#I love his storytelling so much!!!

[eloquentornot]

I watched all of MythicalSausage's stream live today.

(Except for a few minutes here and there where I had to get up and do other things, but for all of those I paused it then came back and watched on double speed until I was caught up. I was in the chat, live, as much as I could be.)

This is the VOD. I recommend. But I think part of the experience was seeing it live. Spoilers under the cut.

So, if you've seen his most recent episode, you'll know it ended with him trapped in yet another alternate dimension by Evil Sausage.

(If you saw the end of Jimmy's recent stream, the one he stopped suddenly because he realised he had the wrong meeting time, maybe you saw the moment Sausage told Jimmy a quick secret, changed his voice and said "I'm not the Sausage you know" to which Jimmy ran away, wondering if it was Xornoth or something.)

At the start of this stream, Sausage said there would be no lore, that it was strictly a material gathering stream in preparation for an upcoming big build. Chat asked him how he'd escaped, and his response? "What are you talking about? What do you mean, escape? No lore here, this is a no lore stream!" Or words to that effect.

The music was different, during this stream. Instead of Sanctuary's usual tunes, it was dramatic, sometimes dark, reminiscent of season 1!

He didn't go in the church, saying it was closed for renovations. He loved the dark tower, and could go in there fine. He forgot the names of Sanctuary's people. Eddie and Maria were "protected" by magical iron bars over all the exits of their house. Sunny was offline, being used as a battery for a future technological project...

It was pretty obvious very quickly to chat what was going on. We all called it out, that it was Evil Sausage in disguise. He continued to say this was a no lore stream. He started work on some interiors, taunted us with a tale of a dark sorcerer defeating a wizard and destroying a dragon egg, continued to deny that anything strange was happening at all.

fWhip interrupted, with exciting news about the Minecraft update! He asked for help with the new structure at spawn, and Gem came as well and there was plenty of messing around out of character as friends, but also I think he was actually fully in character as much as possible? Like, he somehow simultaneously was just himself hanging out with them while also giving vibes of being Evil Sausage Pretending To Be Sausage!?

At 1000 likes, he promised to tell us a secret. We all knew what it would be. I have never before asked fellow viewers in chat to like the stream I'm watching, and I will never again unless this specific kind of situation happens again. I don't normally catch streams all the way through like this. This is so exciting!

Fully in-character, he nevertheless involves chat, it's like being in a pantomime almost, only the only one of those I've ever actually been to I was too young to appreciate, and now I understand, it's another form of collaborative storytelling!

Also btw while the gang was messing around, fWhip showed him a shulker head and was surprised he didn't recognise it, and Jimmy said the name Hermes. So that plot point is looming closer!

When the likes goal was reached, it was time. The tension rose as he gradually prepared to tell us the secret. Chat was racing past, everyone screaming, we all knew what was coming, and yet...

That music box, from the previous stream featuring Evil Sausage. The game screen is hidden, and sound effects play. Then, his voice. Distorted. Our suspicions confirmed. It's him!

Then, the screen comes back, and he hasn't changed his skin! Evil Sausage is still fully disguised as normal Sausage! Then he sends us to where the real one is trapped, the music is Sanctuary's again, we tell him what's happened and then suddenly we're brought back! Evil Sausage goes to his dark Mythland, where for some reason it seems like the grey collared (evil?) Bubbles is trying to stop him from reaching the summoning circle! But he reaches it anyway, does some more magic, and... That's it. Apparently... the real Sausage is now permanently trapped six months in the past. Before even Bubbles or Eddie appeared to help him, let alone the Staff that allows him to travel between dimensions. (It also seems Evil Sausage has lost the Staff, and there was a "joke" at the start of the stream that the Staff is "sentient", so perhaps there's something there...)

We're sent back to Sausage, trapped in the past, for the end of the stream. He plans to escape the only way he can: to live out those six months again! We will see him again, soon, but for him it'll have been half a year...

I just can't describe how exciting this stream was! To watch the story unfold, live, able as an audience to interact with the character, it was so amazing! I do prefer videos to stream VODs for length, but I hope I manage to catch more streams live like this in the future if I can, it was so fun!!!

[cheese-water]

Generation Loss is a comedic tragedy in every sense of the word. Every character we see exemplifies this fact, but no one other than The Austin Show proves its truth.

We begin at the carousel. Austin, Gay, takes his turn by pleading for himself to live because he has a wife and children back home. The rest of the cast interrogates him about his “wife and kids,” clearly suspicious of his truthfulness without even knowing his dubbed “title.” Everyone in the room treats Austin like a joke.

In turn, so do we.

Next, we reach the closet and shortly after the failed drag show, Austin remarks, “Look, I uh… I didn’t expect to die here.” It’s a moment of pure honesty, whether we like it or not. It happens again when the Puzzler tries to party with them, and Austin has to angrily remind him that they are his captives and are actively trying to kill them.

Austin: “What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? We're trying to get out of here. I have children and wives— wife. One wife! What is this some sort of game? I’ve been stuck in hear for hours it seems. We’re trying to get out. Why is nobody else freaking out? We’ve got C4 strapped to our neck…”

It isn’t until Ethan’s death, his blood pooling out from underneath the door, Austin screaming at the others, begging them to have a reaction, to care about their circumstances, to care about death, that we finally understand Austin’s role in Generation Loss.

After all, in every great comedy, someone always has to play the straight man.

[kaurwreck]

y'all have eventually got to realize that kunikida's temper and attentiveness to his schedule aren't callousness, they're coping mechanisms. right. y'all have to eventually figure out that much over seasons + tens of chapters of him being so tender it would snap him in two if not for the order he's constructed around himself. y'all will inevitably pick up on that with how he approaches dazai and kyouka, especially, right? surely.

[llemon-soda]

more scribbles

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance - The World That Never Was

[beaulesbian]

I was once again thinking about this goofy Luffy moment after his Lucci punch™ and i had to see it frame by frame.

first the force of it throws them both away, and while Lucci is seen on screen tumbling for a long moment, Luffy is just away in a blink of an eye.

and then his funny scene - his legs are like jelly that he tries to get under control,

he stumbles, falls, rolls into a mix of all his limbs and eyes,

and then only the cloud behind him cushions his fall

- which would be interesting if he can subconsciously control that while he tries to regain the control over his movements - that the environment around him still adapts to his awakened Devil Fruit abilities and morphs to help him. Where others would probably fall through that cloud, for Luffy that cloud backs him up like a trampoline.

It's just fascinating!

[psychomusic]

oc time again! + her town & culture (heavily inspired by pre-roman italic populations)

she is suri sauthon (she/her). her story is linked to my swtor imperial agent, tar'x, but most of her life except for the one year away where she meets him, is spent in a town in the mountains of mirial.

despite mirial being cold and desert, and many cities developing underground, her town flourishes thanks to a force nexus, venerated in the form of an ancient, sacred, alive crystal. the ecosystem of that mountain depended on what "the horned crystal" was capable of giving them, but mirialans couldn't live off of that alone, so they developed trade and some rudimental technology, even if oftentimes it was bought thanks to the highly profitable trade of a plant used to make medicines that slowed down aging and had overall healing properties.

note: everything that's generated by this nexus has these healing properties BUT they have to be processed, except for those who bathed in the waters of the cavity under the crystal - the "real" nexus, but not the worshipped one. the waters were sacred but they were not thought to be miraculous, unlike the crystal, who instead was thought of as the keystone of the ecosystem: without it, everything would fall apart (and that is partially true: the cavity was the "real" nexus but thanks to the crystal, also strong in the force, the properties were spread all over the mountains). those who bathed in the cavity's waters - so, all of the town, who had a sort of baptism there - could eat the plant, make whatever food with it, and not only that plant, but everything generated by the nexus, that, again, had similar properties. this allowed people to live up to normal life-spans without advanced medicines or, much, really. to those who didn't live there, though, after the processing, had incredible effects, slowing down aging - for those who took it regularly - and making people able to live up to half a century more than the average]

originally, there were four tribes of nomads that lived thanks to horned farm animals that decided to settle down into one bigger town and other smaller settlements, to live off of transhumance. this division of the tribes stayed into the political and social organization: every person belonged to one tribe specifically, and had slightly different rituals and culture. for examples, each tribe had their own priests and healers, with different techniques and traditions. the town, tho, was guided by a group of people in the high priesthood, a position you could reach only by having earned the trust of all tribes. those high priests had many roles: they guided the people into sacred processions common to all the tribes, they managed the trading with outsiders, they did the maintenance of the temple of the summit (the one that functioned as casket to the crystal) and created a special liquid to offer the crystal that helps it grow.

this particular temple was important because 1. it was very visible, from every angle of the town, and it became an important identity symbol; 2. it stored the venerated horned crystal; 3. it had the altar where sacrifices were made for the crystals. that altar had a hole connected to the cavity, that allowed the liquids to reach the underground; 4. it had various symbols: statues representing each tribe + the high priesthood, and typical mirialan tattoos carved into the wood of the trees that served as columns for the temple, symbolizing 8 values that who dared to enter HAD to have; 5. it was on the way to an important lake (called "mother lake" because the lake the town was built around to depended on the waters of that other lake) where they traveled to in important processions; 6. it was said that a the wizard who unified the tribes made it with its magic, making the plant grow to hold the temple's roof. this wizard was, actually, a force user, obv.

BACK TO HER THOUGH: she's daughter of one of the high priests, who was in charge of managing the trades with outsiders, and lives in a house on the mountains with her mother and him. her parents are from different tribes (that's one of the things that earned him trust from the 4 tribes): when a child is born from two different tribes, they don't pick one to allign to, but they're usually linked automatically to the one with more relatives in it (in her case, the father's tribe: she had many uncles and aunts on his side while her mom only had one sister).

later, though, she got quite tied to her mother's tribe due to a mysterious illness that only her mother's tribe healer was able to cure. she spent 4 years (from 10 to 14 years old) living with the healer and learned her secrets. to better study, she wrote them down. when she returned home, she studied to become a priestess with her father. at 22 (the average age: you can't become priest before your 20s), she was supposed to take a test and become a priestess, but the healer of her mother's tribe died and the tribe asked her to take her place. she couldn't technically do that, but both tribes estimated both her and her parents and she was allowed to become both. she then decided to try to become a high priestess, and became one at 25 (a quite young age). being part of the council, she tried to convince the various tribe healers to unite their knowledges and write them down, and eventually made it. healers still remained tribe based but they now had an "upper, inter-tribe level" similar to high priesthood.

years later, the sacred horned crystal is stolen from the temple by some Hutt mercenaries looking for a profit. given the trust she has earned from all the tribes and the fact that her father is the high priest that deals with outsiders (and she's been hearing stories and advice about it since she was little), she is the one tasked with getting it back. without the growing crystal, the keystone to their ecosystem, the village would have lasted only a few years. in hrr quest, she meets imperial intelligence agent tar'x laran and, as they "solve the mystery" and fight to have it back, they get closer. they'll get married and have a daughter, Vegoia (who's the only one who actually will get to the plot of my story. this was all background)

[batbabydamian]

The Boy Wonder #2 by Juni Ba rambling about Gotham's fearsome hunter

added Jason to this issue's collage since it was mainly from his perspective!

ramble for issue #1 here!

starting with the cover again, but now in contrast to the first:

Dick and Barbara are presented as statues in the bg for the first cover where they’re established heroes in a secure time in their lives, and Damian is obviously the highlight! For #2's cover, the autumn leaves motif returns, but this time featuring Jason!! Apparently, Damian isn’t the only one to go through a “season of change” in this series, as Jason takes his own steps forward by the end of this story 🥺 also the literal layers on Jason - his angry Red Hood helmet and the beaten down Robin head...

The issue opens with Joe the robber and his hostage "Merle"! The glasses feels like a giveaway that this is Carrie(??) narrating Damian's story, so the final issue could end with her perspective for where Damian currently is in his journey as Robin and where she plays a part.

Jason as the "hunter" of this fairytale is such a cool concept, especially upon his introduction pages!! He's surrounded by his recent "prey" with a nice contrast of their fancy jackets, pinstripe pants, and dress shoes to Jason's own tattered hoodie, pants, and sneakers.

Just like the past issue (or just Ba's work in general lol), THE BACKGROUNDS ARE SO LOVINGLY DRAWN. Makes Jason's stroll through inner Gotham so enjoyable from the bustling activity of the people, shop signs, and advertising to the quieter area of the cemetery. It's so lived in, especially feels like each citizen in the bg has a story to tell!

some bits of interest to me: is that scaly lil arm reaching for the rat supposed to be Croc LOL; just neat visual of old Joker posters leering over Jason; the name of the cemetery a nod to Kevin Conroy? and from T. Wayne - Thomas Wayne?

Despite showing how much of an intimidating and hardened exterior the Red Hood has, there's plenty of suggestion that he has soft edges! from his act of revenge for a beloved member of the community, his familiarity with the people even greeting him, and down to his chocobar...

might be my overthinking but the layers of that close up shot of the chocobar really got me 😭 it's like such a piece of innocence when seen in his scarred hand, especially when "Wayne Sweets" is visible - is it more emphasis of Jason clinging to a safer time and Bruce Wayne himself?? or is this brand just his favorite lil treat

EITHER WAY, incredibly funny to me Jason seems to hide it once Damian shows up

Seeing Ba's storyboards has me even more curious about his process with O'Halloran - like, it's a small detail but the traffic light in the foreground being red! added emphasis on the red theme this issue, or a warning for these two to Stop heading into a trap? ANYWAY DAMIAN HESITANTLY ASKING ABOUT HIS MOTHER I'M THROWING UP AWWGH

also love critically acclaimed animated film "The Cheetah King" haha! ALTHOUGH, Jason's story does line up with Simba's - a lost prince that feels like he's failed his father. Even believed to be dead for a period of time lol

Rok the demon's design is so slick!! Seems to take after a peacock with how fanciful he is, plus his tail details in his other form! A dapper demon definitely ready for the gala!

A GLIMPSE OF BA'S HEAVIER ACTION ART!! THE POUNCE!! the Robins being entirely made up of motion lines, even the details for Jason's helmet; and i'm always a sucker for those light streaks from the eyes!! THE PUNCH!! the quick panel of Jason's fist before arcing into that POW!!

and i say a glimpse, because in just the two other books i've read from Ba so far, he draws so much more action. lil Monkey Meat promo BUT LOOK!! have i mentioned how much i love his sfx lettering...that "AAAH" getting motion lines when closer to the camera...crazy...

dropping another small element from one of his books, Djeliya! just a really cool visual of casting magic!!

I love this sequence leading up to the Joker vision! The shapely flames that dwindle into the shape of TEARS!! We don't get the extent of how deeply the Joker affected Jason until this moment and the man is terrified.

First thing Damian does after getting shot is insult Jason, DAMIAN IS SO FUNNY. Also absolutely love the wiggly woggly lines of EVERYTHING in this panel.

Considering what Damian said earlier: "We both know you'd rather not have to explain your failure to father if anything happens to me that you could have prevented." As if Jason didn't already feel like a failure before this!! of course he'd turn into jiggling jelly realizing what he's done.

After 27 pages of a narrow-eyed Red Hood, including an early tease of him about to take off the helmet for his snack, this full page of Jason unmasking himself is such a heavy reveal. Adding the aching piece of dialogue?? BRUTAL

Damian responds in kind to the vulnerability with his own confession and something Jason really needed to hear after burdening himself for so long with the idea of being a failure.

After Damian leaves, the camera pulls back to show The Door in the dark of the room. Damian quite literally presents Jason a window of opportunity to face his past, and it goes so hard. Just like the buildup of frowning mask-to-face reveal, Jason's few expressions have mostly looked sad. So the shadowed eyes before the glare of determination makes this quiet moment feel extra epic!! also reminiscent of the Red Hood mask he wears!!

Beyond the door of Jason's "past life" is complete darkness. Jason has been hoping for Batman to pull him out of it (as further suggested by the newspaper clippings), but in the final page, the door is leaking light!! Jason finds his own way forward :')

The first issue introduces the Robins with specific labels, and so far the narrative either delves deeper into those claims or challenges it. Damian is unimpressed by "kind and brave" Dick and even forms some kind of rivalry. By the end, Damian’s learned how those simple traits are essential to becoming the person and hero Dick has become and gains a newfound respect for him.

#2 deviates from #1 by following “brash and rageful” Jason's perspective! Damian is under pressure from the legacies of all the Robins before him, and even if he relates to Jason the most there's still tension. This time around, while Damian does learn what lies behind the mask, he's the one to impart some knowledge to his fellow Robin.

ending ramble with a panel of the small beans

"Look Damian, everything the light touches is our kingdom."

TBH this ramble took forever to start because after reading Djeliya and Monkey Meat, i was so floored by how much MORE Ba has to offer. Everything i raved about from the first issue of The Boy Wonder...Ba's done it all in his previous work and MORE SO?? on top of writing, whimsical paneling and lettering, fun action scenes, deliberate coloring, kickass character designs and worldbuilding... the man does it all?? 😭

Monkey Meat 🐒

Djeliya: A West African Fantasy Epic ✌️

Mobilis: My Life with Captain Nemo

The Unlikely Story of Felix and Macabber

i may save the last two books for after The Boy Wonder ends because imagining the end of the series makes me so sad LOLL orz i may cave just because Mobilis is a pleasantly giant book...praying for DC to give the collected edition of The Boy Wonder this treatment...his pages are brimming with energy they deserve to be blown up with an oversized printing 😭

[vaguely-concerned]

the idea this game posits that just as much as or even more so than lucanis is having a demon problem, spite is currently having a lucanis problem. is everything to me. spite voice bitch you live like this???

[circtheeunbroken]

Veilguard comes out tomorrow but I have Hawke/Varric brainrot, 10 years later. (i based a lot of their relationship on morticia and gomez so it was a no-brainer to have them dress up as the iconic duo) closeup below the cut

[bread-wizards]

Love Laudna wanting Orym to be the one to cut her down if need be because she feels he can make hard choices, and Travis like "uh hello? What about Chetney? You want to put Orym through that anguish? I am right here" like damn, he right tho

[blood-orange-juice]

Actually, while I was complaining about bad writing, Childe low-key saved the world. He bought Neuvilette and the Traveler enough time to figure out the whole shtick with the prophecy and the primordial sea.

(since, you know. narwhal accidentally the whole soup and was planning to depart and Teyvat can't keep existing without soup)

And no one talks about it.

[dariusaurs]

i think dinostar is such an interesting ship right now even if i've kind of turned away from it after this season. the problem is that it's complicated, and fandoms historically don't like nuanced situations or takes. i don't think it's fair to say darius is putting brooklynn on a pedestal, since from his perspective, she hasn't done anything wrong, and kenji has been framed as this unfair partner to her. it does feel like his feelings are very immature and more of an infatuation right now ("if he loved you half as much.."/"unless?"), especially when you compare them to kenji's own feelings for brooklynn - his girlfriend who he's loved for 6 years - but that isn't a horrible thing, it's just different. i do completely understand if people dislike the ship right now, and even criticize darius' way of handling the accidental confession, but i just think people have been way too harsh on all three of them without being willing to see that all of their perspectives are different

[russenoire]

on first watch as an anime-only, i remember feeling like ritsu kageyama's descent into evil in episode seven needed a little more air, more space to breathe. i... no longer do. if that slide down the slippery slope feels a bit sudden, there is a reason; and if you know what to look for, it's not actually all that sudden. bear with me here.

from the first episode, the anime sets ritsu up as shigeo's kind, solicitous younger brother. we don't see much of him for the first three episodes, but when we do, he's making bids for shigeo’s attention: helpfully straightening his spoon when it bends and deposits a bite of his dinner on the dining table; noting that he seems out of it and offering himself up as a confidant at least twice; checking in on him in the morning so they can both leave on time. (i actually love the anime for doing this. ritsu doesn't even show up as a character until maybe the middle of the manga's second volume?) except for the spoon, shigeo gently turns him down every time.

and yet. the interview ichi mezato snags with ritsu in episode four confirms a distance between the kageyama boys. you are not seeing things here. he initially refuses her desire for detailed information about shigeo’s powers, only indulging her to find out what shigeo’s been up to. ritsu holds those powers in such awe that he uses a rather hyperbolic phrase to describe shigeo for her: '世界の基本', or sekai no kihon, literally the standard for [his] world.

after he coldly walks out on her, she reviews what little she’s gleaned from their chilly meeting: he's hawt, at the top of his class, athletic, very popular... all things his older brother decidedly is not. the story establishes a duality here between ritsu’s image—indirectly revealed through mezato’s notes—and the reality of ritsu, sat hunched across from her, sullen, barely tolerating her until she coughed up the information she promised him. later on that evening, we see just how deep ritsu's awe goes... or rather, how snared up it is in resentment and envy as he attempts in vain to bend a spoon, just like shigeo did when they were younger. all the trophies of others’ esteem already gathering dust on his shelves don’t mean shit if he can’t have this.

ritsu intercepts shigeo as he leaves for class the next morning: no student council meeting, so an opportunity to actually talk to him. this is rare, his brother notes. and of course dimple is haunting shigeo. when the specter comments on their apparent closeness, the boy side-eyes him hard. this can easily be read two ways: ‘why the hell are you talking to me when no one else can see you?’ and ‘man, fuck you for sticking the knife in deeper.’ ritsu doesn’t ask about the cult meeting here or ever in the entire series. was he really all that interested in mezato’s news? no, he only wants to know why his brother doesn’t use his powers anymore. and this is the first time they’ve talked about this.

it’s such a neat little mystery, these breadcrumbs the story leaves for us until ritsu’s formal introduction in episode six. even though they share the same home and appear to be on friendly terms, the kageyama brothers may as well live on opposite sides of the planet. we don’t even get a sense of why this state of affairs exists until episode five, where teru chokes the breath out of shigeo and his pissed-off soul levels teru’s school before catapulting him into the stratosphere to reflect on his sins: several years prior, shigeo nearly killed ritsu (and possibly ended three much older boys) in an accident neither boy understands; fragments of memory flash before his eyes as his consciousness shorts out.

‘brother, you’re home late, sopping wet. here’s a towel. are you hungry? you seem down; is everything OK? if you need to talk, i’m here for you.’

instead of turning down this bid for connection like all the rest and turning inward again, shigeo actually opens up. he apologizes for the accident—for the first time—then asks for some clarity, since his memories of it are broken. and ritsu clenches the knob to his brother’s bedroom door tighter. he lies to his face, tells him to ‘get over it already.’ this after asking shigeo to confide in him again, no less: too terrified to be honest with him, too used to being shot down. this boy is soaking in fear he has no context for, and he heads downstairs to soak in it alone. shigeo at least has reigen to process his own fears with, though he never trusts the man enough to take full advantage.

ritsu has no one.

he’s already keeping up appearances at home and has been for years; over the course of the spring cleaning big cleanup arc, we learn the extent to which he’s been doing so at school.

(all those expectations of him weighing him down for so long… he can’t hold out forever.)

student council vice president tokugawa calls him out on trying to melt into the scenery like his brother; his considerable gifts make that impossible. said gifts, however, are so ego-dystonic for him that they’re yet another part of Ritsu Kageyama’s Big Lie. the academically-gifted, popular sprinter so many of his fellow students swoon over isn’t real: why does everyone praise him for things anyone could do? he doesn’t actually have friends, just associates. who cares about charisma? why does everyone think he’s perfect when the only thing he truly wants will never be his? and why does his locker leak chocolate every valentine’s day?

gentle reader. are you still wondering why he snaps when he finally gets his wish? and why it looks the way it does?

[somedreamlove]

I’m actually so excited that dream is making his own music for his videos. he gets to combine his passion for videos with his passion for music—meld together these two creative loves of his life and make his unique videos even more his own 💚

[gaywarcriminals]

You know, as a fanfic reader I often prefer fics with multiple POVs (seeing the full story and delighting in the knowing what the characters do not, their struggles less harsh because you know the inevitable), so when I actually started writing fics I expected to follow suit. What I have since discovered is that actually one of the most fun parts of writing is trying to convey how other characters are thinking and feeling through the distorted lens of your POV character. I hope the audience can tell what's going on even when the characters themselves cannot, and that's all the more delightful for having to put that information together over the head of the narrator.