#I'm super excited when this comes out.

[l0ganberry]

Where he drinks from the coffee pot, I think he thought that was HIS own coffee cup.

Look at the way if fits perfectly with his gloved hands. He probably never had a perfectly sized "cup" to himself that can even fit his big hands!

[leonardburton]

the thing is. juno & nureyev's relationship has been such a major guiding thread throughout the podcast and the major drive of season 5, and the fandom has built itself so much (as fandoms often do) around shipping the two of them.

and yet nureyev doesn't show up at all in the last episode! or, he does, but it's only implied (for all we know it could be like. alessandra strong)(i know it's not but it would be really funny) and we don't hear his voice.

and it's so important to me that despite the room that their romance has taken in the plot and in our hearts, his absence reinforces that the point of juno steel's story wasn't a lady getting his man, it was about learning to grow as person for himself and for his friends (and not just his love interest), and it was about finding his footing in life and being at peace with himself and his place in the world. and he did! his growth and relative serenity is so apparent and just. a balm to the soul

and the fact that his man is back is just a nice add-on, not a necessity for his happiness

[zhongrin]

I FINALLY MOVED OUT TO A NEW PLACE!!!

i'm absolutely exhausted and i still need to unpack so many things and i still need to buy a proper desk and restock my groceries & supplies and a do a whole lot of other things BUT i'm hoping to get settled in soon so i can get back to the creative endeavors™️✨

love yall, stay safe, take care, and good vibes 🫶🏻

[2hoothoots]

i was having a chuckle to myself last night about Gristol, and how his plans are basically:

Restore Ford Cruller's memory

Find Maligula

???

Profit

but then... of course they are, right? this is Gristol we're talking about. Fatherland Follies drives home again and again that he's still operating on a child's logic, a warped and reductive version of the world that he never bothered to grow out of. both of his memory vaults center on the images of his childhood, this idealized version of the past that he clings to no matter what. and that's still how he remembers Maligula, too - as this saviour figure, who rushes in to help him when he's in trouble.

[ID: Two slides from Gristol's memory vault, Glory to Grulovia! Left: Gristol clings to Maligula's back as she summons waves to sweep away his assailants. Right: Gristol and Maligula waving from a balcony as the people cheer. Gzar Theodore brandishes a dagger in the background.]

like so much else, Maligula represents a return to this idyllic childhood - to the peace and simplicity of his youth, when he was free from worries and responsibilities. in his mind, he doesn't need to make any further plans - once Maligula's back, everything will go back to normal. Maligula will make everything better.

...is what i thought, but then i remembered this line:

[Screenshot source. ID: Gristol, in Truman's body, bows on his hands and knees in front of the newly-awaked Maligula. The caption reads: "Yes, High Priestess! I am here to correct the mistakes made by my father!"]

and that's kind of interesting, right?

to be clear: this happens directly after Maligula sees Helmut-in-Gristol's-body, and recognises him. her line before this is:

"Little Gzesaravich! Have you come to pay for your father's sins?"

my first thought was that Gristol hadn't expected to still be in Truman's body by the time he managed to find Maligula, and this was him trying to placate her and buy some time until he could explain the situation. but watching the cutscene back, that's clearly not what's happening here. Gristol is answering as himself, and his response of throwing himself to his knees before her is, as far as i can tell, genuine.

so what is going on here?

in Fatherland Follies, there's this line in the ride narration that stuck out to me:

"Why didn't the Gzar help Maligula in her time of need? No one knows, but historians agree - it is Gzar Theodore's biggest failure."

other lines mention Gzar Theodore's "mistake", and it's wording Gristol himself echoes in the screencap above. evidently, he believes that his father abandoned Maligula, leaving her to her fate at the hands of the Psychonauts, and it was that mistake that lead to them being driven out of the country - that mistake which he seeks to correct. maybe he even feels like he has a debt to repay to her for his family turning their backs on her all those years ago.

the 'High Priestess' thing, though - that's kinda weird, and threw me for a loop the first time i played the game. it took me until my second playthrough to connect the dots, and remember how the room in the Lady Luctopus - Gristol's room - was full of Delugionist scribblings and symbols.

[Screenshot source. ID: left, the walls of the hidden backroom in Gristol's hotel suite, covered in scrawlings of eyeballs and Maligula's name. Right, the pinboard from the hidden backroom. On its surface are photographs and newspaper clippings connected by pieces of string.]

i mean, look at this stuff! he had a whole conspiracy board and everything!

we learn very little about the Delugionists and their beliefs as a whole during the game, but i think drawing the connection here suggests two important things. one: that Gristol was in deep with this stuff. i don't know how he linked up with them - maybe via old family connections, or just good old-fashioned digging (we know he's skilled at worming his way into peoples' good graces, after all) - but it seems likely that he's begun to internalise their ideas, maybe even warping his own memories of events. and two: the Delugionists themselves are, if you'll pardon the pun, pretty far off the deep end.

like... i understand why PN2 didn't go heavy on the "mass-murderer cult worship" aspect of things, in the end, but man this is such a tantalising glimpse into the wider mythos around Maligula. Gristol is proud and haughty and thinks himself above everyone else; the fact that his first reaction seeing Maligula is to throw himself to the ground at her feet says so much about the way he's come to see her. he's not just trying to bring back Maligula, his childhood bodyguard. he's trying to bring back Maligula, the High Priestess of the deluge, the semi-mythical figure whose supporters believe even death couldn't stop. he doesn't even flinch at the way she confronts him, and maybe it's because he's bought in so completely to this deified figurehead, this idea of Maligula; more a living force of nature than a person. and it all comes back to the same place: an abdication of responsibility, not just to the person who protected him when he was little but to this avatar of floods and destruction. Maligula will make everything better.

i'd write more about my thoughts on the Delugionists but that'd be taking a hard turn into speculation, and this is already kind of long and rambling so i'd better end it here. but what an unexpected and evocative line, right? it's some of the only stuff we have to go off of regarding the Delugionists as a whole, but i think it does such a good job of hinting at the wider story - at teasing another layer to the mythos surrounding Maligula, one whose ripples we see throughout the game but which never quite breaches the surface.

[chloecherrysip]

Mario watching his and Luigi's commercial in Punch-Out Pizzeria

[pinktinselmonstrosity]

had a job interview today at a record shop and it went so well, he basically gave me the job, and then i checked my phone afterwards and i have an interview next week for an internship i really want!!

[mekanikaltrifle]

Making a few writeups for my new hunter shit while I wait for this stupid flat inspection (I don't technically need one, but there was an admin changeover and now they want to 'get to know the flat'). Juniper's still Juniper but I am trying to go for a slightly different feel... do lemme know if any of her enjoyers have thoughts :3 (i love you immediately if you enjoy a Juniper, and that's a guarantee)

[seekingthestars]

little floof has the best possible time at con, proceeds to spend the next month crying about it

[it-came-autumnally]

In retrospect it's really funny that the one thing I really honed in on during the first time I went through the Sky arc was Joshua's appearance (characters love to point out his mop of dark hair and amber eyes and I really really thought that it would relate to some important plot point somehow) but while replaying SC I found there's this one scene where it almost pays off (albeit, in a very silly way):

During the infiltration of the Ouroboros Lab, Anelace informs the party of how Joshua is also in the lab. If a player has been paying attention, they can probably guess that something about this feels off because Anelace mentions how she "recognized his clothes" but she has no reason to be familiar with the new look that he dons in this game yet (and there's no reason for Joshua to have switched back to his old outfit either).

But, if you're me, then you instead notice that she does not take the chance to mention his amber eyes. And, as we find out, there's a good reason for that!

...After all, this Joshua is fake, and has no amber eyes. Of course Anelace didn't see them; she couldn't have.

[suna1suna1]

Saying goodbye to 2023 with a tribute to the game that I fell in love with this year.

2023 was full of new things for me to fall in love with, most notable of those things being Lackadaisy, Murder Drones, and Hollow Knight.

Hollow Knight has become one of my favorite video games, even despite wanting to scream at the difficulty and how many times I've gotten stuck (currently stuck again rn btw lmao). But I wasn't expecting to fall head over heels for a game about magic bugs.

But it was these things that kind of helped me deal with all the other stuff in my life that wasn't going right.

I lost a friend early in the year

I fell out of love with one of my favorite Sonic ships

My school stopped offering the online classes I need to get my bachelor's

And there was a lot more besides. I spent a lot of this year burnt out and frustrated.

I'm hoping 2024 will be a little better, but I want to thank Team Cherry, who made my 2023 a little more fun. So here's Hornet, my favorite character (despite how many times I wanted to throw the controller at her lmao)

[joyfcll]

"No, I'm taking care of you today. No arguing."

talking to the caretaker ! / accepting !

𖤓°⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ oh ! well—! ... huh. it was almost sheepish, the way joy's smile instinctively curled across her features. with blue hair tousled in every which direction and her pajama sleeves rolled up to her forearms , clearly the emotion hadn't gotten much sleep. or any sleep. how could she ? there had been SO MANY EXCITING THINGS that happened during riley's road trip ! joy was practically still buzzing with excitement about all of it! and everybody knew that exciting things were meant to be thoroughly enjoyed and more importantly : SHARED ! especially with friends ! so joy had taken upon herself the task of figuring out how best to regale their friends with the trip's activities. after all , riley was going to head back to school right after the weekend after the trip ended , so that meant non-stop planning , feeling , experiencing , and , of course , smiling. you name it , joy had made certain they did it ! riley couldn't just go on a week long vacation and not have the most fun time of her whole life ! nuh uh. NO WAY ! all of riley's emotions had been in agreement about that , and so OPERATION GOOD TIMES AND SUNSHINE was put in play , and altogether a resounding success !

. . . BUT in all of the commotion , joy might have , possibly , just maybe overextended herself. just a bit . even now that the adventure was virtually over , it was still enough to make joy's fingers glitter with a deftly disguised jitter as she rifled through her doodles about their trip , each tacked onto a corkboard with shimmery string connecting the BEST ONES. ( evidently joy had meant to use her little display as a surprise presentation for the others come morning ... BUT NOW it was a surprise for one less of the crew. )

not that she was especially inclined to admit it.

❝ a w e , disgust ! you know , that is so sweet , really , but i'm good , i promise ! ❞ joy chimed , turning back to the corkboard ( that she had so hastily tried to cover up with herself ) and pinning another doodle in place. it took a couple of tries for her to pin it in the right spot. ❝ why don't you get back to dream duty instead? i'll be so quiet you won't even know i'm awake ! ❞

[mars-ipan]

visual of my dangan infodumps (i am going to talk about one scene for 30 minutes)

[swashbucklery]

Hey question, if I, a grouchy lesbian with extremely specific tastes, have almost zero interest in male characters unless they’re 1) sensitive gay artistes or 2) very tender and gentle unproblematic nerds, will I actually like playing God of War?

I’m curious about Ragnarok because I’m craving a big open world that doesn’t have SKITTERING HORRORS in it (see: Elden Ring, Bloodborne) and a lot of reviews recommend playing the original God of War first but also the reviewers are all clearly men who are deeply moved by a story about being a shitty father and then learning to be a good one (?) and I think I. . .don’t care?

[tracybirds]

not to project too hard onto a fictional character but at what point did it just become so standard for John to get high grades in academics that his family stopped acknowledging it because that was the norm

[superfluouskeys]

godddddd wasting time and energy on things that don't fucking matter has got to be THE worst feeling

[the-mighty-glow-cloud]

😌- comfort podcast

👻- a podcast that scares you

comfort podcast: two way tie between wolf 359 and wrong station! i have only listened to w359 one time but i am CONSTANTLY thinking about it and it is so so good. i love you doug eiffel i love you daniel jacobi i love you renee minkowski. on the other hand i have been a religious listener of wrong station for like four years and it has some of my favorite horror podcast episodes of all time (everyone please listen to episodes 10 and 61, they are so so very good. also listen to episodes 92-94: the hunting of the lathe worm). the choice is impossible

podcast that scares me: oooooo it's another tie i'm afraid. this time between the white vault and the silt verses. the white vault gets me with the sheer unknowability of its horror; there's some explanation in the last season but the core of it remains along the lines of "we know this horrific incomprehensible thing exists and we can't fix it, only make it marginally less bad" and i am HERE for that. inevitable and unrelenting forces of nature my beloveds. and then the silt verses is just. so phenomenal in so many ways. there is so much i could say about it but i think the best example of the way it scares me is the scene in ep 27 when paige and hayward drive through the carnage of their god's birth. that is one of the only podcast scenes that has ever dropped my jaw and made me physically stop in my tracks (closely followed by the watcher in the wings episode and the cave echo angel episode). the horror in the silt verses is so visceral and it does an incredible job of making such a fantastical setting feel so real. i can not WAIT for more (i also stole the entire "there can be a god for anything as long as enough people believe hard enough and make a good enough sacrifice" for my homebrew d&d setting and for that i am eternally grateful)