#Jeffu talk

[bainhardt]

watching Shrinking because it's been a long time since I've seen Jason Segel. I thought the theme song sounds like The Postal Service but it's not

[cryptids-and-muses]

Post canon homestuck crew play Dungeons and Dragons

Karkat and terezi

Co dms

Unstoppable when actually working together

Terezi will get sidetracked messing with karkat

Karkat trying to write a deep and well fleshed out campaign that’s thematically resonant vs terezi’s desire for chaos and traps and trying to “trick” her players FIGHT

Terezi believes in karma and will make the world bend to this

Karkat is trying to set up romance arcs and argues about how it adds to the theming

Dave draws them fanart of their characters. Terezi loves it while karkat argues about accuracy before admitting yes he also appreciates it

Calliope also does fanart and karkat praises her skill and accuracy unlike some people

John

Arcane trickster rogue

Forest gnome

Just a goofy little guy!

Mostly just playing to have fun, starts off with a fun but simple character who develops over time

Ends up SUPER invested and taking this so so seriously

Karkat worked a dramatic reveal into the, in his words, “bare ass bones two paragraphs that a fucking wiggler could have written backstory” and John did not see it coming and loved it

Goes head to head with terezi a lot on her various traps she designs for them. She is getting more and more absurd with it. Karkat had to talk to her about breaking the world building with things she’s introducing. He is the only rogue. Send help.

Rose

Drow warlock

Tries to justify picking drow as anything other than she just thought it was cool

Nearly went old ones for patron but settled on archfey for story reasons

Has a 10 page lore document detailing her tragic past and her toxic relationship with her patron

It became 15 pages after going back and forth with karkat for a bit and adding even more

Only her and one other person are taking the romance arcs seriously and they become karkat’s favorite players

Tries playing morally ambiguous but terezi can be annoying about that and claims it’s just “the consequences of her actions”

Her and karkat both get very very into the scenes between her and her patron, the drama! The acting! Dave is uncomfortable and karkat brushes it off, it’s not like him role playing as his sister’s abusive girlfriend is weird. It’s in fact very important to the plot Dave

Has written fanfic of the campaign

Jade

Dragonborn barbarian

Path of the beast

Don’t ask me I just know

Her GLEE when she says “I’m gonna rage :D”

ANIMAL COMPANION! She nearly went ranger just for that but knew she wouldn’t have as much fun. Found a way to get one anyway.

It was harder naming her animal companion than her character

Having fun and likes the problem solving side of things, but likes breaking things with her massive strength just as much

Terezi likes to throw stuff at her, both traps and encounters, and finds it funny if she can just wreck her way through

“See John that’s how you deal with a pressure plate trap”

Takes the rp side of things very seriously

Once argued with Karkat over if her favorite npc would do that and cursed him out

Has read roses fanfic of the campaign

Dave

Plays a teifling with grey skin and orange horns

“What are you talking about karkat this is just my dude, don’t you like him?”

Hellus Jeffus

He’s a valor bard, eventually multiclasses paladin

Starts out just trying to mess with people but like John starts getting into it, though he tries to down play it

Have hellus more of himself than he realized and it’s making him face things about himself

Eventually hellus self sacrifices to save the party in this deeply intense moment. There were tears, Dave was wrecked, they went on a whole quest to revive him. It was touching and karkat is smug

Dave might have worked through some things

Jane

Halfling cleric

Her and John are small buddies!!!

Started out life but wasn’t having a lot of fun with it so with terezi’s permission switched to war or tempest with later s few levels in fighter

Her John and Jade are the biggest front liners, John’s character ends up really close with both of them as it’s easier for the rogue to bond with the person giving them sneak attack

Jade and jane’s character have an in game arm wrestling match

Took a bit to get into the rp side of things but eventually got the hang of it

Roxy

Tabaxi, easily, it’s so obvious

After much deliberation settles on glamour bard (though wizard and rogue were tempting for the joke, she wanted to branch out)

So many horny bard jokes but very little actual follow through, karkat gets frustrated by this as she’s all this talk but isn’t pursuing any of the romance options he’s giving her

She has SECRETS! She is HIDING THINGS!! Her cheery persona is a FASADE!!!

Cue complaining to karkat about how hard it is to wait to tell the others about her secrets and him threatening violence if she tells anyone before the in game reveal

She tells jake

Lots of egging on Dave and helping him with his fucking around

The BOND between her and Dave!!! They are the duo to end all duos. Team rocket type shit. There is nothing stronger than the bond between the bards of the party. My theory is it has to do with trading bardic inspiration.

Dirk

Half elf Druid circle of spores

Wildfire seemed fun to him but wasn’t as good

Wasn’t originally planning on being a Druid but after going over all the classes he liked all the customization and decisions that go into Druid like prepared spells and such

Didn’t really think about his backstory much, just improved something. He keeps improving new additions and it’s getting more and more elaborate and complicated. He has multiple hidden and long lost siblings by this point. Still doesn’t write any of this down. If he messes a detail up he justified it with more improv.

Yes his character has spiked up red hair and sunglasses. Don’t question how the Druid got sunglasses karkat.

Really likes the tactics side of things, he’s even pitched a few things to terezi she updated and later worked in

Sometimes works on plans and strategies out of game or making a million back up characters that play off the others in interesting mechanical ways

Is considering becoming a dm some time

Jake

Needed some help making his character, he just didn’t know where to start

Eventually after much discussion settles on a teifling bladesong wizard

Wanting to get away from his usual adventurer style Roxy helped with the backstory and they came up with this evil scientist raised in a cult who’s good hearted but was never taught right and wrong

He gets very into playing him and his moral struggle but can lean a little too good for his backstory, karkat points this out and Jake swears to get better at it

Dave pitched a lot of names for them and it was eventually settled on “Bernard Gunn” even though he has a sword. Jake just likes how it sounds

“Why is he blue jake?” “…..uhhh” “why is he blue?”

Calliope

SHE LOVES THIS SO MUCH

Teifling Druid with a focus on healing

Circle of shepards

Not a troll color pallet like Dave though, honestly it might get a bit trickster

Beautiful backstory that she coordinated with one of the others to make joint. The most obvious choice is Roxy but I think it was actually jade, Jane or John.

She gets so into it you guys, like so into it

Gives at least one dramatic speech completely on the fly

The other character who takes karkat’s romance arcs seriously and his other favorite player

Has also argued with terezi about world building and consistency. This may put her above rose in karkat’s eyes

Was also allowed to read rose’s fanfiction and offered full on reviews

Also considering going into doing but for the opposite reasons to Dirk

Vriska

Fairy artillerist artificer with a dip in war magic wizard

Min maxxed to hell and back

(Technically there was a better race, but fairy has its own advantages and she couldn’t resist)

An elaborate backstory too with some secrets of her own, I’m thinking full on lost princess

Yes she is That Player, you know the one

Has nearly been kicked multiple times and now won’t leave on principle

Not the best at sticking with the party and not just doing whatever she wants, but suprisingly Dirk has been able to talk her into it with his talk of tactics and playing smart

Second most effective is John who just looks at her like “vriska you’re not making this very fun :(“

Kanaya

Fire genasi ranger

Really tried to get into it but this just isn’t her thing so eventually decided to leave the group

Karkat came up with a fun story reason for her to leave and eventually brought her character back as an Npc

Did help rose make a cosplay of her character, after which John, Calliope, and Roxy wanted to make ones too

Vriska eventually tried to “manipulate” into helping her make one for her character

[saturfied]

jeffs 17 cats after the mens folio photoshoot- 💅🏻

they also want to show their, probably clipped nails just in solidarity and in fun for their big sweet lovely meow meow, yes i am talking about jeffu

[dabihaul666]

no weeb i just wish i could cuss ppl out in jp and talk to qina and also that anticult/rightwing coverer mr jeffu and spot anti-lgbtq bullshit in every language but also literally u call urself rotten and vulgar and draw a gay fictional character ship and there's been onnagata since the 1600s OR LONGER in ur culture and there's fucking shitty stereotypes about okama in ONE PIECE and ur out here seeing fuck trans ppl theyre not real and people being gay in public or god forbid anyone mentioning anything other than cis hetero marriage with child is turning children gay and trans i hope u get the shinzo abe doohicky next!!!!!

[bainhardt]

last year I marathoned all the Saw movies. was thinking about marathoning the Purge movies this time but the first movie was really forgettable, so idk

anyway, the thing that stood out to me the most in the movie was their fridge with two bottles of ketchup

[bainhardt]

oh yeah earlier this week I watched Bones and All and I didn’t intend to hyperfocus on only one particular detail coming away from a movie I enjoyed pretty well overall but if the movie suggests his father was his first “bones and all” then that kid definitely ate his dad’s dick and balls and everything right? wouldn’t that have to be what that means? did the director or scriptwriter or anybody realize that was in the movie? did he do that on purpose? write a kid who eats his own biological father’s dick and balls?

[bainhardt]

Youtube making the perfect playlist to ensure nobody ever speaks to me again

[bainhardt]

by which I mean I keep trying to grind repeats for my PB time on a stage in CHAIRS and I haven't been able to get it again so I don't even know what I must have done right the one time

[bainhardt]

speedrunning is like that episode of Rocket Power where Otto does a trick because his neighbor's lawn mower shoots a tennis ball at his skateboard midair and he keeps wanting to try the trick again even though Squid's computer simulation tells him it's mathematically impossible

[bainhardt]

watched I Saw the TV Glow last night and had like a 2 hour existential crisis so I think that means it's effective as a horror film

[bainhardt]

I had a couple good years of posting about games on Twitter... Castlevania, Pokemon, Digimon, etc, but now I regret having ever strayed from tumblr.

I think the only thing that fit better over there is my several hundred tweet thread about every episode of Yami Shibai. everything else would have been better preserved here. but oh well

[bainhardt]

man this SGDQ has been soooo good

[bainhardt]

this used to be a bookshelf blog goddammit

[bainhardt]

Watched Folding Ideas' video about James Rolfe tonight and I thought about it a lot. I don't know how well I'm able to articulate what it made me think. I've been on a long streak of piddling ideas away into oblivion but I still have a blog on this funny website so I figured might as well use it for a change. I guess even the contents of my comment didn't feel like everything I had to say in reflection.

In a broader sense, I realized after the video I find it really compelling to have seen by now more than a handful of videos "dissecting" various aspects of James Rolfe's career on Youtube, the broad and incalculable influence AVGN had on the platform and content on it. Whether he "fell off" (or was ever especially good in the first place), et cetera

Thinking about this one, I began to wonder if maybe the core problem, one not even about James but more highlighted by him, is that the internet confers fame and success in ways inconsistent with institutional expectation of those things

It's easy to determine that James is not a genius, not a visionary creative or some kind of prodigy. His body of work doesn't hold up to much rigorous critical scrutiny (although I still love a good chunk of it). It's even arguable whether he's especially hardworking or persistent because the nature of internet content is there are simultaneously too many and too few contemporaries to draw direct comparison with. There are no good standards to apply when trying. At bare minimum, it can be said that he appears to love what he does... or did at one point, depending on who you ask.

The thing is that whoever has succeeded in the age of the internet is totally random. And this feels like a wrongness, a violation of the maxim that what should succeed in the world of art is that which is good, or better yet, "great." Work that is thoughtfully crafted and purposefully designed. Work with meaning. Something at least superior to something else. But that isn't how the internet has shaped culture in the modern age. Anything can work. Oftentimes it's what you think shouldn't work. It's like we want it to follow rules and make sense, and it doesn't.

It's not a strictly internet issue either... I'm old enough to remember when I first heard backlash about people like Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian "being famous for being famous." Reality television schlock. The ever-present judgment that someone successful doesn't deserve it. But it feels like a gradual shift that has become louder in the era of post-2000s pop culture because of the internet. I guess it's possible there's actual analysis of this I'm not aware of. Potentially on an even longer scale of time. It sounds really interesting. The breakdown of the instincts that can assess not necessarily what should be "popular," but even just what will succeed at all. The way this feels alienating for a certain subset of people.

I don't know what to say about it on a grand scale. I don't think it's suddenly become wrong to employ critical techniques or try to assess whether works of art feel quality. But I can see a pattern of disappointment emerge in those who do so when applied to the broader cultural landscape of the internet. I definitely think the internet is the catalyst. It's like a new frontier where attempts to stratify standards are endlessly futile, frustrating, and bewildering for creatives.

[bainhardt]

I don't really know if I'm going to draw much but I figured I'd at least set up my tablet on my new PC.... just in case....

[bainhardt]

i've been listening to so much Ado on loop it's making me want to draw almost lol

as always it has nothing to do with inspiration coming from the music so much as just the idle activity of listening feels like it needs accompaniment

マザーマザー