#So infinite scrolling isn't even a thing for me you know? I ///always/// have to be caught up with my dash.

[kyouka-supremacy]

//

[thewebcomicsreview]

You know, it's always struck me as a little odd how little most webcomics actually attempt to adapt to their medium. There's basic strips, the old 2k era 4-square, the endless scroll of Webtoons, and a few weird experimental things like Homestuck, but most webcomics I run into tend to stubbornly stick to conventional portrait-oriented page layouts.

It's… readable, I guess, but that format doesn't seem to work very well for either desktop or mobile viewing. It wastes a lot of screen-space, and usually makes it impossible to actually view the full page without making the text too small to read.

Have you encountered any interesting webcomics that experiment with more landscape-oriented layouts? I'm kinda curious about how well that would work.

So, there's this dude Scott McCloud who wrote about comics in the 90s. His first book, Understanding Comics, is literally the book on comics, it's the one schools make kids read. This third book, Making Comics, is a pretty good practical advice guide I'd recommend, even if it's not his groundbreaking seminal work. In between those two books was one called Reinventing Comics

Reinventing Comics, written in 1993, was basically a book of predictions about how this newfangled Interweb was going to revolutionize the art of comics creation. Like a lot of early-90s stuff "Wow the internet!" stuff, it has a lot of inaccurate predictions, and thus isn't super well remembered (though, unlike a lot of early-90s predictions of the internet, it at least vaguely resembled reality).

Anyway, one of the big things from that book was the idea of the "infinite canvas".

Which was basically the idea that a comic didn't have to be constrained by the size of the screen because you could scroll it. And this was a big idea in early webcomics, you heard this phrase a lot. And you'd see infinite canvas techniques like "What if the characters are falling and the comic is really tall to sell that?"

(Read Narbonic)

Which is basically the one and only example that actually took off, because it turns out that scrolling horizontally sucks and no one really wants to do it except as a one-of gimmick (as Homestuck does). The much bigger impact of the internet was that a webcomic could be infinitely long and still reasonably expect it's readership to have read it all, but I think McCloud missed that one. So while there were a bunch of "landscape" webcomics where you scrolled horizontally, none of them took off, and even the ones that were well received are long gone.

Adams himself would make Zot!, which is a vertical scroll comic that had a bit of a gimmick with parallel story beats being literally parallel. I think he even did some branching paths, and experimented with comics that you could read in different directions or that looped back on themselves.

But then Homestuck just did that better because, as I mentioned, infinite depth ended up being a lot more impactful than infinite width. It turns out that making a comic really wide calls a lot of attention to itself and makes the comic annoying to read. And it doesn't mean you can't do it (Homestuck did it!), but it does mean it can't be the gimmick you hang your comic up on unless you've got a really good reason for doing it.

[littledata]

I know you’re probably working on those prompts, but I, too, just ended up on North Sea tiktok, and if you have time, I’m curious what Ava’s reaction to that particular algorithmic destination would be. Because like, Bea’s the most capable person ever, but those waves are Very Big, and why isn’t everyone tethered to the boat at all times??

(From the on that dizzy edge universe. An example video if anyone would like context.)

For a long time, Ava's TikTok experience was predictable. It mostly went: hot girl biting her lip, hot girl playing guitar, hot dude baking a cake, weirdly mesmerising crafting video, drama about people she'd never met, hot person kissing another hot person.

The number of straight-up thirst traps has been on the decline recently though - mostly because Ava just has to turn her head and Bea will be changing her shirt or using a hammer or standing perfectly still, all of which is a lot hotter than any video she's ever seen. In its infinite wisdom though, The Algorithm has seen her scrolling past those videos and decided it needs to fill the void with something else.

That thing, apparently, is North Sea TikTok.

They're lying in bed when it happens for the first time. Beatrice had spent the first few weeks after she came home insisting they should try to maintain separate bedrooms, move their relationship along at an orderly and appropriate pace, but she pretty quickly gave in to the allure of spooning and her bedroom defaulted to being both of theirs.

Now, before they go to sleep, they often end up lying side by side while Beatrice reads one of her insane books about lesbian necromancers or whatever and Ava scrolls TikTok or reads fanfiction about hot people falling in love in coffee shops and stuff. It makes her feel mature and settled and safe in a way that's sometimes so exciting she has to take Bea's book out of her hands and make out with her about it.

Anyway, so they're doing that (lying in bed, not making out) when it shows up on her for you page. It starts with the weird, slow sea shanty, then there's the huge waves, and then someone is getting slammed in the face with the fucking ocean.

Ava lets it loop. Then she lets it loop again. Then she taps on the suggested search north sea tiktok and she's presented with a thousand more videos exactly like the first. People falling overboard and huge waves crashing over ships and and and -

"Bea." Ava taps her arm insistently.

Bea looks up from her book without much concern - she doesn't use TikTok but she does submit to being shown Ava's curated favourites. Also, she's wearing glasses and she looks super cute.

No, Ava, don't get distracted.

"Bea," she repeats and holds her phone up to her face.

Beatrice watches with a scrutinising gaze. When the video finishes, she says, "They really shouldn't be filming in those situations, it's distracting them from proper safety precautions."

Ava stares at her. "That's all you have to say? They could have died."

"Possibly," Beatrice agrees. "Once someone falls overboard it's very difficult to recover them, although certainly not impossible. And it depends a lot on the kind of ship. I assume someone wouldn't post a video where someone died though."

Although Beatrice's naivety about what people are willing to post on the internet is adorable, Ava's mind is stuck somewhere in between the words overboard and impossible. Even Beatrice, careful and capable as she is, couldn't keep herself from being swept off her feet by some of those waves. Ava can picture her so vividly, disappearing under the surface.

"You're not making me feel better about this."

"Oh." Beatrice blinks in surprise as if she has only just realised that they aren't having a purely practical discussion. She puts her book carefully down on the nightstand. "I'm not sure what to say. I can't lie to you and pretend it isn't dangerous. Those are cherry-picked clips showing the worst though, it isn't always like that."

Which, yeah, okay, Ava already knew it was dangerous. For all the months that Beatrice is away she lives with the low-level, prickling anxiety that the next call she gets will be telling her Bea is hurt, or worse. It's different seeing it though, seeing how quick it is, how powerful -

"How often are you in the north sea?" she asks, as if that's the only problem with it.

Beatrice winces, "Well, it depends. The contracts I work - " She explains something complicated and lengthy about shipping and demand and the company she works for and Ava thinks she's the most interesting person in the world but this stuff is, also, a little bit boring and she's still pretty busy picturing her girlfriend's imminent death.

She needs to send these videos to Camila. If there's anyone she can rely on to overreact with her, it's Camila.

"Ava," Beatrice says, seeing that she's lost her. She tugs Ava's phone gently from her hands and puts it down next to her book. Then she wraps one arm around Ava's shoulders and the other around her waist and pulls her in close.

Ava has always loved being hugged by Bea, even before they got together - she's strong and solid and lets Ava hold on for as long as she needs to. (Also, she smells fucking amazing, like, all the time).

It wasn't until they started dating that she realised Beatrice had been holding something of herself back though, not letting herself relax entirely whenever they touched. Now, it's as if her whole body sinks into it, like some tension evaporates the moment Ava's arms are around her.

Ava pushes her face into Beatrice's chest and inhales, lets herself hide there in the fabric of her shirt for a moment. It's dark and warm and hard to worry about anything.

"I promise I do everything I possibly can to come home safe to you," Beatrice says into her ear, "I'm sorry I can't give you any more reassurance than that."

"Okay," Ava says, voice muffled against Beatrice's chest. It's not enough but it has to be enough. This is Bea's job, the thing she loves more than anything else, and Ava won't ever touch the sanctity of that. "I'm still going to worry about you."

"I know." Beatrice presses a kiss into her hair and pulls back, "I worry about you too though, when I'm gone."

Ava rolls her eyes, "The most dangerous thing that could happen to me is Lilith finally snapping and turning on everyone she loves."

"So fairly likely then?" Beatrice asks.

Ava snorts, "Like a 90% chance."

They settle themselves to go to sleep, lying down fully and adjusting the pillows and blankets. That's another thing Ava learned recently: Beatrice - her big, tough sailor - likes being the little spoon. She won't admit to that, obviously, but she sighs contentedly whenever Ava wraps her arms around her from behind.

So when Beatrice reaches up to switch the lamp off, Ava does just that, presses herself against Bea's back. She listens to Beatrice's breathing become slow and even, and she clings on.

[doodlemancy]

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhh

so here's the deal re: this fucking horseshit. god i hate this.

i, personally, have mostly given up on trying to dodge inclusion in AI datasets. the stuff i make generally isn't what they're looking for anyway and there's no real way to 100% avoid being scraped short of becoming entirely invisible online, which would um, lead to me having no money and dying. that's part of the cruelty of all this, but also, in a way, it's the same risk artists online have always taken; if you want people to see your work, you have to post it knowing that some of those people are fucking lowlife piece of shit scumbags who will try to resell it on redbubble or something for a quick buck. AI is just a new and exhausting way for garbagey people to stink worse. i am not in any way excusing that behavior or trying to imply people should not be mad about it or that we shouldn't condemn this move and fight back. "if you don't want your work stolen, don't put it online" is the kind of shitty Internet Tough Guy talk i've always hated since my dA days. it's as useless and heartless as telling people that if they don't want their bikes stolen, they shouldn't leave them at the bike rack. i'm saying that i, personally, will not let a bunch of soulless thieving shitheads drive me offline. i belong here. they belong in a wifi-proof dumpster.

nightshade and glaze eat my artwork alive. they make it look terrible. when you have to sell things on the basis that they look nice, it's a big problem when protective measures make them look like dogshit. my work is not a good candidate for these processes. even if that weren't the case, i don't have the stamina, especially right now while my chronic pain is flaring for the third month in a row and my adhd meds are scarce, to go back and shade/glaze everything, and it wouldn't work on reblogs anyway. given the way midjourney and its equally stinky siblings have already scraped years and terabytes' worth of image data from popular websites, it doesn't seem worth my time. if you think it is worth yours i am not going to like, yell at you. i am just one person. but i want to be clear about the kind of situations some of us are being forced into.

i think some of the doomsaying about AI and what it will do to us has been overblown-- they need you, for marketing purposes, to believe that someday their shitty robot will be as good at "drawing" and as practical to work with as a human-- but the consequences of "AI" (which is not even actually AI) are already real and visible and obvious to anyone paying attention. i unfortunately am not infinitely wise and powerful and therefore do not have an ideal all-encompassing solution to this deeply stupid problem that the Most Unlikeable Manbabies On Earth have imposed on us after NFTs fizzled out.

what i do have is a very large repository of nice anime and game screenshots i've taken, knowledge of many archives of nice public domain images, a computer that can run nightshade overnight or while i'm off doing other things, and, most importantly, near-infinite capacity for pettiness. i do kinda feel like the jury is still out on how well nightshade/glaze will work in the long run, but in the meantime, i suppose it wouldn't cost me a lot to... perhaps... every time i get Mad About AI™, channel that anger into dumping some thoroughly-but-not-spammily-tagged, high-quality, inconspicuous poison onto this godforsaken hellsite via a secret side blog. i could make a batch of poison ahead of time, keep it on my phone, use my Toilet Scrolling Time or my Public Transit Time to post and tag up an image here and there. it could be a fun challenge to try to make some pretty robot poison that some humans will still enjoy.

the other thing we need to poison at this point, IMO, is the word "AI" itself, by being loudly and mercilessly critical of any company that dabbles in it, the same way we all clowned on any company that pushed their luck with NFT/crypto shit a couple of years ago. we need to have every corporation terrified that association with AI will tank their sales and hurt their brand. AI must = number go down and lots of people screaming at you. companies will fuck around. we must provide the finding-out. we shouldn't have to. but we can!

so make sure to let tumblr know you hate this. maybe you could include this interesting link (tw child abuse) about how Stable Diffusion was trained on some extremely serious crime. or these screenshots of Midjourney devs just sort of admitting what their whole thing is, which i got here but which have kinda been spread all over since January.

spite and anger can be forms of hope. that's all i have to say, or at least all i'm willing to type with my left hand tonight.

[todayisafridaynight]

I largely keep to myself in fandoms, only picking up the odd friend here-and-there or joining a group chat if I'm feeling brave enough. But all of this Twitter talk is making me want to try engage with folks on the platform too! My only gripe isn't even surrounding the community, since you can curate your space like you said, it's the lack of organisation and the dreaded infinite scroll on pages. I adore Tumblr for how easy you can come back to a particular post you reblogged a long time ago, or venture through the tags on somebody's page... but it feels as though that's not possible on Twitter with how it operates. Are there any ways to get around this? 🤔

tl;dr - if you're trying to find a specific topic on someone's page, type 'topic (from:@Username)'

example: minedai (from:@Snapperoni)

if you're trying to save a post to look at later, you can either use twitter's own bookmark feature, or you can use your browser's bookmark feature

long ass unnecessary winded edition below the cut

twitter's less organized than tumblr since tumblr's meant for proper organizational blogging instead of status-update-type posts like twitter (even if its blog tag search system only decides to work depending on the phase of the moon on tumblr), so fundamentally its going to be a little more awkward with organization. there's some things you can do though, and it's not impossible: it's just a little extra work

in my experience it's a lot easier to just 'run into' new accounts and posts once your algorithm knows what you like and i prefer to use twitter that way for finding art or discussions im interested in. trusting the wind and all and the wind's done me well to show me excellent art.

you can help curate your algorithm by going into your Settings -> Privacy And Safety -> Content You See. you cant manually type in topics to add (you CAN save searches though if that's anything: it just means you dont have to type in the thing you want to search when you go to the search bar), but again once you start liking posts it'll start to recommend topics like 'Yakuza' that you can add. you can also remove topics you dont like once they show up in the list under Content You See -> Interests

another way around is to just search your interest (i.e. 'baseball') and just start liking/retweeting a bunch of posts and the algorithm will do the rest for your For You page. following accounts posting the topic you like also helps (obviouslylol)); searching terms on twitter is a fine way to see people post about a thing you like. its like tumblr in that it'll only show you posts that have the tagged word (i.e. 'minedai) in the actual post (i.e. 'if i think about minedai for more than three seconds im going to eat gravel')

at most for coming back to a post you like, you can use the bookmark feature: ive used it. A Lot. and True it gets harder to find older bookmarks as time goes on but for what it is it's been nifty for me. i dont exactly look at bookmarks any older than maybe a month at this point, so it doees its job fine for my needs. if you're on desktop and you really want to save a post without using twitter's bookmark feature, then you can always use your browser's own bookmark feature (i do that with tumblr posts sometimes. it's definitely easier to organize things that way but i also can see how it might appear cumbersome)

trying to find a specific post or type of post from someone's 50/50 though, like tumblr (because i repeat its tagging system is only so reliable sometimes). unless they use tags or you remember a particular phrase they put in the post (you can search specific terms, that including tags) then you just have to scroll i fear. other than that, if you search the term you want and the account youre trying to look through (i.e. minedai (from:@Snapperoni) then it should show up: if anything, twitter's more reliable in actually showing you the post you're looking for so long as you have the term typed correctly

and ermmmm yeah i think thats all i got LOL. best of luck to using twitter

[he1chouarts]

6 and 14

6. Does your OC know magic? Were they born with magical ability or did they train to acquire it? What is their favorite type of magic? Least favorite?

He does not know magic, but that doesn't stop him from a small fascination. I wouldn't say there was any innate potential to tap into, either. It's probably most accurate to say that he prioritizes high value items (ya know, to steal), and enchanted things, scrolls, etc., are always worth more. So, while he isn't particularly adept with magic, he has amassed a lovely collection of scrolls, rings, enchanted weapons, potions and the like that make his life more interesting and his "work" a bit easier. Also, as an avid reader, he's learned a lot about magic and the origin of magical items by happenstance. Knowledge comes in handy.

Veryn is keen on anything that might intrigue your average rogue, I guess. If you can get up to no good with it, he's there. Dimension Door, Misty Step, Invisibility...a piqued curiosity when it comes to druids and necromancers (he ended up with Danse Macabre, sorry Astarion)...

14. How important is friendship to your OC? Do they prefer to have one or two close friends or a large group of casual friends? Or do they prefer their own company over that of others?

Definitely important. Infinitely important, actually. A core feature of Veryn is fierce loyalty, but he will eventually get to the point where he expects it in kind. He might be slow to reveal his tender insides to even the closest acquaintances, but it doesn't mean he doesn't harbor intense feelings for those around him. I think it's likely an effort to fill the void left behind when he was cut off from his elvish ancestry.

Send me a number!

>>Previously answered<<

[limi-pie]

About the fic YuTae 'Longing or love'

A/N: Hey guys, I thought I should update on you all on what happened to part 2 of the YuTae fic.

I'm sorry that I'm a gaesaekki (asshole/jerk). I know that I said in the reply/comment that part 2 would come out soon but I'M A LIAR, PROCRASTINATER AND I'M SORRY. My bestie has told me that I should at least update you guys on what is going on - so that I don't keep you guys waiting or expecting something for too long! But something as updating and telling my readers what's going on is such an obstacle for me, because I don't really use social media that much aside from scrolling Tik Tok. 💀 Tik Tok addiction is too big, ngl.

Well the number one reason is I just really haven't been in mood to write tbh, even though I'm horny 24/7 and this fic is spicy.

Like I'm just a lazy piece of shit (me) when it comes to reading and correcting my fucking fics, I just hate it and I don't know how to explain this, I've made it a toxic habit to only write fictions before I head to bed, so when I read or write at evening I get sleeply. and associate writing fics with bed time. 💀

Then when I end up writing it's always somehow between 2-4 AM and I re-read it in the morning it's like gibberish and shit 💀

Like my English isn't English-ing 💀

Why do I always create this fucking evil circle of creating and starting new fics and then never updating them or continuing them? 💀 I'm giving myself the biggest bombastic side-eye and I be eyerolling myself so hard🙄 whenever I come across the thought of never updating or continuing any of my fanfics *coughs* TTORW, *coughs* LAB.

I get easily frustrated, overwhelmed and stressed when certain things don't go my way. I'm sighing so hard as I'm writing this ramble of a note or update. Like once I touch the keyboard I can't fucking shut up.

Second reason for not updating is the fact that I'm fighting for my damn love life and I can't move on! 🙄 My stupid crush from work won't take the fucking hint that I'm fucking into him, that fucking bastard. 🙄 Like I like and love him so much but ain't no way am I going to tell him or convey my feelings to him like that. He really thinks that flirting with me privately at work and calling me by my nickname isn't going to let me know that he's totally into me. (I'm so delulu and I know that. But please shut up.🙄)

He's playing hard to get, then he gets easily jealous when I'm joking around with my male colleagues and he is always on his damn phone that asshole! 🙄 Do I really have to make the first move and tell him that I'm into him? No way! Imagine if I did end up confessing he would reject me because he doesn't feel the same or just sees me as a close coworker.

UGH. FUCK LOVE. HONESTLY I'M TIRED, I SHOULD STAY SINGLE AND NOT BOTHER MYSELF WITH THIS COMPLICATED LOVE LIFE. I NEVER SIGNED UP FOR THIS SHIT. Anyways this song is too real and relatable to how I'm feeling about my stupid crush right now.

내 눈앞의 너를 보면 (When I see you before my eyes) 한없이 작아지는 걸 (I feel so infinitely small) 심장이 멎을 것만 같아 (As if my heart could stop any minute) 난 참을 수 없어 (I can’t stand it anymore)

This is all your fault.

Sorry for my random rant about my love life. If I'm being brutally honest, I think the main reason for my delay and procrastination of writing or continuing fanfictions is the fact that I only write fanfictions when I genuinely want to and have the actual energy to do so.🤷‍♀️

When I do write it is extremely important that I'm having fun or enjoy the time I'm writing. I hate it when my hobbies suddenly or slowly turn into obligations or chores that I 'must' complete.🕴

After all, writing fanfictions is a hidden passion and hobby to me, I don't write to gain popularity or to build a fanbase, I just like the idea of fantasizing, writing feelings, making unsual or exciting plots and and creating fake scenarios within the Kpop fandom. I post what I think would be a fun or entertaining piece of work to read through. I don't write and post fanfics to gain clout or expect 5K notes on each fic. (Not that it is wrong if you write fanfictions for that reason, to each their own💗)

I also like the idea of making Y/N more diverse or unique, as someone who is of South East Asian descent, I like making Y/N Asian or mixed Asian. I love creating chaotic, funny or relatable Y/N moments to my fellow pocs or even non-pocs.

Lastly, I want to say a huge thank you for reading my fanfictions despite the fact that I don't update them. I want to thank you for scrolling/skipping through my fics just to read your favorite parts or certain lines, even if it's for the small parts that you enjoy in my fics.

I highly appreciate the fact that people even come across my fictions. Even if you don't end up reading through the whole thing, I am super thankful for you just taking a look at it or even saving it in your drafts. Thank you for the likes, comments and support for my fanfictions. Thank you for your patience and kindness.💞 

Sorry for rambling, anyways I had to explain myself for delaying my fic and I have probably repeated myself multiple times, sorry. As soon as I've posted this author's note, I will take a look at (Lol aka longing or love) and try to check what I'm missing and try to write on it. Sometimes you just run out of inspiration and that's okay too, but I hate keeping people waiting so I'll look and work on it little by by little.

– Author L. out ✌️

[goonwithaface]

So close and so far. 'Cause you know what, I've fucking seen the seventy thousand faces, I've fucked Satan in his putrid fucking crusty melange stained bunghole, and what my only problem is I'm dealing with now is that I'm newly of drinking age with thankfully nothing to burn but my own rotting spit enzymes in a 15 minutes scrolling under the 70,000 teenagers reblogging this discovery channel narration. Think this freeform writing? I'm bleeding pus and shit from my teeth.

Daily. Pop 12 Benadryls in the middle of a thunderstorm watching Apocalypse Now. PCP. Blackout windows. Dig your own grave.

None of this shit's cursed, the loneliness is the only part that still gets me.

Tell me "Wonder why?" Tell me "Your own negativity" tell me so much that maybe you're just imagining that you're imagining things. If it's infinite enough to be dreamed from any healthy brain then singling me out for giving it a name is just culling.

I learned how to deal with hallucinations quickly and figured out voices recently and what I never learned to fix was dense motherfuckers. Dense fucking bastards and bitches and pieces of shit who got conditioned into commodifing life into a genre horror, preach diversity and acceptance calling Lovecraft a straight white faggot and moaning squirting all over his asexuality. That's reclamation, right? Rape porn is praxis and spamming vore is sex positivity. Fucking middle school narcissists, impressionable deuce vult irredentists, is what this bullshit is. I think H.P. lost both his parents to asylums if I remember correctly and Color Out of Space is something about losing a family.

If you want a less racist classic American 'cosmic horror' writer, revisit Mark Twain. Or Poe. I also think Kafka wrote very literally.

Call yourselves leftists, then recommend me the tranquilizers they "placated" black activists with. Take the money from the police and give it to ECT. Shit talk materialistic society, eugenics and nazis, then unironically turn around to tell me we live on a piece of meaningless minerals and humans can't understand anything because they evolved for nothing but hunting and killing on the motherland prairie. You all just sound depressed and not as good at writing as me. I will butcher a chicken over Carl Sagan's grave and smear its shit with my bare hands in his name. Look at that, you son of a bitch. Bury the rich, you blood fapping animal fascists.

This is madness This is madness boohoo fucking preach neurodiversity then call Philip K. Dick's episodes being a cis male white crybaby. I've been told off by jojo obsessed 40k gore furries for the same thing, they always bring up whatever marginalized identity they are when I call them out for harassing somebody. You know, I'm genderfluid. I've never come out or written about it because of fucking children descrbing it like a mental illness being the only face of it, and I'm an uglier one. Naturally I can't put this part of myself past the fact I'm insane--but have you ever met crazy ants?

Yellow ants, raspberry ants. Invasive things around where I am. Science has been struggling for decades to figure out why they chew up computers and freak out over metal for no apparent benefit--but haven't you ever licked a battery? It tastes great. Why isn't it alright for the little fuckers to just fucking enjoy things? Metal's pretty much my biggest fetish so I get it.

'Cursed knowledge'? It's more like fucking Buddhism. Go ahead and call me a hypocrite for being angry about this but you should see how much monks beat the absolute shit out of each other with sticks. I can't believe I managed to make it through all this without any ward visits or suicide attempts just to routinely run into this type of mind numbing shit.

'Cause I don't mean to piss on the parade, but it's not what people are saying, as much as the lack of people like me. The fucking irony.

I still don't even know how this fucking site works so sorry to all the OPs and reckless low blows I make since the posts aren't as bad as their reblogs but honestly all this nihilist wanking is juvenille and violating when you've lived it and to everybody else it's just some romance novel and viddie game.

Call me an ant to my fucking face. It's like the tone of voice some people have sometimes they just want to feel good about themselves or downright get off to turning characters into voiceless vegetables hearing things. Smug about how hopeless and edgy and grim everything can be and how nobody can know anything because of their pussy pinkie baby weak brain genes. That's just as obnoxious as the "oh no the monster now I'm crazy" shit to me.

Lovecraft was vulnerable and self-telling as fuck in his writing even if sometimes unintentionally and the real problem with cosmic horror today is that you're all too fucking sane and too fucking afraid.

People, especially games, get eldritch madness wrong a lot and it’s really such a shame.

An ant doesn’t start babbling when they see a circuit board. They find it strange, to them it is a landscape of strange angles and humming monoliths. They may be scared, but that is not madness.

Madness comes when the ant, for a moment, can see as a human does.

It understands those markings are words, symbols with meaning, like a pheromone but infinitely more complex. It can travel unimaginable distances, to lands unlike anything it has seen before. It knows of mirth, embarrassment, love, concepts unimaginable before this moment, and then…

It’s an ant again.

Echoes of things it cannot comprehend swirl around its mind. It cannot make use of this knowledge, but it still remembers. How is it supposed to return to its life? The more the ant saw the harder it is for it to forget. It needs to see it again, understand again. It will do anything to show others, to show itself, nothing else in this tiny world matters.

This is madness.

[ditchwizardry]

Recruiting Apprentices, Part One

"No," Merrlott gasped. "This isn't possible! We were just playing a game!"

I let out a deep belly-laugh. "Of course it's impossible! A wizard did it! With magic!" I snorted and took a few breaths, then continued with glee. "It was me! I'm the wizard!"

He turned his sparsely bearded face towards me, his eyes going wide. "Oh my god, you're a weirdo pervert and you groomed us!" He was getting agitated, now. "Where's Ethan?!"

I sighed. This kind of accusation always hurts, but the sorcerers and sun-priests out there enchanting kids make it very awkward to be an ancient wizard recruiting apprentices on the cusp of their inheritance of cosmic power. The optics were horrible and I hate being cornered like that.

I summoned a fig-sized grizzly bear made of flames in my palm, allowed it to rear up and roar, and then I squished it away in a pop of sparks. "I am no such thing. 'Ethan,' if you insist on using his ridiculous Earth name, is trapped in 'HølDÿg' on this personal computhingy as I said. He's been there for about a week by now, since we've been having this exhausting conversation at Earth-time."

He gawped at me. The electrum molar reveled in that selection for my own internal monologue.

"So, if you wish to rescue Zynnfandel, my young Merrlott, you had best trust that I'm going to continue being both a competent and ethical guardian in both the Earth sense and as a wielder of the Ancient Light of Creation and the Entropic Tendrils of Infinite Chaos."

"Jesus fucking Christ," he forced out through his ever congested sinuses. "Maybe you drugged me and I hallucinated that  --" he began.

"-- It would have looked way less cool than that," I interrupted. "My igniphasms are way better than any Earth human's imagination, even with a plant or fungus doing all the heavy lifting. Maybe if I'd given you a lethal dose of Dream Venom from an Elder Mirkbat, but you'd be in an unimaginable amount of pain right now as well. And, usually, the hallucinatory flame creatures are clawing at you."

He just stared at me.

"Good," I said. "Now come on. Put your hands on the keyboard and begin the ritual as performed on your far braver friend who languishes among the simulated volumetric pixels as we speak." I began to recite from the Codex of Manuel, paraphrasing and synthesizing the author's meaning into terms the young fellow could understand. "First, you must enter your truename, 'Merrlott,' into the 'user name' field upon yon scroll. Heed this warning: update thy java or you will know horrors beyond mortal comprehension."

[wispforever]

📂 gotta get your madara takes

he doesn't use labels, but madara's got no fucken gender. he's like that meme where you ask the villain what's in their pants and they're like "doom"

I like to think that after izuna dies, madara talks to him a lot while he's doing everyday things. He'll ask izuna what he should have for breakfast or if it's time to dust around the house. He says goodnight and good morning to izuna, tells him about hashi, basically just airs out his thoughts and feels better knowing that izuna is informed. He doesn't intend to do this where anyone can hear, but hashirama knows about it

madara and hashirama's friendship is autistic solidarity

During the time madara sits in the cave hooked up to the gedo statue, the time he spends sleeping, he's actually spending time in the smaller version of the infinite tsukuyomi genjutsu he showed obito (I'm writing a fic about this)

hashirama comes over to madara's house often to tend to his neglected plants. he thinks madara is bad at taking care of them, but really madara leaves them unwatered so hashirama will continue to visit, and he enjoys hearing hashirama's advice for keeping each of the different plants happy

madara doesn't feel a strong attachment to his clan lineage unlike most of the other members of the uchiha

he and mito were friends and they talked about hashirama ALL the time

hashirama and madara both have never cut their hair because they have a long-standing bet over whose can grow the longest

madara's totally got imposter syndrome and profound self esteem issues (i could write a fucking essay on this. ANYONE can fight me)

while he was staying in the leaf village, madara kept things with tobirama civil despite his deep resentment toward him for killing izuna. to respect hashirama was to respect his family, and he believed that if the roles were reveresed, hashirama would have honored izuna

hashirama and madara wrestle all the fucking time for fun and tobirama gets pissed because they're like "it's fine it's fine we're just playing" but then someone gets thrown through a wall. mito's always chasing them outside like "not on my fucking scrolls get out in the grass you crazy bastards"

madara's real laugh is obnoxious. he snorts and wheezes and carries on, but only hashirama can get him to laugh that way

no one knows it (cuz he's fucking gay), but madara is a total bitch for cliche romantic gestures. flowers? hand holding? old-timey slowdancing? it's hashi's fault. he's stupid and madara loves it. on a related note, madara's super power is being able to take any romantic gesture and perform the mental acrobatics necessary to explain it in a platonic context. this works for them because hashirama just thinks madara isn't ready to talk about their relationship out loud. But in reality hashirama is like "I love you" (I love him romantically) and madara is like "I love you too" (wow he is such a good friend, I better not ever let him know I'm gay for him I don't wanna ruin this). they're both idiots is what I'm saying

he engages in old man activities and does old man things when he's not out on missions. he reads quietly and sits in the sun, takes naps in the middle of the day, bird watches, goes for walks. my god he's depressed just let him be exhausted

he totally babysat tsunade and he did SUCH a good job. more responsible caregiver than hashirama could EVER be

Madara is the most patient human being on this entire goddamn planet. see had hashirama as a life long companion, did not kill tobirama who is a prick besides being the object of madara's undying hatred, actually tried to live in the leaf village despite the obvious discrimination, had zetsu as henchman for over a decade, did not bitch obito out Even Once, etc etc

[the-river-delta]

The other day on the Starfinder 2e subreddit there was a post where OP was talking about how they're not fond of how many SF2 feats and spells reference modern day pop culture things (with spells like doom scroll and vibe check, or feats like Master Troll and 360 No Scope), and how they find it jarring and think Paizo should tone it down somewhat.

(A take I myself largely agree with, even if things like the Soldier's Run, Cowards! feat does get a chuckle even out of me.)

And there was just so much pushback, all to the tune of "Starfinder isn't meant to be serious, it's a comedy game, it'd be so much more bland without this, you can always just rename/reflavor these at home, Doom Scroll is my favorite spell" and so on, with basically all the anti-comedic opinions (including one of my own) being downvoted to all hell.

And it's just so... I don't know, alienating is the only word I have for it.

Undeniably there's been a shift in terms of the tone of all of Paizo products over the years, but Starfinder specifically has also had a pretty significant staff turnover - there is next to no overlap in terms of the development team on the original SF1 Core Rulebook versus the SF2 Playtest Rulebook (and the SF2 Player Core by extension, presumably), and 4/5 of this current dev team all have a strong background in Starfinder's organized play, which has always been a little more, erhm, family-friendly.

(In contrast, Pathfinder has retained more of its lead authors over the years, like Jason Bulmahn, James Jacobs, and Erik Mona - meanwhile SF2 got completely Ship of Theseus'd!)

And like, SF1 was already conceived when Paizo was moving away from being as grim and edgy as PF1 was at its prime, but SF2 is kind of overdoing it in my opinion - and it stings to have that stance be pushed to the side by the "let me play a literal meme-priest and bring solarians and witchwarpers to PF2!!" crowd.

(Again not to mention being kinda left adrift by Paizo themselves, given the Infinite and CUP/FCP changes that are just kind of a sudden death for SF1 fans.)

The tragedy of the OGL and Starfinder 1e

The controversy regarding the Open Game License that Wizards of the Coast sparked in 2023 had many consequences big and small, from 5e's SRD being put into Creative Commons to the creation of the ORC license (and Pathfinder 2e's shift to it in the Remaster), but one of the more unfortunate and less-discussed casualties has been that of Starfinder 1st Edition, which as a huge fan of said game I wanna talk about in this probably overlong post.

The Starfinder Roleplaying Game - the strange science-fantasy spinoff of Pathfinder (itself a spinoff of 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons), supposedly developed and put out by its publisher Paizo to make up for the inevitable drop in sales that Pathfinder would experience upon the announcement of its new edition.

As something developed around 2016 and launched in 2017, at a time when the much simpler DnD 5e was on a meteoric rise, the largely Pathfinder- and in turn-3.5-shaped rules chassis of SFRPG could've come off as a little clunky or even downright archaic to a lot of people (not helped by problems such as the infamously awkward starship combat rules that needed emergency errata to mathematically function, continuing to be controversial throughout the game's lifespan).

I myself have gotten into TTRPGs at around that time, but remained somewhat unaware of Starfinder for a couple years - the announcement and eventual launch of Pathfinder Second Edition is what indirectly made me pay attention to Paizo and their games beyond a failed attempt at getting into Pathfinder purely as a crunchier 5e alternative, at the time divorced from the context of anything other than the humongous, nigh-incomprehensible mountain of rules and options that was impossible to navigate without the help of a more experienced friend.

Since that fateful 2018-19 however, Starfinder gripped me more and more in concept, presentation, and even the rules - though my actual play experience to this day is embarrassingly low as either a player or GM, I've legitimately come to love the tweaks it made to the already venerable PF1 ruleset to really make itself feel like a high-octane science-fantasy adventure game, and I fell greatly in love with the game's setting; Yes, it was and is the kind of sci-fi kitchen sink that tries to accommodate everything from cyberpunk and to military SF to space opera and soft sci-fi and Pathfinder-in-space-type science fantasy, but good art direction and writing made it all feel surprisingly coherent for such a big-tent premise.

Parallel to all this, I've played and run a great deal of games far beyond the d20 sphere, and slowly discovered what kind of roleplaying games I really enjoy playing and running - but all this time, Starfinder remained in the back of my mind, and I found great joy in perusing each new supplement - for the artwork, for the lore, for the rules and player options.

As Pathfinder 2e grew in popularity, there were a lot of people who wanted its science-fantasy sibling to also adopt the PF2 ruleset, with its sleek three-action economy and all other rules tech that its proponents loved so much, and at the time at least, Paizo denied having any such plans, choosing to keep Starfinder going as-is. I myself began as one of those "Starfinder 2e would be so good" people, but my enthusiasm for PF2 eventually waned somewhat, at the same time as my appreciation for SF1's ruleset grew, so I began to push back on the idea somewhat, or at least suggest caution.

And then, the Open Game License crisis rippled across the d20 portion of the TTRPG industry (that is, most of the visible and profitable part of it) - fearing legal reprisal from Wizards of the Coast, Paizo rapidly worked to distance Pathfinder from the OGL rules and concepts it was built on, Remastering the game and moving their work onto the newly-developed Open RPG Creative license.

At first, it was not clear what the plan was for Starfinder, even more entangled in the OGL than PF2 was, given its stronger PF1 and 3.5 roots.

Then, at GenCon 2023, Paizo announced Starfinder Second Edition, with a playtest launching a year later.

Sounds great, right? This is what the people have been asking for all this time!

Then, more details were revealed - Starfinder 2e would be wholly adopting PF2's ruleset, down to being able to freely mix ancestries, classes, equipments, spells, etc. from one to the other (something that 1st edition gestured at with some early guidance at converting PF1 stuff to SF1 bits, but was largely dropped and forgotten in the long run).

Between this and some other things, that's where my worries really began.

Part of what made Starfinder so appealing to me were the things that made it stand apart at the system level - the unique skill list (featuring things like Culture, Engineering, Physical Science and Life Science, Computers, Piloting, and Mysticism as a catch-all magic skill), the Health/Stamina/Resolve Points system (which vastly alleviated the need for a dedicated healer or long periods of downtime between encounters to heal up), the different weapon and armor proficiencies (like Longarms, Advanced Melee, and Powered Armor instead of simply the same old Martial Weapons or Medium Armor), magic simply being magic instead of an arcane/divine distinction (and only going up to 6 levels instead of 9 - though apparently that was a page space concern for the original core book more than anything), and a myriad other things.

And even though SF2 would benefit from things like the PF2 proficiency tiers, three action economy, and degrees of success, it would also be saddled with the things that first edition consciously did away with - so magic now is split up into one of the four traditions (arcane, divine, occult, primal), overriding some fun 1st edition lore about how modern society no longer differentiated between those. Even the skill list has been turned to be the same as that of PF2, with the merciful additions of Computers and Piloting - but things like Religion, Performance and Crafting are a thing now.

At least we're still paying in credits instead of silver and gold pieces.

There are other changes that frustrate or perplex me (like how technomancer and mechanic, two classes that were in 1st edition since the start but are being left out of the SF2 core and saved for later - though at least aren't being cut altogether, same with starship rules... or the fact that SF2 is doubling down on being silly and having a god of memes in the core pantheon and a skill feat for Trolling People With Your Online Posts), and many of these may seem like small-potato issues (the distinction between Kinetic Armor Class and Energy Armor Class was pretty minor in practice after all), but in aggregate all of these things made SF1 properly standalone and unique in a way I fear is being sacrificed for SF2 at the altar of compatibility with its biggest fantasy sibling Pathfinder.

Paizo's messaging on the subject has also been mixed - they say the game will be properly standalone after launch, yet they're also careful about designing each SF2 class as to not step on the toes of an extant PF2 class (because you can just bring in said PF2 class into your SF2 game instead, right?), resulting in something like the Soldier (which in many ways was a fighter in space in 1st edition, even though I'd argue it was a pretty baller implementation of the idea) being vastly reconceptualized to a rather mixed reception from SF1 fans; And in general, a lot of the current marketing about SF2 feels like it's been aimed at Pathfinder 2e fans first ("you can now play using your favorites ruleset IN SPACE, or bring in cool laser guns and solarians and freaky aliens into your Pathfinder game!") and at SF1 fans second (and even then, with a kind of implicit aim towards the "man I wish Starfinder just used the 2e ruleset" crowd of Starfinder players - look I was one of them at one point, I get it).

Even the big Starfinder 2e playtest actual play at GenCon couldn't have been a fully SF2 game, as it featured the iconic PF2 investigator in the adventuring party. Sure, it was just a marketing thing to do for fun at a convention, but it's not helping SF2 escape the "it's the sci-fi expansion to PF2" perception.

Some Paizo staff have said that Starfinder 2e was already being tinkered with even before the OGL crisis hit, but that the event kicked the development on it into high gear - causing two entire rulebooks and an adventure path for SF1 to be canned (even though one of them, the Faction Guide, already had freelancer assignments submitted in and even had the cover art ready to go; another was the Extraplanar Archive, which would've delved into what the wider multiverse of SF1 was up to, a book I personally wanted for the entire run of first edition, so while it wasn't worked on a lot at the time, knowing it fell through hurts me in particular as a fan of extraplanar science-fantasy stuff!) - I get it, Paizo is a business and that was a business decision, but it didn't feel good to hear either way.

Speaking of which, the week before GenCon, Paizo dropped a really frustrating bombshell onto the community: they had updated and revised their community licenses and policies, two of which have caused some serious uproar.

For one, to continue distancing themselves from the Open Game License, the Pathfinder and Starfinder Infinite programs (which allow community members to publish paid supplements for Paizo games that utilize their intellectual property, settng and proper nouns and all) would no longer be accepting OGL-based products for either PF1 or SF1 starting in September. PFI and SFI have problems of their own with the large cut and exclusivity involved (much in the way that D&D's and WotC's Dungeon Masters' Guild program does), but it still stings.

The other, arguably even worse news, was regarding the Paizo Community Use Policy (link to an archival version in case Paizo deletes the live version altogether) which allowed community members to use Paizo IP and imagery in noncommercial products and projects - it has been suddenly replaced by the Fan Content Policy (which in addition to being a worse, more corporate sounding name, is also exactly what WotC calls their own equivalent document).

The FCP is much more restrictive about what one can use it for compared to the old CUP - crucially, it's not applicable to "game products" such as, and I quote, an adventure module, sourcebook, character builder, rules database, video game, board game, etc.

While projects with bespoke Paizo licensing agreements like Archives of Nethys and the Foundry VTT module are unaffected, projects that relied on the CUP like Hephaistos (a beloved Starfinder 1e community tool, covering everything from creating characters to managing campaigns and encounters) have been forced to either cease development altogether (which would allow them to be grandfathered into the FCP, provided they would no longer receive any changes) or go back and be scrubbed of Paizo IP (which would be both time consuming and incredibly messy for a game where the OGL-published rules and Paizo-owned lore are so intertwined).

While a number of Paizo staff have said that they'd look into revising the policy to not completely screw the community over like that, it's already done a lot to damage people's trust in the company, further compounding the already strong sense of alienation many 1e fans have been feeling over the past year since SF2 has been announced.

I've played a good deal of PF2, and am currently in the process of preparing to run some SF2 playtest games, and I'm near-certain that Starfinder 2e will on the whole end up being a whole lot more popular than 1st edition ever was, both on its own merits and certainly as PF2's sci-fi spice cabinet - but there is a non-trivial subset of the existing SF1 community that is just bummed out about this whole thing. If nothing else, I now understand how many PF1 fans felt when the game went in a different direction from what they originally came to it for (even though I'd still argue it's good some of the more bigoted stuff was left by the wayside) - except now Starfinder 1e doesn't even have the benefit of easily continuing under a community banner, with the new Starfinder Inifnite and Fan Content policies.

I don't have a great way to wrap this up - there is only so much that feedback I submit regarding the SF2 playtest will accomplish (something I still intend to do, to at least help out testing the parts that are on the table for change and improvement), and getting anyone, at Paizo or otherwise, on board with the OGL again is likewise infeasible, so I doubt anyone is willing to create yet another OGL-based spinoff and repeat the 3.5-Pathfinder cycle.

SF1 will probably remain playable, but if the fan policy continues to impede the development of digital tools that the game so strongly benefitted from, its prospects of upkeep (let alone growth) seem far more grim now than they did three weeks ago.

So while new SF2 fans are feverishly arguing if the promised SF2 ranged meta can work with PF2's cover rules or whether it was a good idea for the 2e witchwarper to be merged with the 1e precog... I'm just more than a little bummed out about this uncomfortable limbo state that SF1 has been put in, a far less graceful death than PF1 received.

[axjdvsxf]

What are three things that inspire you?

thats a bit of a personal question. I am inspired by a lot of different things that surround me, so if you do have a couple of minutes to read and try to understand me more as a person rather than as a content creator, then do read on. If you don't have the time or you simply don't particularly care, then i advice you to scroll on, I'm sure youll find more and prettier pictures to look at in this infinite scrolling experience, perhaps you may find one of my reblogs appealing enough to reblog yourself.

I am inspired by myself, but not the self i am at this very moment, but rather the idea of who I, myself can and will become in the future. I wish to do so many things in my life that you see successful people doing, that you think, "if I only could do those things". I am aware that there's a process that has to take place in order for me to be able to get where I want to be, a hero's journey if you must.

But do not chuck up my dreams and aspirations as only material, dear reader. No. My dreams go beyond the material. Although, yes a nice place to live in a large city would be ideal for the kind of work and services I wish to provide in the future is the ideal, it is not an absolute necessity for me to achieve my dreams.

I dream of freedom, of understanding; I, dear reader, dream of knowing. Knowing what lies beyond what we understand today as mere humans. I dream of bringing knowledge to all who seek it. Of educating the masses so that they are not taken advantage of as our ancestors where. Knowledge, dear reader, is power and I don't want to add onto the history if holding that much power above people's heads.

I am inspired by what hasn't happened yet, but am certain it will happen one way or another.

I am also inspired by the promise of competition. A good adrenaline rush every now and then is healthy for a racing mind. I love to compete, it doesn't mean I always win, it doesn't even mean there's anything to win most of the times, but the satisfaction of feeling like you won something.

I like to compete against my classmates and friends on grades, we all know they don't determine anything other than on a scale of 1 to 100 how well did you understand, retained and rephrased the content you were taught. I like to fight them on a battle of knowledge that is on the grand scheme of things, as small and insignificant as a playground taunt.

I almost never win, I am aware of the fact that the people I compete against are more disciplined than me, smarter than me, better than me in more ways than one even. That doesn't mean I don't love each time the results are out. The adrenaline and anxiety I feel whenever I am waiting for my name to be called out and then a number. If fuels me to work harder and be better each time I have to prepare for an examination.

This inspiration brought by competition isn't limited to classroom games, it extends into public and even historic figures, almost like how many artists wish to be as good as their predecessors and the masters of their craft. I want to be better, I want to bring upon a revolution into a field of medicine that is going through one at this very moment. Technology advances so rapidly we cannot keep up with it. I wish to perfect it.

In a more frivolous side of my inspirations, I have to admit that aesthetics and the wish for recognition do inspire me to work better. As in, I will re do my notes and my desk and pretty much anything you see both on this blog and on my Instagram page, in order to make it more aesthetically pleasing and enjoyable and even relatable to the experience of other college students for their recognition. I know that this mindset might even become dangerous if left unchecked, and I am also aware that social media is fake in more than one way and I, by partaking in this behavior, am helping this notion be all the more real.

But seeing how much passion people put into their on platforms fills me with joy and even a little bit of envy; as I wish I could make my notes as pretty as them, or as organized or as abundant. I love to see people find their niche in the studyblr / studygram community and fully embrace it and it inspires me to try to be more like them and find what works for me. For now what seems to be working is text posts and other forms of written media.

I wanted to be as thorough as i could this time, since this is a very personal question, but I also love to spice it up a bit and throw in a bit of flamboyant wording and purple prose if possible.

Thanks for reading to the end of this, rather lengthy textpost

[butyouvealwaysbeenthecaretaker]

First encounter: this indie hat/pin/sticker set with Pride flags is a really cute concept nicely executed.

Fifty eighth encounter: im kinda stressed and concerned by my social spaces becoming commerce spaces; I understand why a disabled queer person with crochet skills selling socks is different from a corporation showing up at pride for branding purposes, but part of me still wants to resist the ease with which this sort of thing can be commodified and turned into another avenue to sell me stuff

Sixtieth encounter: a big part of this is my residual discomfort from having participated in the online craft economy, and coming out of that experience wanting to shout "no you fools! It's a trap!". I'm projecting; and maybe other people are making a success of it without it being dehumanising and alienating

Eightieth encounter: but even the sense of queerness being incorporated into fashion tends, unsettles me. Reducing what I am to a funky enamel pin with the on-trend combo of identity, novelty animal, and slogan. I guess I'm privileged as someone who can execute DIY projects with a high degree of skill, and that fair enough if someone wants to buy nice Pride merch to sell. I'm overthinking it, but the discomfort is real. I LIKE DIY culture, I like the idea of making your own t-shirts or patches organically self expressing. Rather than it being commercial.

Ninety fourth encounter: because "support indie artists" is a value held by lots of people, and it's a good value, but it means people voluntarily participate in promoting adverts for people/products they like and. That's ok but.

Ninety eight: some days I just don't want to be sold to. I don't want my amateur art blog competing with full time professionals for either clicks or followers or praise, I'd like to encounter community of fellow artists. I want to chill with people rather than develop a professional relationship. I don't want to think about buying or selling for a while, either in the small scale or the large scale global capitalism sense. I feel like the ease with which you can monetise encourages people to rush into it without taking time to hone craft, and build community, and that a background noise of commerce makes true community in some ways impossible. I think it's bad for the soul for small artists to be so regularly told "you could monetise this, you know", and bad for the creative process, and also bad for having any kind of meaningful time off. You could be working 24/7, why aren't you?

Ninety nine: sure it hurts when all the flags are there and yours isn't, but at the same time isn't it kinda cool to be illegible to capitalism, like the world has not yet discovered you are a niche which can be sold to. I remember when I first came out to myself, and I remember where I was - on an escalator surrounded by adverts none of which were targeted at me. I felt like the floor had vanished and I'd suddenly seen the matrix and I had somehow climbed out of the framework of life. It was a cool feeling! It didn't last, but I remember thinking those kitchens and holidays were not "for" lesbians, thst I had stepped outside, and that I had a terrifying and infinite power to reshape my life.

Onehundredandeight: I do want to support all these artists and patreons and their merch and their crowdfunders but there are just so many of you, and it then impacts my confidence and esteem as an artist to be operating with this kind of immediacy and scarcity and pressure, especislly when I see gorgeous artworks so much better than anything I can do essentially ignored, or scrolled past (there's always more content, content is infinite).

Onehundredfifteen: this isn't just a queer problem, it's in all my hobby spaces.

Onehundredtwentyfive: there's no real take away, demand or message here, only that I'm uncomfortable with this dynamic being around me, and I wish there was a way to opt out of it.

[infinityactual]

Spoiler alert: Halo CE *IS* old lol.

Note: I am purposefully ignoring the story elements and focusing on gameplay mechanics for the purposes of this post.

---

While the sentiment that 'old = bad' is not one I'm fond of, 'old = good' can be just as bad. Like anything, while age should be a factor taken into account when critiquing things, it should only be *part* of the equation.

I love Halo CE. I wasted a criminal amount of my junior and senior high school years on that game. And you know what? It *does* feel dated. I mean there isn't even an animation for climbing ladders!! The game mechanics are pretty simple, it's a straightforward run and gun game with a couple 'oop hehe we're gonna make you double back!' twists.

Halo CE is old and pretty fuckin clunky as far as gameplay mechanics go, and yet for it's time, it was THE first person shooter. I wasn't the Original, FPS games go back pretty much to the inception of the PC game (I wanna say Doom was the first but I'm also still half asleep and cant be arsed to google it. Besides, it's neither here nor there) but Halo paved the way for the modern FPS shooter as a genre.

I barely remember Halo 3. What I do remember is the 'loading' screens were annoying as fuckall and twigged my brain in a Bad way. I vaguely recall Cortana being reduced to a damsel in distress pissing me off, and I *vividly* recall being stupidly good at the endgame warthog run. But it just wasn't for me.

Halo CE was made for the original Xbox. Halo 3 was made for the next gen console, the 360. The OG Xbox had a FUCK of a time running Halo 2, so there was a lot going on with that game that ended up causing it to be very Meh, at least to me. They tried to push the console too far. Halo 3 was made for a console that could handle pretty much what they wanted to do.

That said, taking into account the rate at which computer tech improves, comparing CE and 3 is like comparing a 1995 Ford F150 with a 2005 model. They're siblings, yes, but the '95 will look and feel older than the 2005 unless you completely rebuild it, at which point you get into 'Is it really a '95 F150 anymore' territory. Remaking CE to have more 'modern' features (Halo 3 ain't no spring chicken itself lmfao) probably wouldn't be CE anymore. It would be another sibling that echoes the original, but is still distinctly different and unique.

People have preferences. And preferences are and always will be a subjective thing.

They are also varied. They can change with time or get more rigid. But they will never be objective. People will like what they like, and unless it's causing direct harm or contributing to direct harm to others, 'get new friends' as a reaction to a *video game* preference is a rather childish reaction. Does it need to be remade? Eh, who knows. Personally, Infinite killed any interest in future Halo content for me. 5 started it, but Infinite drove the last few nails into the coffin. Neither are inherently bad games, both have features that I love, but both are OBVIOUS cash grabs my Microsoft (not 343i, please be mad at the right company, ppl) and a remake of Halo CE has that *same* capitalist stink to it. Microsoft is still trying to milk their cash cow dry.

But, if people want to buy it and enjoy it, that is perfectly fine. Will it annoy me? Maybe.

Will it hurt me? No.

One thing I keep having to tell myself is "There is no ethical consumption under capitalism". Unless you remove yourself from the system entirely - which is pretty much impossible to do without giving up every single comfort and modern amenity - you are, willingly or not, a gear in the capitalist machine.

The remake will happen. If it bothers you that much, block the tag. If posts aren't tagged, scroll past and ignore them. If they're everywhere and unavoidable, take a break and go bitch to your friends on discord or something to vent frustration. Come vent to me! I'll listen! But don't be an ass and judge people for their preferences. Halo CE *is* old, clunky, basic and lacks any and all bells and whistles.

I *adore* it for that, but also it is not for everyone.

And that's ok.

PS: Any 'buh buh buh here's why you're stupid and wrong!!!' bs reactions or replies will happily ignored and/or deleted. I'm too old to care about hotheads on the internet trying to make their balls look bigger by attempting to prove they are Correct and Morally Good in a world where *nothing* is clear cut and well defined. To quote the late Harold Ramis, Embrace The Ambuguity. You'll be happier if you can.

Idk not to be a hater but if you can’t enjoy the game in its original state that’s a you problem and it does not need to be remade!!!