#BUT. i really want another megalovania

[misasimagines]

music preference (Tokyo Debunker)

included characters: all of em

rating: SFW

warnings: as written by someone who only listens to fall out boy. this is just hc of course and not purely canonical! If anything is wrong, sorry!!

I'm also working on a Taiga fic okay I promise!!!

Jin

Canonically classical piano music. Might have a few operatic songs. Really not varied and considers most modern music to be senseless noise. Puts up with whatever you want to listen to as long as he doesn't hate it too much, and maybe you can broaden his preferences…maybe. Slowly.

Tohma

He can handle and appreciate classical but it's not his favorite. He does like more industrial, rap, and hip hop type songs, the exact type that Jin would call senseless noise. He's doing his little paperwork in his little monocle and he's listening to Tupac.

Kaito

Varied!!! I don't think he gives himself enough credit for the variety of music he listens to and enjoys. Knows and likes popular and viral music, but also if you're like hey this song from 2003? This song from 1987? His song from 1954? He probably knows it. He doesn't love all of them and he pretends to only Like the “acceptable” genres and new things, but I think you could play smth old af and he'd be like oh yeah my gran loved this- and he would know it.

Lucas

Guy who admits to not knowing much music. Only the absolute most popular songs he knows, and even then, it's like the catchiest bit or the chorus like babe is NOT listening to music that often. Might have like An Album that he knows well and enjoys but like it would be very limited. Share things with him! He's open minded enough to learn more.

Alan

Another “I don't listen to much music” guy but I think he knows like dad rock from the 2000’s. I don't think he necessarily loves it, he just recognizes it and if he wants to listen to music for some reason, well, Three Days Grace is there and he knows how to type that into yourtube (maybe. Maybe he has to ask Leo for help. Maybe Leo pulls up something completely different. Probably.)

Leo

A pop music enjoyer. Brat summer Twink. Olivia Rodrigo fan. Also likes dance and club music and has a preference based on country of origin. Does NOT like Vocaloid or Nightcore or probably even trance and house music of the 2000’s. He's like ew that old person music?? What am I, 30??? Very opinionated and a song he loved two months ago, now he's like that's absolute trash lmao why would I like that?? Impossible to keep up with his taste.

Sho

Listens to whatever Leo puts on, he's not a stranger to the club, but I feel like has some secret artists and genres he likes that he won't admit to under pain of torture. Like maybe he likes country or kpop or something and he's like God I can't let Leo know this because I'll never hear the end of it. But he listens to it while he's at his food truck.

Haru

Can you not imagine him enjoying a good Cher song? Some Abba? 70’s-90’s I think is like on lock for him. He's turning up, he's blessing the rains down in Africa. He knows Destiny's Child probably. Sometimes he'll be like oh yeah I know new music, like what was that song? Huh? Toxic by Britney Spears came out in 2003? Guess I don't know new music than haha!!

Towa

Hes like ~~~~!!! ~~! (This shit fucks) Listening to birdsong and the bubbling creek. But he's also not immune to A Thousand Years by Christina Perri. He likes love songs! Mostly sweet love songs, not tragic or lost loved ones (probably no Adele). He will enjoy Haru's music as well, but only for Haru's sake.

Ren

Like lofi beats to chill and study to. Movie and game soundtracks but none of the fun ones. He's NOT listening to Decode from the hit movie Twilight and he NOT enjoying Megalovania from Undertale. He would relent to the To The Moon soundtrack and other indie game osts (if not because he enjoys them then to be superior in his Niche tastes).

Taiga

His music taste goes like this:

If you play something he likes, he allows it.

If you play something he doesn't like, he says turn that shit off.

If you ask him what he likes/wants to hear, he's like ….that one song, it's like duh duh dun…no? Whatever. And he gives up.

Romeo

Let me be real with you. You will not know his favorite bands. He doesn't expect you to know his favorite bands. His favorite bands are like experimental bands from Europe who release a song only on the new moon and it's behind an ARG to get to and hear and there's only 5 physical copies of their VINYL ever made.

He also endures whatever Haru, Rui, and Leo listen to and complains only when absolutely necessary.

Ritsu

i cannot take him seriously. like the little Einstein’s theme?? Jokingggg. 😐. He probably doesn't listen to much music, probably only things he remembers from childhood, and then instrumental things occasionally but claims it's mostly just too much of a distraction. He listens to like audio recordings of law books and court cases.

Subaru

I don't know I just think he secretly likes 80’s ballads and girl bands. He likes more traditional music, instrumentals, opera and musical music, and probably can appreciate even like true classic jazz music. He has a lot of patience and tolerance and goodness in his heart and will listen to just about anything and be able to appreciate it, but if it's his choice, he is probably not listening to noise metal.

Haku 

Okay Varied. Okay six thousand songs on his playlist and that's just one playlist. He just can't stand repeating the same songs over and over so he listens to anything and everything. He doesn't always remember every song that well, because there are so many and he doesn't listen to every single one daily, but there's a good chance if you know a song, he has it somewhere.

Zenji

Like Haku! He does appreciate traditional Japanese music and instruments, but he is an art lover first and foremost and will have something positive to say about anything you let him listen to. He and Haku are probably like sitting around going from YT recommended song one after the other and just being like oh yeah this Swedish dance pop is good, yes the Mongolian throat singing is good too.

Ed

VARIED but he also goes “ah, a song from before you time…I hope you'll appreciate it,” and puts on Megan Thee Stallion and listens like it's Vivaldi. He's like these Gregorian monks chanting are so musical. This bardic interpretation of Hips Don't Lie goes hard as the kids say. Blue by Eiffel 65.

Rui 

Not immune to boy bands and girl bands. He likes upbeat things! He might dress goth and live in the goth house but his soul is glittery pink. He listens to a variety overall, but isn't very into anything like screamo or heavy metal. He gets bored listening to anything too slow and level. He, like Romeo, will listen to Haru's music, but unlike Romeo, he will sing along.

Lyca

Doesn't know much music! Likes whatever Subaru likes, he guesses. Doesn't like some of the songs Rui or Ed plays but those are just random misses on a spinning dartboard because they could be anything. He's figuring it out and will listen to anything you want to play for him!

Yuri 

He does not like classical music as much as he claims to. He's like yeah yeah, Beethoven, that's top tier…obviously… (bored out of his mind). Guy who NEEDS to listen to to like. Russian hardstyle and Slavic dance music but he won't. He deprives himself.

Jiro

Listen to me. I wrote all of these because of Jiro. Closer by Nine Inch Nails. Bauhaus. Type O Negative. I'm SAYING he listens to goth and more gothic rock music and you KNOW if Yuri pulls his headphones out to yell at him, he just hears Tear You Apart by She Wants Revenge and he's like… I don't want to talk to anymore I changed my mind stop listening to freaky goth music. He also can hear like a biwa or other traditional instruments and feel comforted and familiar with them, even if he doesn't know why.

[jben073]

Grace Chasity headcanon rambles!

Some silly Grace hcs for @nighthaterfrfr!! I tried to mostly avoid any of mine that you mentioned something similar to in yours bc we had a good deal of overlap! :D

(Just to preface, one of my biggest headcanons is that Grace is autistic so there’s a good chance that some of these may be influenced by that! I did try to pick ones that are more applicable to canon though! [But if anyone wants any of those, I have about a million :3])

When Grace was a young child in elementary school (or Sunday school), she very innocently kissed Alice Woodward and felt something™. (She entirely represses this memory for YEARS.)

^ During her eventual sexuality crisis, despite not having talked to Alice for years outside of polite conversation if they ran into one another, Grace reaches out to her for support/to ask questions because she was the only out queer person that Grace knew and trusted enough not to out her. (Alice big sister mode activated.) 

^ (They’re so silly, they’ve literally never interacted outside of a throwaway line about them knowing and possibly disliking each other but to me they're friends who fell apart and eventually find each other again when they're both more grown as people.)

^ Also, ignore me indulging my other biggest hc which is that Grace is a lesbian.

Grace took piano lessons as a child and is actually quite good because she wanted to be the pianist for her church’s masses when she got older! She stopped taking lessons in high school, but she keeps up with playing in her free time to maintain the skill and occasionally help out with music at her church.

^ Richie constantly tries to convince her to learn anime openings and music from games that he plays for him (he begged her to learn Megalovania for weeks until she finally gave in).

She has never celebrated Halloween because her parents think it’s satanic so Ruth and Richie (who definitely still go trick-or-treating in high school) make a point to bring her some of their candy on the following school day.

^ She definitely doesn’t cry about this gesture later when she goes home!!

She is an absolute monster while playing board games, like she gets REALLY aggressive about them.

^ (definitely influenced by Angela's chaos on smosh games, especially the “be a little more gentle!! >:(” clip)

She can’t go to sleep (intentionally) without getting a kiss goodnight. At home, her parents kiss her on the forehead before bed and if she’s at camp, she has to get a kiss on the head from Girl Jeri if she wants to sleep well.

^ It disrupts her routine which makes it harder for her to wind down!!

^ I like to think that before the events of Abstinence Camp, she thought of Boy Jerry and Girl Jeri as older sibling figures.

She has never been to a sleepover because she’s never had good enough friends to be invited to one :(

^ The nerds + Steph very quickly remedy this!!

^ (quick ramble related to the last hc) During the first group sleepover, Steph wakes up in the middle of the night to get a drink, realizes Grace is still up, and after Grace sheepishly admits her dilemma following Steph’s prompting for an explanation, Steph very casually plants a kiss on her forehead and then goes back to sleep. Grace’s face is beet red after this and now she can’t sleep for an entirely different reason.

^ They're in love to me!!!

LIB related

(Based almost entirely on Blinky’s line about watching Grace and the nightmare about Max/Richie that implies she has the gift.) 

^ Grace has been connected to the Lords in Black since long before we see her, Steph, and Pete summon them in NPMD.

^ Much like Lex was friends with Webby as a child and forgot, Grace was friends with the LIB when she was young but grew out of it.

^ (I have a whole little overanalysis/hc set of things for this hc if anyone wants to hear :3)

After she starts using the Black Book, her appearance starts to very slightly change so that she always looks just a tiny bit off.

^ Her teeth are just a touch too sharp, her ears have the slightest point to them, and her eyes almost seem to shift in colour (depending on which LIB is influencing her).

^ But hey, it must just be a trick of the light!! She's so normal!! Dw about it!!!

She will occasionally feel the sudden compulsion to bite others (Nibbly is feeling silly!!)

^ She does not act on this… most of the time :3

One more silly one to end on

She once owned a Tamagotchi and became so deeply stressed over the state of this virtual creature that she made herself sick from anxiety. 

^ Karen and Mark confiscated the toy very shortly after this.

Anyway ramble's over now but my 45 page google doc of Grace hcs continues to grow every day bc I am fixated hard on this silly little show :3

edit: had to add the '^' thing because the bullets didn't indent properly for some reason!! every one that has that is attached to the previous one without it!

also idk why on mobile the sleepover hc and the Alice hc got cut short?? The sleepover one is supposed to say that now she can't sleep for an entirely different reason and the end of the second bullet says (Alice big sister mode activated).

[cyber-corp]

A summary/review of parts 1-100 of Homestuck

~by a gecko who knows what a Megalovania is

Let's start things quick and simple. It is the distant year of 2009, where the date is the 13th of April. It is the protagonist John Egbert (aka Zoosmell Pooplord)'s birthday. How fun!

John's actions are very much based around RPG mechanics (the Sylladex, Captchaloging, etc.), which as indicated by the chatlogs seems to be the norm in this world.

Once he opens the magic chest in his room, he gets access to a variety of artifacts, some of which he'll use later. He only takes the smoke pellets at first because he's stupid.

We get some glimpses of the author Andrew Hussie's dated yet charming late-2000's humour through asking John to shit on his desk.

After nailing a Little Monsters poster to his wall (a gift from his Dad), he gets a message from one of his friends on Pesterchum, TG, who says that he got the beta for SBURB for John's birthday.

However, his dad has just come home and John doesn't want to go through the trouble of holding a conversation with him. In the meantime, he figures out how to use his Strife Specibus by allocating the Hammerkind Abstratus, and reads the GameBro magazine, which John seems to have a loathing for.

However, with the freed up room in his Sylladex, he creates a convincing disguise to fool his dad and grab the SBURB beta (it won't).

He goes downstairs into the living room, examines his father's shitty harlequins, knocks over and picks up his Nanna's ashes and opens a large gift for himself, which is also a large harlequin.

Before deciding to sticking fake arms on the harlequin, John gets a message from another Pesterchum mutual, TT.

TT oddly knows everything that John has done up to this point, including being in possession of the SBURB beta and wearing a funny disguise. They tell him to go get the game from his father from downstairs.

After snooping around his father's study and playing a little tune (which is a great way that Homestuck utilizes its medium), John heads outside to the mailbox, to find that dad has already scooped the mail.

But there's a sense that something isn't quite right. With "Windchime Foley" by Clark Powell playing over empty streets and a main title appearing, it implies this scene is the true beginning of the story. The text mentions a "Desolation" that's playing the tune diegetically throughout the streets/town. Maybe it will be a long day.

John heads back inside to finally confront his father and sneakily get the beta, but oops! The disguise didn't work (who would've thunk it?), and there's only to get pass him, which is with a Strife!

(This fight scene's really cool, I quite enjoy this)

After the Colonel's book activates the smoke pellets, John quickly snatches his father's PDA as a joke, and finally gets his hands on the SBURB beta, which is where I ended off.

So is it good? I mean, yeah.

Even if I only read what is a tiny, tiny fraction of Homestuck's story, I can still see how so many people became obsessed over it. The cutesy, almost surreal art style (complete with low quality JPEGS in the vein of Newgrounds), Hussie combining the mystical with the silly in his writing, and the brief bits of music in it illustrate a very "calm before the storm" feeling. I can definitely see how people like Toby Fox were inspired by it.

Despite what some think, the first little bits of Homestuck are an enjoyable experience which foreshadows something bigger yet to come. Solid 8.

[rhyselinn]

In Defense of Toby Fox’s Halloween Hack

Twitter is all in a tizzy about the Halloween Hack as of late. The apparent reason for this is because the Halloween Hack uses a word commonly used as a homophobic slur, not taking into account that the hack was created in 2008 (when the internet was a different place) and that 2008 was 14+ years ago (and people are known to grow and change over this time). There appears to be some amount of discussion over whether Toby Fox should be “cancelled” for this.

I’ve seen a fair bit of banter from both sides on this, but what I haven’t seen people on the internet talk about is the CONTEXT of the game in which this word is used. And while I don’t spend a lot of time talking about HH due to Toby’s stated embarrassment when people draw attention to it, if the internet’s gonna go dig up old drama for some reason, then by golly, I’m going to go dig up my old love for this game.

So if you want to come take a wild ride through some internet history and literary analysis, then go buckle your seatbelt and click the Readmore.

(content warning: discussion of homophobic slurs)

A quick bit about me: I am an adult on the internet, and I fall into the original Halloween Hack (hereafter abbreviated as HH)’s target demographic: teenagers who existed on Starmen.net, an Earthbound fan website, in 2008. I am also a current admin for Starmen.net, which puts me in a good position to comment on the history and culture of the site as a whole, and how that ties into the reception of HH.

Starmen.net has a long and rich tradition of events called Funfests, in which the site staff run a combination art/writing/music/etc contest for the site members, usually coalescing around a theme such as “Earthbound”, or sometimes “Winter” or “Halloween”. These events offer prizes such as forum avatar/rank privileges, and historically they sometimes even offered physical prizes. The 2008 Halloween funfest had an entire website made for it, which you can view here. Toby Fox submitted HH to this 2008 Halloween Funfest under the internet handle Radiation.

This is the context of HH: a passion project made by a teenager for a fan website full of other teenagers/twenty-somethings. If you go to a high school science fair, you could rightfully lambast every project for being undeserving of a Nobel Prize, but that’s not why we host high school science fairs OR Starmen.net Funfests. These events are an opportunity for teens to show what they are capable of and receive commendation from both their peers and a panel of judges selected specifically for this age demographic and venue.

For perspective, here’s what one of the hosts of the 2008 Funfest had to say about HH:

“Radiation nearly outclassed himself with this effort of skill labour and love. What a lot of fun. Despite getting repeatedly killed in the sewers this was one thoroughly enjoyabe hack. I Think I’ll go and play it again!”

HH won an award in the 2008 funfest-- a #1 in the “Most Effort” category. For some perspective, few people on Starmen.net go to the lengths of creating an entire game for a Funfest (and HH has a playtime of roughly 5-6 hours!). Of those who do, most of the resulting games are consistent with the output you would expect from a teenage userbase, since it’s not fair to expect teenagers to produce professional-quality work. That said, I can say with confidence that HH is a standout in the areas of both effort and quality.

Another thing that needs to be said of HH is that it is not a standalone game made in today’s modern game engines-- it is a hack of a preexisting game. Earthbound's codebase is notoriously complicated, and a lot of the tools that modern Earthbound hackers use to make their jobs easier (eg Coilsnake, Ebmused) didn’t exist in 2008. Toby had to do a lot of manual coding grunt-work to make HH, up to and including manually typing hexadecimal values into his computer in order to compose Megalovania. (Source: Toby wrote a really in-depth post about the process he used to make HH way back when, which I’m referring to here, but it’s unfortunately been deleted since then.)

I can imagine a hypothetical objection at this point: “ok but high effort homophobia is still homophobia”. In this post, I am also going to argue that Toby’s usage of this word can be considered artistic merit when taken in context, but you’ll have to bear with me for a bit while I explain that context. I’ll also talk about some of the cool and neat things this game does along the way because I think they’re worth talking about.

HH is, at its core, a derivative fan work of the video game Earthbound. And while I love Earthbound deeply, I also recognize that it’s a cult classic that not everyone has played. So while I encourage people to play the game I love deeply, I’ll also sum up a few relevant plot beats here so folks can understand the source material HH draws from:

--Ness, a thirteen year-old boy, meets a creature named Buzz Buzz from ten years in the future who tells him that an alien named Giygas has destroyed the world (direct quote: “All is devastation”). As such, Ness and his friends must save the world.

--One of Ness’s friends is a shy boy named Jeff with a penchant for shooting bottle rockets at enemies

--Jeff’s dad is an odd character named Dr. Andonuts. Dr. Andonuts is a reclusive scientist who lives in a snowy region called Winters who sent his son off to boarding school at a very young age. Andonuts’s lab includes no other signs of life, certainly not any indications of a wife/Jeff’s mother. Andonuts ends his conversation with Jeff by saying “Let’s get together in another ten years or so.”

--Towards the end of the game, Dr. Andonuts uses a device he created called a Phase Distorter to send Ness and his friends to the venue for the final battle. This is very clearly telegraphed as a one-way trip, as the kids’ brains are described in text as needing to be transplanted into robots to get there, but the kids go along with it anyway because the world is at stake.

--The kids go on to fight the final boss in a spectacle that words can’t do justice to here. All I’ll say is that after a long-fought battle, in the grace of an unexplained Deus Ex Machina, the souls of the four kids are impossibly returned to their bodies so they can enjoy their happy ending.

These are all canonical events that happen in the base game of Earthbound. Earthbound’s sequel, Mother 3, was released in 2006, two years prior to HH, although the English fan translation wasn’t released until around the time of the 2008 funfest, interestingly enough. Mother 3 does develop Dr. Andonuts’s canonical character somewhat, but I won’t discuss it in further detail here other than to say it mostly re-emphasizes his odd, solitary nature and his overly cavalier attitude towards his science experiments.

It’s also worth noting that in an oddball game like Earthbound, there are a lot of weird and funny idiosyncrasies to theorize on. There are pencil-shaped statues that block your way, which need to be removed with a device called a “pencil eraser.” Ness and his friends fight robots, aliens, and Krakens, but they also fight handbag-wielding ladies and walking mushrooms. Dr. Andonuts’s character oddities, while strange, fit nicely into the evenly distributed mesh of oddities that comprise Earthbound’s world.

Derivative works, particularly fan works, exist in conversation with the source material. They answer questions posed by the source, interpolate details left out of the original, and otherwise build on the world of the original in a collaborative way. This conversation sometimes happens in a one-on-one manner, between fan and original creator, but it also happens in conjunction with the fan community as a whole. When a theory takes traction, it will begin to appear in more and more fan works, growing in popularity and notoriety until it is “accepted” as the most common interpretation of canon’s strange idiosyncrasies. Newer or more fringe theories are less likely to be taken as a “default” interpretation, but they are more likely to be taken as “fresh” or “interesting” until/unless they, too, begin to gain traction.

HH exists in a few conversations: one with the source material, one with the fan community of Starmen.net (and the broader Earthbound community as a whole, although there was much more overlap between the two back in 2008), and one with Starmen.net’s Funfest culture. In order for HH to be well received by the Funfest judges, it would need to be aware of the community sensibilities as well as push the boundaries of the fan conversation with Earthbound as a whole-- a careful balancing act of being both interesting but also recognizable.

So, the fundamental fan question that HH tries to answer is “why is Dr. Andonuts LIKE THAT?”

This is an absolutely fair question, and Toby was certainly not the first to ask it, although his answer in the form of HH is one of the most high profile now.

HH is set in the world of Earthbound a few months after the final boss fight in autumn, but one where Ness and his friends did not magically return after their one-way trip to the final boss. Word has it that Dr. Andonuts has turned evil and must be defeated. On its surface, this is standard fare for a throwaway plot for a Funfest submission, but the magic of HH is that it does not treat this premise as a throwaway plot. It sets out to earnestly discuss why this happened by delving into Andonuts’s psyche.

Coming back to the idea of derivative works existing in conversation with the source material and interpolating unexplained details: Earthbound does not explain why Dr. Andonuts lives in solitude, nor does it give any hint as to the identity of Jeff’s mother. It also gives no indication as to why Andonuts didn’t seem to have bonded well with his son other than the handwavey explanation that Andonuts is just “like that”. HH initially poses the question of “why did Andonuts turn evil”, but leaves the reader to puzzle that out while battling monsters in Earthbound’s RPG engine.

At first, Toby offers a partial explanation: in HH, Dr. Andonuts is portrayed as feeling immense guilt at having sent his son into what he perceived as a death trap.  (quote from the game: “The world is dead, and I’ve become senile with guilt and rage.” He also says stuff like “what’s the point in living without them”.) As such, he turned evil and created zombies to storm the world of Winters, causing a surge in refugees and desperate survivors. This is why the main character was sent to kill him.

(image transcription: a picture of a menu with the text “What do you do!?” followed with a single option: “Kill him”)

But in order to see the depth of this explanation, the true answer to the question “why is Dr. Andonuts LIKE THIS”, the player must hit “B” to cancel out of a menu at the correct moment, something Earthbound players tend to learn by habit from closing the equipment menu so many times, but never used as a plot-relevant mechanic in the base game. HH takes this subconscious muscle memory and turns it into a mechanic gating off half the game if you don’t “spare” the enemy, a precursor to the “spare” mechanic that would debut seven years later in Undertale.

When the player does this, they enter Dr. Andonuts’s “Magicant,” a dream-construct representing his inner psyche, with his hopes and dreams and fears all laid bare. The main character is tasked with finding Dr. Andonuts’s lost Courage. In the base game, Ness enters his own Magicant, so this feels familiar to a veteran player, but it also gives Toby the chance to more closely examine Dr. Andonuts’s character than he otherwise might be able to do.

Over the course of the rest of the game in Dr. Andonuts’s Magicant, the player continues to control the main character, a bounty hunter named Varik, but the NPCs in the game often mistakenly treat Varik as Andonuts. The dialogue we see from these NPCs reflects memories from Andonuts’s own life. We see a lot more characters try to make connections with Dr. Andonuts (”hey don’t you want to play baseball instead of doing math?”), but these are apparently rebuffed througout Andonuts’s life. One NPC guarding the entrance to the path leading to this lost Courage advises “Be careful. Be yourself.” We see memories of Dr. Andonuts’s presumed wife/Jeff’s mom, who is an OC Toby created for this work to answer the questions posed by canon.

Varik is tasked with fighting three “demons” behind three doors, where each demon is said to be stronger than the next. Since this segment takes place inside Andonuts’s mind, these are unsubtly implied to be Andonuts’s inner demons. The second and third doors represent Andonuts’s relationship with his son and his guilt over getting people killed; the first door is relevant to this post, so I’ll talk about it in more detail. 

Inside the first door, Varik sees Andonuts’s memories of something called “Remember Me,” who despite being faced in a battle, is friendly and affectionate and causes no damage apart from being “hard to think about.” This enemy has a stock overworld sprite of a male NPC from the base game.

(image transcript: a smiling purple sprite in an Earthbound-style battle. The text box says “The Remember Me? was a little hard to think about again”)

At the end of this map, we see a cutscene in which it’s implied that Dr. Andonuts felt disconnected from his wife, perceiving her as an incessant insect. She says things like “Lately, you’ve been acting kind of... disinterested in me. Is there something wrong with me?” She asks if Dr. Andonuts has been hiding something from her, which triggers the following battle:

(image description: an Earthbound-esque battle against three enemies, each a sprite depicting a closeup of a man’s muscular body: a bicep, a chest, and a swimsuit-clothed groin area)

All three of these enemies are named NO. The music that plays in the background is deliberately unsettling, and their battle moves consist mostly of “flexing in a masculine way”, “slapping their buddies in a masculine fashion”, and “being hard to think about again”. After three turns, these enemies deliver a series of un-dodgeable moves that kill the player before it’s possible to defeat them, ending the game. The only way to proceed in the game is to select the Flee option in the menu.

To summarize the themes being presented here, Dr. Andonuts is gay and repressed his homosexuality to try to preserve his relationship with his wife due to his lack of courage. From a game design and literary merit standpoint, this NO battle is actually a really poignant way of portraying Andonuts’s mindset and all of the fears that kept him in the closet, portraying men’s bodies as an enemy that he must fight, or in failing to do so, must run from. Remember that Earthbound takes place in 199X-- none of the 1990′s were known for being especially tolerant of gay men, nor was 2008 when Toby made this hack; 2008 was the same year that California passed a bill intended to ban gay marriage. In another since-deleted web page, Toby said that one of his motivations for creating HH was “the lack of non-stereotypical, major homosexual characters in media”. With that in mind, this is a surprisingly sensitive portrayal of the pains of repressing one’s sexuality, especially from a teenager.

Toby also portrays some complexity in Andonuts’s relationship with his son Jeff, making the case that Andonuts helped Jeff in his fight against Giygas as a way of living vicariously through him to feel like less of a monster. From this standpoint, it’s easy to see that Andonuts’s abrasive language might be a defense mechanism for his own self esteem issues, calling others monsters to deflect from the fact he sees HIMSELF as a monster.

(image transcription: a screenshot of the main character fighting Andonuts from the end of the game. The text in the textbox from Andonuts says “you idiots. look at your decaying, frostbitten bodies”)

(and just as a side note, I think the reminiscence of this dialogue to Flowey’s dialogue in Undertale is funny and interesting)

Dr. Andonuts says the following: "If I can't live with myself, why should anybody else? Ergo, nobody will live. Then, everybody will understand all the pain I went through. When everyone understands me... They'll cherish me so." This isn’t the expression of a healthy mind, but it is a portrayal of someone who’s experiencing some serious pain. I’d also argue that it’s a nuanced and sympathetic portrayal of a character who is clearly in a crisis.

Another Andonuts quote: “you’re going to kill me, because that’s what a hero does. he has to kill that monster, right? even in this form, i am shaking with fear. i don’t want to die. leave me alone”

The second-to-last fight in the game is against an enemy called Id. In Freudian psychology, the Id is the representation of one’s most base desires, in contrast to the Superego who restrains a person from operating on these desires. The game up until this point does a good job at portraying Dr. Andonuts’s Superego-centric repression strategies, so getting to see his underlying base desires directly is a novel development. The enemy Id consistently reiterates a desire to be left alone and for the main character to not kill it. At the end, it apologizes for not being much of a fight. Only then does Varik fight Dr. Andonuts proper, and without the Id, all that’s left is the Superego-fueled repression, labeled in-game as “hatred”.

Andonuts’s villain monologue starts as such: “I know what this feeling is. It’s hatred for the person who came so far just to destroy an old man. My mind is gone. All that is left is pure hatred.

YOU SEE THIS BURNING, BLOODY UNIVERSE. YOU SEE THIS ULTIMATE, UNLIMITED POWER? Varik. I HAVE FUCKING HAD IT WITH YOUR SHIT. you little fuckers are going to have your bodies ripped in half. i’ll shove your asses so far down your throats that when you crap, you’ll sing fucking beethoven.”

This monologue is the precursor to the infamous line:

(image transcript: a screenshot from the final battle, in which Andonuts says the words “tl;dr: eat shit, faggots”)

As established earlier, this is a line uttered by a gay character who is in a tremendous amount of pain, which would make it an act of slur reclamation. We could argue about whether Toby Fox is in a position to justify this usage, but I refuse to have that conversation because I don’t think real life queer people should have to out themselves in order to justify the art they make. Whether Toby Fox is actually queer or not is, I would argue, immaterial to the story he’s trying to tell here, which is nuanced in a way that a homophobe would be unlikely to write.

We can also have the conversation of whether this word choice is a good decision or not-- and there are, I would argue, a lot of parts of this game that a storyteller with more experience and maturity would have handled better. There are some parts that come across heavy-handed and needlessly edgy, and there are parts that could have been handled with more grace. We can discuss whether “bury our gays” stories were stale by 2008, or whether stories of queer pain had fallen out of vogue for stories of queer joy. But again, this is a work made by a 16-year old, and being needlessly critical of a fangame made by a teenager for a community of predominantly teenagers feels needlessly meanspirited. Just because the game has been unforeseeably thrust into the public light like this doesn’t mean we need to eviscerate it from a 2023 lens. It’s not fair to Toby Fox, neither the original 16-year old creator nor the adult celebrity today.

So I’m not going to do that. What I am going to say is that a queer reading of this work would indicate that this word usage may very well have been a decision made with artistic intent, and a death-of-the-author reading of this work might indicate that this word has artistic merit anyways. If a gay character sees gayness as bad and uses a slur associated with gayness to demean his opponent, that does fundamentally say something about this character, and in this case it reinforces the existing themes that Toby had put in place. I wouldn’t recommend people in 2023 take this approach in storytelling lightly, but I can see and appreciate the spirit in which the game and this word choice appear to have been made.

In the end, Varik does defeat Dr. Andonuts and kill him.

(image transcript: Varik standing above the machine containing Dr. Andonuts’s dead body, not depicted onscreen. The text box reads “You feel a little like this situation could have been avoided.”)

This is one of the last text boxes of the game, and I think it’s a good ending note for this work-- saying that queer lives do NOT need to go this way, that we do not need to bury our gays, that this genuine pain that Dr. Andonuts experienced is not an inevitability.

In conclusion, I do love Halloween Hack for what it is, imperfections and all. It was very clearly a labor of love made by a very earnest and well-meaning teen, and a lot of the things that would later go on to make Undertale so popular are present in their nascent forms here. HH has some genuinely interesting things to say about Earthbound, from both a plot and a character standpoint, and it’s clearly a good-faith attempt at grappling with queer and psychological subject matter. If people on the internet were to engage sincerely with it rather than judging it (and its creator) based on one out-of-context screenshot, I think they might find a diamond-in-the-rough that still manages to be an absolute gem of a fangame.

[thewertsearch]

Asks Comp - 16/4

I literally did not know The Baby Is You was a thing. To be welcomed back into the comic like this after four months is very on brand for Homestuck.

... and wow, its outro really does match the end of this song, doesn't it? That's even funnier than if he'd snuck some of Megalovania in there.

Ooh, that's another liveblog I'll want to check out when I'm done! I've never actually seen a Worm liveblog before. Adding it to the list myself!

Nothing's really changed since I've been gone! I make a conscious effort not to do much Homestuck analysis off-blog, since I want my journey to be fully documented here.

It's good to be back! I'm looking forward to a full reread when I'm done.

Would you believe I didn't even know there was a book?

I also didn't know the movie had two (allegedly) terrible sequels, which is very funny. Neverending story indeed.

Thank you! I can't take too much credit, though - most of my tagging system has been crowdsourced from askers!

At some point, before we reach the end of the comic, I'm going to have to formalize my approach to liveblogging Homestuck's side content.

What I'll probably do is give each of them the 'lite' treatment initially, but if they turn out to be more canonical than I thought, or particularly interesting to liveblog, I'll 'zoom in', and analyze them properly. We'll see how we go!

Could you imagine the relationship dynamics in your average troll soap opera? The shipping web for a single season would make our heads explode.

It's a fun question. What sort of object symbolizes everything?

The first thing I'd try would be a star chart, Dave's magnifier and a literal planetful of Grist.

Added to the list! Not until later later on, though - I'd worry that the opinions and theories of another liveblogger could interfere with my own, especially if they're talking about it with someone who's already read it!

I would find it hard to disagree.

Do people think Act 1 is pointless?

I mean, it is the slowest Act in terms of pacing, but slow pacing isn't always a bad thing. You sort of have to take it slow when your readers have this much to get to grips with.

...okay, maybe we didn't need quite as many Sylladex mishaps as we got. But we still needed some. Homestuck has a lot to introduce you to.

I always pictured an English accent for Hass - although, interestingly, I didn't picture one for Jade. As a headcanon, I like the NZ one better.

Where did Grandpa grow up again, actually? He was raised by Fake Mark Twain, who was from Missouri - but I don't have a clue what a Missouri accent sounds like, let alone one from a century ago. I have a funny feeling that it's not the accent I'm imagining coming from Jade.

Now that's a ship I'd never have seen coming. Props to Hussie for coming up with something more controversial than my Feferi<>Equius.

All four kids, with four endgame weapons, might be able to challenge Jack's current incarnation - but they're not going to get the chance. You've hit the nail on the head - he's semi-perfect Jack for a reason.

I have several theories for Jade's prototyping, and every single one of them would make Jack even more dangerous than before. It's just barely possible to challenge him now, but things will only get worse.

Read the room, Serket!

Would Vriska have tried to negotiate? She feels like the type of person who'd rather take a beating than admit they're outclassed. Plus, I'm not sure how much she'd have to offer Aradia, who seemed entirely motivated by revenge (and, possibly, secretly motivated by timeline stuff).

All that said, I would have loved to hear Vriska trying to worm her way out of this.

I love it! Please send in the completed house, if you get the chance. That's going to look so cool with a moving meteor.

And they're both easily distractible! This feels like two people who might actually get on surprisingly well, if they were in, say, the same high school class.

It's hard to say what's a rarepair, since I don't know what ships are rare in the fandom - although I'd have a few guesses about the most common ones.

If we're going for a ship with very tenuous connections, I will submit Rose x Feferi for your appraisal. They're both fans of the Noble Circle, and their signature colors are pretty close.

You know what, I'll just review all of your ships. Tavros/Gamzee - PB&J - is pretty cute. [] I'd recommend Miracle Child for a number of reasons, but it does include a well-written Gamtav. Jack/Droog is more <> to me than it is <3. Like One Sundered Star might be influencing that? I'm not really sure. Somewhere I think I saw a Jack<>Droog. Your pre-shipping chart post isn't in the chrono; also, I'm pretty sure the A6A6I5 ask is one of mine. Gamzee/Eridan is a rarepair; I've seen it, but not often, and it's a <> in the fic I'm referencing. Kanaya<>Terezi and Feferi<>Vriska are strange enough that I've never seen them anywhere, really. [] And finally, Vriska and Tavros. These two are the textbook example of why the ashen quadrant needs to exist, and they're a perfect pair for it. [] ~LOSS (8/1/23)

I don't even know if Carapacians have moirallegiance - but those two would definitely work if they did.

Out of all my ships you flagged as rare, I think my favorite is Feferi<>Vriska. I just think they'd gel weirdly well together!

[the-mspfa-200-favourites-project]

heinoustuck

Ah…did you really think it would be as easy as reviewing Heinoustuck once? No…just like any good horror movie villain, it’s hard to kill Heinoustuck. It will never die. And it hath returned once again, to grace us with it’s presence before inevitably being put into a slumber for 100000 years, give or take…but it will return, mark my words…

Also I see we’re going with the MEGALOVANIA/Kant’s Principles of right and Right on this title, huh? Gonna have to MAKE ME put in all lower case for the title, are we? Whatever, I can deal. And the deal with this webcomic is, it’s a continuation of Heinoustuck, and that should tell you right then and there that we have OFFICIALLY crossed the threshold for Homestuck Fandom stuff to be NOSTALGIC AGAIN!!!!!!!! YAY?

Hmmm…it was just regular old heinoustuck, the same good ol’ quality that I had come to expect, and then I got hit with the “r” slur. It’s being spoken by Karkat, but still…kinda not happy about that. This is what, 2019? And I don’t even know if the author knows that that’s not acceptable in 2019. Heck, it wasn’t even acceptable in 2009, if we want to get down to brass tax about this (is that even an expression?). Anyways, usage of that word always sours the mood, is what I’m saying. Also, what sours the mood is clearly a panel from CANWC, which is…a bit of a red flag if I’m being perfectly honest with you. And…there’s another usage of the r slur. Yeah…this one, unlike the original, isn’t that good or interesting? I would not recommend it.

And with that, I’m sure we’ve seen the last of this concept. For real. The last. Of this concept. It’ll never return…I’m sure of it. :3

[trappedtowers]

Trapped Towers Dev History ~ How We Got Here (Part 2)

(Middle art piece done by @/evilredyoshis)

Hey everybody !!

Part 2 of the "How We Got Here" blog posts today. After covering the original Trapped Towers, Undertale AU territory, Megalovania Hell, and much more... we're finally getting to the original project side of stuff. Almost. A little more Undertale AU stuff to push through, but this is the transition period for it all.

So, without further ado - lets get back into it.

August 2020 - May 2021 ~ Seeing Change:

2020 was an interesting year. The end of 2019 had seen me begin to focus on original projects and ideas again, with Undertale content taking a backseat as I hadn't uploaded in ages. AnoVerse was born and pushed me to learn more coding than I had before. But as the months indoors passed by I ended up finding myself back to one place... Trapped Towers.

Looking through everything there was, this was the first time I'd gone "this really isn't that original or unique... I should make it more unique" and so that's what I started doing. Rewriting, designing, composing, crafting ideas galore for what a new Trapped Towers would be... but it was slow as I kept popping in out of it since I'd just start game development classes and they took priority, as well as my music which slowly began to get lots more attention than expected.

On the music side though, a plan began forming in my brain as the 3rd anniversary of Ministry of Death began approaching and my brain told me it was finally time to make Ministry of Death 4. A showcase of the new direction I wanted to take Trapped Towers, while also celebrating and saying goodbye to what it once was. I started building it up. I remastered V1 and posted it 3 months before MoD's 3rd anniversary. V2, remastered and posted 2 months before.

Then I got ill. And I couldn't finish V3 remastered in time for 1 month before... so I changed my plan of action. At the beginning of 2021, I teased Ministry Of Death 4 finally, with a snippet I'd already made showing that it wasn't just going to be another "megalovania". I then delayed V3 remastered to the initially planned release date for V4, and V4 got pushed back to my own 4th anniversary since I started making music - March 20th.

So V3 remastered happened, then eventually the day came for V4. I'll never forget it, it felt amazing that day. The love and support and excitement from friends, fans, etc over what turned out to be a ~7 minute orchestral battle piece was great. Seeing reactions in live time, getting messages and DMs... it was incredible. All the while too I had began to start pumping out ideas for the new Trapped Towers more rapidly than ever, creating a major document to contain all the information, dropping the Undertale AU title and beginning it's adventure into an original fan project...

This all led up to May 14th 2021, when I officially opened applications to join the new Team Towers (later renamed TeamT).

Old Content:

A lot of concepts and ideas between this time began to merge together as past this, TeamT basically had the base I'd provided to work with - but not every story beat was worked out yet. 2021 Trapped Towers was still filled with plot holes, blank chapters, under-developed characters and so much more. Not to mention when planning this the original reboot name was going to be "Trapped Towers: Revisited" ??? I just found that out from an old tweet of mine as I was looking that's CRAZY.

The screenshot of the "public doc" I did find, but the public document doesn't actually exist anymore as it got turned into an old private one. As much as I want to share an old document like that - this time period is entering when Trapped Towers story beats were starting to form properly and there is some major spoilers that are still relevant.

There's not loads else to share though so !! I hope you enjoyed part 2 of this small little series. I will ensure that part 3 is written up for tomorrow !! Until then, cya

- JustDaniel

[spreadwardiard]

5, 13, 15, 20, 22, 27, and 30 for the song asks friend!!! <3

OOOH! Thank you friend! I'll try not to get long winded about muuuusic lol.

5:A song that needs to be played LOUD

Okay I'm gonna start off immediately in the deep end here and say Pop/Stars VS Megalovania by DJ Cutman! I never played Undertale myself, but I really liked a lot of the music in it, and this mash up is to die for!! It mashes up perfectly and I always have to turn it up!

13:One of your favorite 80’s songs

I had to research some release dates of things for this one hahaha. I have so much music on my playlists that I'm not sure what is from when anymore! But I always loved Take on Me by Aha!

15:A song that is a cover by another artist

Omg where to even start... I have so many song covers that I love. I could go the safe route and say Hurt by Johnny Cash. but ooooooh I also really like I Really Want To Stay at Your House by Thai McGraith for any Cyberpunk fans out there.

20:A song that has many meanings to you

Ooooh I think for this one I'm gonna have to go a little more obscure and reach for my FAVORITE band. Bran-new Love Song by the Pillows is my choice here. Its a nostalgic song for me, reminds me of the slower days of childhood but also has a strange melancholy to the sound of it that just... chefs kiss. It reminds me of days gone by, of new loves being forged, and of the bittersweet that comes with it.

22:A song that moves you forward

Ha! I like Huton no Naka Kara Detakunai by Gokumon. I know this probably isn't exactly what this prompt means by moving forward, but this song DEF gets me out of bed in the morning (which, in my opinion is moving forward XD) and is so very relatable.

27:A song that breaks your heart

This is a hard one theres so many good songs to choose from. So many have made me weep. But ooo I think Take me to Church by Hozier. It just hits really close to home for me.

30:A song that reminds you of yourself

omg Chandelier by Sia. Especially with the music video. idk, it just hits me in weird place and honestly this also could be a song that breaks my heart considering it does make me cry like everytime i listen to it.

[kaywavy]

really long homestuck ost ramble (like this is kinda just incoherent thoughts about it) under the cut

in the main volume series at least, its kinda funny how vol 1-4 became the outlier sequencing wise because like the main thing that gives me the motivation to get thru these big 40+ track, 1.5+ hour albums is the fact that they typically sandwiched the "just good" or mediocre tracks between some really good masterpiece shit (vol 8 / vol 5) and the fact that at the end lays the really good / bombastic [S] tracks like descend and homestuck in the case of v5 or cascade and midnight crew acapella in the case of v8

and especially with cascade and descend or any of the other longer songs, it feels weird to listen to them on their own outside of the context of the album because it feels like you haven't earned it or that you're not in the right mindset for it.

but with 1-4, all of those first albums were

a. pretty damn short, like 10 one to three minute songs and

b. almost all killer no filler in the sense that nearly every song from those albums are featured in some of the really iconic early [S] pages so it feels like you're reliving everything pre-act 5 in musical form

so it doesn't feel like that much of a slog

v6 and v7 are also pretty short but i'm not really a fan of v6 at all and v7 doesn't catch my attention all that much like v8, v5, and v1-4 do.

but with the first 8 volumes they all have that centerstage piece that really makes them feel integral to the HS experience with tracks like

Showtime, Beatdown, Aggrieve, Gardener, SBurban Jungle, Doctor, Black, etc from v1-4

Descend, Skaian Skirmish, Savior of the Waking World, Homestuck Anthem, How Do I Live, Crystalanthemums, etc from v5

Elevatorstuck, Umbral Ultimatum, MeGaLoVania, & Heir Transparent from v6

Black Rose/Green Sun, Price of Oblivion, Even In Death from v7

and Do You Remember Me, Cascade, Ocean Stars Falling, Midnight Crew Acapella, Unite Synchronization, etc from v8

like all of those are super iconic [S] pages or just really good songs in my opinion and the Homestuck experience doesn't feel complete without listening to those albums but with v10 and little bit of v9, i don't feel that much of a connection to them yet

maybe its because im still stuck on those earlier albums, maybe its because it features a lot of music from artists outside of the OG Music Team and im not used to those styles or maybe its because a lot of them kinda feel kinda disconnected from the comic since this era started pulling a lot from the spinoff albums like coloUrs and mayhem, alternia[Bound], and the solo albums from music team members

v9 kinda does have the cascade effect from v5 / v8 with moonsetter taking that spot but it doesn't have that really good phenomenal beginning to hook you in so you don't really want to start the album even though the other tracks on the road to moonsetter are also good like elephant gun, everything is something.., stress, and austin atlantis

another thing taking from that is that moonsetter is so incredibly short and laidback compared to cascade and descend so it doesn't give you that undeserved feeling if you take it out the context of the album. the main thing stopping me from doing that is becuase moonsetter makes me cry almost without fail.

[athetos]

top 5 videogame osts?

Picking just 5 is impossible so I’m going to go off and list as many as I want

Under the cut for obvious long reasons

Chrono trigger (SNES) - listened to this obsessively when I had the DS port (which is still imo the definitive way to play, just ignore the repetitive bonus postgame quests), yasunori mitsuda is a legend (he’s also one of the composers for dungeon meshi!). I cut my teeth learning to read sheet music in bass clef once I switched to bass guitar playing the soundtrack, I have essentially the entire thing transcribed on my ultimate-guitar (username XxThreeCheersxX, keep forgetting to hype my account up here but I’m a top 100 ranked tabber 😅) personal faves are those without the will to live (beautiful tritone bass slide makes me moan), the trial, and frog’s theme.

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair (PS/XBOX) - I have never played but know it’s a mediocre multiplayer game, however the soundtrack is fantastic, great rock and metal remixes of some of the most iconic tunes throughout the franchise. The series over all has some killer songs and composers who love funny time signatures so this is easily a “best of.” Castlevania Judgment, arguably an even worse game, also has a good soundtrack.

Undertale/Deltarune (many) - required to be on this list. Toby fox is phenomenal, so many great and memorable tracks. There is a reason megalovania is everywhere. Not a single bad song to be found, but personally my faves are fight against a killer queen, waterfall, world revolving, and undertale. Undertale especially is so impactful because they use an actual guitar on it and it just hits and makes it much more poignant. Fox is maybe the king of leitmotifs.

Dead Cells (many) - after putting so many hours into the game I only appreciate the soundtrack more and more, plus the option to have 8-bit themes is a treat. I love love the Bank theme and Fractured Shrines especially. Very tense and epic sounding. But the Castlevania dlc is phenomenal in so many ways and the music is no exception, always blows me away they’re doing what Konami wishes they could do in every aspect.

Donkey Kong Country 1 + 2 (SNES) - don’t get me wrong Eveline Fischer’s DKC3 snes soundtrack is pretty damn good but imo it doesn’t hit the peaks of David Wise’s ost. It kills me that the silly monkey platformer has some of the most beautiful and atmospheric music of all time. I’ve watched so many music videos on how he made the music and why it sounds so good… from the ambient and emotional aquatic ambience and bramble blast, to the epic final boss themes, that dark reprise of dk island swing in minecart madness, the jittery and unnerving tree top town, the foreboding welcome to krokodile island, the sweet and dreamy dkc2 ice theme… it has it all. Okay what the hell, I’ll mention wise’s remix of water world/aquatic ambience/(a special surprise) in the gba port of dkc3 (he had to redo the soundtrack for that port from scratch). And yes I’ll even throw in fischer’s best songs from snes dkc3 - her version of treetop tumble is way better and more somber than wise’s, water world is like you’re actually at the bottom of a lake and very moody, and nuts and bolts is a dirty rock song with a groovy bass. Good stuff!!!!

Grant Kirkhope’s stuff (many) - another favorite composer of mine, most famous for doing many rare n64 games like banjo 1 + 2, dk64, goldeneye, plus Mario rabbids 1 + 2 on switch and indie game yooka laylee. I’ve also watched many videos and studied many of his songs, he loves to use tritones and out of place dissonant notes not to make something creepy (well, sometimes creepy) but to make things whimsical and man it really works. Dk64 is my personal fav and seeing him reprise some of the themes for Mario rabbids dk dlc was truly special. I really want to do a write-up about the dk64 soundtrack on my site one day! There’s a lot of Easter eggs I’ve spotted that I haven’t seen many people mention! Highlights are creepy castle (it has the dk arcade start motif hidden!), frantic factory, and gloomy galleon from dk64, and from banjo 1 and 2, I love jinjo village, gruntilda’s lair, and banjo’s house blues.

Final fantasy x - most final fantasy games have good to great soundtracks but x is special to me. It’s my favorite ff game and the music really makes it all the more poignant. Zanarkand’s opening note is enough to make me tear up. The battle theme never grows stale unlike some other ff battle themes, besaid is calming and has the perfect vibes, the trials theme should be repetitive but instead feels very disconcerting and even claustrophobic, and auron’s theme is cool as hell. X-2 also has a good soundtrack, but I don’t think it’s quite as good as here.

Celeste (many) - Lena Raine’s soundtrack is phenomenal and the use of motifs is impeccable. Not a bad song in the entire game. Resurrections is my favorite as it’s a long piece that goes a lot of places and makes you drift along for the ride. The way Madeline and badeline’s motifs diverge is brilliant, matching what’s happening onscreen. I love how hesitant the piano in awake sounds, it makes it so heartfelt. Anxiety is dense and lives up to the title, Little Goth is less hesitant but darker… she just writes such beautiful melodies.

Metroid Prime (gcn) - they originally wanted Autechre, an ambient electronic duo, to do the soundtrack but things fell through for whatever reason so Kenji Yamamoto (who did Super Metroid) stepped up to take his place and god what a good soundtrack. Metroid music is very cool and I’ve made posts about it before, like how Metroid II has one of the most experimental soundtracks and kind of challenges the limits of the system and what can be considered game music, super Metroid has some of the most alien sounding songs thanks to weird time signatures and instrumentation. But Prime is crazy because they had the tech now to deliver Yamamoto’s vision. Magmoor Caverns is everyone’s favorite, remixing norfair, those drums just make me go wild every time. All the area themes are great and alien sounding, it’s a very isolating soundtrack, plus the boss themes and the space pirates and chozo ghosts themes are kind of terrifying in a good way.

Sea of Stars/Messenger (many) - 2 of my fav indie games with some of the most addictive songs. Sea of stars is a prequel so seeing variants of the messenger’s tracks was a true delight. Yasunori mitsuda also assisted with the soundtrack making some unforgettable pieces. I want to learn the majority of it on bass by ear!

Hollow knight (many) - somber piano and grand orchestrated pieces make this game go hard. The mantis lord battle is probably my favorite, it’s so majestic and fearsome and makes them a scary boss. I also appreciate the more ambient tracks around greenpath and city of tears. But the boss themes turn things up when needed to and makes a world feel even more alive, which is impressive.

Silent hill 2 (ps2) - Akira Yamaoka has such a great style to create heavy, melancholic or terrifying songs for the franchise but this game stands out the most to me, Laura’s theme and promise always move me no matter how many times I listen to them, very hurting electric guitars. I need to watch more vids on the games ost.

Legend of Zelda (Nintendo) - for this last one I’m not picking a specific game and getting into details for them all would be hard I’m already losing steam fast. So I’ll list my favs across the franchise. Ocarina of Time’s Gerudo Valley, Hyrule Field, and Lost Woods; Majora’s Mask’s Termina Field, Clock Town, and Stone Tower Temple; link’s Awakening’s Face Shrine; wind Waker’s dragon roost island, outset island and Gohdan’s theme; and tears of the kingdom’s colgera’s theme.

[trilobi-te]

Cider and a theremin! I headcanon that he's able to play it because he just seems like that type of person.. he has those vibes......

Plus some extra doodles

Chip/Theremin rambling and doodle transcriptions below the cut. I included some explanations for the instruments pictured because I'm worried the drawings would otherwise be incomprehensible lmao

In case you can't read my handwriting: Doodle 1: Cider is saying "DANDY NO" and underneath it says *horrible theremin screaming* Doodle 2: the title says THORamin aka singing Tesla coil, and Otto is saying "Okay Cider please step a little closer to the instrument"

I like weird instruments so I assign them to fictional characters whenever it feels realistic to do so. The theremin is one of the world's first electric instruments (patented in 1928) and is played by moving one's hands around the two antennas, which are proximity sensors - vertical controls pitch and horizontal controls volume. Sound-wise, it's kind of like playing a synthesizer by hand? Also the hand gestures that are made when controlling pitch are.. interesting. (That's more or less what Cider is doing, it took an embarrassing amount of attempts to get that hand to look good enough so I just left it hhh)

Re: extra doodle 1 Touching the vertical antenna makes an unpleasant high-pitched noise (you're not meant to touch it at all while playing, just move your hands around like an electric wizard or something)

Re: extra doodle 2 "Thoramin" is another name for the singing Tesla coil, and a play on theremin and Thor (hence why it's here). It's a Tesla coil that's been modified to be a plasma speaker. I find these funny because people on YouTube always seem to be playing them in random suburbs. Just imagine looking out the window at your neighbor's yard and seeing a lightning storm set to Megalovania. Realistically Otto probably wouldn't have one (too loud, draws attention to the player) but for the purposes of The Funny™ he does now.

Something small I don't have anywhere else to bring up so I shall talk about it here: I started my Chipspeech Twitter archive project by just going through the tab on each account that says "Tweets" but it turns out that there are more tweets under the "Replies" tab that actually contain lore. So I am actually nowhere near done with this hhhhh I hate Twitter. I mean I'm still going to document everything because I want the story to be as intact as possible (including the small bits of character trivia that often show up in the replies tweets) but I am. not happy about it. I do not entirely understand the decision to put character information in the replies to fan tweets.. I mean things shared there are never really all that important, but I like weird small story details so I don't want to lose them if Twitter ever actually fully goes down. Also I am going to have to go back and put everything in chronological order (in terms of hours/minutes, everything currently is just organized by date) which means more time on Twitter. I traded efficiency for simplicity of each step in this process, which I guess was good for not becoming overwhelmed by the scale of things but it's dragging out a lot longer than I had initially anticipated. I start college in late August so ideally that's my hard deadline for this, which should absolutely be reachable but I'm still annoyed that it's taking this long in the first place hhhhhhh

[eridan-amporaa]

Also I wanted to like- speculate/discuss on what these guys' Sylladices and Strife Decks would be (Strife Decks will be in a separate ask bc uh. This got long lol)

Streber - wire puzzle, to fit with his love of inventing. When Streber attempts to take an item out, he will be presented with a mess of wires he needs to connect to the right nodes. When solved, he gets the item

Radford - movie trivia. Simple enough, though has comedic potential if someone else tries to use it and is immediately stumped by some b-movie horror knowledge only Radford knows

Ross - I feel like Ross would go for something straightforward, like Array. However if he or his dad are musicians I could see him having a Simon Says-like Modus where the card plays a string of notes and Ross has to copy them back

Roy - idk why but I see him having something money-related, probably bought by his parents. My idea is that he can "deposit" items freely, but to take them out he needs to either pay for it with money or an item of equal or greater value to the item he wants to take out (there'd be an "eject all" button that spits out both the items and any deposited money so it's not like, completely impossible to access anything). Roy swaps this out with a far less convoluted Modus the first chance he gets lol

Robert - idk why but I feel like he'd go for one of the board game ones? Like Jenga or Operation. Something simple, but fun

Speaking of the board game Modi... I imagine similar to Jade's grandpa, Pump and Susie's parents got them a bunch of board game Modi for Christmas, and the two just picked their favorites

Susie - Pictionary. Easy enough and fits with her love of art, even if it's a bit obtuse at times

Pump - Ouija. Works like Aradia's, just in English. Due to his connection to Heir of Light Skid, to Eyes, or both, the spirits usually end up giving him what he wants, making it a relatively easy Modus for him to use

Skid - I had a bit of trouble coming up with something for Skid, because I wanted to have it be spook-related in some way while not just giving him another Ouija board. I then realized... Maze Game Modus! Skid drags a dot through a maze, and when he reaches the end he gets his item. If he fails the maze a loud scream will play, and sometimes he intentionally fails just to hear it. It's based off the Scary Maze Game :>

Sometimes Skid and Pump also swap Modi for fun!

I couldn't come up with anything for Kevin or Ethan, unfortunately. Maybe Kevin could have like a gumball or capsule machine Modus, where he turns a crank and gets a random item, but I have no idea what to do for Ethan

i love all of these!! maze game modus is so funny to me actually

i think kevin would prolly have an array modus actually, eventually his terrible luck using any fun-ish modus would get the best of him i think ;u; maybe he'd get the gumball one back postgame but its just not practical when you have the worst luck on in paradox space lol

ethan... hm. not really sure what he'd use, prolly something spooky. maybe something based on excavation? he canonically collects bones in the forest so it kinda fits. like. big block o dirt/stone wtvr pops out and he has to break it open. maybe he'd have some sort of tool to help with that (chiselkind?) in his strife deck just to be safe

ross would prolly have a music-based modus, yeah. i made one up kinda recently (its what i would use lol), melody modus! each item is assigned a short tune which you have to repeat to get something out. you get to pick the tune, tho. i can see him using video game songs for it - zelda theme, green hill zone, white space... megalovania-

rob could get the memory modus, i think hed be good at that one

roy would prolly end up borrowing a spare modus from susie - prolly jenga modus, seems abt right

[its-to-the-death]

Some notes from the list of songs:

MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS

For the Death Note: The Musical songs, are you using the original Japanese versions or the English concept album? I know I submitted "Where is the Justice?" and "Hurricane" specifically from the English version, but I'm not sure what others did.

"It's Gonna Get Weird" (74) was cut from Gravity Falls. It never actually featured in the show :(

"Prince Ali Reprise" (106) and "You're Only Second Rate" (Aladdin 2: Return of Jafar) are both from the same series/franchise (Aladdin) and therefore should be color-coded.

What villain did the submitters say "Megalovania" is associated with? Not disputing it per se, but I am curious if they're saying it's a Villain Song for Sans, Chara, or The Player.

"The Hammer" (181) and "The Smell of Rebellion" (182) are both from Matilda, and therefore should be color-coded.

I'm surprised "There's a Platypus Controlling Me" got in. It is a song by a villain (Doofenshmirtz), but it's not about his villainy, it's just him confusedly rapping about him getting glued to a turntable while being mind-controlled by a platypus.

I believe "The Devil's Song" (126) and "Die House" (190) should be put together and color-coded, since you did the same for songs from Tangled and Tangled: The Series. Also surprised that Cala Maria's song apparently didn't get any submissions.

"God Shattering Star" (194) and "The Edge of Dawn" (202) are both from Fire Emblem: Three Houses and therefore should be put together and color-coded.

SINGLE SUBMISSIONS

Also surprised that "When the Chips Are Down" only got one submission (which I think might be mine).

"Kidnap The Sandy Claws" (33) and "Filthy Finale" (259) are part of the same franchise, and therefore should be put together and color-coded.

"Rest In Peace" (51) and "Sweet's Song" (52) are from the same episode of Buffy and therefore should be color-coded.

...Is "Sympathy for the Devil" (60) referring to the Rolling Stones song? The source is just listed as "Christianity."

"Against the Black Knight" (89) and "Beauty is a Mad Mistress" (90) should be moved up next to "The Black Knight" (85). Also in both of those you spelled "Path" as "PAth."

Holy shit "One Step Ahead" only got one submission? :(

"With Me" (115) and "What I'm Made Of" (116) are both from the Sonic series and therefore should be color-coded.

"I Want the Good Times Back" (142) and "Les Poissons" (143) are both from The Little Mermaid franchise and therefore should be color-coded.

"Get In the Water" (188) and "Ruthlessness" (189) are both from Epic: The Musical, and therefore should be color-coded.

Workin' Boys, the source of "Made It Work" (215), is also a Starkid production.

Nightmare Time is also a Starkid production.

"Queen" (247) is from Deltarune. The submitter may have gotten confused because she is from Chapter 2 of Deltarune, but it's the same game, not a sequel.

"Your Love Will Kill Me" (281) and "I'm a Priest" (282) are both from Notre Dame de Paris, and therefore should be color-coded.

Since all of the eliminated Starkid songs are very definitely Villain Songs, I'm going to guess that there were just too many damn Villain Songs from Starkid, which is unsurprising. I didn't expect "Cup of Poisoned Coffee" to get in over something like "Show Stoppin' Number" or "America Is Great Again," though.

In hindsight, a lot of the eliminated songs from The Mechanisms don't really qualify as a Villain Song. Curious about why "Ragnarok II: The Calling" didn't make it, since it's half a Villain Song for The Void and half a duet between Loki and Odin (the other main antagonist).

Lusamine really got shafted when you had to make cuts for Pokemon, huh?

All the links to Death Note songs were for the English version so those are the ones I'm going to link in the polls

For Megalovania, one person said Sans and another said Chara or Sans

I'm surprised more than one person put in There's A Platypus Controlling Me as well. We'll see if it makes it past the preliminary.

For Sympathy for the Devil, yes it is the song by The Rolling Stone (I will note that) but the submitter linked to the Guns N' Roses cover so.....I'll deal with that if it actually gets in the bracket. Yeah most people tell me if it's a song from a band and I unfortunately did not look more into that.

Starkid musicals keep coming out of the woodworks. Yes, there were so many Starkid submissions and I had I made a compromise since there are so many but not all the productions are related. So, each Starkid musical that has multiple submissions will get one song in the bracket.

RIP Lusamine. If you got one more submission, I would have had to make a Pokemon preliminary.

I have fixed all the color coding too.

[why-does-this-happen-to-me]

Hey, would you look at that, another sourcelist, anything you want to tell the public?

Oh, it seems glitching so many games has affected Josh in unexpected and probably painful ways. Eh, he'll be fine.

Okay, I did post a screenshot of Josh's TV Tropes page, but I didn't mention him, so I didn't lie when I said I hadn't posted about him. Anyway, he's here now and ready to torture everyone in ways the developers never intended. The original image is the same color as the silhouette from back when Anthony was still in the channel, but the glitch effect doesn't really show that. The background is his tornado from Satisfactory, the one that made it into the promotional images in the Steam page, although I considered using the wanted poster in Hydroneer. Also, I did draw the hand grabbing the controller but then got confused and ended up separating the hand from the controller, meaning the arm is now there and the fingers blend with the rest. If I ever post anything else about this I'll fix it. Now the explanations about the sources nobody asked for:

Videogames and Glitch. Videogames is easy, songs from or related to games, especially those played by Josh, like Raft, Satisfactory and Planet Coaster. I was going to use glitch as a theme, but there's actually a music genre by the same name and it fits perfectly. Sadly, I'm not as much of a fan of it as I thought i would be, so I just chose three random songs.

Pixel and Crimes. I knew the pixel genre existed but I didn't know it included so many things, but yeah, typical me, megalovania and doom crossing: eternal horizons are all in the playlist of the genre made by spotify and I kind of see why. Also, there's a lot of overlap with nerdcore, they're not the same but there's a lot of songs that are both. Crimes is here as a theme, I chose arson, murder and jaywalking as examples for no reason whatsoever.

Destruction and Weirdcore. If something can be broken, Josh will find a way, if it can't, Josh will test that theory. That is to say, destruction was an easy choice for the sourcelist. Weirdcore is here because of vibes tbh, there's no other reason to why I chose it.

[scyphosunny]

god , after AGES . an entry of those last two pieces i made .

i've been a mess recently . i mean , i'm always a mess really , but this time i'm a mess MESS . i stopped writing on my diary and i want to think that that's the reason why november is basically a blur for me . i really don't remember most of it . . . aside from starting therapy and getting in the mouthwashing fandom .

( i'm going to talk a LOT about my stuff , so if you're just interested in the art ramble scroll until you see a picture

MOUTHWASHING WAS A BIG THING FOR ME . i would spend hours watching gameplays to see people's reactions . i would open a video , then fast forward until anya gets herself " stuck " in medical and then everything would start happening for real . fuck , i even ( kinda ) got zar to play it ! i mean . i guess she was already interested and had the game on her wishlist . but i want to believe that it was also my fault since i went and asked if she played it ! she said she was planning on doing it . then brusk bought the game for her ( so it was mostly because of her but LEAVE ME ALONE OKAY I WANT TO FEEL IMPORTANT ( and she played it on stream . cool !

unfortunately for me , mouthwashing hyperfixation era lasted two , three weeks at most . BACK TO VARGAS AND I HAVE NO IDEA HOW I KEEP GETTING MYSELF IN HERE AFTER ALL THIS TIME . i guess i'm glad i'm back here since vargas means everything for me but hey !!!! mouthwashing was my first active fandom since 2022 ! i guess you appreciate other people¿s content more when you don't have any in your fandom .

i'm also cosplaying daisuke at a con soon ! the con is in two days . i'm terrified . i still have this fear of putting effort into something , and then not allowing myself to have fun thanks to stupid insecurities . like , the halloween 2023 ink cosplay experience and the piano 2023 experience . i already talked about the ink cosplay experience on ummm i think it was that one last entry i wrote ? umm . . . here . still , brief explanation if you don't want to read allat , i basically spent a whole year wanting to cosplay ink sans for halloween at my school , then got too self concious and wanted to die for the whole day . i ruined that thing for myself . I'M AFRAID THAT WILL HAPPEN WITH THIS ONE . i'm already too excited about it , i don't want to ruin another cool experience for myself . i can't stand it , not again . i mean this time it WILL be different since this one is an anime / videogame convention so NO ONE CAN JUDGE ME EVERYONE WILL BE WEIRD THERe but i'm still thinking what if my cosplay is not good enough what if no one recognizes it even if mouthwashing is a BIG thing right now . what if i'm awkward . what if my hair looks bad . what if i get hit with that wave of sadness like those other times and kill myself in front of everyone . WHAT IF

i haven't explained the piano experience here . . . basically , i spent a year trying to slowly teach myself to play piano so i could play it in public at this big event . . . and um i mean it was just for fun , it was like a book convention and they had a piano there for people to play it ! it was just for FUN and i remember playing those first notes of megalovania when i went to the con on 2022 and it was the funniest thing ever . well , i could maybe teach myself how to play duet from omori so i can play something seriously ! so , i spend the whole year just doing that . and , i got a small chunk of the song engraved in my brain . day of the convention , i have my sunny cosplay on because i just have his clothes . recently cut my hair short , and i am ready to play ! well . first thing i notice is that . there's now a place for people to sit . in front of the piano . I HAVE AN AUDIENCE NOW . for something that was supposed to be a fun thing . and there's people that actually KNOW how to play the piano . they're banging out long , elaborate music pieces while i'm there . who learned the song with a shitty keyboard and a dream . so i go to the piano , knowing that people probably expect me to play something good . i start , first of all , for some reason my brain wanted to play the song an octave lower . i keep playing , everything's going smoothly and then i get on this part that i need to play slowly because again i didn't really LEARN THIS SONG properly in the first place . i put my fingers on the keys , and then i notice my hands are shaking uncontrollably . this is where all goes wrong , i forget the rest of the song and then i try to play one of those other two songs i learned just in case , which were white space and good night from undertale ( this song is really nostalgic for me . i associate it with handplates lol ) . well , i forgot the entirety of good night and white space was too short to convince the audience that i'm not stupid . so i just give up , i heard like two people clapping and i want to kill myself . i spend the rest of the day crying , with two people that aren't even close friends because my " best friend " decided to spend the whole day with his boyfriend . i'm still sad about it . i spend the whole ride home STILL CRYING , next to this guy i barely know and i don't even know if he noticed i was crying . i was talking with brusk a bit so it made everything slightly better but oh god also , update . went to this event once again , my friend group pushed me to play the piano , and i play the five seconds of duet that i still remember because i stopped playing since that other thing happened . then , i hear a scream of PURE AGONY coming from the audience , and that's how i know someone recognized it . i got a friend ! so hey , i can talk about this now because i replaced a bad experience with something better . i hope it goes this way with the daisuke cosplay and somehow i can forget about the halloween 2023 ink cosplay experience because i'm not joking just typing about it makes me want to cry .

actually , mouthwashing art had a big influence in these two pieces ! what is wrong with mouthwashing artists ? they make CRAZY pieces and edits . when i grow up i want to be like one . anyway , i'll talk about that later . i'm still talking about my life .

i started therapy ! nothing uh , really complicated since it's a free service and i won't get a diagnosis or medication or anything . . . . . right now i just want help to deal with emotions because my emotions are also a mess . that and get myself to be a functioning person once again . these have been some rough six months .

if i'm honest , i don't think it's going to make any difference . they gave me some useful information and stuff , but in the end i'm the one that's supposed to make the effort . i need to get up , walk around , get the remaining pieces of my life and put them back together . it's been six months since i graduated highschool and i still don't feel any more motivated . but that will be a problem for 2025's sunny .

i told myself i would stop with the brainrot and put actual effort into things that matter as soon as 2025 starts , that way i can apply to a nice university and get my life back . meet new people , stop feeling lonely . get even the smallest sense of control back , stop feeling that i'm doomed forever and there's not anything left for me here , ( clears throat anyway .

i have like 4 things in mind to work with , all of them vargas related . an animatic i'm doing with brusk , an animatic with this msi song ( i'll have to learn to tween for this one ) , a couple of pieces i would like to do . . . there's this sick concept i have for convalescense i'm really excited to do ! and i feel that i have to LOCK IN . i have a month left to work on my stuff , if what i'm saying is true . less than a month , really . and while i do think i can get all of these done , i still have problems when it comes to manage my time properly . ANNOYING . oh , can we talk about how i didn't work on anything in november ? back to november being a blur . i tried to get myself to do stuff but i really wasn't feeling like it . and i don't like it ! because i'm still recovering from that ( i still don't want to draw but i'm running out of time ) and also i didn't get any colored pieces ! i mean , i technically have that one vargastober piece , the one of the broken statue trend , but WELL THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FOR OCTOBER and while i do have some mouthwashing colored pieces i want to make an art summary and i want all of it to be vargas . i was thinking , maybe i can cheat and say that i did one of those two pieces ( those last two i updated ) on november instead , but i think i'm just going to add the cracked statue one to november's spot . wwhhaattever

umm . . . i'm hungry . i have a therapy appointment in um . . . an hour . and i want to see if i can finish this before having to do that .

let's see , back to mouthwashing . the fandom makes SUCH COOL PIECES . i have some saved to take as references because honestly i feel like vargas could also have concepts this cool . i just need to wwwwork on them . there was this one specific piece , i just stared at it on awe . a hundred elements here and there , so many things to focus on . . . and i wanted to do a piece like this one for a long time already . so why not do it now ? of couse . i spend a whole month without drawing and i just HAVE to do something this elaborate out of nowhere . great idea sunny ! /s

i don't even know when , maybe like three days later i banged out a quick sketch of how i wanted stuff to look .

setting things here and there . . . those first two edgars , comparison bewteen the first chapters and chapter 27 . longer hair for that reason . big scriabin just looking around , a couple of cool stickers , scriabin action figure , glasses , cross necklace , some butterflies , the jake sticker that i scribbled instead of ripping it at first . . . pic of them as kids , and then a last big illustration of edgar . i didn't know what exactly to do with that one .

then i forgot about this thing and made somehting for " and you , you can live like this " instead as a warmup .

while working on this whole thing , i decided to listen to bubs' vargas audiobook ! and god , GGGGOD . i think this is the main reason of why i got my hyperfixation back . that and swap vargas' new chapter .

my brain exploded with vargas thoughts and i spent days just ranting in this account .

i started working on scri . . . as you can see , i kept getting distracted . i had issues with his nose , i don't really like drawing poeple facing front . specially these guys , their noses are hard to get right . and i mean , LOOK . his hair was already gorgeous , i didn't want to ruin it with an ugly face . i tried to draw his nose with a different style this time , draw actual nostrils instead of just putting a block on his face . i honestly liked how itlooked a lot ! buti was afraid of some people not liking it . it was different ! so when i uploaded that other screenshot with all of the pretty colors , i just put a sticker over it because uummmmmm

opened the file to check it . . . you see , i added all of these colors and shading . that can mean two things : i hate what i'm drawing and i'm trying to make it look better or i loved what i drew so much i want to add details to make it look prettier . this was kind of a mix of both

well , lineart and coloring time . i had a very specific coloring style in mind ! i saw this mouthwashing piece before doing this , and i couldn't get over how pretty it looked . simple enough , scribbly , yellow-ish colors . . . it just looked so nice . so i wanted tto take this coloring style as a reference . it would be nice , looked less elaborated than the way i usually color . got some nice brushes that kinda look like markers too . . .

i had to make the line look thinner from what i usually do . so , i had to work really hard with this one . make it cleaner , add some width to specific strokes . . .

i don't actually have any screenshots of the line because I DIDN'T LIKE HOW IT LOOKED , i started sending pics to brusk once it was colored . . .

but lololol this is what the line looked like . he doesn't have eyebrows because i put the layer outside the lineart folder and i just realized lol

okay . therapy appointment time , i'll be back in an hour .

alr , BBACK

coloring time . . . my colors are usually really warm , orangey . the piece i was taking as a reference looked more like , yellow . so i had to use yellow as the base for his face . . .

this is what the first wip looked like . i don't have a lot of screenshots for this one , honestly ! i was trying really hard not to spoil it because , shit , this is a huge piece . i wanted it to HIT PEOPLE IN THE FACE or something . i just uploaded a bunch of screenshots on my twt side account and sent some to brusk too . i remember not taking a screenshot of this one because i still had some trouble with the nose . . .

i really like how i made his face look . added some tiny freckles with this one brush and aahghgsdjndskd,smds

i tried to add some blue to his shading , and i think it looked pretty neat ! i mostly did it because the reference pic had some blue on it , but i still like how it came out a lot . maybe i'll do the same in future pieces . . .

lol

his hair was kinda hard to get right . i had this nice brush that looked like a marker and i really liked it ! i just had to put a bunch of stuff over the layer with the flat coloring for it to look the shade i wanted . . .

in the end , you can't really notice the texture . . .

well , so far this whole thing was getting more complicated than i liked LOL so what did i do ? make it MORE complicated . OF COURSE

i just love this kind of lightning . . .

random vargas thought

struggled a lot with the shading on his clothes , actually . thinking about it . . . while i do know how to draw clothes , i don't know how to shade them . which of course , is a problem . i don't hate how they look here , though . i had a bit of trouble shading his trenchcoat too . i don't know how to shade black ! usually , you have to add lights instead of shadows and idk how to do that . . . but hey , the final result was super cool !

i really , REALLY liked the lips and the teeth . i wanted to kinda add a tooth gap but i held back . . . idk a tooth gap just fits him !

oh also . take the speedpaint . i forgot to record again so his face is already done . . .

after this one was done , i had no idea how to continue the drawing . so , i decided to work on one of the stickers . . .

that first one was supposed to work as a sketch only . . . but it looked cute so i just made some quick lineart .

kind of the same color scheme . . . i usually pick a orange-ish color for his hair , but it wouldn't work this time . and i really enjoy coloring his hair . . .

i like to add moles to jake's face . idk if i already talked about that . . . first i added freckles to him but HEY I ALREADY ADDED FRECKLES TO EDGAR AND SCRI that's too much so i just got some moles on him . . . . . . three of them . yyou can see there

and , for that ripped part , i used my friend else's tutorial !!!!! you can see it here . i didn't have the exact same brushes , but i think it looks nice enough .

here we have the sticker . that's where my pfp came from ! i just thought it looked nice like this . i added a filter though , i like my colors better like this .

why is the sticker ripped ? ( clears throat

well . i think that we , as the vargas fandom , ignore COMPLETELY the fact that it's implied that scri fucking killed / hurt jake in notice me's timeline . " the part that knew himself as scriabin had his revenge on jake , with his bare hands . " okay maybe i'm exaggerating , maybe he just beat the shit out of him which is um maybe difficult to happen because jake would hit back and hit harder hmm , wait . what if he doesn't want to hurt him ? I FEEL LIKE WE SHOULD TALK ABOUT THAT . man , just thinking about it makes me SO SAD . now that i think about it , i don't think he'd be scared but oh my god , i wish i could ask zarla but she would probably just say " :3 " or some shit like that . ZARLA WWWHHYYY she probably doesn't remember anymore . anyway , yes . the fact that the sticker is ripped and on scriabin's piece is kind of a reference to that ! scriabin ripping his sticker and kind of failing

THREE YEARS AGO HAS TO BE MY FAVORITE VARGAS FIC . i love the fact that someone cared enough and pay enough attention to jake to write something like this about him . genuinely one of my favorite things ever , i've read it hundreds of times already . . . . . .

also , this . thank you .

i can't add any more pictures so i guess i'll do this in two parts . posting this one right now , will write the next one maybe later but it will probably be posted until tomorrow . today i'm finishing otgw with friends !!!! i could write after we're done but my family hates when i type at night .

ssso , see you later !

[dragonlapis]

Just a random thought

While listening to megalovania and thought about the apartment trio soo yeah...

If any of the three ever came access that situation...All of them including Mito would be out for blood tbh. Like...As kind and forgiving Mito is...Killing everyone she has known especially her best friends would would make her snap and go into serious mode. You will have to fight the entire forest now

Like...If you killed Mito and Leila in front of Seika along with the other magical girls...I feel like she would be the angriest out of the rest, but by not rhat much. She has seen Leila die once and she doesn't want to relive that again. She is forced to relive that cause of you and doesn't have another chance to make a wish. She for sure would make you feel thr ocean's wrath

As for Leila...She would be a bit more hesitant ,but will still fight for all of her might. You just killed her two best friends and saw other die...Do you really think that she would let that slide? No. You'll have to face hell's fire. Cursing herself for not trusting her intuition when she first saw you

Bte when I say you..I don't mean actually you so I hope you understand