways! here's a fiddauthor comic I made :DDD the draft for this is about 2 years old and I only got the motivation to finish it this year haha

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Im glad the fandom woke up! (Click for better quality)

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this is really how i feel sometimes

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I'm not sure if you do repeats but GAWD DAWAYUM CLAUDE X ALBERT????? Please . PLEASE?!????

If you don't do repeats it's totally fine, you can do vanora x zalmona instead :3

Sorry for the wait, job and stuff

But here you go

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What'll it be now Mr.Mole?

forgor speed paint ><)9

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This took fucking forever

It's a piece for my idv x tma au

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I do have a question? How would an episode like My Fair Hatey go? Like would Sylvia accept Peeps invitation or something and how would the b plot work? U don’t have to answer I’m just curious and obsessed with Villain Peeps

i have thought of this! certain episodes can't work as a one-for-one swap. because lady sylvia does not want peepers lol.

you can substitute hater wanting to date dominator, with dom trying to be friends with lord peepers, because OMG! he's not actually scary, there's just a cute little guy in there!

my fair hatey requires a lot of changing. in my mind now: sylvia pretends to surrender but really is planning for her army to sneak away and melt the ship's core with the lava power thingy.

dom went into peepers ship alone, so wander decides to team up with the villains to rescue her. wander is able to get hater to help him bcuz hater likes her.

i have some miscellaneous AU thoughts but i didn't know if anyone would be interested in hearing it, but i could make a post about it

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im on a roll today

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Sorry my dear art requesters, ill get to you in my weekends, now enjoy some work doodles

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The freaking difference between my human version in 2024, 2022 and in 2019

Why i drew him as a basic yaoi twink??? I love the 2019 version, but messy hair isn't Peepers ok?