#also this new terminal is so cool it's insane!!!!!!!!

[folkloregirlfriend]

freaking out internally

[importantbusinessdinosaur]

What do you think of 2000AD comics?

2000AD is great, Judge Dredd is one of those comics you can just get really into at any point in your life, if you ever want a glimpse into UK comics scene it's always worth looking at, especially the Judge Death stories with Brain Bolland art.

Mag-freaking-nificent.

Okay, formalities out of the way? We've said Judge Dredd is cool?

Right.

Sit the fuck down and let me tell you about my favourite 200AD comic.

Let me tell you about:

NEMESIS THE WARLOCK

NEMESIS THE WARLOCK!

FIGHTING THE EVIL OF THE CHIEF TERMINATOR

TORQUEMADA

Look let me get into this. Most people know Kevin O'Neill because of his work on League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with Alan Moore. I know him most for Nemesis.

Nothing comes close to the absolute insanity and creativity of Nemesis the Warlock. It is some of the greatest design work ever done and speaks volumes of the environment it was created in.

Every panel, every scene has new and inventive characters, environment, objects. It doesn't stop surprising you with how it portrays everything. They mess with scale a lot, having huge sculptures of people as buildings or just making people tiny on Moebius inspired planes

Have a look at this shot of Nemesis at his writing desk

There is so much going on there it's fantastic. Anyway. Plot? Plot. Nemesis is the leader of the revolutionary army fighting Torquemada, who wants to exterminate all alien life so that only "pure" humans exist. Sounds pretty straightforward right?

Except Nemesis is a Warlock, he only does things in the most over the top evil way to combat him. And not in a "sacrifice your troops" evil way, but in a "haunt this guy and make him think I'm the devil so he does my bidding" way

(I want a church organ with a "brimstone" intonation)

Nemesis also comes through a matriarchal society, and when they attack his family he does indeed go ballistic. I feel it's important you know what the females of his species look like.

Awesome.

Any way thank you for giving me an excuse to talk about Nemesis, I highly recommend it it's an absolute blast.

[ryuichirou]

Replies

But also some news!

First of all, I wanted to remind you that my pricelist will be updated by the end of the week, so please feel free to message me if you want to take a slot to commission me with my current prices!

Second of all, we got our twitter account back! We ended up deleting that one post that twitter didn’t like (yes, the one that doesn’t have anything explicit or any nudity on it), which obviously sucks, but at least now we can jump back to posting more or less regularly.

And now that this situation is over, I can say about the thing that honestly tickled me: the last person who wrote a callout post on me right before our acc got locked (=the person who very likely caused the massreporting in the first place) got accused of grooming a 13 y.o. and had their account terminated the very next day. What a great illustration of how the fandom climate works, right? Hilarious.

Alright, replies replies. Some about Fellow and Gidel, some about Rook, Idia, a little bit of Lilia and some miscellaneous asks.

Anonymous asked:

wait, Fellow is it a good idea for Gidel to write?? Isn't he illiterate?? (I might be wrong on the writing part, but I'm pretty sure Gidel is said to be unable to speak because he didn't get an education :(, r.i.p to the poor boy)

But look at it, Anon! He clearly writes, and like a typical doctor as well! A highly educated man!

(Yeah, Gidel doesn’t know how to write lol I am not sure if Fellow is super literate either… just like the characters they are inspired by lol)

Anonymous asked:

I want to bite Idia’s thighs but I also want to nibble Lilia’s legs courtesy of your pic of him in those delicious Playful Land tights 😩

(this is about a sketch from ko-fi)

They really are nibbleable… nibbable… one would want to nib on them. And Lilia knows that :(

Thank you <3

irregardlessly-tish asked:

Since you started posting Fellow art I said to myself "I guess I'm watching that event now so I can look at the art and think yeah, he would totally get gang banged by them" lol

Tish! You’re great as always lol I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Fellow is so breedable it’s insane. I can’t help it.

unofficialwheatdog asked:

I'm gonna snatch Fellow away from everyone

Like that my husband, he fluffiness mine and mine alone

Mwah mwah to Fellow I wove him and the way you draw him

he's too good for them but ruined enough for me(lol me in my possessive era)

Omg real possessive era lol I get it, he really is fluffy to the point of leaving one speechless. But please understand, these boys can’t hold back at all… :( Be kinder them, they can’t help it!

I’m glad you love how I draw him <3

Anonymous asked:

Curious, u do non con/ rape art?

Pls tag if yes, I wanna see

I do, but I also don’t remember any recent noncon piece to tag anything lol I am definitely not opposed to it, and a lot of our nsfw pieces have at least dub-con vibes. I guess that one general!Lilia/Idia piece comes to mind first! And octopus!Azul/Idia that I drew for the same zine…

Maybe it would be easier to look through my pixiv logs; all the nsfw pieces are usually closer to the end of the log.

Anonymous asked:

You know I never had interest in drawing nsfw, I started a fanart blog with the intent of just making cute/cool sfw pieces maybe some ship stuff. However I am sick and tired of watching the twst fandom affect the mental health of my friends. And I know at least one of my ships will be threatened even if they just hold hands.

So here’s my plan: if I start receiving hate I will make an announcement: if I reach a particular milestone of hate I will learn to draw nsfw. I will make them kiss harder. Harass me and I will become worse.

Fr tho I want to be the brave idiot in the hope that others won’t feel alone.

Sorry for the late reply! Anon, you are already brave lol I like your plan. Become worse to spite them! And to support everyone who is harassed. And to have fun of course.

I wish you and your friends and anyone else didn’t have to worry about being harassed because of your ships. So please, take care of yourself, but also? Fuck them; draw and post whatever you want to make yourself and your friends happier and enjoy the fandom experience that you and your friends create.

Anonymous asked:

"something's missing..." might be your shirt rook, idk tho 🤔

(this is about this drawing)

Oh no, he forgot his shirt again. And no one at Savanaclaw is brave enough to tell him.

Anonymous asked:

 I remember that Savannaclaw Rook only cut his hair with a knife, soooo, yeah. How do you think first year Rook would respond to first year Idia and vice versa?

Honestly it looks like it lol He and Lilia have something in common…

We love first year Rook with first year Idia so much, Anon, you have no idea! And Rook/Idia in general, this is one of the things that I really want to draw properly at least once. For now we only have sketches…

But to answer your question! I like to think that Rook was very intrigued by Idia right away; of course Idia isn’t a beastman, but he is not only super bright and shiny-looking (unusual! Interesting!), but also is a very rare pokemon to see. It’s very easy to picture Rook getting excited and charmed by him, maybe he even had a period of a little obsession~ But of course none of this is in any way returned by Idia; to him being suddenly surrounded by so many loud and annoying people his age is already stressful enough, but Rook is somehow worse than all of them combined. He hates everyone from Savanaclaw, but they’re usually just rude jerks, but Rook? If only he was a rude jerk…

Anonymous asked:

Chen’ya, are you flashing people on purpose? What are you gonna do if someone likes it?

(related to this post)

Knowing Che’nya, he’ll probably disappear lol Never let them guess your next move. They liked it? Too bad. They didn’t like it? Oh too bad… >:3

Sometimes he is in a flirty mood though~

Anonymous asked:

I’m surprised Lilia doesn’t also spank Idia to punish him

He really should, and his spanks wouldn’t be as murderous as Azul’s! Idia is going to receive punishment AND survive!

I can picture Lilia stopping mid-spank with the realisation though: oh right, this isn’t his kid, this is Idia…

Anonymous asked:

(tw: self-harm)

this might be a bit dark but i’m curious: do you think idia self-harms? every now and then, i see ppl draw him with SH scars. i’ve never been able to decide if it feels like him or not. punishing himself, hating himself, wanting to control this one aspect of his life bc he can’t control anything else sound like idia, but also, being too resigned, lazy, or phobic of pain also sound like idia… little nutjob he is �� thoughts?

This is such a good question, Anon. It’s honestly still kind of easy to imagine him doing that. He punishes himself constantly, and while I don’t think this is necessarily about control, this absolutely could be about wanting to make himself feel even worse or to distract himself from the other kind of deep pain he’s feeling. Since we’re talking about a character here, as an artist I can also add that seeing him this way could be aesthetically pleasing, there are some very good artworks with this theme.

That being said, we usually tend to think that Idia wouldn’t do that. I agree that Idia being phobic of pain sounds very like him, but also? He is very detached from the physical side of things in general, I think. He would rather torment himself mentally.

Another reason for Idia and selfharm not really working in our heads is that I don’t think Ortho would let him. He is very sensitive to changes in his health condition after all.

[thunderheadfred]

Im sick and crabby and don’t have a healthier outlet so I’m gonna a rant about a bunch of random shit okay? Cool

The world

Do I have to? It’s horrible. Every day it’s more horrible

Why is America like this

Why are all these powerful despots doing the shit they are doing

Why are literal children being exploded

Why is the earth on fire

Just stop

I think about Jesus a lot

Like a lot a lot

I’m not Christian but sometimes you just gotta think about Jesus

The fact that we gotta just like… do the day to day rigmarole despite the global panopticon broadcasting suffering directly into our consciousness, to the point that if you don’t take up volunteering or meditation or healthy religion or radical love you will in fact go insane

How do we fix it? Without becoming what we fight against

Jesus Jesus Jesus

Anyway. Breastfeeding

It’s ironic because I was so afraid of breastfeeding triggering body dysphoria. It’s triggered a lot of things, but not that

We have a bad latch, and I underproduce milk, probably because of my CFS

So whenever I try to breastfeed her, she ends up miserable and crying in a way you can only understand if you’ve been in this exact situation, and it feels like I am holding a knife and stabbing my own heart again and again

Because I can’t breast feed exclusively, we feed 50/50 formula and pumped breast milk, and she’s perfectly healthy and so so so happy, but I still feel like an axe murdering psychopath

These days I pretty much don’t directly breast feed her at all, and if you’d asked me before baby, I’d have thought that would be ideal. But no. I just feel guilt.

WHY DOES IT MAKE YOU SO SWEATY?? No one warned me about this, but apparently everyone gets postpartum sweats for like. months and months. it's so gross. I'm just moist. damp. wet. all the time. I thought I was going insane but no. it's just another one of those Pregnancy Things. thanks body

Child Free People vs. Pro Natalists

Why these new terminally online identity categories???

I didn’t get the idea of declaring myself “child free” before kids, even when I MYSELF thought I could never want kids

Calling children “parasites????” WTF unhinged

Calling childless people "psychopaths????" equally without hinge

Yes pregnancy is pure body horror but that doesn’t make it the BABY’S FAULT. A fetus is not some kind of malicious alien, it’s a human being in progress??? All human beings are consumers in nature but that doesn’t make us inherently evil, especially those of us who are the most tiny, ignorant, and vulnerable. A baby is just… trying to survive

Yes childbirth is transformative and awe-inspiring but why are a certain subset of rich imperialists so fucking gross about wanting to impregnate as many women as possible. Shut up until you can push the baby out yourself, then get back to me

Look. If you don’t want kids, don’t have kids? Don’t think about kids? Move on and solve world peace or something. Why is there a subreddit pathologically obsessed with hating children and shouting it loudly as part of their bio? I get that the world is full of horrors and it’s hard to imagine the future sometimes. “How could you bring children into the world” Yadda yadda. Climate change or WWIII or whatever existential threat appears tomorrow, every human being dies eventually. Death isn’t really an excuse to give up on the continuity of life writ large

but also? a declining population isn't the greatest threat humanity has ever faced, Elon you ketamine-addled incel shitface. It just means capitalism might break under the strain of the way we devalue and fail to care collectively for elders. even elders who currently HAVE children

You can just. Ignore children and live your life. Making it an identity reeks of insecurity, doubt, and a weird nihilistic doomed mindset

If the counterargument is “well parents make parenting their whole identity and that’s equally stupid and annoying” no it isn’t.

Unless we're talking about the equally deranged opposite end of the spectrum. Everyone is unhinged about kids these days, almost as if capitalism and individuation and the "nuclear family" have imploded the basic inter-generational human village that makes having children desirable and healthy for people on the whole

Having children is a huge amount of labor, never mind the emotional importance of family to uhhh most people? So yeah, it’ll be a huge focus for most. Whereas being childless is just. That. Focus on something else more interesting, since you don’t have to worry about kids. No need to make a thing of it. It seems counterintuitive. Don’t like kids? Stop thinking about them so much

For women especially, having an unnecessary hysterectomy or doing other damage to yourself seems so… self harm adjacent? You truly DONT know if you will change your mind (I did) but even more importantly, removing or altering your organs can have consequences on your hormones and quality of life. There are other forms of birth control that seem far less invasive and destructive. Your body your choice, always. But. These seem like unnecessarily harmful choices.

I’m not interested in confronting anyone about this trend which is why it is all behind a cowardly “read more” cut but I just find the whole aggressively child free identity mind boggling

Anyway back to thinking about childless MVP Jesus again

Jesus

Fuck. Did not expect having a baby to make me so conscious of Christ.

My unmedicated labor was a religious experience, so now I have to Deal With That

Still not Christian, but increasingly a fan of Buddy Christ

Christian nationalists need to get his name out of their mouths

Trump is the Antichrist. If not THE Antichrist, at least AN anti-Christian

How do we reprogram all these people who think they are heroic righteous saviors when they are about as violent and power seeking as it is possible to get

See “how to fix it without becoming the bad guy”? (Real Jesus had answers. Sorry MAGA, but most of them involve being forgiving, generous, vulnerable, introspective, or gentle)

They have so many guns

The idea that you could think Jesus is with you while you talk about rounding up migrants and killing criminals and hating your neighbor like. Jesus was very much not a fan of these things?? Jesus did not have an AK-47, he um. He rode a donkey.

Jesus liked to sit with kids under trees and wash feet and famously rejected power and wealth and kings and uhhhhh KINDA DIED ABOUT IT

LEAVE JESUS ALONE

I’m having a normal one, clearly

Here’s a happy baby

[dis-nightmare-continues]

Something so satisfying about going to the crust Lord show and being like the youngest person there even tho I'm almost 30. Smoking weed in the bathroom with some dude I just met while everyone passes around nose beers. He asks me if I know some friend of his by my neck of the woods.

"oh yeah I recognize him, but I don't know him too well. I know his girlfriend "

"what, he doesn't talk to you?? You're not cool enough? What, cus you're a bigger guy or something? Fuck that!"

Hard to explain why this interaction is so perfect. It never occurs to me that thin people have any awareness that there are some thin people who write me off for my size and don't see me is being "cool." It's also interesting because I have made imposter syndrome and this dude, after knowing me for 5 minutes, can't imagine why any body would think I wasn't cool enough to be friends with. It was an odd interaction and dude was wasted but it was oddly sweet and validating.

Terminal Filth from Berlin was great. Just joyless, grooveless slow brooding stenchcore. Skallar from Baltimore was awesome as well. Fast as fuck dbeat crust, controlled, not chaotic. Good show.

"handing a beer to somebody upside down is kind of funny" the bartender says, and then does it to his friend. It is funny, in fact, fucking hilarious for whatever reason. I think me and the bartender want to be friends. There aren't so many guys our age around and I only remember people who are really recognizable, which he is, iconically so.

We talk shit on a mutual friend out front of the venue and catch up. It's casual. I've lost my overbearing sense of familiarity and friendliness that I once carried with me everywhere. It wasn't serving me anymore so I dropped it, but now without it the reality of the superficialness of many of my relationships on this scene are more blatant.

I try not to care. In so many ways I've always been a loner. I never knew that, because I was always so extroverted. There are so few people who have earned my trust so I trust everyone and no one simultaneously. Grateful dead lyrics "don't murder me." And on the d I've up as I turmoiled over someone ive been dating, the monkeys, "I'm not your stepping stone."

The show was boring in the best way. I left as soon as the bands were over. Otherwise I was gonna get drunk and do coke and I knew I had to work early today. It's weird having a job I acctually care about. It's a relief that it's only seasonal. One of the things I value most when taking a job is my ability to do it without caring about it at all. The ease of calling in sick when I knew that they knew I was full of shit. Fuck them, it's my life. But now I have people relying on me in a real way. People to stay well rested for. It's kind of nice in a way--easier than taking of myself for my own sake.

I love being able to smoke inside this bar. I love how loud the band is and in spite of myself I even enjoy the crust punk dress code, though I fin something kind of funny and antiquated about it. It's not really my generations aesthetic, we are too far removed from it for it to feel real. I got into this young, spend a decade or more posing but at least I could hang. Now I wonder if I have something that everyone here wants.

Back home they treat me like I have insane clout, and I know they'd do anything for it. I let it ferment, I could give a shit. Everyone thinks your cool until you open your fucking mouth. I don't know where there sense of social anxiety came from but it's ongoing. Lately I just ignore it. I'll figure out my friends eventually. I'll know who I remember soon enough. The amount of people I can forget is overwhelming, so everyone is a stranger and everyone is my friend. I say what's up to someone I've never met, he asks "do I know you," and we smoke some weed from my new chillum in the bathroom. He's from Portland, I could have guessed by the waxed jacket.

I don't tell her all the places I traveled before moving back, just that I've been back for about a year. Howe have you been? As good as I can be. I hear that. I wonder who has been better. What would be better? I want to be her, so why aren't I? It would be worse, which would be better. Harder is better. Good is bad, better is worse. It's hard to relate to anybody outside this world and it's hard to relate to anybody who is in it. So I compartmentalize, and when I'm here I am the version of myself who I bring here. Again and again. And when I'm there, I leave here at the door. I leave it at home with my nose ring and my vest. But I teach what I have learned.

[manonamora-if]

WELLLLLL The last weeks have been a mess and a half. Don't want to get into it. It's probably going to stay messy for a while. whomp whopm :/

Onto what's been happenings. I missed last week, so here's a recap of what I did on that 3rd week of January:

I made a new Zine (CTRL+SHIFT+ZUT+ALORS), with the vibes of lost content/games and weird programs. The Zine is downloadable in both French and English. Also, you can use it as a prompt if you want!

I was working on my Recipe Jam entry (but didn't finish because I kept fighting Adventuron and all the conditional statements...).

Also continued to review a bunch of games (see @manonamora-if-reviews).

And here what happened this week:

I finished my entry to the Recipe Jam: Not Another Sad Meal - a short cooking sim parser (easy! with walkthrough and help!)

I've also done a couple of fixes for the Sugarcube Guide (mainly typo + new indexes)

Also done a mini-fix for Meeting the Parents

Continued to play and review a shit ton of games (got the 3rd place on the Reviewer board, need about 100 reviews to get to the next one...)

A longer note on Harcourt:

I've been going at the coding of the file this week, and I think I cleared at least 1/5th of the file (I've mainly done the easy passages). The maze was insanely long to write and edit... it is now a pain to code. Will people actually see all the written text? probably not. I may have the untested and unformatted version done in a week or two.

Writing wise, MelS is finishing the 2nd ending path for Chapter 6 (it's a bummer one, I've already cried yall...). And he has 2 more ending paths to write before moving to the editing bit.

We're seeing the end with this...

Some other neat things:

An Eggcellent Preparation got 3rd place for Best Puzzle-Focused Game at the IF Short Game Showcase !! I really wasn't expecting that at all!!!

(not so) strangers in the dark won 1st place for Best Use of Songs at the Shufflecomp! my laziness paid off!

Let's talk IF Events:

The Queer Vampire Game Jam ends in about three weeks. Got a vampire/human story with a LGBT+ cast? Then this is the event for you! (unranked)

Obviously @neointeractives got you covered for Valentine's with the Smoochie Jam: it's all about kisses, love and romance (unranked) - The next Neo-Interactives mini-jam will happen mid-March.

The SeedComp! (Sprouting) ends at the end of February. Come transform someone's idea or asset into a new IF game! See @seedcomp-if for more info ;) (ranked)

Concours de Fiction Interactive Francophone 2024 se termine dans un mois! Viendez faire des histoires en français!! <3 (ranked, duh)

The Spring Thing is waiting for your intent to participate until March 1st!

Got a cool talk idea regarding Interactive Fiction, narration, or gameplay? Consider submitting a proposal for this year's Narrascope! They are still looking for people!

Finally, Finally Finish Something 2024. Technically not IF, but if you finished something in January, and want to submit something... (it is ranked, but it also gets hundreds of entries)

I think that's all for the near future? See you for the February check up in a few days....

Also: Anon is back on. Send stuff if you want. (I'll prob do an AMA around the end of February)

[negentropies]

hate being a hardcore plotter with terminal writer brain because i can't even fucking like something without picking it apart like a rotisserie chicken carcass and trying to fix all the weird holes in the plot that won't let me sleep at night

so anyway, heres a bullet point essay on my thoughts on the bhaal plot bc it doesnt make any fucking sense and its been driving me insane and patch 5 was just the final nail in the coffin

so bhaal's motivations are . muddy. in the case of most durges, it seems he crafted durge as his most perfect champion, let them get a little bit of life experience, and then led them to the bhaal temple where they became its leader with the intent of ???? murdering lots of people and getting more followers ?? i guess ???? omnicide only really became a possibility after they hatched the elder brain plot with gortash, but they were very much already a cult leader by then. regardless, we establish that as of ~15 years before the start of bg3, bhaal wants to use the brain to murder everyone in the world. HOWEVER. if you just so happen to be an oathbreaker paladin durge and face sarevok and become an unholy assassin, you get this dialogue:

this suggests that bhaal's goal is to walk the planes again? which doesnt seem like it would have anything to do with omniciding the world, since gods get their power from the number and fervor of their worshipers. as i see it (ty moth) his goals seem to be as follows: expand his divine portfolio and worshiper base to obtain greater divine status -> reclaim his divinity and re-ascend to full godhood -> rebuild his church into something more coherent and structured -> walk the planes again -> fuck with bane and myrkul

if the absolute plot succeeds and durge takes control of the absolute in bhaal's name, i see no reason why he'd rid himself of a massive new worshiper base, since followers of an exarch (durge in this case) also count as followers of an exarch's god (bhaal). if anything, it would make more sense for bhaal to EXPECT the absolute plot to fail. this way he fucks with myrkul and bane and gets rid of their chosen as well as substantial chunks of their followers.

like yeah, sure, having the entire absolute cult under his control would be cool. it'd probably make him a powerful enough deity to get him out from under bane's yoke once and for all. but it's also worth noting that bhaal hates bane SO fucking much. bane poached his servant loviatar to take her as his consort and then there was the Gortash Situation, so that hatred could mean he'd lose sight of that power and make it so he'd be happy if the elder brain plot collapsed, as long as it meant he could make bane look stupid or undermine him in the process.

this brings me to the new patch 5 epilogue, which inspired me to write down my ramblings in the first place. if you either lose to orin in the duel or you embrace bhaal, then destroy the elder brain, you become this urge-crazed, twitching murderer good for nothing except crashing parties and siring more bhaalspawn. which like . doesn't make sense to me? it's outright stated that durge becomes nothing but a vessel for bhaal. bhaal has been established as extremely patient and more than capable of cooking up plots that could span centuries (see: baldur's gate 1 and 2), so i don't know why he wouldn't just use his newfound puppet bhaalspawn as a mortal avatar to restore his church and facilitate his return to power in a faerûn where myrkul (bane also, but less so) had to take a step back to recoup.

the characterization of bhaal and pre-lobotomy durge makes me a little confused in general. gortash frequently talks about how intelligent durge was and how their strength came in their intense self-control, and in the fact that bhaal let them pick their battles. going off of this, i expected durge to be kind of a stick in the mud compared to the other bhaalists, and we get SOME of that? there's a journal entry you can find from durge to orin where durge insults her for "posing [her] corpse-dollies" instead of just killing and being done with it. however, from the flashbacks and other conversations with the bhaalists we get, our vivisection-loving cannibalistic necrophiliac doesn't really have a leg to stand on here. it really seems like the larian writers had two separate, incongruous visions for durge and tried to mesh them together to limited success

now can we talk about sarevok. can we talk about sarevok? can we talk about how utterly batshit insane it is that fucking SAREVOK, who literally attempted to usurp bhaal to become the new lord of murder, would have gotten so much power and favor from his father? it's clear from durge's internal narration that they hate sarevok's guts. they straight up get inspiration for killing him. so... why did durge ever answer to him? why did bhaal let his perfect clone and champion into the hands of a son he hates and who tried to usurp him?

which all leads me to my conclusion that the baldur's gate temple of bhaal is, in fact, a heretical sect. and more importantly, that durge was led to it with the intent that after they'd exhausted the temple's use, they would off sarevok once and for all, gut the temple completely, and rebuild something new and worthy of their father from the ashes.

everyone at the bhaal temple is interested pretty much exclusively in the ritualistic aspects of murder, while in contrast, durge is (stated to be) more interested in efficiency and (apparently?) restoring their father to power and helping him walk the physical planes once more. again, this is all incongruous with other aspects of their characterization, but i'm going to chalk that up to messy writing. this would also track with durge being raised outside of the bhaal temple, ensuring that no matter what, bhaal would get to them before the temple did. sceleritas fel in particular is shown to be loyal to durge and bhaal exclusively, while not caring for orin or sarevok. the pieces are all here for a religious schism that just . never happens

so, if we pick up some of what larian is putting down and ignoring the rest, a possible version of events would be:

-> sarevok the attempted usurper establishes the temple of bhaal in baldur's gate as a niche, heretical sect focused exclusively on ritualistic murder, with no intention of expanding bhaal's portfolio beyond that

-> bhaal crafts durge, lets them form an identity outside the temple, then brings them in to lead, use, and subsequently destroy the baldur's gate bhaalists

-> durge and gortash hatch the elder brain plot. no matter if it succeeds or fails, bhaal will still win one way or another, whether it be getting a new legion of followers through his exarch or by crippling myrkul and sticking it to bane

-> orin (and probably sarevok) misunderstands bhaal's edicts, interpreting them as him wanting to use the brain to murder everyone in the world. orin fucks everything up when she lobotomizes durge but tbh, that still doesn't really matter. either she dies and bhaal gets rid of a heretical and unstable spawn or she becomes his puppet, just like durge should have in their bad ending

going off bhaal's characterization for the previous games, he is fundamentally a patient plotter with lots of foresight and also immense rizz. omnicide via elder brain is like . the stupidest scenario for him when there is so many other different ways to take this. where is bhaal sending in his perfect murder catholic spawn into a den of murder pagans !! where is the bhaalist religious schism !!!!!

thank u for coming to my ted talk

[zalisok]

TUA Season 4 Episode 2

Time for episode 2! Spoilers ahead.

Is Luther sick? Because of the marigold??

The iconic crab dance. go luther go

They have their powers back jesus christ. And they all look pretty sick oh no don't hurt them

oh luther :(

"no don't look at me" "no don't look at me i'm hideous" these two I swear to god

LASER EYES LILA LET'S GO (she can't control it) but LET'S GO (subtitles: Lila's eyes become blip)

oh they let Viktor swear now:))) and his new powers sound a bit different, kind of like a gust of wind?

ben what

"i know you're all too terminally emo" BEN I CAN'T

oh Viktor's pissed...Allison too...

they are tAILS? not tENTACLES noW? bEN??

Klaus didn't take it!!! that's actually awesome, good for him for staying sober

omg viktor is going at it he's pissed as HELL(well, under the circumstances, i get it)

"Maybe because we ended the world three times" yes Allison say it

the silence is deafening

luther trying to be the peacemaker he's trying, guys

bEnjAmIN (subtitles: smarmy laughter) he's such an asshole i love it

"a human sippy cup" ouch

"he's a Klaus that Claire likes" :3

oh mY gOD ben

ROAD TRIP (side note Allison supporting Ben and Viktor and Lila linking hands--they're a family, guys)

Diego and Lila are really going through it huh. Three kids, and they never really had the best parental figures growing up (Grace is amazing, but there are some things robots can't replicate). They're trying their best.

this has mom/dad wrangling kids to summer camp/church vibes (both of which are not fun to me, but i digress)

why is there BABY SHARK??????noooOOOO

they listened to that for a whole hour how are they not insane yet

ok i take it back it's been three hours they are NOT having a good time

WHY IS THERE SO MUCH PUKING STOP IT PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HOW DOES ONE PRODUCE SO MUCH VOMIT (i'm slightly upset they spend so much time of that)

hahah the glass

oh she's not diego :(

lila?? i don't like that look

how do diego and ben go from fighting to hugging so fast lol

why do they keep calling diego fat? he's not??

listening to christmas carols in august does not feel right

is ben a karen now hahaha--also, is this jennifer? recognize her from the trailer

sloane would've loved it

"we're not friends" aww :( that makes sense though

why are they spending so much time here when they should be helping jennifer? or investigating the marigold?

klaus doing tarot--hope nothing too bad happens

ben and the restaurant owner(jennifer??)--pretty nice

my first thought was that the old lady seems sweet but after a few seconds i have second thoughts

now that lila and five are talking about the cleanse--why do their powers appear the way they do now? some of theirs haven't changed, like diego and luther, some of them have a bit, like five's viktor's and ben's (i suppose viktor's is still sound-based) and some of their are entirely different (like lila's). don't know allison's yet though.

i really don't want this tension between five, diego and lila to be a big plot point. it doesn't seem to be going anywhere

oh things are getting weird

what the fuck oh shit

why does five keep appearing in the subway?

"lila use your eyeball thing" lol

oh the subway is so COOL--the alphabet is interesting

"It's okay, you can trust me" not really the best thing to say, i guess?

the whole town is in on this?????

a train that goes between timelines???interesting

diego and lila omg

DIEGO that's insane

omg klaus has been in the van for the whole time, blissfully unaware. typical, really

that's jennifer???how does klaus know that's jennifer???

what the fuck

oh my god what

OH SHIT

luther:(((

ALLISON WHAT that is so cool

omg evil santa

please stop with the sharks please please

oh my god for a moment i thought he was dead thank god

what is it with luther and sconces

WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT what was that

omg gene and jean why are they taking her???????????

overall: what is going on??? again, i have many questions. I also feel like some of the time in the episode was wasted on things like puking and weird jokes, so there wasn't a lot of plot. The time they spent at the carnival dragged on for a bit. I am still very intrigued, though--and worried, because two episodes have passed and not a lot has happened.

[liliallowed]

ok dusttale x rain world idea.

I think dust would probably be an iterator's creation.

like unable to die but was a being created specifically for finding true "death". maybe even partially biomechanical. idk I feel like rain world has a biomechanical theme. the vultures the leviathans... EVERYTHING IS SO COOL.

imagine iron Endo skeleton with a Cloak friking terminator ass guy...

as for the echos they'd probably be the culmination of creatures and people dust has unkilled or half killed. I mean if it's rain world religion they'd probably be considered a sinner by the ancients.

(yeah they kinda missed the point about death being another side of life and just straight up said existence itself is a sin. which is so fascinating because they literally live in a life loop. NOT a time loop. a life loop. and EVERYONE is in it. not just suffering alone there's a community of insane people trying to escape the paradox)

anyway I feel like dust being a slugcat kinda feels... odd? I mean he'd definitely be an experiment created by iterators... maybe a prototype of a saint slugcat that sorta... uhm... went wrong. it did what it was told but it could not ERASE the creatures completely. like maybe leave them in a corrupted mutated state.

it would also be fun for it to be an entirely new iterator. like away from all the known ones. it's technically kinda already shut down managing to self sabotage itself into decay and destruction... and there's just this terminator metallic skeleton thing guarding the place... and just like killing everything it sees.

like I'd say he kinda does have a X marker thingy... but it's incomplete and would possibly create more echos around the place instead of erasing them then face palm and probably bash his skull against the wall and just sit there contemplating his misery.

then there's the W O R M.

that's either gotta be crimson. like they're just in some friking void juice floating around. they control the friking life cycle.

anyways. I feel like dust can't really KILL that giant ass thing. I mean the saint kinda got squished like a bug when attempting to delete the W O R M.

but in crimson's case they'd be like: awwwww look at dis WIDDLE angwy zombie-skeleton-cyborg slugcat thingy!

I feel like they'd probably turn him into something between an echo and a physical being?

not sure.

anyways rain world is fucking awesome

[sarith-kzekarit]

Hiya! Thanks for all your comments/tags on my Sarith arts! Would it be okay to ask how his story went in your campaign? I’ve heard so many cool ones over the years!

Hi!! I'm a perfectly normal amount of insane about Sarith and am always on the lookout for more content of him and OOTA in general (I've found very few other fans, sadly). I love your stuff, including your Sporeblood comic, and it always makes me really happy to see anything you share. :)

Anyway, I'd be happy to share some info about our Sarith!! I'm our group's DM and we are currently in the second half of our OOTA campaign, where Sarith is alive and well.

His background (that my party is aware of):

Sarith belonged to a lesser noble house of Menzoberranzan. They aren't a ruling family.

He attended Melee-Magthere and prefers stealth and ranged fighting.

Due to certain experiences, he privately questioned Lolth's propaganda early on and doesn't subscribe to her ideology.

Partially out of a desire to spend as much time away from Menzoberranzan as possible, he pursued a career in cartography. His job was to explore across the Underdark and map out new areas. He's very passionate about his work and once stabbed a man for ruining a map by marking it with a knife.

So far, the above points are unique to us and not in the module.

(MODULE SPOILER) This is how he ended up in Neverlight Grove. In our campaign, he and a traveling partner discovered the previously-unknown myconid colony. Sarith gained a strong appreciation for it and deliberately didn't mark it on his map. During their stay, the myconid Stool grew attached and followed him when his journey continued.

(MODULE SPOILER) Sarith and his partner were infected without knowing it, and it was only a matter of time before one turned on the other. Sarith lost control first and murdered said partner in front of witnesses at a trading post. He doesn't remember the act.

Sarith was arrested and taken to nearby Velkynvelve, where he met the party.

The story so far:

Early on, Sarith was sullen, guarded, and distrustful, but he was fiercely protective of Stool. After observing their relationship dynamic, the PCs told Stool what a father was and how to refer to Sarith as "dad" in Common.

Sarith's health was slowly deteriorating throughout the early campaign, and he made significant efforts to hide this weakness out of fear of being left behind or killed off.

He cooperated with the party for survival, but he also went out of his way to refuse any attempts to help him personally, expecting that he would owe the others something in return.

Despite this, the PCs were determined to befriend him, and slowly but surely managed to break down his defenses. His personality began to shine through: that of a shy, quiet man who preferred being in the wilderness over being around people, and who would ramble passionately about his interests if you could figure out what they were.

As he grew to trust the party enough, he started encouraging them to travel to Neverlight Grove, which he considered to be a safe haven. It would have plentiful food and water to sustain them, and was mostly unknown by outsiders.

(TW terminal illness) As they got closer, Sarith got sicker, and he was prepared for the grove to be his final resting place; this way, at least he would die free, Stool would be returned home, and the people he'd grown fond of would be safe from their pursuers.

(MODULE SPOILER) Thankfully, the PCs were smart and picked up on the hints I sprinkled along the way. They were wary of all the strange behavior, kept a close eye on Sarith, and sent a very small PC-only team to investigate deeper into the grove. After experiencing The Horrors™, the party fled and vowed to find a cure for Sarith.

With more knowledge of exactly what they were dealing with, the PCs found small ways to help manage Sarith's symptoms until he could be properly treated by healers at a major location.

(MODULE SPOILER) As the party got closer to reaching their goal of the Surface, Sarith began to fear what would happen to him when they reached it. There was no place for him in the world above, nor did he have a place in the Underdark. But to everyone's surprise, the least likely person stepped up to offer him a home: the dwarf Eldeth, who he'd previously had a lot of tension with during Part I of the campaign. She had gained a lot of respect for him in the past months (especially from one particular event) and now considers him "one of us."

(MODULE SPOILER) During the Intermission - which the PCs spent on the Surface - Sarith and Eldeth stayed in Gauntlgrym and grew surprisingly close. The PCs insisted on keeping in touch via letters, and when the time came for them to be summoned by King Bruenor, Sarith was fully prepared to follow his friends back into the Underdark.

Present day:

Though Sarith is no longer terminally ill, he did develop a chronic illness as a result of the internal damage done to his body. Old habits die hard, and he's doing his best to hide this so he can be useful to the party.

Two of the PCs are currently in the process of courting Sarith into a poly relationship. It's going well. :)

I love this man so much and have a lot to say about him, but this is by no means exhaustive lol. I'm actually writing a private fanfiction for OOTA (which may or may not ever see the light of day) exploring his character and various themes more in-depth...

Anyway, thank you for asking!!

[garbagequeer]

tmi personal post incoming.

you know when you move cities for a year because there are no jobs in yours and you're like well it kind of sucks ass but it's fine it's cool i can come back at least once a month and see my friends. but then your friends are not making an effort so you're getting news that they're not hanging out and instead have retreated into their stupid ass relationships with their stupid ass boyfriends from your one friend who's pissed about it. and you go oh man that's not good im sorry i would be pissed too. and months later it happens to you that your stupid ass friends who have retreated into their stupid ass relationships have not been making time for you when you make the 4 hour trip to see them. which also means going home to your mother and sister fighting all the time because they've realized they're both too controlling to live without you as a buffer even though all they did when you lived at home was rag on you. and you go well i am pissed about it. and your formerly pissed about it friend goes oh well im not even pissed about it and it's a bit much that you're pissed about it though i am sorry that happened. and you go what are you on about you were pissed about it we had this conversation and you were very passive aggressive due to being pissed about it. but she's like idk im hanging out with my stupid ass boyfriend (contagious disease). and you have a good public cry about it and your friends jump you for it. and you go well now i am even more pissed at you. goodbye. because you have to go back to your new city and your stupid job. and it's not until 2 months later that they decide to act like you were right by doing better (you dont talk about this). and also one of them decides to inform you they were mia for 4 months because they got what? a stupid ass boyfriend they didn't even tell you about. but now they're broken up. and you're like. fine. whatever. i'll lend you a shoulder to cry on. and THEN your grandmother who you loved very much and who was your friend and who you always related to kills herself. but everyone is like well she was old. when there was nothing terminally wrong with her except for the frequent talk of suicide. but no one listened to you when you were saying that while she was alive. and you're like alright okay. support network? spare support network? but you end up only seeing most of your friends once on the day of the funeral. in the span of a month. in which you are back home because you are on leave from work. and you cant even be pissed about it because you had the pissed about it conversation too recently to be pissed about it again. plus there's no new points to make and also you have depression. and then your friend who has made time for you while you've been going through it decides to move to germany. and take her stupid ass boyfriend. who is fine he's nice nothing wrong with him. but you are fundamentally opposed to stupid ass boyfriends. because you have very warranted abandoned for stupid ass boyfriend issues. and you're a feminist. and she's so happy about it so you cant act like it bothers you though it does it bothers you so much. but you cant tell her this because she's already getting shit for it from her family. also it makes you sound insane. and you can't talk to your stupid ass friends about it because they either spent the year being stupid (see above) so you have to rebuild trust or are having the worst time of their lives fr. and you can't quit your stupid job because you would have to pay over 3000€ you don't have. also riverdale ends. i live in these conditions

[lorz-ix]

Hoo boy I really did watch all of these again

Sort of by coincidence, I kinda felt like re-watching a horror series that I have a lot of fun with, right before a new one came out. So let's recap my thoughts.

I will try to keep my comments on each movie short, because otherwise this would take me ages to wrap up lol

Saw (2004)

No introduction required. Most people praise the merit and creativity in what the filmmakers were able to achieve with a rather tight budget, but some looking for the, uh... "extreme thrills" the franchise is known for consider this entry very weak. They're wrong, of course, because even if the violence and gore was more frequent or graphic, that's not what makes an interesting movie.

The plot is simple enough and easy to follow, it makes for an effective mystery/thriller. The motivations of each character are still unknown to the audience, and the serial killer at the center of everything is mostly just "a terminal patient about to die who tests people who don't value their own lives". No complicated morals or constant retcons and flashbacks yet, though the twist at the end is pretty cool for a first time viewer. A twist that will set the expectations for every following entry.

Saw II (2005)

A fan-favorite sequel that cranks up just about everything that made the first movie famous and sets even more expectations for the future. This entry introduces the setup that many more would follow, where instead of the first movie's humble escape room-like setup, now several people must go through a series of violent and dangerous traps, which are all connected. And it's also an escape room, with puzzles/riddles to solve. Everything is more violent and disturbing too, of course.

I think it's a good one. There's an interlocking A and B plot with a decent mystery going on, and the set of twists/reveals at the end are surprising. We get more of an insight into the Jigsaw killer character and his threatening psyche, which everyone loves. If you can stomach the disturbing parts, I strongly recommend it.

Saw III (2006)

This is where the series starts to introduce elements that I'm not the biggest fan of. The B plot doesn't follow a group of people, but a single guy who must try to release other people from traps, with not much of a threat to himself during most of it. The "protagonist" is traumatized by the loss of his son in an accident, so the test is more psychological: he has to learn to forgive the people involved and save them, even if it means making sacrifices.

The setup is a good idea, but as a viewer it doesn't feel fair to see people helplessly die, their only hope being an outsider who hates them. It doesn't matter how much they wanted to live, or what they learned, they have barely any influence in the outcome. I personally believe the killer's morals are bullshit, so I don't care when they're contradictory (in fact I'll comment on this later), I just think it's unfair to watch.

Besides, even if the main character is traumatized and all, and he learns his lesson during the movie, he still comes off as very unlikeable, especially near the end, so it contributes to the frustrating experience.

What about the A plot though? Well, all I'll say is, even if I had negative opinions on parts of the movie, I can still recommend watching this far to make a nice trilogy. My overall opinion is kinda mixed, but this is a better conclusion to stop watching than the second one.

Saw IV (2007)

A rather forgettable one, but the traps in here are actually kinda memorable in how particularly disturbing they are. Despite the overall story being nothing to write home about, there's a big focus in making the main character of this entry sympathize with the Jigsaw killer, trying to make him understand his morals, so it's fairly interesting for me as a way to understand the villain.

I'm not one of those fans that go "oh he's an insane killer but he has a point". He very rarely does. Sometimes there's some twisted satisfaction in seeing horrible people get punished, but that doesn't mean he's right. In this movie we get to see a lot more that he's just like a cop, once you cross the line for him, you deserve whatever's coming to you. If you die, you were no good anyway, someone had to do the right thing, etc. "See what I see" he says, "you have to let them save themselves" (sounding a lot like "pick yourself up by your bootstraps eh?).

It's all interesting for me as a fan of the series, but the movie itself is whatever. Oh and I guess the ending twist will introduce a new villain that will be all over the A plots for a good while.

Saw V (2008)

Here we go, back to the "several people following a series of traps" setup. Memorable for being one of the most predictable twists of the franchise (so predictable it ruins what would have been a neat premise), however, and for having a B plot that's basically completely detached from the A plot. Up until now, both had at least been somewhat related, but now we have the "soap opera following the actual plot of the series" storyline running alongside a "series of people dying violently" storyline to please the audience.

I don't blame anyone for tuning out either here or by the previous one. I find the overarching narrative to be fun to follow, but the expectations to please audiences by killing off a ton of people in increasingly violent ways, as well as to have a twist by the end, no matter how dumb, among other things, are actually hurting these as actual movies. The next one will be a surprising step up though.

Saw VI (2009)

And out of nowhere, the "subtle" and probably not even intentional political subtext of this series turnt into an entire movie satirizing health insurance companies. This premise itself makes this entry one of the stand-outs outside of the first trilogy.

The soap opera A plot feels like every movie since 4 have been episodes of the same cop drama, so it's not very relevant when discussing the qualities of this specific one. If you were already invested in the villain and his antics, you'll probably want to know what happens next. A lot of people don't really care so that's fine too.

As for the B plot, my interpretation that the Jigsaw killer has terrible morals and he's actually just representing a more twisted version of the current system has more proof than ever. He's "testing" people involved in the insurance company that denied him coverage when he was diagnosed with cancer, so no matter how much he says "it's deserved, it's not revenge", we know it's bullshit when the traps are set up so that someone must always die. Where's the fairness? Every one can win, but it's impossible for everyone to win. Remind you of something?

Unlike in the third movie, the traps are unfair, but it doesn't feel so unfair as a viewer, because in 3 the deaths were avoidable, but in 6 they are clearly making a point. The insurance company decides who lives and who dies, so the killer makes them decide who among them live or die. As I said a while ago, you're not supposed to agree with Jigsaw, he's obviously setting up this "poetic justice" for revenge, he's setting up people to die when their crimes were being an addict, being a janitor in the company and similar stuff. If you think the insurance company is bad (they are), you should think the killer forcing them into a massive metaphor of themselves is also bad. He himself is a metaphor of the system.

Saw 3D (2010)

The end of the soap opera era. The previous entry saw a negative trend in box office returns, so they rushed an ending to the series and possibly came to the conclusion that the very explicit political messaging was partly to blame. I can imagine it may have been unpopular with "normie" horror fans who mostly wanted to watch violent, gory slop and nothing more.

What we have here is broadly considered one of the worst flicks in the franchise. The fact that it's 3D probably makes it feel adequately trashy, and it has very funny side effects, like bad "thing comes at the screen" scenes that look very out of place, or the blood being a weird pink tone because the proper red didn't look good with the 3D effect. It's so trashy it starts off with a public execution where two guys who were being cheated on must decide if they're gonna kill each other or let their girlfriend die (yet again with the "at least one person must die" schtick). The girl obviously dies, because fuck that bitch, right? She deserved it. The fans cheer.

I enjoy trashy horror films so I have a lot of fun watching this one. It's easy to mock and criticize the dumb parts, they're so stupid it's funny. But it's not all that, there's also a few traps here that are among the most disturbing in the series in my opinion, so if you enjoy that side of these movies, you can get some sick enjoyment out of it.

Jigsaw (2017)

After a very much needed break, the series returned with a soft reboot. It still follows the grand plot of the old ones, but after a decent time skip and introducing new characters, ditching most of the old.

I don't have much to say about this one. I don't like it at all, and I don't find it even ironically enjoyable. The violent parts are for the most part not as disturbing or memorable, and there isn't much room for interesting character analysis. The entire plot is setting up for a twist that's meant to shock the audience and feels almost incoherent in-universe, not to mention that it's one that's been done before with a lot more success in this very franchise. No future entry has addressed what happened here, and probably won't do so for the foreseeable future.

Spiral: from the book of Saw (2021)

A fresh entry that I found very promising, it once again ditches most previous characters and goes for the spin-off approach, so it works as a stand-alone film. It feels like it's less held back by previous expectations, so the brand-new copycat killer is also not restricted by someone else's moral code, and uses new symbols (or old ones in new ways) that I find effective.

The broad message of the film is one of criticism of police corruption, similar to how 6 criticized insurance companies. It's not a bad start, but it doesn't go far enough. Now that I think about it, that last sentence might as well describe the entire film, since the new approach is nice, but they didn't turn it into something that memorable. When I first saw it, I enjoyed a few bits quite a lot, but I was more so excited for the future of the franchise than I was about the movie itself.

Turns out the future of the franchise wouldn't follow this new approach.

Saw X (2023)

But in all honesty, as much as I wanted to see something like Spiral done better, the brand new movie ended up being surprisingly good. It takes all the time it needs to actually create interesting human drama and let the plot breathe. It might be held back by the past, turning back the clock in the timeline and bringing back old characters, while at the same time not really advancing the broader narrative, but as a self-contained flick (probably a new self-contained trilogy in the future), it's way better than 70% of these gory trainwrecks.

I'm worried about it making the Jigsaw killer into an even more sympathetic character, more than ever, fans seem to be eating it up. It's obvious that he's the most important and interesting thing in this entire franchise, but I think he should still be clearly a twisted villain and not some freak anti-hero. You still get a bunch of hypocrisy and contradiction coming from his morals, but it's still easier than ever for wacky horror fans to say he has a point.

There is some weirdness to the movie, like the way characters acted. The killer and his accomplice show themselves to the victims as if that's something they normally do, as if they didn't have a clear MO in every past movie. But honestly their actions have a little bit of a justification, and it makes for effective personal drama so I guess I can still cook up my headcanons.

For now, I'm excited about what's next. Not as in "this was meh but it could be better if they went down this route", but like "this was pretty good so I wouldn't mind getting more of this". It's reviewing well so "more like this" is to be expected. I simply hope they tone down the weird sympathy for the serial murderer a little bit.

[vanillacorpse]

I would Love to hear your detailed boiling critique of that shitty werewolf book >.> if you would be so kind as to share

My god where do I begin. "Bored Gay Werewolf", I thought picking this thing out of the shelf and giving the first page a skim. "interesting!". It didn't have the world's most impressive prose but something about the first page got me interested. Not every good book starts off strong. A lousy gay guy who is also a werewolf, that lives in his own filth. He's a mess. It's honestly not a bad premise!! Much has been made of less!

But then the rest of the book... it honestly felt like the entirety of it was written to undermine and enshitten the characters in it. FINE not every character has to be likable. But when NO character whatsoever manages to inspire any sympathy in me I have to wonder why the author would even write a book. I can make a guess what the purpose of this book was, and it wasn't to tell a story-- it was to entertain the UNBEARABLE social critique that the author very bravely, very embarrassingly, tries to present to the reader. It fails. It sucks. It's complete total ass on every front. It's like reading the diary of a twitter gay who isn't even That terminally online. It's the lowest hanging fruit, every page, every joke, every God forsaken Take.

The prose is ass too. It gave up immediately, second page. Just pages of pages of telling. There's nothing interesting that actually happens, you see; the author doesn't have the skills necessary to describe them. There is a VERY COOL, VERY MOVING performance from one of the characters, but of course he can't actually depict it! That would require skill! An understanding of poetry! Instead we have to trust everything the author tells us happens. "There's a heartwarming performance"-- are you a teenage journalist? Why on earth am I reading this? Is this the first fucking draft? Holy fuck.

Our main character, Brian, is a gay werewolf who hangs out with other cool queer people. They're kind of his friends (they're also his coworkers, and one of them is his boss!) but he doesn't really want to open up to them. He's lonely, and, for reasons which aren't interesting at all, he just isn't that comfortable with being intimate. That's his main "issue", the only semblance of friction in his otherwise boring boring boring gay werewolf life. Also he kills people at night but we never see that? and he doesn't feel guilty? and there's no consequences for it ever? Whatever. He has these work friends and together they sometimes make bad jokes together. That's their tear-jerkingly fond dynamic.

Then he meets another werewolf called Tyler who is a trust fund baby that wants to start some alpha-male style multiple-marketing crypto scheme or something of that sort (not actually ever defined). Our boring guy Brian thinks: fuck it. This sounds lame and like a scam and kind of hypermasculine in the toxic way (he's aware of all of these concepts, all of these "progressive" ideas, the entire book) BUT Tyler promises to show him how to control his werewolf form so he doesn't kill people every full moon so WHY NOT.

That's what happens in the first.... I don't know. 3 chapters? Of this book. The rest of the book can be summarized as such:

Brian continues to hang out with his toxic new cryptobro Tyler, and Tyler's other cis-het-normie friends. He HATES it the entire time but, somehow, some fucking how, it's not enough (despite constant internal dialogue calling it all lame and offensive!) to simply walk away from these people. They have no redeeming qualities. The author doesn't even try to give them redeeeming qualities. They are stock photo characters. Brian's internal dialogue refers to them as such. Tyler is a cartoon villain. There is never a single suspicion in the reader that he's anything but.

In refusing to walk away from these people, also, he estranges his cool queer work buddies who thinks he's insane for hanging with them. YOU WOULD THINK THAT, as a reader, you would feel sympathetic to his work buddies simply on the grounds that yeah, Brian is insane. At least another character recognizes it. But the author writes all of them in such a way that even THIS becomes unbearable to read: they're SO RIGHT that there is simply no argument. Brian is being stupid! He's acting weird! He needs to apologize for acting weird! It felt like going down another dumbass thread: "how to properly apologize" and the author just copy pasted that right in the book. Bam.

And that's also how the book ends. He apologizes to his friends for... almost becoming a hypermasculine cryptobro. He just says he's not going to hang out with those weirdos anymore. He "comes out" as a werewolf but apparently his work buddies already knew (????????) (because taking days off every full moon was suspicious enough to confirm it???????) (AT NO POINT IS IT IMPLIED THAT WEREWOLVES ARE A COMMON THING) and whatever. WHATEVER. Oh my god. Anyway. They accept him. It's perfect now.

His cryptobro doesn't like this, basically tries to have Brian killed. Of course it doesn't work, we knew this supervillain had to be disposed off somehow, but the reason Brian is able to kill him is because............................ because............................ secretly, one of Brian's work buddies' new weirdo boyfriends has been a werewolf hunter this entire time. His last name. is Van Helsing. He is a descendant. Of Van Helsing. And he helps kill Tyler. His cryptoscheme empire comes to a definite silver-bullet end. The fucking End.

PLEASE CLAP.

TL;DR:

[ask-fet-toy-chica]

okay, so being a walking highlight of the 80’s yourself, with those old rock songs i remember the blue rabbit playing and the insane collection of cabinets your arcade had, i have to know:

what kinda music do you listen to? i don’t wanna assume too much a girl of your southern twang is into country but i won’t judge a book by its cover. also i’d love to know your fav films too! you guys kinda had a good idea to start those weird and totally bogus ghost rumors around the boom of the slasher genre, do you like horror movies? or maybe a sucker for lovey stuff?

"Oh naw, don't feel bad for assumin'! Country music's nice an' all, but I ain't gonna lie, I'm not the biggest fan. There's some nifty lil' tunes out there, but really I prefer the techno music of the time, maybe some Europe too. Some'a the newer stuff's got a nice tune to it, even some'a the songs based off'a the rumors!"

Toy Chica looks elated to be able to share her interests and passions; it's clear she doesn't often get a chance to chat with new people like this.

"I dunno if this'll raise hairs on the back'a anyone's heads, but those ol' Terminator movies always seemed real cool to me! Was always rootin' for the good guys, though I loved it when the robots went an' gave em a scare! Sci-fi's a real neat genre, but I also just like nifty lil' slice-of-life flicks."

[2dkapsddr]

December 20th, 2024 - Arcaea, vivid/stasis, EZ2ON

a comparatively much less ambitious and scattered session today, so i'll be making it a bit easier to read by grouping up each game in order of first play, starting with... arcaea!!! ...not much to say here, it's really just downscores galore for the first half and Miserable Chokes for the second half (on BlazinG AIR and 8-EM [ETR-10], as well as sorta on FREEF4LL [BYD-9+]...? but i still need to get a PM on it for a challenge... wah)

despite the inclusion of vivid/stasis in the title, i actually only got a single score today, and it was from testing a theory in the vivid/stasis server that Unraveling Stasis only acquired the Gimmick tag for whichever difficulty one plays the chapter challenge on . i tried it on finale, since i only had the gimmick tag on encore, but unfortunately nothing happened even after restarting... ah well, at least i managed to sneak out this FC on the chart even with all the anomaly gimmicks!!!

but now, for the biggest showing of the day and the one with easily the craziest scores of the session... EZ2ON IS BACK BAYBEE!!!! it's been so damn long since i've played, but i've been itching to try it for a while now and finally had the golden opportunity to do so in the form of a multi session with the bestie inkss!!!!! all of these scores were on 4k Standard, so they do have quite a lot of Cools (and also so i don't have to write 4S in the difficulty), but like LOOK AT EM!!! i kicked things off with an AC-1 on Messier 333 [SHD 18], mhm mhm, good start... but then i followed it up with a sightread(?) AC on GOODTEK [SHD 17]!!! and then finally getting a No Miss/FC on Fire Storm [SHD 18]!!!! AND THEN AN S+++ ON FELYS -FINAL REMIX- [SHD 17]???????

this really was turning into an insane session... but MAN was i clueless to the insanity that was to come . a sweet AC and FC on VOLT and Finite [SHD 17] respectively was quite nice, but following them was the most insane batshit unexpected score of the session... a sightread AC on the most shocking chart possible, a sightread AC on the hardest difficulty i've done to date, and my best AC just In General... a sightread AC on Backfire [SHD 19] as my FIRST EVER 19 ALL COOL!!!!!!!!!!! HOOOOOLY HELL I WAS *NOT* EXPECTING TO GET ONE THIS EARLY, YET ON COMPLETE SIGHTREAD TOO?????

sheer, unparalleled insanity, but it feels like i kinda gassed out FC/AC wise afterwards, and so it remained the single best score of the session... but there's still a few more goodies to get through!!! a neat non-AC upscore on No Way Out [SHD 17], a massive (and confusing) AC on Loki [SHD 16], and then yet another AC-1 on Rain Blossom [SHD 18].... followed up by ANOTHER AC (well, almost) on a 19??? Terminated Protocol [SHD 19]????? excuse me????? and now, to conclude: a SWEET new FC upscore on Your Mind [SHD 18], and Yet Another AC-1 on SND [SHD 18] to tie up this incredibly bonkers session... once again, thanks to inkss for the matches and for showing me that . well . i was capable of settinga all these batshit insane scores!!!

[fleigies-cat]

Y’know something I hate?

When a remastered FNF song is 99% better but made just ONE bad change.

Elastic Destruction V1 is awful compared to V1.5. But its singular redeeming quality is that it has Jake doing a cool laugh at certain parts. V1.5 TRIES to do this, but the laugh is auto tuned, it doesn’t have the same unique animation given to the ACTUAL laugh used at the beginning and towards the end, and the third prong is not given any time after the hold note because Jake instantly launches into more insanity.

If they just kept that laugh, Elastic Destruction V1.5 would be a ten out of ten. My other problem is that Jake has a REALLY deep voice in the V1 and not in the V1.5, which causes some clashing in Together Forever V1.5, because Finn’s voice is high pitched, and Jake counteracted him with deep notes.

Then again, this high problem is also present in Mordecai in Terminated, which, for all intents and purposes is Overworked 1.5. Terminated is worse than Overworked purely because Of Mordecai’s voice.

Elsewhere in the mod, ignoring the new songs and new sprites, Save the Day and Glitched Gem got really good improvements while also keeping to the theme. Weirdly, The Change, which was originally one of Steven's Songs, has been moved to Freeplay, and the other two were moved down to make way for an all new song, My Monster, which is also amazing.

The thing that confuses me is why the Freeplay is like that.

Mordecai and Sponegbob get one song each, Terminated and Ready or Not respectively, yet they both get their own weeks, Regular Show and SpongeBob SquarePants respectively.

Yet Dr. Livesy, who has two, Black Mark and Treasure Island, is trapped in Freeplay.

The extra Steven Universe songs, I’ll Be Fine, The Change, and Familiar, those make sense. Though I think Familiar should have replaced Save The Day, because it starts with Kid Steven, and Glitched Gem has teen Pink Steven.

The Corrupted Hero rework with Finn’s new voice, that also makes sense.

Gunshot and Last Spooktober, which were both replaced during the FNF week by Schoolhouse Massacre and Spooked, those I get. Why they were reworked so heavily and yet maintain the same names, I don’t get.

Wish Come True also makes sense.

Also fun fact, House of Mouse is the only song in the entire mod so far in which Pibby sings. In everything except the FNF songs, she’s just kinda there.

Also fun lore fact, Vicky is probably the only one to ever willingly submit to the corruption, which is why, beyond being crazy, she is almost entirely human. She has her pupils, something that is very unnatural.

According the person who made Wish Come True, Vicky willingly submitted and became an agent of the darkness to retain her consciousness.

It’s also annoying how she calls Timmy a twerp when he shows up, even though they’re on the same side. Old habits die hard I guess. SpongeBob in the beginning of Ready or Not is really cool. He’s cast in shadow, and I looked it up, that’s his actual Sprite. So we don’t know if he’s actually Corrupted or not. But the cool thing is how they handle the echoes. They use shadows to hit those notes while the main Spob continues on.

The only bad part about Ready or Not in Pibby Corrupted is the lack of animation on the ending.