#100 Random Character Development Questions

[crimsonkat59]

The Infinights

The pixelated RPG game Infinights, developed by Tales From the Stinky Dragon, garnered many positive reviews from fans of the developer’s past works and soon brought in new fans, many of whom had never played a game of such style. 

Infinights is a story-driven game where you play as four ‘Infinight Interns’ trying to find the Infinights (a group of notorious heroes), defeat a devious woman called Paralyte, and save the realm of Faeza. There are many loveable NPCs scattered throughout the five realms of Faeza, each unique to their homeland. And the music changes throughout the land, even during encounters! 

What many have found interesting about the game is that the player does not control a specific character. The four Interns move as a group and the walking order of the players changes according to their environment (for example, Mudd leads the group through his home city of the BuhBayou while Kyborg will lead when they’re in Evirwinter). In combat, each Intern and their enemies are given a specific order to which they can take a turn. This is one of the many cases where Infinights uses luck and randomization to achieve unique playthroughs. Often, conversations will have dialogue options that will either succeed or fail based on the program’s virtual ‘coin flip’ and the amount of damage any attack will do it based on a ‘dice roll’ of sorts. 

Infinights has been praised for its simple but beautiful graphics and its simple design. However, it has gained criticism as well. 

One main flaw many players see is how rigid the story is. There are not many chances for exploration and though conversations can change due to luck, things end up the same in the end. After some time, the developers released an update containing a second playing mode. This mode, entitled ‘The Past’ (changing the main story mode to ‘The Present’), lets the player play in a more open-world concept. And as the original Infinights. 

What’s loved about The Past is that it allows the player to see more into the life of the characters the game is entitled after. There were complaints that, for being titular characters and the game’s main quest, the Infinights did not have a strong role in the story, especially Grislee and Elleve. The Past changes this, giving each Infinight more lines and a more fleshed out character. 

Of course, the open-world style is appreciated as well. There’s a fully interactable map to navigate through and many new locations within each city to explore. New shops, new NPCs, new quests. And while The Past has a few scripted adventures and quests, the easiest way to explore the world is to travel to one city and simply walk around. More quests become available as the Infinights become more renowned throughout Faeza, with more people also willing to aid their adventures. 

The Past also created thought. As the main villain of the main story, Paralyte, is seen in this mode as just another Infinight. She is primarily called ‘Luce’, which is her real name, and is visually different. Many have joked that she looks ‘healthier’ in The Past as her skin is less pale. What many notice is that there’s no green infinity sign carved into her armor in The Past, but she instead wears an armband with the Infinight’s logo on it. (Just like Spectril!) 

Throughout the story, Luce and the others get along very well. Her voice is still ‘honeyed yet haunting’, but her interactions with the Infinights are full of smiles and jokes. Luce cracks a few herself, leaving the threats to the enemies encountered in combat. 

This mode, even when played to 100%, does not address exactly why Luce left the Infinights. Theories have been made through dialogue left throughout both modes of the game, but there has been no official response from the developers. Tales From the Stinky Dragon often prides itself on adding a bit of mystery to their games, with some questions getting answered while others are left up to the fans. 

The newest mystery they’ve unveiled is Grotethe, another RPG game in the works. Through released screenshots, it’s clear that the game uses the same base as Infinights. The combat and dialogue systems are the same, along with the game’s basic premise. However, one question that has been raised is how the story modes work. Will Grotethe have only a story-driven mode, only open-world, or will it include both? None of the released content points to any of these options. 

On a similar note, it is also clear that Grotethe takes is set in an entirely different place. The technology and locations (and even the appearance of one of the main characters!) that can be seen in different screenshots are causing speculation amongst fans. People wonder whether the two games are related or not and, if they are, how? No voice clips for any of the characters have been released yet, but fans hope that the voices of the main characters will aid them in this quest for answers. 

Until then, everyone continues to enjoy the stunning game that is Infinights. 

This project, with all visual details compiled on one Adobe Illustrator document entitled 'rot' because I failed to spell 'rpg' started on Tuesday, January 14th. Through various sessions of various lengths and occasional mouse usage, it has finally been completed. I now hate rectangles and squares. 

Various parts of the artwork should be recognizable to other games of a similar style. When I went looking for sprite bases when this project first started, I landed on a base sprite for Omori. I have never played Omori. Along with that, the way the combat screen looks is taken from Deltarune (which I have played) and the shop screen has influences from it. 

And it should be known that most things made in this work I had a trace (with pixels) from a random internet image. That dragon was NOT freehand, nor was that train, the map and pretty much everything from the shop screen (though, the shopkeeper whose name I cannot remember was drawn from a sketch I made). All text except title text (Infinights, Grotethe, Tales From the Stinky Dragon) is actual type, only the title text I drew (with a reference).

My school shouldn’t have allowed me to have an Adobe account or a teacher/class to teach me graphic design. I am using it for evil.

Sprite sheet:

The state my school computer's desktop was left in. Just because I think it's funny.

[flawseer]

Became curious based on a Smaugust piece: What are your thoughts on everyone's favorite royal suck-up, Pike? (also ofc compliments to your writing and art)

Surprise, I am still kicking. And thus my Sisyphean quest to answer all the questions in my inbox continues.

I like Pike. I used to think moderately favorably of him, but pondering this question and then drawing a bunch of pictures of and about him made me realize that, yeah, I am rather fond of him. He is funny and cute in the same way a small, yappy dog is.

I remember once talking to my partner about Pike and I asked: "Do you think the JMA staff has to deal with Pike constantly trying to sleep in the hallway in front of Anemone's room?" Only to then realize, upon re-reading the books, that this actually happens in canon. I was thrilled.

Most of the time when people ask me what I think of a character, they want to hear what my take on them is, so I'll get into that.

Background

I don't think a lot is known about Pike's life, outside him having been assigned as Anemone's (questionably) covert bodyguard. He is one of those background characters that fill out the student roster at JMA but don't get a lot of development, though he is one of the more lucky ones as he gets comparatively more lines and scenes than, say, Barracuda, or Garnet.

We don't ever hear about his home life or familial situation, but I think he comes from a common military family. Not a particularly prestigious one, but rather one of middling significance. I imagine one of his ancestors--like his great grandmother--once made it to captain and ever since the whole family has prided themselves on their military legacy and loyalty to the Seawing throne, even though nobody else really knows who they are.

Pike's parents are both bottom rung palace guards; trusted enough to be stationed vaguely near the seat of government over a remote outpost, but nothing more. As is tradition in their family, they signed up as soon as they were old enough to hold a trident. Pike was expected to follow in their footsteps, and so did the same. He is naturally eager to please, doesn't ask many questions, and knows how to follow orders, so he took to this life relatively well.

One thing immediately apparent when observing Pike is that he is very blunt, headstrong, and reckless. He is prone to self-injury and mishaps, routinely making a tail end of himself during exercises. One day, I imagine, he was out in the courtyard, practicing his combat maneuvers, when he somehow managed to trap himself underneath a training dummy in a humiliating way. Unbeknownst to him, the Queen and Princess were walking past a window overlooking this scene, and the latter happened to spot him.

Princess Anemone, starved for normal social contact due to being permanently leashed to her overbearing mother, immediately took a liking to the clumsy guard and wished to take Pike into her service. The Queen though, hated the idea. Anything she couldn't control with 100% certainty was not to be let near her only living daughter. She didn't even let her own sons approach the Princess for this very reason. So she refused.

But Anemone, sensing an opportunity to finally snatch a tiny mote of control over her own life, didn't relent. She would never overtly defy her mother, but pushed back against her in the most passively aggressive way she could muster. She WOULD have this one thing that was hers, no matter how many times she had to sigh wistfully or forget to eat.

Coral meanwhile still disliked the idea, but after some pondering figured this could work to her advantage. Granting her daughter this favor would make her grateful, and thus easier to keep in check. It was not like the boy would be able to do anything undesirable since she would always be there to watch anyway. And if he ever displeased her, a random guard was easier to dispose of without turning heads, than if she let Anemone play with one of her brothers.

So eventually, she acquiesced, and extracted Pike from the palace guard to assign him to her daughter's protection.

The news hit Pike's family like lightning. Suddenly, after decades of being nobodies with delusions of grandeur, the whole palace was paying genuine attention to them, and the new recruit who, overnight, got assigned to be the Princess' personal retainer. Pike's parents took him aside and impressed on him how important of a task this was. If he did his job well and kept the Princess content and safe, not only would the current Queen think favorably of all of them, but Anemone would remember his service and reward him once she took the throne herself. For his sake and theirs, this was an opportunity not to be squandered.

And thus, Pike shouldered this great responsibility suddenly thrust onto his wings and embraced being Anemone's personal servant and protector. Pushed forward by his sense of honor and loyalty, a desire not to disappoint his family, and the knowledge that, if he were to fail and lose the only heir, Queen Coral would surely kill him.

Day-to-day life

Pike takes his duty very seriously, both out of loyalty to his liege, and because of how much is at stake for him personally. I picture him getting up during the small hours each morning and beginning his daily exercise routine, to stay in shape for his job. His roommate Flame often wakes up to him noisily doing squats in the middle of the sleeping cave and yells at him. "Am I cursed to be tormented by a diminutive idiot Seawing wherever I go!??!" Pike is lucky that his other roommate, Bigtail, is a heavy sleeper. Otherwise the training session would likely be cut short, with Pike tied to the ceiling lamp.

After wrecking Flame's sleep, Pike usually seeks out Anemone and attempts to stay near her at all times. Initially this caused friction between him and the teachers, as he would often skip his own classes to attend Anemone's. He only stopped doing this when Tsunami made it clear skipping classes would get him sent home, and thus away from Anemone permanently.

As they spent time at the Academy, the Princess began to get better and better at giving Pike the slip whenever she got fed up with his overprotectiveness. He freaks out whenever she vanishes, which is often. To help manage his stress, the JMA staff make him attend regular seminars on inner peace and meditation hosted by Fatespeaker. He is not very good at it, but enjoys the exercises that involve listening to running water.

He began to mellow out for a bit after initial growing pains, until the History cave incident occurred. The bombing shook him back into the bodyguard mindset and he began sleeping in the hallway outside of Anemone's sleeping cave. It weirds out Ostrich whenever she has to climb over him. Attempts to get him to stop this have been unfruitful. The current policy seems to be to let him do this until things calm down and he stops on his own.

Anything else

I believe Pike may have a thing for Rainwings. He is generally hyper-aggressive and rude towards everyone he talks to, with two notable exceptions. One of them is Anemone, whom he is sworn to serve and keep safe. The other is Tamarin, whom he is uncharacteristically kind to. My personal impression is that he may have a bit of a crush on her, but keeps himself from pursuing it as to not upset Anemone.

To my knowledge, Pike never really interacts with Turtle. That is a shame, because I would like to know how they would get along. Pike may be greatly disappointed at Turtle's general un-regal-ness, but still begrudgingly respect him out of obligation. I can picture a scene where he berates Turtle for his demeanor, only for someone else to chime in with an affirmative "Yeah Turtle, you suck", upon which Pike turns around and starts ripping into them about disrespecting Seawing royalty.

Concerningly, Pike's future is very uncertain. He is actually in grave danger right now. If Queen Coral ever finds out that he allowed a murderous, seawing-hating ancient wizard to abduct Anemone, she will have some opinions on that. If Coral has one consistent character trait, it is homicidal vengefulness against anyone who fails to protect her children, regardless of circumstance, regardless even if the perpetrator IS one of her children. That means there is a very real chance she will recall Pike from Jade Mountain and try to tear him apart.

I don't think Anemone would allow this to happen, mind you. She has been privy to her mother dragging poor sods out to the plaza to rip their teeth out, enough to recognize the signs of it coming. If she suspected Pike's life was in danger, I believe she would prevent him from leaving.

For now though, he remains at Jade Mountain, doing the best he can with the responsibility he was dealt, acting as Princess Anemone's retainer. It is a difficult, stressful, at times thankless job, but he would not have it any other way.

"Honor, and duty."

[directdogman]

Hi, I hope you're having a decent day! I'm sorry if this is an invasive set of questions - feel free not to answer - but do you still actively like DSaF as your own creation, or is it more of a "it was fun while it lasted but i outgrew it and it's for the best to leave it behind" kind of project? Do you ever regret making the games? If you knew they would get so popular, is there anything you would have changed about them? Is there anywhere I could read more of your writing.

It fluctuates a bit. These last couple of years, I've really just been sorta nostalgic for it. I've seen a lot of people discuss those games being a source of comfort during bad times in their lives, people talking about how much the characters mean to them and it's hard not to smile when you see that.

It's a funny thing for close friends of yours to see people WITH fanmade DSaF merch out in the wild, or to watch a random youtube video and being hit with a DSaF reference outta nowhere. It happens from time to time, even today. On a few occasions, I've even had a person reference my work to me in real life and not realize who they were talking to, believe it or not. It's really fun to play dumb and get someone to explain your work to you like you don't know what it is.

I certainly didn't think any of that would happen when I first made the series, or even during development. I think the normal assumption would be to look at DSaF as it exists now and assume its release was a peak for it, but believe it or not, the official discord only had 30 people in it shortly before 3 dropped! The archive listing of the series (reposted to a single page after the series ended) is now sitting at over 1.1 MILLION downloads.

People kinda assume the true heyday of something is when it's new, when it's fresh and novel. For instance, some people look back at when FNaF itself was new and see that time as its peak because it had a lot of internet cultural relevance as big new indie thing on the block. But, raw numbers don't lie. The series has been continually growing since its conception and that growth has similarly bled over to its fan projects. This explains why DSaF, despite not having a new series release in almost 6 years, seems to be inexplicably growing.

Just recently, I saw someone post footage of a scene from DSaF 2 on Twitter, which got over 16k likes. People praised its writing and largely celebrated the scene. The ironic thing about that particular scene is that I remembered being unsure if it was good or not, so I showed it off in one of the FNaF community hubs. The response was broadly lukewarm to negative. Now, it's held up as one of the best scenes in those games. That's kind of the point I'm trying to make, my thoughts on the series have certainly changed with everyone's else with years of hindsight.

Heh. I'm not sure if I've talked about this in a long time, but y'know, the very first scene I implemented in-game was actually the very first Phone Guy scene in DSaF 1, more or less exactly how it appears in-game today. This was before I'd even written the bulk of the game. I was pretty unfamiliar with visual novels as a whole, pretty unsure if something like this would be palatable to a fandom that was really just used to sit 'n' survive stuff that were far more gameplay than text. I mean, there wasn't any FNaF fangames really LIKE DSaF before that point. Closest was FNaFb, a jokey turn based RPG made in the same engine.

The engine I made the game in is also not exactly fit for VNs out of the box either, and I wasn't 100% sure the idea would actually work. But, the very first time I added the image of the prize corner, Phone Guy, the audio of that iconic cheesy stock track and booted up a test screen, I had a little moment where I said "Oh. I think I'm onto something interesting here." I kinda remembering instantly realizing in that single moment how much potential the idea had. Over 8 years later, I still remember that moment like it was yesterday.

I think lately, that's the sort of stuff I think of when I see people coming to me and asking about the series. Yes, it's really rough around the edges, yes, there's jokes that've aged poorly. But, it is a source of comfort for people and entertains tens of thousands of people each month. And that's gotta count for something, right?

[narklos]

Half-Lore #3: 66 HL Facts!

Make your 'counting to three' jokes in the tags please. Back with another instalment, this is one I've been looking forward to! 66 random facts spanning the entire Half-Life franchise (bc I couldn't fit 100 in one post due to numbered list character limits...) If you have any suggestions for other instalments of Half-Lore, please let me know.

Have a peep under the cut, and enjoy!

Gordon can speak, as confirmed in a series of letters that were included in HL1's box. They mention that L.M and him had a telephone call prior to Gordon's arrival.

Speaking of L.M, he was the original administrator for Black Mesa. L.M was the G-Man, though his full name is never revealed.

Barney and Breen were both meant to appear in Half-Life: Alyx, but were cut due to a hard reset on the game's development.

Gordon is apparently very clumsy. Eli jokes about it in a series of cut voicelines.

Prior to his appointment at Black Mesa, Gordon was stationed at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.

Russell's complaint about being told to apply a year later after his interview at Black Mesa is a real-life hiring process that Valve uses.

Marc Laidlaw mentioned that the baby photo in Gordon's locker is probably a nephew, making Gordon an uncle!

Bullsquids have a 'hungry' mode. If they find a dead headcrab, and they're in hungry mode, they'll eat it. Otherwise, they'll play a sniffing animation and walk away.

In HL2, you can bonk NPCs on the head during a cutscene to make them teleport. This is because the game thinks that the character is trapped by a physics prop, and will teleport them to the next segment in the cutscene to free them.

On Kleiner's clipboard during his first cutscene, what he's saying about the HEV suit is actually written on the paper word-for-word.

Barney has a girlfriend called Lauren, and a picture of her in his locker. The woman in question was a real-life girlfriend of one of the devs.

In one of the OP4 skyboxes, a dev has written the note "Hack hack hack all day long. Hack hack hack while I sing this song."

The mysterious artefact Alyx brings back to Black Mesa East is the head of a Cremator, which was a cut enemy.

HL2 was originally meant to take place in New York.

Headcrabs don't turn Gordon into a zombie because he apparently never lets them get close to his face.

Colette gets a kick out of violence.

Gordon was employee of the month when the Resonance Cascade happened.

A special rebel outpost along Route Kanal will start playing ambient windchimes if you hang around long enough.

Breen was meant to wear a pair of glasses, but Marc Laidlaw went against it, citing that they made Breen look 'vaguely homosexual'.

Russell was originally meant to be Laszlo, the finest mind of his generation. His computer's password is actually 'Laszlo' too!

There are props clipping through Russell's ceiling intentionally- objects will phase through each other during portal storms, the likes of which ravage City 17.

The Citadel wasn't built on Earth, per se- it was teleported in chunk by chunk like the world's biggest IKEA assembly.

G-Man cannot understand the Vort's language, and the Vorts use by-words when discussing him and the Advisors to avoid detection.

Combine Advisors cannot breathe Earth's atmosphere, hence the breathing apparatus they wear.

There was meant to be a fourth day of HL2's plot, but it was shortened to three. Players would have fought through a museum.

Eli lost his leg to a bullsquid when he was helping Kleiner into City 17.

Kleiner and Barney were meant to die in a bus crash in HL2's opening sequence. Marc Laidlaw wrote a short story discussing their deaths in rather graphic detail.

In Decay, there was a cut sequence where players witnessed Gordon getting killed if they didn't scare away the soldiers in time.

Despite 20 years having passed in reality, only around two weeks have passed for Gordon due to being in stasis.

For HLA, developers scanned in a $10,000 Nordstrom suit to use for G-Man's textures.

Level designer David Casali, who has worked on every single mainline HL game, was too tall for a lot of the levels in HLA's Vault sequence. This lead to a lot of upside-down sections being cut for accessibility.

G-Man was meant to be an unwilling prisoner in the Vault, as revealed in a storyboard in The Final Hours.

The Nihilanth is inspired by Gabe Newell's fears of fatherhood, as he'd just had his son at the time.

Nothing is native to Xen. Every alien animal present on Xen is running away from The Combine's invasion of their homeworlds.

During Opposing Force, players can find a gear and a valve inside of a cardboard box- a very clear nod to Gearbox and Valve!

Barney's model changes subtly from HL2 to Episode 1- he's shown more dishevelled, with his hair unkempt and a series of cuts on his cheeks.

G-Man's face is hidden in the Xenian crystal at Black Mesa East.

Alyx was found by the G-Man, sitting beside her dead mother and clutching her mother's wedding ring.

Child labour was meant to appear, with models and animations of the children working in Cremator factories made. This, understandably, were cut, and the lack of children explained away with the suppression field.

G-Man's crow friend is nicknamed 'Crowley'.

During the tactical map section of Surface Tension, you don't have to use the drone strike to destroy the doors leading to the next level- you can actually break it with a fully-charged Tau Cannon shot.

Typing 'haiku' in the game's console will generate a random haiku for you.

Imprisoning the G-Man in HLA was referred to as putting 'God in a Box' by developers.

HL2 on PC and HL2 on Xbox 360 sound wildly different! Due to advanced sound chips, developers were able to push the audio of HL2 to be more immersive and sound more realistic than on PC.

Grigori's shotgun is called Annabelle.

A model of Eli naked exists. This was meant to be used in the section we see him in the Combine pods.

An illustration of G-Man holding a gun to his head can be found on the back of a sign in HLA.

Similarly, in the Index HLA home environment, his eyes are used as part of an advertisement for 'vision enhancement'.

You can find a minifigure of the Scout in HLA.

The textures for some of HLA's cans actually use a recoloured metal effect from HL1's orange poster.

Grigori has cut crosses into the backs of his hands.

Inside G-Man's briefcase is pencils, ID, paper, and a gun.

The shadowy woman in HLA is called Hahn/The Contractor, and according to Erik Wolpaw, they 'have plans' for her.

A cut enemy called Mr. Friendly was meant to literally SA the player and knock Gordon's glasses off, blurring the screen. Apparently, the idea was to play on a gamer's subconscious (or conscious...) homophobia and make them freak out. This enemy was actually designed by a teenager, and was predictably scrapped.

Early advertisements for HL1 featured babies and children with lambdas replacing their eyes.

HL1 is intended to be an allegory for fighting your own inner hopelessness.

Valve's offices have a wall built to resemble the moving walls of the Citadel.

G-Man has had a total of 11 different models throughout HL's history.

Breaking the army crates in the Dreamcast port of HL1 will reveal copies of Sonic Adventure inside.

Gordon is from Seattle, Washington.

HL2 was delayed a lot during its development. At the time, many swore never to buy from Valve again due to their broken promises.

HL2's E3 demonstrations were staged.

Colette was employed by G-Man, but Gina died.

During a Reddit AMA, a dev responded that we shouldn't keep making Gordon feel bad about his outdated hairstyle choices, when asked about where his ponytail went.

A metrocop's hideaway can be found in the level after the zoo in HLA. Due to the amount of conspiracy theory paraphanelia, the room is theorised to be Barney's.

The act of covering your mouth to stop the fumes of Xenian flora from affecting you in HLA was implemented after playtesters instictively covered their mouths when sprayed.

Thanks for reading to the bottom! Here's some top notch BREENWAVE for you.

[carlyraejepsans]

speaking of dr, there's something that really annoys me about how shallow the ship discourse around kr4lsei is. I'm not sure I'm 100% behind this for the same reasons i doubt toby will go full in with noelle's mom being abusive, ie "those are very delicate and complex topics to handle, does he have the time and space to deal with them in deltarune's story?" so take this with a grain of salt.

(warning for brief mention of incest, so I'm putting this under a readmore)

i think the discourse being framed as "thinking ralsei is presented as a romantic interest" vs "thinking ralsei is compared to kris' brother or like a family member" is incredibly stupid because those are... both true at the same time. yes, there's an unskippable "tunnel of love" scene, and it looks like ralsei could have somewhat of a crush on kris. but ralsei still 1) looks just like a dreemurr, 2) clearly plays, as a character, on our feelings and memories of asriel from playing undertale, as evident by their designs and their names being anagrams 3) i am 99% sure Noelle was going to say "that kinda looks like asriel" while looking at him eating cotton candy with Susie, and Susie herself suggests telling toriel he's "a long lost cousin". either way, if ralsei is meant to play on our feelings towards asriel, then as asriel's sibling, kris is likely gonna feel similarly.

are you uncomfortable? good! you should be. that's the point.

it's not random that the snowgrave route was framed and portrayed with the imagery of a wedding. first the freezering, then the thorn ring are explicitly compared to wedding rings. "we're just friends"/"we're something else". "YOU'VE BEEN MAKING [hyperlink blocked (...LoVE?)], HAVEN'T YOU?" noelle with whom kris had a strained relationship, whose feelings (platonic? romantic? we don't know) we brute force in what is the most chilling, manipulative, cruel iteration of chapter 2's story we could take... it's almost as if deltarune uses kris being forced into romantically coded situations they're deeply uncomfortable with as a way to showcase their lack of agency in the story.

and being pushed into romcom-like situations with a guy who looks like their brother works pretty darn well to follow that pattern, if you ask me.

now, if a forced romance with noelle represents their lack of agency in regards to the player, then... a forced romance with ralsei could represent their lack of agency towards Fate. The Plot/Story. unskippable cutscene, remember? not to mention ralsei's whole purposepilled shtick he clearly has a complex about.

this does raise a couple of questions about susie though, as the third option in the "who would you take to the fair with you" question, the one option kris seems to agree with, as well as being a character who is actively resisting the narrative.

because there's people who are very much FOR krusie, just as there are people against it, i doubt their getting or not getting together would work to represent kris gaining their agency back. and i believe i speak for everyone when i say that susie is going to play a huge part in that arc. either way, i'm curious to see how this develops.

idk! like i said, I'm not sure just how much toby is gonna go into this because it IS a very delicate subject. but it's an example of what i mean when i say "there's more to fandom than shipping" and "fixating so hard on Shipping Good Things" can be detrimental to analysis. I'm not cancelling anyone with this post, go on doing your thing whether it's kr4lsei or r4lsusie or krus1e. but if your first thought going into this was "I'm gonna ignore the part where the game compares ralsei to asriel because that would make my ship incest and that is Bad and uncomfortable" then... that's a very cheap way to interact with media? lol. sometimes being uncomfortable IS the point. god knows utdr makes you uncomfortable on purpose sometimes. ok rant over :P

[glitter-stained]

The thing about the Killing Joke as a comic, Barbara's disgusting fridging aside, isn't just that it's nasty because it's a comic centered around the Joker's character (which is always gonna be psychophobic since the moment they decided to make "madness" his defining trait) or that it establishes his backstory following a psychophobic trope (especially since that trope is questioned in the story). It's not even entirely about how it blatantly does the amalgam between madness, specifically psychosis, and being evil/doing villainous things.

No, The Killing Joke is vile because the whole fucking point of the book is blaming mentally ill people's weak/evil character for "succumbing" to mental illness.

Like seriously, what happens in TKJ? We learn about how the Joker was "made", and Joker decides to turn Gordon to the evil side by traumatizing him "that's what the One Bad Day" thing is about. So he does a bunch of bullshit, shoots Barbara, strips her naked, might or might not have raped her, and shoots a bunch of pictures of her in that situation, and then kidnaps Gordon, also strips him, and forces him to see huge projections of those pictures. Then Batman comes, and later there's a fight, where Batman tells the Joker that Gordon is fine actually and the Joker is wrong, it doesn't take one bad day to succumb to psychosis as a way to escape reality, there was just something inherently wrong with the Joker specifically that caused him to develop psychosis.

Behold:

"crawl under a rock with all the other slimy things when trouble hits..." (To be clear, this is in 100% response to Joker's statement that psychosis is the valid response to the random brutality of reality, an escape to it. It's not me over interpreting something about villainy, god I wish, the entire comic is about Joker arguing that psychosis is the correct adaptation to a fucked up reality.) Batman is directly calling anyone with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder or any other form of psychosis "a slimy thing crawling under a rock when trouble hits." And that's the lesson we're supposed to learn from that! The Joker is wrong! We good people of strong hearts and good minds are normal and good and can pat ourselves on the back for being so much better and more resilient than those nasty little crazy freaks (and the circus freaks, oh my god the circus freaks) who are so cowardly and weak-minded; but look how magnanimous we are! We're still gonna extend a hand to help them crazy freaks once we've established our moral superiority! Because we're good, upstanding cops, and our habit of arresting criminals and putting them in the nastiest fucking asylum which doubles as a horrible prison works! Because we're so good!

Seriously, what is up with that? In what world is the wrongness of this comic not fucking obvious to everyone? Is this really your Batman? Your childhood hero? This is the guy the narrative (and dc in general) tells us we're supposed to be rooting for? How have we normalized psychophobia to the point I regularly see people praising this comic or saying it would have been good had Barbara's fridging not ruined it? No, what happened to Barbara didn't ruin shit! What happened to Barbara is nothing but one more indicator of the worth and respect Alan Moore holds for women in his writing, and I genuinely don't find him any better than Jim Starlin with the way he likes to write sexual assault on women, but the comic was already ruined because its message was already fundamentally disgusting.

And the worst part is it fucking gets worse if you know anything about how schizophrenia (or other schizophreniform disorders) develops. I can't imagine what it's like, picking up this comic as a person with schizophrenia. The suicide risk associated with schizophrenia is high as fuck, and with the way our society stigmatises that disorder, it's no fucking wonder. Reading that kind of book, it feels like some people are actively working to get those figures higher actually. I wonder if Moore is aware of the damage his comic does, if he even fucking cares. I wonder how many people have talked themselves out of getting help because they were afraid of acknowledging their mental health issues and "being like the Joker", or knew they weren't like the joker and concluded they weren't mentally ill. I wonder if people with schizophrenia have read this comic, thought back to the one bad day that lead to them developing psychosis, and wondered what was so wrong with them that they couldn't handle reality the way normal people can. People with schizophrenia are so much more at risk of being verbally or physically assaulted by someone else than of attacking someone else and so much more likely to be verbally or physically assaulted than your average joe. I wonder how many people feel justified in that kind of violence because they see a person struggling with delusions, visibly interacting with a hallucination or saying incoherent, absurd stuff and thought they were heroically intervening to stop a "dangerous psychotic individual" from doing harm. I wonder how much of this perception is influenced by the most famous mentally ill character of all times. Worst fucking comic I've ever read. That story is rotten to the core.

Seriously, fuck the Killing Joke.

[eldritch-elrics]

one of the most interesting things about the silent hill 2 remake to me is the sort of... cascading effect that its particular brand of realism has on the entire experience, especially when it comes to james's characterization.

i'll try to explain concisely what i mean.

both 2001's SH2 and 2024's SH2 have what you could call a realistic artstyle. between the two games, this is achieved in very different ways. the original game uses realistic textures, proportions, animations, and especially lighting. this is what gives the fmv cutscenes their uncanny feel - the low resolution means that we focus not on the details, but whether the overall shape and lighting of the scenes feels consistent with reality.

the 2024 remake, meanwhile, follows in the tradition of recent AAA releases by upping the detail. silent hill, as a location, feels more real than ever. now, you can debate about what this does or doesn't add to the game - is an important part of the character of silent hill the eerie, empty, and unreal atmosphere it gains from the limitations of the ps2? that's a valid question. but being a 2024 AAA release, and one that clearly has a lot of effort put into it, the remake goes for realism by adding a whole lot of stuff.

now you have a game that is full of stuff. objects. clutter. this creates a problem. in the original silent hill games, important objects are not indicated with any kind of ui. instead, they're highlighted with particular colors, textures, lighting, etc. the remake does this too - but it also adds a little nondiegetic indicator when you're standing next to something you can interact with:

for a game with this artstyle, this is 100% a necessity. sure, some objects (especially stuff with uniform designs, like ammo or health items) stand out regardless. but for other things... it just isn't always clear!

imagine the game without these indicators. you would probably be able to find most of the important objects. but you'd need to spend way, way more time searching through rooms full of clutter in order to pick out the stuff that's necessary to progress. this is how the original game works! and it works in that game because the levels are smaller, and there is less random crap. but it would just be so tedious to do in the remake.

adding an interaction indicator doesn't so much create a clear boundary between "important" and "not important" - plenty of the stuff you can interact with in the remake is random stuff like posters that add nothing but worldbuilding detail, or drawers that don't actually contain anything - but it does create a clear boundary between "things the developers meant for you to focus on" and "things the developers meant as background details." this cannot help but change the entire experience of the game. in the original game, anything has the potential to be interacted with - you don't know whether you can or not until you've walked up to it (and made sure you've walked up to it at the right angle...) and pressed the button. this makes you consider your surroundings in a different way! it makes you search differently! it makes you more aware! it also adds more mystery - it makes the world feel that much more complicated, because there is so much stuff you could be missing!

one detail of the original game that i was very sad not to see in the remake is the abundance of commentary that james has on a bunch of the objects around him. and they could have added at least some of this! just a couple dozen more voice lines! but a lot of it is, well:

it is usually not particularly profound commentary. but it encompasses far more than the sorts of things to which the remake adds an interaction indicator, and i assume that is at least one reason (apart from its general characterization of james as taciturn) why the remake does away with it entirely. because there is such a black and white distinction between "interactable" and "non-interactable," they can't justify adding that little symbol to every potentially interesting thing in a game full of interesting clutter. why would gamers want to be told to focus on something, only for james to tell them right back that it's not worthy of his focus?

now, these objects things may not be important or noteworthy. but what makes them interesting - and what makes me as a player want to interact with every possible thing i can, just so see if it has associated dialogue - is that james tells you that they aren't important or noteworthy, and this tells us a lot about james. it makes us feel like we're seeing the game through his eyes, not the eyes of the developers who are putting in the buttons telling us what to focus on. instead, james is deciding what is "not a particularly special photograph," what is "...just a regular stage," and what is a collection of bottles so mesmerizing that he feels compelled to expatiate on his alcohol problems.*

*this is a particularly interesting example, because it's a completely missable detail from the original game that, as far as i'm aware, isn't in the remake's version of heaven's night. and yet... the remake references it! the scene in the remake where james refuses to drink the glass maria offers him in heaven's night reads completely differently whether you know this detail or not!

it's also possible that the lack of random commentary from james - the more substantial stuff, that is, not just "i don't need toilet paper right now" - is a deliberate choice on the part of the remake dev team to get rid of something that they saw as only in the game because the design decisions of the original silent hill games necessitated it. maybe they thought that the only reason for james to have that much commentary at all was because the game needed to give players feedback as a little reward for exploring around - a type of exploring that the remake does not incentivize. maybe they thought that a more "true" version of james would not say anything at all when faced with an object he had no strong feelings about. (especially as opposed to a protagonist like heather, for whose characterization this object-commentary is vital.)

but the thing is... even the presence of the less substantial commentary adds substance to james's characterization! it tells us what he's interested in, what motivates him or doesn't, what reminds him he needs to get a move on (shows us his one track mind - his drive towards his quest!), and what he's noticing but deliberately not thinking about (for example, sexually charged imagery). and it's so interesting that, very likely, this design decision is in part a consequence of an entirely different decision that was made because "that just how AAA games are" !

so, in short, the cascading effect is:

realism -> more detail -> harder to see what objects are important so devs need to add ui elements to point out what you can interact with -> you're not going around and interacting with everything you see -> james doesn't do random commentary on unimportant stuff -> changes how his characterization feels

[homestuckreplay]

Webcomics at Day 100 #10: The Order of the Stick

Pages read: 9/25/2003 – 4/4/2006 (books 1&2; 301 full page strips)

Reason for selection: D&D is really important to nerd culture (and online culture since 3e), and this is probably the most popular and longrunning D&D webcomic, to this day loved, followed and theorized on by a large fanbase.

Current status: Ongoing with no set schedule, averaging twice monthly updates. Creator Rich Burlew says the current book will be the last, but fans predict the arc will not end until 2031 or later.

Content warnings: frequent misogyny, sexualization of female characters, equating sex and gender, occasional transphobia, sexual humor, occasional jokes about sexual assault and harassment, one joke about slavery, extreme amounts of cartoon violence

Overall thoughts:

I am definitely the target audience for Order of the Stick. As a long time D&D player who also enjoys hearing about games I didn’t play in and likes webcomics as a medium, it’s not surprising that I fell in love with this very quickly, because I’m the exact type of person it’s being written for. As such, it’s hard to analyze whether it’s easy for non-D&D players to get into.

D&D references appear in the majority of strips, typically to 3.5e – the edition released shortly before the comic’s debut, which almost entirely dictates the characters’ abilities and the rules of the world they live in. Most references are still relevant to more recent editions, and the comic riffs on random encounters, initiative order, attacks of opportunity, momentary in-game retcons after remembering an extra feature or skill bonus after the fact, timeskips during travel, rogues stealing from party members leading to intraparty conflict, the ‘all PCs have dead parents’ backstory stereotype, and especially alignment.

The entirety of book two, ‘No Cure for the Paladin Blues’ (so named because it features a paladin dressed in blue), explores alignment in more depth than the occasional jokes surrounding the other topics. Roy, an honorable leader who has sworn an oath but isn’t a paladin by class, and Miko, who is a true paladin and follows her order’s rules to the letter, come to blows over the meaning of ‘good’ and ‘lawful’, whether intent or outcome determine a person’s alignment, and what it means to live in a world where alignment is objective, codified, and detectable. These are ideas that later D&D editions will also question, but not as efficiently as secondary character Celia, a sylph defense lawyer, does in a literal courtroom scene in comic 282.

The D&D references range from these blatant ones, to the more subtle. To zoom in on a moment I loved, strip 214 features a moment where Miko – a party ally, who would be controlled by the DM in a real game – goes against the party’s planned stealth ambush and barges into an ogre camp to confront the leader. This would be really bad D&D etiquette in most games, as a DM would be taking agency away from the players, not allowing them to even attempt a plan they’d worked hard on. But it works well as comic writing, because it characterizes Miko and sets up a new three-way conflict between her, the party, and the ogres.

Establishing characterization is much easier with D&D ability scores and spell lists to lean back on, but Burlew has never made official character sheets for the party to allow the story to come first. Instead, Burlew uses common player character archetypes – a respectable human fighter/party leader avenging his father, a Scottish dwarf cleric who likes ale and can’t roll stealth, an androgynous elf mage who prefers learning about the limits of arcane potential to social interaction, an annoying, pretty, constantly singing and talking when he shouldn’t bard (who surprised me by being dumb instead of horny), a treasure-obsessed crackshot rogue, and a chaos gremlin. XP and level up mechanics provide an easy, in universe reason for characters developing new powers.

I found most characters quickly likeable, except for the chaos gremlin – halfling ranger Belkar is the party’s evil member, generally played for comic relief. However, as the overarching plot is introduced as early as strip 13, and other characters are given two dimensions and ethical beliefs within the first hundred strips, Belkar’s being loved by the party of relatively decent people despite his selfish, violent and amoral actions (stated outright in strip 285) feels out of place and unearned to me. His misogyny and sexual harassment of female characters, also played for laughs, really contributes to this – it’s hard to overlook, especially as it’s reflected by the author.

Burlew falls into common pitfalls when writing female characters – for example, a woman only being taken seriously when she is competent and can out-perform the men, a man needing to experience being treated like a woman in order to respect one, and regularly referring to women as ‘bitches’, ‘whores’, and ‘chicks’. In 2015, Burlew said that he has few regrets about his early work, but that they include ‘[u]nintentional sexism and/or insensitivity to gender issues. Doing my best to fix it going forward.’ This acknowledgement is important to my decision to keep reading.

Against all odds, the wizard of unspecified gender Vaarsuvius is actually written fairly well. The ambiguity is often treated as a joke, and minor characters will sometimes assume their gender one way or the other – but the other main characters don’t know and are okay with not knowing. They’re respectful and don’t question it when Vaarsuvius doesn’t use the gendered dungeon toilets, and while Vaarsuvius shares a room with female party member Haley at inns while the men all share a second room, strip 225 makes it clear that this is because Haley and V are good friends, not because they share a gender. (As a sidenote, Haley and V’s sweet and unlikely friendship is my favorite dynamic in the comic).

Artistically, the characters are drawn as stick figures (as represented by the comic’s title) with clean lines and bright colors in strips that are typically one A4 page. The first OOTS book was printed in February 2005, with further books released after each major story arc, so Burlew has written the bulk of this comic knowing that it will be collected in print. Likely, this influences the decision to mostly stick to the A4 style, and rarely include oddly shaped strips, animation, hyperlinks, hover text, or other web-specific elements. Important story beats and milestones do see extra-long strips, with the 200th strip covering a long-foreshadowed battle four times as long as a regular strip – with white space indicating the page breaks. Strips may play with panel order while keeping the A4 format, such as comic 242, which uses arrows to indicate that panels should be read vertically, not horizontally.

Character designs are extremely recognizable from the first strip, and the art style gets slowly more complex – while the stick figures remain, backgrounds grow more detailed and shading is introduced over time. With the early strips, the art in print books is (allegedly) an improvement over the web versions, an incentive to buy print copies when the full archive is available for free online.

Most characters speak in white speech bubbles with black text, but there are exceptions – core villain Xykon the lich has black speech bubbles with white text, creatures of pure light have yellow speech bubbles, sylpha and ghosts have blue, and a bastion of lawful good order has red. Lowered opacity speech bubbles with dashed outlines indicate whispering, and (in a more questionable choice) bold lower case speech indicates a character has low intelligence. The different colors are effective at making characters from other planes feel truly alien, and the importance of the speech bubbles reflects the wordiness of the comic – the text is small, speech bubbles are often paragraphs, and even zoomed into 150% I ended up with a bad screen headache after a couple hours’ reading, which makes an archive binge much harder.

OOTS has a reputation for beginning as humorous and becoming more serious and story driven in its third and fourth books. I haven’t reached those yet so can’t compare, but I already find that while jokes are frequent, the story takes precedence when necessary – and like other comics I’ve read, even Burlew seems surprised at how quickly the strip becomes something beyond its original intentions, letting a character say ‘Wow. That’s a lot more planning than I thought this strip had’ as early as strip 60. However, he also says that having the characters leave the dungeon and take on a bigger quest in strip 122 was partly because he ‘was leaving a lot of good jokes on the table by never having them go to town or on a wilderness adventure’, so the ‘plot driven’ and ‘joke focused’ drives are coexisting then. I’m really excited to see how the tone and story develop over the next thousand strips. :D

Relevance to Homestuck:

As best I can tell, there’s no official connection, though there is fanbase overlap. I’ve said before that Homestuck is a precursor to actual play podcasts, and plan to write more about that someday. In its case, Andrew Hussie clearly acts as DM with the command-submitting readers acting as players; D&D mechanics aren’t used, but the dynamic is spot on.

In Order of the Stick, the characters referencing movies, modern slang, current events and 21st century professions is extremely reminiscent of real D&D play, as this sort of humor is common to both regular D&D groups and actual play shows like Acquisitions Incorporated and The Adventure Zone. A pair of lawyers sent by ‘the spooky wizard who lives by the coast’ are introduced in strip 32 and become recurring characters, a reference to Wizards of the Coast, the real world company who owns D&D. The same is true of characters mentioning exposition, sidequests, plotlines, character mirrors, and other concepts that D&D players know about, and therefore put into their characters’ mouths in games.

OOTS characters feel like they have players and the strip captures the experience of the gaming table really well, but readers don’t have much influence, and Burlew is taking on all roles. This is true even when they contradict, like in strip 21, where the character’s actions of killing a chimera go against the DM’s plans to have him be a recurring villain.

Like Homestuck, OOTS begins as a fairly small scale story – taking place in a single dungeon – but expands within a couple of years to include threats not just to the world, but to the very fabric of reality. In a couple of very minor parallels, both feature the dunce cap (HS 746/OOTS 14), the 8 ball (HS 804/OOTS 127), and a plot important meteor (HS 196/OOTS 134). Meteors seem like a surprisingly common feature of webcomics, actually, and I wonder if this was a big part of 2000s culture that I don’t remember. OOTS has a minor character, Banjo the Clown God of Puppets, who appears in several strips including 80 (regular Banjo) and 85 (as the eldritch Banjulhu). His mysterious and unsettling appearances are reminiscent of Lil Cal, and his tentacles of Rose’s eldritch doll. I could also discuss Kickstarters here but I think I’ll save that for a few years down the line.

Scholar Gabriel Romaguera wrote his master’s thesis and part of his PhD thesis on Order of the Stick. I’ve read his master’s thesis in full and really enjoyed his analysis, which is far more comprehensive than my own (though as a sidenote, I do genuinely hope to write a master’s thesis on Homestuck someday). He’s only one scholar, but a lot of his analysis links up with the limited Homestuck analysis I’ve read. Romaguera discusses serial vs archival reading, web vs print versions, and whether the OOTS books can be considered a webcomic.

‘Some of the material is only relevant when read within twenty four hours of the original publication... Readers are supposed to wait for new installments, read them, go over to the forums, reread them to make sure th+at no detail was left unnoticed, speculate what would happen, and continue to wait until the new issue is published and then the cycle continues. This process makes for a deeper connection to the narrative and to the characters as years go by.’ (Romaguera, p.138)

This argument is presented uncritically and unproductively, just as it has been by many Homestuck analysts. While it’s technically true for any serial work, it becomes more true when participation in an active fan community of theorizers, proofreaders, lorekeepers and fanwork producers is seen as critical to understanding the work. From some time browsing the forums, this is definitely true of both OOTS and Homestuck moreso than other webcomics. (It’s also the attitude that made my lab scientist brain go ‘okay, cool theory, but have you tested that experimentally?’) Romaguera goes on to say that ongoing webcomics could be taught in classrooms when teaching students about serial narratives as ‘[t]he serial reading experience is often taught in hindsight and with nostalgia that suggests that current readers have missed out on the original text as it was intended to be read.’ (p.151) I agree and I love this idea more than words can say.

‘This effectively makes OOTS an ongoing trans-media narrative, wherein some parts of the narrative are exclusive to one medium, and some parts are exclusive to the another one [sic]. Readers go through the process of piecing these parts together to make this third text and thus fully attain the narrative. Still, this practice only goes on until Burlew publishes the final book and all of the narrative is collected in one authoritative text.’ (Romaguera, p.139-40)

In most webcomics (including Homestuck), print editions are supplementary, collector’s content. With OOTS, it seems like both the author and fans give the print editions a lot of importance. Once OOTS is no longer serialized, it does seem likely that the print editions, which include entire books of bonus material not found online, will be seen as fully definitive. Similarly, I would call The Unofficial Homestuck Collection the definitive edition of Homestuck, due to its functional flash player, wealth of supplemental content, and options for reading spoiler free. Ultimately, both these works have transcended their original websites in a way few webcomics have.

Continue reading? I think this is my favorite webcomic I’ve read for this subproject so far. I usually would’ve read 2009 strips for a comparison, but didn’t, because I want to experience the story linearly without spoilers. I could get totally obsessed with this. I want to make D&D character sheets for the beta kids.

[transhoverfish]

OK SO IM LATE BUT. MORE SUB3 NEWS!!!

so a few days ago, krafton (their publisher), apparently had this like presentation of their plans over the next like 2 years. and during that they talked a bit about sub 3!

and this obviously creates a LOT of questions. not to worry, though, because unknown worlds added on to this:

im honestly not surprised by this. iirc, when below zero released they said it would be a WHILE before the next game, and they only announced this back in like... january? now, the first game's release was in january, and bz was in may, so it's definitely possible early access with be in spring of 2025. those games did not have multiplayer aspections tho! its possible we'll wait until mid 2025, and full release will likely not be until 2026. but who knows? the first game took like ten to be fully finished!!

and honestly. THANK GOD. i can't imagine any subnautica game having BATTLE PASSES or LOOT BOXES. i would have just straight up ignored this game 😭

i do wonder what these updates will entail! "many years to come" is definitely something interesting to me, because other than bug fixes... i dont remember sub or bz getting many updates post full release. is this referring to bug fixes, or is it implying that it will be in a state of early access for much longer? are they going to just keep adding new things (like the building update for sub1) and taking fandom suggestions? very interested!!

maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but i actually,,,, dont want multiplayer. now i do like bz, and these games arent really intended to be horror games, but also bz is very noticeablely less scary than sub1. and some of it i think definitely has to do with all the extra characters and dialogue. its hard to feel isolated when you know al-an and marg are nearby. so im very happy that it's optional, bc i know i will probably enjoy single player a lot more enjoyable!!

so now... SPECULATION.

so the first thing im curious about that the development team didnt mention:

"uncover the mysteries on an entirely new alien planet"

apprently we are NOT returning to 4546b. which im kind of sad about!! ik the story is very obviously done there, but it feels weird that its going to be some other planet this time around. THERE WONT BE PEEPERS!!!! (well there could be but it would be weird if some other random planet had the exact same lifeforms)

now my next immediate thought is: is this a direct continuation of below zero? my opinion is: no. probably not.

mostly because it mentions up to four players, and robin and alan are, if you look very closely, only two people. now they COULD just create two new characters to go alongside them (my fanfic brain loves the au idea of marg and ryley 🥺) but im just going to assume that with the addition of a new planet, we're going to drop the old storylines. which means no more degasi, sunbeam, aurora, or ayou sisters. we might move away from architects/precursors altogether! (my basis on this is absolutely nothing and i could be wrong, this is 100% just theorizing)

also, i imagine that it would be difficult to keep the plot the exact same with two established characters and then two new ones, depending on how this multiplayer aspect works. if its another crash, it would be a lot easier to just have the extra players die/survive, then try to work in a balancing act of one guy playing al-an.

(also i like keeping the ending of bz vauge. if they show up again, they would have to mention what happened to the rest of the architects, and i think it's much more fun if thats a mystery!)

((also also, im gonna drop a bomb on u all for a second. i actually,,, dont like al-an. i have a deeper connection to probably every single other character in bz. i think they really fumbled al's character and story and he is so incredibly bland to me. it feels like they go nowhere with how he was responsible for the kharra outbreak because the game ends immediately after he confesses! it would be nice to give him another chance, sure, but i personally dread the idea of even more al-an. sorry everyone for this horrible news))

HERE'S A CONCEPT IMAGE

i hope they bring back some cut content creatures for this!! i noticed this new area looks VERY similar to the safe shallows, and several of the fish seem to be variations of ones we've already seen (im already seeing bladderfish and hoopfish color pallettes, and the shark resmbles some early concept art for the shadow leviathan, but with the ice worm's colors...)

will there be more land areas?? is it going to entirely underwater?? more kharra?? NO DISEASE AT ALL?? AAAAAA!!!!

[welcomingdisaster]

Ok so I’m rotating ideas about elves and mythology and decided to drop some ramblings in your ask box because of all the wonderful theatre-related thoughts you’ve been sharing!! The thing is that the silm is a mythology right. Like it’s written in that style, and the heroes of LoTR and the later Ages in general are always explicitly looking back to the stories of the First Age (see: Aragorn wanting to cosplay Beren and Lúthien with Arwen). But what were the myths, the cultural stories, of the Elves of the First Age? In Tirion what were the stories that Maglor might write a play retelling or subverting, that Elemmírë might make a new song about, that Míriel might have woven into a tapestry? All cultures have ancient myths – but these characters are a) living at the very dawn of the world, and b) are all going to become mythological figures themselves! It makes me a bit insane. My thoughts are that they told a lot of stories about the war the Valar made on Melkor, and also about Cuivienen and the awakening of the elves, but honestly I don’t KNOW. What do you think? (No pressure to answer this is very random I realise) ❤️❤️

NO I love these thoughts!!! My thoughts generally go along the same vein as yours in terms of the general themes of elven myths. Here are some possibilities I imagine:

Whichever continent the elves in question are not seeing is often the center of the stories. The Sindar and Avari in middle-earth myth-make a lot about the lands in the west; the Eldar in Valinor myth-make about middle-earth. Since we're talking about Elemmírë, Míriel, and Maglor I'll stick to the latter.

I imagine there's aways the pervasive idea of secret Ainur no one has discovered yet. No matter how many times the Valar go "no we promise we're all here in Valinor, there's no other Valar left" there's 100% an elf somewhere going "have you heard about the Vala of bogs? yeah they live in middle earth and they're in charge of all the bogs there and if you aren't careful you'll be stuck serving in their bog court"

Not to mention elves who know Aulë and have heard that his people sleep under the earth, waiting for their time to awake. I'm sure for some elves tell it as simply that, but over time another pervasive myth develops -- stories of great dwarven kingdoms under the earth, kingdoms they're barred from seeing, stories of seven great dwarven kings, each much like Aule in face, each possessing a specific sort of magic.

Imin, Tata, Enel, etc! Not only do we canonically get them as a counting story, I imagine their fates are also something that ends up being talked about? They do not seem like they ever ended up in Valinor -- what happened to them? I feel like elven stories can tend to go along the lines of "and then he turned into a tree" or "he still dwells by the sea where he was born" or "he fell into the cracks of the mountains during the war and became one with the earth."

Myth as a way to explore cultural taboos! Elves coming to Valinor, a land with no pain or crime, with the shadows of war and suffering behind them -- I imagine they must explore taboo and pain through storytelling. What happens to an elf that leaves his wife for another? What happens to an elf who poisons her sister? I imagine there's some gruesome/creepy stories that come out there, but are told with a naïveté to the actual truth of what violence looks like. Something along the lines of "and then the servants of Melkor hacked the elven king into bits, so his wife had to go looking for each piece of him in every corner of the world and sew them back together"

The sea!! Must I say more. The elves emerged from the sea, and they long for it -- yet they cannot go too far into the waves without drowning, and they do not know what lurks under the waves. I imagine myths centering around sea-creatures, around the souls of the drowned, around elves (mer-elves?) who never left the sea and make their kingdoms underneath the waters, etc.

Just some ideas!! If anyone else wants to contribute headcanons for early elf myths to his post, please do!

[ukagakadreamteam]

Ghost Jam 2023 Results!

Hey folks! Ghost Jam 2023 has concluded, and now it’s time to share the results! We have, once again, had a rather large turnout, so buckle up for a long post!

This year we had 25 submissions by 31 different developers. That’s 2 more submissions than last year!

Of those submissions, 6 of them were made in the first 72 hours of the jam, qualifying for our 72 hour challenge. 3 of those were even done within the first 24 hours!? That’s a first!

13 of the ghosts were made from scratch/just a single template, with no other pre-made assets, qualifying for our New Assets Only challenge!

Additionally, this year we saw a little more variety in the languages, both spoken language and coding language, used to make the ghosts! One ghost was submitted in Japanese, and another in Russian and Belarusian!

As far as coding languages go, most English ghosts use a language called YAYA (or sometimes the older version, AYA), but we had one entry in Satori, and one in Kawari!

Of the participants in the event, 20 of them were participating in a ghost jam for the first time, and 15 of them released their first ghost as a part of the jam!

Harder to quantify with stats, but still very interesting to note, was the great variety in ghosts that we saw this year! There are a lot of really creative entries that deviate from the standard ghost style. Some are desktop buds, some are focused on a single concept, some pull you into the character’s world, and some are entire games! Give them all a try, there’s a lot of cool stuff here!

With all of that out of the way, let’s see the ghosts! As mentioned, it’s a long post, so check under the cut for the listing!

ButtonToy, by OdieDogXP:

[Download]

Enjoy pressing buttons to activate different activities!

Listen to randomized stories, or play various minigames!

Don’t miss the functional power button in the corner!

Camp Camp, by CaptainKiwi and KFC:

[Ghost download] [Balloon download]

Meet your camp guides for the day, counselor David and camper Max!

Learn about the inhabitants of the camp, the good and the bad...

Give them treats!

Comes with a unique balloon!

Captain (DEMO), by Percival / Azazel:

[Download]

Keep the captain company during his breaks!

Overhear the ship logs and strange jobs the crew have encountered!

Chat about cats!

Made with new assets only!

Faeia & Tahir, by WhatAPhantasia:

[Download]

Find yourself in a rich and expansive world to learn all about!

Get to know Faeia and Tahir, denizens of two lands at war that have become friends!

Comes with a unique balloon!

Gallery 512, by Galla, Kat, and Zichqec:

[Download]

Decorate your desktop with 1 of 4 canvas styles, each with their own animated painting and a selection of frames!

Have up to 100 lil guys wobwobwob around your screen!

Comes with a unique balloon!

Made in just 72 hours, with new assets only!

Kafe Kareopsis Hutarkam, by Smoky and sacrificedbuns:

[Download]

Sit down for a nice chat, and order some food!

Throw the food on the floor and/or eat it!

Written in Russian and Belarusian!

Made in just 72 hours, with new assets only!

Macaque, by Venelona (Tumblr / Twitter):

[Download]

Mind his moods if you want to stay on his good side!

Comes with two different shells, to change the look of his ears!

Comes with a unique balloon!

Made with new assets only!

Maxumus the Cat, by Bitzen:

[Download]

Very animated shell, including a satisfying pickup animation!

High quality recommendations... from a cat!

Comes with a unique balloon!

Nanika Atsume, by Okuajub:

[Download]

Set out food and wait for cats to come visit!

Enjoy surreal idle dialogue while you wait!

Comes with a unique modification of the Star Cloud balloon!

The first jam ghost to be made with the SHIORI Kawari!

Please arrive 15 minutes before your scheduled interview time, by Galla, Naryu, and Zichqec:

[Download]

Prepare your résumé and steel yourself for an important interview!

Answer questions, and ask questions of your own! Learn about your workplace-to-be!

Comes with a unique balloon!

Made with new assets only!

Presentable Can, by KFC:

[Download]

Stare at the can! Tap the can! Pet the can!

Comes with a unique balloon!

Made in 72 hours, with new assets only! (Actually, made in less than 24 hours!)

Rock Blue and Peach, by JopsyJop and Waffles:

[Download]

Get to know a couple of besties and learn about the inhabitants of their town!

Discuss various types of media!

Comes with a unique balloon!

Shigure, by TechNekoKit:

[Download]

Bring a rainstorm right to your desktop

Enjoy the company of a mysterious spirit

Beautiful mixed media shell

Made with new assets only!

Skrunkly, by StrangelyKai:

[Download] (Mind the content warnings in the readme!)

Enjoy a wide variety of skrunkle quotes!

Use dressups to modify the outline of Skrunkly, or invert the colors!

Made with new assets only!

Slime Fighter 2000, by Smoky:

[Download]

Fight terrifying household objects!

Play as multiple different classes!

Made with new assets only!

Slugcat, by Percival:

[Download]

It’s a slug! It’s a cat! It’s a slugcat!

Watch it loaf!

Made in 72 hours, with new assets only! (Actually, made in less than 24 hours!)

sNO - STORMBRINGER!!, by WhatAPhantasia:

[Download]

Deal with a demigod villain existing on what you thought was your balcony!

Get predictions about the weather, using actual weather data!

Comes with a unique balloon!

Made in just 72 hours!

Styrmir, by Galehaut and Ecclysium:

[Download]

Assist a god with their pet project - an island of humans!

Manipulate their mood to provide different weather variants to the humans

Help the island survive, and with a little work, thrive!

Comes with a unique balloon!

Team Snakemouth, by Adante:

[Download]

Pay for the assistance of the reliable team snakemouth!

They'll assist you with keeping your computer tidy and give peptalks whenever you need!

Help them collect items and berries along the way!

The Poke!Partner Program [BETA], by Rosenheim, Okuajub, Harmony, Blackfyre, @ohnoitsme / PEANUT, and ChatGPT (by OpenAI):

[Download]

Multiple shells, one for Professor Azalea and one for Porygon!

Nuzlocke tracker system with custom rules!

Send your pokemon on adventures and let it collect berries!

The Rain Station, by Digi_056:

[Download]

Dictate the weather and temperature!

Watch as the environment outside changes based on the time of day and weather conditions!

Images for the ghost made with clean 3D models!

Toad, by Galehaut, Secret Pie, and Ecclysium:

[Download]

Comes with a unique balloon!

Made in 72 hours, with new assets only! (Actually, made in just 2½ hours!?)

Kick the toad!

Wally Darling / Welcome Home, by idk and  thebubble-mancer:

[Download]

Friendly dialogue

A toggle for horror elements, so you can play safely

Rare events made to spook you in the darkest hours of the night

Made with new assets only!

Witching Hour, by Zdzisiu:

[Download]

Take up the mantle of elder witch to guide and reform a delinquent apprentice!

Gather and study magical ingredients to fill your grimoire!

Brew your inventory into potions and test them on your pupil!

ヒカリキツネ@hikarikitsune, by  ななっち:

[Download]

Spend calming days with hikari, a kitsune that relies on you to interact with the world!

Chat about your plans for the day and places you'd like to go to support her hobby as a photographer!

Made by our first ghost jam participant from the Japanese community! for jam regulars, that means an interesting structure and style not yet seen among English devs!

The first jam ghost to be made with the SHIORI Satori!

[meeks-just-wants-to-scroll]

What Happened To HFM?

Hello, I've been meaning to ask this for a while but what happened to Hare Fox and Moon? I've seen @cupiidskiss post that they will be the only one posting suff about the fandom now and the lack of final two chapters, the twitch stream that didn't happen (or at least the date and time weren't posted in tumblr) and the "May We See The Sun" AU not getting adapted unto its own work

I was a long time fan of HFM and so it's kinda sad to see such a small but beautiful work with interesting characters and a great storyjust kinda vanish

[I'm sorry for this random ass ask but its just been bugging me for the past few days so i thought id finally ask]

I am not entirely sure how to answer this because this is not my story to explain. I do not know how much Paigey wants to say publicly. I understand if they want to explain the situation in 100% clarity, I understand if they would rather it stays private, i understand if they only want to explain the bare necessities to give closure on the situation. (if you haven’t already, send this same ask to paigey. I am not the owner of HFM.)

For now I will only explain what is necessary to answer the question.

“What happened to HFM.”

It was silently put on hiatus for a month (~30 days since chapter 28 got published).

At some point before Dec 14th, Paigey told me they were losing interest in continuing the project (tho i cannot check messages to be 100% sure on that since the HFM server is deleted. I do not recall if their message was along the lines of “i’m struggling to continue this chapter” or if it was “I’m losing interest in continuing this project.” Whatever it was, I was under the impression that they had other art projects and oc they would rather work on, which made sense in my head because I had started working on other art, AU, OC, and role plays during the hiatus.)

Saturday, Dec 14: I was asked by Paigey to not draw or make content of Boone anymore and that we would not be working together anymore (again, i am not explaining the details of what was in the message. Only Paigey can divulge what they are comfortable saying online).

this left HFM in a limbo of what will happen with it. Neither of us actually talked about “what now?”

I was under the impression Paigey was done and wanted to move on to a different project (diff community? Diff fandom?) but what you said about them being the “only one posting stuff about the fandom now” was unexpected to me considering they expressed losing interest in continuing. I became curious and checked their tumblr and yes, they did say “will probably be the only one creating hfm content from now on, not sure. i still enjoy this story very much, despite differences and everything with my past co author.” This shows I shouldn’t assume Paigey’s feelings on HFM, I evidently didn’t know they still have the door open on continuing posting about the story. I thought the negative memories associated with it would overshadow the joy. I was wrong.

seeing as Cupiidskiss still plans to work on the project, I suppose this marks the end of my involvement on the project and likely in the fandom. It’d be hard for me to make content for HFM while respecting Paigey’s boundary that I no longer make content of Boone.

They have stated that they still get joy out of the project. Paigey has told me many times how they have enjoyed working on it, developing characters, writing it, and just *having* something that succeeded and has community around it. Do I still want to work on HFM and make content for the fandom? Yes, but not if it will rock Paigey’s boat.

I am happy to let Paigey continue using Malt, Lucie, Cooper, Francis, whoever else to feed the fandom and (maybe) finish HFM. They can do whatever they want with the story now that I’ve stepped down from working on it. It’s their art piece now, they can own it. They deserve more credit for the piece of media. They worked hard as fuck on it!

I am content with letting this project go. I had a wonderful time writing it, making art, creating characters, and more. I hope Paigey gets the acknowledgment they deserve for their previous and future contributions to not only the piece of literature but also the fandom that has developed around it.

What happens to Malt?

not sure. He is still my oc, but I am also comfortable letting him be used and changed for whatever story, au, art, etc Paigey decides to make. I don’t have any plans for him. I still love him and use him, i just put him in non canon au / random oc + friend’s oc art and drabbles. Everything I make of him is non canon and detached from HFM. ex: here’s beastar AU art of Malt.

I don’t know how to close this so I suppose I’ll say this:

Paige, I know you’re going to read this. I blocked you because I felt it would be closure for you and me and allow time and space apart. I admit the blocking was sudden and not wonderfully planned out. I am sorry I didn’t give enough time for us to have an actual exchange of words. If you want to talk in dm then I am all ears. I can answer any questions you want closure or clarifications on. If you would rather not talk with me again, I understand.

I would offer to write my half of the epilogue (chapter 30) but considering it is the final chapter, I think you deserve the satisfaction of finishing this project that has gone on for 6+ months.

tldr: Meeks is no longer involved in HFM. Redirect anything related to HFM to @cupiidskiss from here on.

[oblivionsdream]

I downloaded tumblr today just to see more of your jester and knight and I have a couple questions I’ve been dying to ask

1. Are you planning on making a webcomic about these two some time?

I’ve become so obsessed with your jingly menace and knight that I’m dying to know and hoping that the answer will be yes. If you were to make a webcomic, i would be beyond ecstatic and i 100% would be one of its biggest fans.

2. What gave you the idea to make these two ocs?

Your jester and knight ocs are gorgeous and I love your art style.

I love any and all jester and knight content so I’m hoping you’ll post more but no rush ❤️🫶🏻

AWWWW I hope you enjoy your time here! That honestly means so much to me 😭😭😭

1. I hope to one day make a comic. No promises on that but I have been developing the characters and story plotting when I’ve had time so I hope so ❤️

2. So Jester originated purely because I like jesters and fixated on the idea of a silly guy who constantly hides his sadness behind smiles. Nothing was really supposed to come of him. Augustine was inspired by some post about knights (I no longer fully remember what it was) and I had the idea of a random serious knight that Jester would flirt with and tease. Neither was really supposed to amount to anything but then I just kept coming up with random scenarios with them and slowly built up full backstories for them and here we are 😂

Thank you so much!! It means so much that people like my silly guys! If you want to see everything I’ve shared about them so far I have a side blog @foolsknight that is a compilation of all my posts about them and I definitely have plans to post more 🥰

[guiltycorp]

mmm im sort of glad they released arcane survivor jayce skin voicelines in league before act 3 drops because my expectations for it were rising a bit too much lmao... before it i almost convinced myself that yeah, viktor's character arc will lead him to manipulate jayce into transferring his soul to a new mechanical body + focus on a new strategy for 'healing' societal issues that isn't 100% evil and bad (while still having its drawbacks re: will and consent) and fighting noxians would place the zaun side in a better position to bargain with piltover for equal rights and a stop to exploitation (with an open ending sure but still), or even a straightforward revolution with zaun getting its independence through a violent protest that piltover wouldn't be able to curb due to being stretched too thin

but uhm.... all of this looks kinda... sigh

i really doubt they'll have the time in the remaining 3 episodes to develop both his and Viktor's motivations to fit those new ideas, feels like more of the same 'it all happened off-screen, trust that it makes sense' journey saying that Viktor is 'still worth saving' feels especially yucky all things considered, like pls stop trying to save that man and let him act and choose for himself for once in this season maybe? never thought i'd miss the times when Viktor was doing unsafe experiments, getting illegal drugs from evil mentors and accidentally fridging random female assistants, but mmm that sure didn't get a proper continuation for him did it... just like with Caitlyn, or even Mel or Jinx, we just can't seem to get a proper development for the obviously Questionable things the characters choose to do, it's all kind of swept under the rug or cancelled out by magic interference i guess, or they changed their mind off-screen so it's fine now now that i think about it, Jayce is the only one who was allowed to somewhat grow and change organically, and yet this arcane adventure of his might end up ruining even that... well maybe Vi too but she didn't have a concrete focus this season, just more of the same 'should i reconnect with my sister/father or kill them off for good' and lesbian angst (if she still goes back to enforcers after this i just... fml) did Ambessa's warmongering get the best of her or was she cornered by the Black Rose shenanigans with no better way out? did Isha have any purpose aside from giving us false hope that Jinx will get better and have a happy ending? will Mel have any relevance aside from the new magical one and managing her own mother? does Viktor want to 'supersede nature' and get rid of human error element now because of his own character journey or because that's just what Hexcore is leading him to do?... will Caitlyn show that she still doesn't get why Zaun is the way it is or will she also go 'yeahhh i made some mistakes, but now we fight a common enemy yay, and i'll be a bit less strict in the future without making any meaningful changes to the status quo... it was all them foreigners fault' it's just all so... aghhh

and yep now i am expecting that the piltover/zaun conflict is overrr because they have to come together to fight Ambessa and whatever is going wrong with the magic, sighhh social conflict plotlines are a little too spicy for our animated league adaptation i guess... ...this is the only voiceline implication i like and even then i can't help but imagine Viktor the damsel in distress begging Jayce to fix the mistakes they both did instead of like, participating in that himself

bonus points if that promise won't even be to Viktor fghgfhgf

[thatanimewriter]

TEA TIME.

➳ request: Iida Tenya,ochaco,hazel with British!y/n with a time travelling quirk

➳ character/s: iida tenya, uraraka ochako, hazel reinhart

➳ warnings: mentions of food (uraraka), tea, spoilers for hazel backstory??

➳ notes: it's giving doctor who (i've never watched that show)

𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐬 / 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭  / 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 / 𝐰𝐢𝐩 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

── 𝐈𝐈𝐃𝐀 𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐘𝐀.

would 100% indulge in tea dates with you??

after school study dates need tea and not the gossip type, iida will scold you for getting in other people's business

he wants 103% of the details but no involvement

will tell you off for any time travelling meddling though, because he's like

"if you go back and change this thing, what if this huge event never happens and the future is ruined >:(("

he's just as bad as midoriya in terms of quirk stuff because he wants to know how this works SO BAD

will figure out all the intricacies and drawbacks to help you train and for his personal knowledge

will also use you to practice english on for MEDIA COVERAGE for when he becomes a top hero

── 𝐔𝐑𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐊𝐀 𝐎𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐊𝐎.

she would also join you for tea every morning or evening

will try all the different flavours of tea and help you with a tier list of the best and worst flavours of tea

is very confused by your quirk but loves it nonetheless, she thinks it's so cool

once asked if you could go back to see the dinosaurs, but you denied her that one because aizawa was watching

came with you to time travel a little bit once and threw up ._.

practices english with you and accidentally develops a bit of a british accent

has been converted to scones with jam and cream as a snack

wants you to help her get an "extension" on assignments by time travelling backwards

── 𝐇𝐀𝐙𝐄𝐋 𝐑𝐄𝐈𝐍𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐓.

he thinks you're cool, but also probably doesn't advise you to use it too much or you mess up the timeline

like a jrpg or detroit: become human flow chart of the "true" ending

he doesn't want you to mess that up, he just wants you to be able to do the work you gotta do

actually doesn't ask you to send him back to see his sister surprisingly, he's mad, but he doesn't wanna go that far

softie will drink tea with you and cuddle with you because he's big and cuddly

doesn't adopt the accent, but does pick on you for saying yoghurt wrong

doesn't time travel with you but learns not to question it if random things appear in your home

buys you tea and hides it in random places to spite you

[666writingcafe]

Solomon: A Horror Movie

Inspired by the following reblog from @kimiko-dear: Solomon appears in front of people with a special dish he made just for them--the horror doesn't end after the jump scare.

Not gonna lie, kinda ran away with this concept.

It was his greatest experiment yet. He bought a bunch of ingredients that many people--even the cashier at the grocery store--warned him to not mix together. Ever the scientist, he wanted to know why he received such warnings and what would happen if he disregarded them. As it turns out, the ingredients in question had magical qualities that, when combined, came out in cursed ways. Thankfully, no one died from Solomon's experiment, but he made sure to record the results of each of his test subjects (or victims, depending on who you ask).

Since MC is his beloved apprentice, he spared them from his diabolical experiment, although he made sure to tell them all about it in great detail (which makes MC quite uneasy).

He also does not perform this experiment on Luke: a, because he's the angel equivalent of a child; and b, because Solomon knows Simeon would do unspeakable things to him if he hurt Luke in any way (things that would make him wish he was dead).

Speaking of Simeon, the angel is Solomon's first subject/victim. The sorcerer prepares what appears to be a simple sandwich and presents it to his roommate by sneaking up on him as he's in the middle of writing. The sandwich causes Simeon to experience random chills.

Barbatos knows that this is coming from a mile away and tries everything in his power to avoid Solomon. In the end, though, the butler finds himself trapped in the castle's kitchen and has no choice but to consume the paella thrust in front of him. He starts developing spots all over his body.

Solomon sneaks Belphie's cursed enchilada to him while he's sleeping in the attic. MC tries to warn the youngest brother to not eat the enchilada, but by the time they get to him, it's too late: Belphie is now a talking toad.

You know that one character in a horror movie that's screaming their ass off as the villain is chasing them? That's Mammon as soon as he hears Solomon's footsteps. Only the two of them know how the calzone ended up in his mouth, but the entire House (and possibly anyone within a 100 mile radius) hears him screeching that he's developed elephant ears.

There are times where Asmo is sharp as a whip and other times where he's a huge airhead. Unfortunately for him, Solomon catches him in one of his ditzy moods, and he happily accepts the chimichanga that the sorcerer prepared for him. Like Mammon, his screams echo throughout the House as he discovers that his nose has turned into a snout (and not a cute one, either).

Solomon almost gives into the urge to prepare a dish for Diavolo but ultimately decides against it. As soon as MC hears about this, they practically sprint to the castle and into Diavolo's room. Not only does MC need a break from the insanity unfolding around them, but they absolutely intend on punishing Solomon for his actions and wants the demon prince's help in making sure justice is served.

MC receives text updates from Solomon about his next three victims. Beel ate chili that made him shoot up three feet, Satan's sushi performed a gender swap on him, and the cake Levi consumed turned him into a living, mute statue.

And then MC gets a call from Lucifer that makes them see red. You see, Solomon prepared the eldest brother some soup and left it in his office with a note forged in MC's handwriting. Lucifer was just tired enough to not question it too much and consequently ate the soup; now, he's hallucinating. You see, due to the trauma that Lucifer has gone through during his existence, anything he hallucinates turns nightmarish real quickly, and so he's basically sobbing as he's relaying to MC what he's seeing.

Diavolo has to physically stop MC from hunting Solomon down and tearing him limb to limb. While the demon prince thinks that MC's fury is completely justified, he believes that the sorcerer deserves a more drawn-out punishment where everyone that consumed his abominations gets their due revenge.