#and at what may be the less normal end for something like a video game

[maureen-corpse]

I love reading people fighting about little details in video game lore on the internet but when they say things like “You need to read this book or that book, X character is a Bad Person,” it gets annoying because I am quite literally not going to do that.

[the-masked-ram]

Fics for Gaza

Here I am taking the plunge. I'm a small blog but fast writer even when it comes to my slower times. So might as well put it to good use.

Planning on joining this fundraiser run by @ficsforgaza and help make everyone happy with some content in the process. Here is my plan of action for my wip and donation costs.

To participate- please make a donation to a vetted fundraiser and send a screenshot/proof of your donation to me in a DM. PLEASE MAKES SURE TO CENSOR ALL YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION. (internet safety and all that jazz). In the message also let me know what fic you are donating to and I will adjust expected word counts. These screenshots are merely for keeping things as honest as possible and will be shared with @ficsforgaza

-I obviously will not be taking the money myself. Please send it to one of the vetted fundraisers mentioned in the link below.

$5.00 per 800 words or a full drabble series installment

Link to vetted places to donate here! More fundraisers here!

As soon as 50% of any of the fics are sponsored I will automatically start on them.

Drabble series-

Sweet and Sour- Ren Kaji x Fem Reader Drabble Series

Your the new girl in the city. You are tough, sassy, but don't know a lick about the gangs, and if your honest you couldn't care less. But something about Ren Kaji catches your eye. He may snap and bark like a feral dog, but you can see through it and he knows it too. Slowly, you become his sanctuary even though you are the one person he's most afraid won't accept him. And he thought he was past all that. (NSFW)

5.00 for full installment

Read Part One here!

False Immunity- Hiei x Fem Reader Drabble Series

Where Hiei learns the ins and out of human courtship. (NSFW)

Find Part One-Six on my masterlist here! 5.00 for full installment

Multichap Fics-

Flawed Hope- Astarion x OC (BG3)

Brit was a paralegal, someone who had a normal life and enjoyed what she did for the most part. Yet, the only true excitement she felt lately was when she played Baldur's Gate Three. A simple video game brought her more joy than her friends or fleeting romances. One night as depression crushes her she wishes to live one day in BG3. Her wish is granted, however the world of BG3 needs her far longer than her wish had originally intended. And the worst part? She does not get along with her favorite vampire in the slightest. (NSFW)

Read the first four chaps here! WC: 1961/4000

Falling for Frogs- Sebastian x Fem Reader (SDV)

You are game developer about to make their debut into the market. The world you are about to venture into isn't exactly friendly to those of the feminine persuasion and as such you have flown under the radar using a masculine alias online. After a complete mental break down at a very important convention in Zuzu you realize you need to get away from the city for a bit so you can finish your game. Your best friend who runs a farm in Stardew Valley invites you to come stay with her. However as you stay there and get to know the locals, you realize the cute boy you saw at the con is her neighbor. What's even worse is he remembers you and just to add salt to the wound, he's one of your Kickstarters. (NSFW) WC: 309/3000

Read the first three chaps here!

The Unseen and Those Forgotten- Dabi x Fem Reader (BNHA)

The age of the Greek gods is long past. Dabi is one of the few left, his name in the ancient days had been Hades. Now he skulks among the humans, as a deity at half strength. With the old gods dying, the new ones have taken control of the humans’ feeble minds. There is a storm on the horizon though, quite literally, the end of days is nipping at mortality’s heels and the key to unlocking Kronos’s resting place, the only creature strong enough to put a stop to the apocalypse, is you. Sadly you have no idea what part you will play, after all, you are just an office worker who has an affinity for plants.... WC: 0/2000

Find the first three chaps on my masterlist here!

The Hellebore Rift- Hayato Suo x Fem Reader (Wind Breaker)

The town of Makochi has changed and so have all the gangs within it. Gone are the days of allies and rival schools. Gone are the days of delinquents battling for top spots and coming home with happy smiles from good fist fights. Now the world has been ripped apart by rifts that tear the very dimensions in two, spewing forth gigantic blood-thirsty monsters. It has forced the gangs to protect only their parts of town from everyone. Even the civilians, even those they once called friends. With those rifts and monsters, humans were gifted with powers, yet everything good always comes with a fall out. You are one of those few, blessed with the ability to Guide, to save those Espers from the toxicity that their own powers created within themselves when they protect their parts of town. You live in a small section Makochi outside any of the gangs control with a scant few Espers to call your own… or well you did until the day Hayato Suo found you. WC 313/2000

(Chapter one just started)

Oneshots-

Dog Park with Megumi (no title yet)- You don't have dogs but you find yourself at the dog park everyday because you can't have pets. That's where you meet Megumi Fushiguro (NSFW)WC: 0/15000

A Bouquet of Deadly Thorns- Hanahaki Soulmate Gojo x Fem Reader

The world now is riddled with the phenomenon known as soulmates. You don't know yours but before you can even think about finding them, you must get rid of your growing feelings for Satoru Gojo, the only problem is they've grown suffocating and you've started coughing up blood and flower petals. (NSFW) WC: 3098/8000

Tetsuro Kuroo bar night (no title yet)- The first night you meet Kuroo he was celebrating with his friends who'd just won their volley ball game. You were drinking away your sorrows yet again from another shitty date. Fate had a funny way of making you forget things when he gets dared to make a move on you. (NSFW) WC: 0/10,000

My name in your mouth- Professional Poker Player!Suo Hayato x CardShark Fem!Reader Suo Hayato is well known in the gambling circuit, he strikes fear in all his opponents. Terrified that they will lose all the winnings and perhaps even worse to him. You however are a dark horse, a rising star lurking in the shadows among the tables, and you have the arrogance to back it up. You take Suo on and surprise him in more ways then one. But he's desperate to wrest back control from you and the rising sexual tension between the two of you gives him the perfect excuse. (NSFW) WC: 0/7000

Single Drabbles- 5.00 for a full drabble

Jo Togame festival day (sfw) - Link

Jo Togame the baths (NSFW) - Link

Nobara/fem! reader (jjk) (NSFW) shopping day, in the dressing room

Himuro tatsuya/male! reader (knb) (NSFW) pining, street ball rivals

Seishiro Nagi/gn!reader (blue lock) (SPICEY (not full nsfw)) comfort, lazy day, reuniting after long distance for a while

Sebastain/fem! reader (SDV) (nsfw) phone sex

Astarion/male!reader (BG3) (NSFW) dry humping, semi public sex Suo Hayato/fem!reader (wind breaker)(NSFW) overstimulation

[theminecraftbee]

so, first, accountability statement: I plan on trying to finish the “zedaph steals a baby” fic by the end of the month and god is that one-line summary no longer accurate but we’re sticking to it, said here publicly so now I have to do it. obviously I also have recursive exchange and the writing I have for hotguy comics zine, but I am not SUPER worried about either of those time/inspiration-wise at the moment and also for Reasons I know it won’t be long until I have more free writing time after that, SO.

various items that are on my potential writing docket, I am curious which of these appeal most:

I dust off the supervillain support group au. two ways this could go: I chip away at the second arc of my original outline and acknowledge this will be like a 300k fic I’m not ready to feel “done” with or “ready to post” with for ages, or I re-work it into something a little more doable and less ambitious keeping the same premise (ren runs a support group for supervillains, doc pov as he starts to heal and redeem himself). this MAY honestly be a target for “if I don’t hate the first 50k on re-reading it and I can actually make my brain write the second arc, do a slower release schedule and then start releasing chapters before I’m done writing”? but this ALSO runs the risk of “I stopped writing it, which is often a sign I was having trouble writing it”.

pearl monster au, which has been cooking in my head for a long while. the basic premise is “one day, pearl, with no memory of how or why this happened, wakes up in a facility as a monster and must try to figure out how she got there, escape, and find her way home, even knowing she may be irrevocably changed”. now with bonus season 10 fish flavor to add to this creature design I’ve been iterating on in my head for forever! this one is ALSO an experiment for me in “can I write a fic where I can’t write dialogue for basically the entire first act”, which would be interesting to see from me, you know?

the related “bigb folklore au”, where after secret life bigb is woken up by Cat and Dog by the tracks of the King Snake, which bigb can recognize as the railroad track, and decides to journey down the railroad to see if he can figure out what the fuck is going on. I need to do video review of life series bigb for this one. this is my excuse to get Weird and Metaphorical and also assign everyone to various animals for no reason, along with using some very specific aesthetic I have wanted to use for some worldbuilding but hadn’t gotten around to yet in any of my stuff. man walks through the desert with animal, confronts train that might be the watchers, might be death, and might just be a train. also, realizes that “confront” is the operative word there and has to deal with that. you know how it is.

““office au””, in air quotes because it’s not REALLY what anyone going to an office au is looking for so much as an excuse to write weird horror. iskall, normal-ish software developer man in a boring office job who does game jams in his free time, goes to work one day to work in his boring downtown office on a payment system for a client. and then things, uh, Take A Turn. this would be a LITTLE me going “what if I wrote an au with a guy who works in tech but like, the boring side of tech I’m in. like, banks and consulting and manufacturing and shit. where you sit in meetings all day and tweak java 8 code even though that language is ten years out of date. but THEN. something exciting happens in the worst way possible.” I’m doing to iskall what I did to mumbo stuffed bird is what I’m saying. it’d be fun.

DO ANY OF THESE PARTICULARLY INTEREST ANYONE. your input will be valued. like 50% chance i get hit with a strong bolt of inspiration then IGNORE that input but it’ll be valued all the same,

[elliespectacular]

Any tips on how to correctly credit clips used in YTP? I'm very lost when it comes to finding copyright info and stuff like that.

The stakes are pretty low for YouTube Poop and crediting clips in the video/description is not standard practice - but it's a good thing to do! That said I am not an authority on this and even my method has some blind spots. These are just some generally good ideas for being a slightly-more-courteous-than-average shitposter.

The acknowledgement is the most important part, stating outright what the names of the sources are. Pay attention to the official titles of what you use and try to trace them to their original form - for example in The Price is Rice COMPLETE I wanted to credit the gamer-themed Dust-Off commercial I used in The Price is Rice Jr. Usually ads are more difficult to track down than other kinds of televised media, so often "___ TV Spot" does the job, but a quick peek at the official YouTube channel reveals that the ad's actual name was How to properly clean your gaming computer.

Then there's an acknowledgement of the owner. I try to list composers for music, directors for film, and of course artists for art. You aren't required to give an exhaustive list of every single contributor to the art you've sampled, but make sure you credit the person/company it belongs to at the very least. Going back to the Dust-Off example, the YouTube video contained a link to dust-off . com which now redirects to falconsafety . com - I lucked out because the top of the page indicates clearly that Dust-Off is a product owned by Falcon Safety Products Inc. but this info is often in the About section of a website or at the bottom of the page.

I like to throw the year on each YTP credit as well. Academic citations usually require a more precise publication date if available. Among other benefits it helps distinguish between things with the same name/owner that were rebooted later - for example there are multiple games called Sonic the Hedgehog owned by SEGA from different years (In fact in this example there are two games from 1991 so it's also important to note what system the game is for!) Generally your source credits should communicate to a viewer where to start looking for a specific thing or who to ask.

You can use Wikipedia to orient yourself if you need a lead on where to start tracking down copyright information for popular media, but make sure you cross-reference what's there with other sources. For Movies/TV I usually just look at the very end of their credits which usually has the copyright info. For music I use Discogs. Sometimes for more obscure or less-documented things I have to do some search-engine sleuthing.

If you're stuck, ask a friend for help! It can be fun and rewarding to track down something that isn't answered by a quick google search, and like most things turning it into a collaborative effort makes it less of a slog.

Copyright acknowledgement is tricky to do correctly and not every Best Practice applies to each situation. There may come a day when MLA-style citations become normal or required even for shitposts and your due diligence will become greater. Do your best, give credit where it's due, and you'll be fine :)

[flower-boi16]

Is Belos “Boring”?

A common critique levied towards The Owl House is the main antagonist Belos being supposedly boring/one dimensional as a character. This isn’t exactly true, but although it’s easy to write off this criticism I actually think it’s an interesting topic to talk about.

Why exactly do people find Belos boring despite the depths of he has as a character? Well, let’s see.

What makes a character “boring”?

“Boring” as a criticism can mean pretty much anything. When something is boring there’s usually a reason for why it’s boring, and the reasons can be different depending on what the critique is being applied to.

For a tv series or movie boring could mean that nothing happens in it, or it’s filled with filler, or it’s just not that interesting. For a video game, boring could mean the gameplay simply isn’t interesting or it could be repetitive. And, for a character, it’s the character being one dimensional or lacking in depth.

Boring can be a valid critique against something if there’s an objective reason for it being boring, if you just say “this is boring” without giving much of a reason for it it’s not really much of a criticism, just your own personal taste.

Why do people find Belos boring?

Now let’s get into why some people may find Belos “boring” as a character. Reasons for this include the idea that Belos is entirely one-note or one dimensional as a character. Why exactly is that? Well, let’s first look at the information about Belos that the show gives us on a surface level;

Belos is a 1600s pilgrim who killed his brother because that brother fell in love with a witch, and so he’s come up with a plan to kill everyone on the boiling isles by using manipulation to become the land’s emperor. His motivation for this? Bigotry. Nothing more than that.

On the surface, Belos may sound like just a one dimensional bigot with not that much to him, now let’s come up with another summary of a character, let’s say Amity, based on what the show gives us on a surface level and compare it to Belos, shall we?

Amity is a character who initially starts out as a bully, but grows nicer over the course of the first season and eventually grows a crush on Luz. She makes amends with her past childhood friend Willow after cutting her off due to her parents. She was made the person she is by her mother who she stands up to in the second season.

Both descriptions are fairly surface level views of the characters but Amity’s sounds a bit less one-dimensional compared to Belos since the show lays out her depths and development a lot more. Belos, on purely a surface level, may look like a boring character to some, however, he does have depth.

But in order to see those depths you need to hyper analyze him as a character, breaking down his dialogue to know things about him as a character. And, in the end, there are different kinds of interpretations of Belos you can draw based on his actions and words in the show.

And THATS exactly why some people may find Belos boring; a lot of things about him tend to be left up to interpretation, and you need to hyper analyze him as a character to find those depths the show has hidden, which you don’t normally need to do for most antagonists.

You need to directly look at Belos’ dialogue and actions within the show to see the depth he has rather having the show lay them out to you. Again, you don’t normally need to do this with most characters in stories, especially in kids shows.

So is Belos boring?

No. But I can get why some people may see Belos as boring since again, you need to specifically hyper analyze him to get the depths of him as a character, and some parts of him are left up to interpretation. That could probably not be someone’s cup of tea and that’s fine.

But, personally, that’s what I love about Belos as a character and it’s why he’s so fun to analyze; every line of dialogue he speaks tells you something about him as a character, more so than any other character in the show, and it’s so fun just to take a look at him as antagonist because it’s what makes him interesting to me.

I’m planning on writing a post analyzing Belos as a character more deeply and how he exhibits a perfect example of a “fall” arc, so stay tuned for that.

Conclusion

So anyways, ya, that’s my whole take on this. Thought this would be a fun thing to talk about after all this time and…bye.

[marupunch]

Hello! May I please know what exactly are your thoughts on the craftsman and why you hate him so much? /genq

(I do agree with you but I want to know why so much hatred if you don't mind)

Don't worry and thank you for asking! Sorry this took so long but I wanted to deliver something complete and objective (I had to write this 3 times because the first one looked like a rant...)

Even though I don't like Craftsman, it's not like a "I hate the character" kind of hate, more like "I don't think he's a good person but I'll try to reflect that on my art instead of downright hating the whole character" kind of hate. There's actually some background on why I think like this so I'll try to be as objective as possible with my arguments to make my point clear.

Remember, this is just a personal opinion and it's okay if someone doesn't agree with me!

These are video game characters and we're all allowed to have different perspectives about them.

(...)

⚠️WARNING OF LOOOONG TEXT AND SPOILERS FOR ORIGAMI KING⚠️

It's important that we understand that Origami King is a game that relies a lot on Japanese culture to tell a story and that's why there's a lot of misunderstanding in the western part of the fandom about Olly and his character, motivations, etc. We must also understand that origami is a highly respected and important art form in Japan, therefore, its creation entails different guidelines rooted in the culture of this country.

Let's start with the most basic. According to the rules of this art, you are not supposed to write over origami. To be honest, you are not supposed to use any type of tool on origami other than the paper and your hands. I'm not saying that it is completely prohibited but this reduces the value of a work. See it as a form of "cheating."

Writing over origami gives an aspect of informality to your piece. And it greatly influenced how Olly perceived himself, since he took Craftsman's writing as something that reduced his value as origami and even ruined him, as a work of art.

In Japan, a very important aspect of society is how people perceive you, the image you give to those around you. Olly was supposed to be a king, immaculate and perfect, but he was tainted by the very creator of him. His image was ruined and his appearance became a symbol of shame.

Hence his fury towards his creator, which is more highlighted in the Japanese version of the game and is not hidden behind a joke of "All Toads are the same", as in the American version.

At the end of the game it is revealed to us that the message were words of encouragement and good wishes. But again, these are only visible once Olly is on the brink of death, as they were inaccessible in his normal state. They were good intentions, but they did a lot of damage, in the end.

It makes me wonder how the Origami craftsman, being someone who practiced this art every day, did not know such a basic rule. Or maybe he ignored it, but this also leads him to be a bit indifferent, since it doesn't seem like he had the implications of creating a life in general in mind, much less ruining an origami work.

Which also brings us to his motivations. In the game, Craftsman mentions, and I quote, "I don't get to celebrate my craft very often, so I might have gone a bit... overboard."

(Note: I'm the Spanish version, he says "Because people don't compliment my work very often." Yeah, that doesn't help my view of him.)

Although the general perception leaves us with a father-son relationship, Craftsman never refers to Olly as such, since from the beginning, he had created him as a craft, a way for people to praise his abilities, never having in mind a family or considering what responsibility it had to create a new life.

I think he never fully understood the concept of what it was to bring origami to life beyond them being talking dolls, a striking party trick, because also, seeing what Olly has done, he mentions to Olivia that he should never have used the Fold Of Life.

The reason she and Olly are alive in the first place. Even Olivia herself understands the implication of this comment, responding to her creator "Don't say that, I love being alive!".

It almost seems that for Craftsman, the Fold Of Life was just a creative choice about whether or not to put more detail into his creations. But for Olly and Olivia, that technique was their entire lives, literally. The choice of whether they existed or not.

Clearly until now there is a certain objectification on the part of Craftsman towards his creations, seeing them as just this instead of real children. And although there are vain attempts like the doodle on Olly or giving Olivia a weapon to defeat her brother, we can agree that they were not the most optimal tools to try to guide two children who he was supposed to protect. Not like his creations, but like his children. But so far everything is normal.

At least until the end.

Craftsman's first reaction upon seeing Olly's body is to appreciate the material with which he had made it. Yes, perhaps a bit of nostalgia in the creation of it, but ultimately it's a bit insensitive to mention that given that there is a life that has been taken, his son's life, again, showing the aforementioned objectification.

Even worse when, even if he's watching Olivia's expression, he congratulates her for "using the weapon he implemented in his design." At this point I'm trying to be objective, but this is a completely off-base comment. Not only does he not come close to comforting Olivia in a situation that is probably difficult for her, but he is too focused on what HE did to her that he barely does anything to support her beyond teaching her how to make a paper crane.

She just killed her own brother PLEASE just for once be a little emphatic

By the time the ending arrives, Mario seems much more affected by the loss of Olivia than Craftsman himself, who seems much happier for someone who should be mourning his creations.

I think that the scene in the Secret Ending is the closure of why I hate this character, because as I mentioned before, it dehumanized Olly and Olivia a little, treating them only as creations that served a purpose (making him gain recognition) only for them to end...

...being that. The key problem was never acknowledged, Olly and Olivia ended up being exactly what he wanted them to be.

As I mentioned before, this is my PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE about him. It's okay if people don't see him this way but the idea of Craftsman being this kinda insensitive and irresponsable parent makes a lot of sense to me. It just feels correct, specially after how Olly shows symptoms of trauma, like not wanting to see Craftsman's face again being the reason why he wants to get rid of all of the Toads, as mentioned on the Japanese version.

I'm not justifying Olly at all because I know he's wrong with a lot of things but the game tells you he's wrong. He gets his punishment and the whole character of Olly revolves around being a young, irrational king. On the other hand, the image the game gives you about Craftsman is a poor victim who didn't do anything wrong.

I think the worst part is that he never got a single punishment after this. Maybe being trapped in his basement but considering he was the one who started everything in first place, he doesn't seem guilty or even affected. I guess creating two gods, then having them both die in front of you it's just another day for Theofold.

TLDR; Craftsman is an irresponsable, insensitive and negligent father who traumatized Olly. Also a poop head. (?)

[vulpinmusings]

My speculations on Indigo Park

I'm putting this post under a read-more in case it finds someone who hasn't played Indigo Park yet and wants to experience it blind.

(BTW, it's free and takes about an hour to finish so just go play it. The horror value's kinda tame overall, but trigger warning for blood splatter at the end.)

Why Rambley doesn't recognize Ed/the Player: The collectables notes make it obvious that our Character, Ed, used to be a regular guest at Indigo Park as a kid. Yet, when Rambley goes to register them at the beginning he says he doesn't recognize Ed's face. I've seen speculation that this might be due either to Ed's age or the facial data database being wiped or corrupted after the park's closure. However, I think there's another possibility.

The Rambley AI Guide was a relatively new addition to the Park. Indigo Park is essentially Disneyland; it's been around for a long time and I rather doubt that the technology for a sentient AI park guide was available on opening day. Rambley mostly appears on modern-looking flat-screens, but in the queue for the railroad he pops up on small CRTS, so technology has advanced over the park's life time. I suspect that Rambley as an AI was implemented a short time before whatever caused the park to be shut down, and the reason that Ed's face isn't already in the system is because Ed just never went to the Park during the time between Rambley's implementation and the closure.

Rambley needs Ed just to move around. Rambley claims he'd been stuck in the entrance area since the closure. That might imply that as an AI guide he's not permitted to move around inside the Park unless he's attached to a guest, and he has to stick close to them. He's probably linked to the Critter Cuff we wear, which would explain why he insists we get it and doesn't just override the turnstile or something. He still needs cameras to see us and TVs to communicate, but it's the Critter Cuff that determines which devices he's able to use at a given moment.

There are other AI Guides. Rambley's limitations in where in the park he can be seems inconvenient for an AI that's meant to assist all the park's guests. Perhaps during normal operations he was less limited because every guest had a Critter Cuff on, but that might have put too much strain on his processing if he was the only AI avatar. Ergo, some or all of the other Indigo characters could have been used as AI guides as well; either a guest would be assigned to one character through the whole park or the others would take over for Rambley in their themed areas while the raccoon managed the main street. Due to the sudden closure, the other AIs may be stuck in certain sections of the Park like Rambley was stuck at the entrance, and we'll interact with them and/or free them as part of the efforts to fix the place up.

The "mascots" are unrelated to the AI. But Rambley believes they are linked. The official music video for Rambely Review has garnered a lot of speculation for how different Rambley's perception of how the Mollie Macaw chase ended is to what we saw in the game. I'm not 100% sold on the idea that Rambley flat out doesn't know that the Mollie mascot got killed. His decision to drop his act and acknowledge the park's decayed state is because he sees how freaked out Ed is by the Mollie chase, and he seems to glance down toward Mollie's severed head when he trails off without describing the mascots. HOWEVER, I don't think he sees Mollie as being truly dead. He's possibly come to the conclusion (or rationalization) that the AI guides, based on the actual characters, are stuck inside the feral fleshy mascots and the mascot's death has led to Mollie's AI being liberated. This idea will stick with him until such time as we encounter an AI character before dealing with the associated mascot (likely Lloyd).

Salem is central to the park's closure. All we really know about Salem the Skunk is what we see in the Rambley's Rush arcade game, where Salem uses a potion to turn Mollie into a boss for us to fight. This reflects real world events, although whether Salem instigated the disaster due to over-committing to their characterization or was merely a catalyst that unwittingly turned the already dubious new mascots into outright dangers remains to be seen.

Rambley's disdain for Lloyd is unwarranted. Collectables commentary indicates that Lloyd's popularity may have been eclipsing Rambley's, and that ticks Rambley off. That's not the fault of the Lloyd(s) we're going to interact with, however. That's on Indigo's marketing for emphasizing Lloyd so much. And who knows, maybe there were plans for other retro-style plushies, but the Park got shut down before those could come out. Either way, while Lloydford L. Lion may be a bit of an arrogant overdramatic actor, the AI Guide version of him isn't going to come across as deserving Rambley's vitriol, and that's going to be the cause of one chapter's main conflict.

[alarrytale]

I know you disagreed with me when I said before that I didn’t think Harry was going to put out new music by the end of the year. Of course I still think that, and I don’t believe he’s pushed it off because of Liam.

I’ve seen posts that Harry is selling his London homes, and Stevie for some reason, letting the world know that he has 3 houses in Italy. Just makes me think again that he’s done for awhile. I still believe the never ending tour, the mess with O*ivia, the less than stellar acting reviews affected him way more than we know. I swear, he’s a very different guy now than he was a few years ago. Anytime he’s been in public lately , even going back to James Corden’s last show, you can see him with haunted eyes and physically making himself as small as possible. I think there’s a lot going on with him. He hasn’t said one thing to his fans in a couple of years. That’s not normal for someone in the spotlight or wanting to stay in the spotlight. And I know this might be reaching, but Anne hasn’t seemed herself on IG in awhile, and the podcast she did with Sophie had her talking about having a really bad year.

I wonder what Liam’s death will do to them all. It might have pushed Harry over the edge. I don’t believe he even personally wrote that statement that was put out. Honestly, I don’t see Zayn doing his shows either.

Sorry for the doom and gloom, but my weird intuition is loud.

Hi, anon!

Right now i think a lot of things are up in the air. We don’t know the next steps for either H, L or N, nothing is announced and they're mia. And i wouldn't be surprised if Z postponed his UK leg of tour. The 20th november, when his tour is due to start, might be too soon. We don’t know if H had anything planned for this year, or if he didn’t. Rumours say he did. I don't think he does anymore, and i do think it's because of Liam.

I don't think H is as unaffected by his time in 1D and the industry treatment as it may seem. He's got better coping mechanisms than the other boys, but i also think he's become more withdrawn, quiet and jaded as the years have gone by. He's playing the game, because he loves making music, but considering his mfasr music video, i think he's trying to tell us he knows he's just a commodity, and not valued as a human.

Harry's been investing in and flipping property since he started earning money in 1D. Des is also involved. Harry's got so many properties and sold so many properties in his time, that i'm not surprised he's got three houses in his name in Italy. That doesn’t mean he's living there at all. Rule of thumb is; if we know about it, know where it's located and how it looks inside, he doesn't live there. It's either a vacation home, or something he buys to renovate and then flip it.

I also think it's hard to tell how much Liam's death has affected the other boys. It depends on so many things we have no information about. I don't think we'll know until we see them again, they start talking again and start working again. I hope, in vain, that Liam's death will trigger them to work to change things for the better for themselves. Like lawsuits, end of contracts, end of stunting and coming outs. If everything just continues as is, like Liam was just an unfortunate casualty of the industry, and the vicious circle just continues, then idk where this will all end.

[sharkinthetoilet]

Hi can I have The main trio + butters and creek with an alt autistic boyfriend that also has a habit of losing track of time when playing video games

Alt + Autistic reader

Gender: masculine

Warnings: brief talk about meltdowns, slight ableism

Notes: mostly writing this from my experience of autism, remember how it's different for everyone!!

☆-stan:

• Definitely needs an Explanation what autism is • He tries really hard to do everything for you • Tries to avoid any sensory issues, speaks for you in case of non-verbality, gets you stuff from your hyper fixation/ special interest(s), etc • Protects you for dear god • Any abliest gets a fist across their face, by the star quarterback • If you're anything like me, you get overly panicked when you aren't in your time plan • So stan specifically tries to keep reminding you of the time when playing, so you keep the time in mind • Listens to you rambling • Always forgets what certain words mean • "Are you uhh uhm.. what was the word?" • Won't treat you much differently, only like the needed things he changes • really likes your style • Helps you find new clothing, but is super unaware 💀 • Will grab kids clothing or something, but usually not something you would wear

☆-kyle:

• Does a lot of research about autism • Also 'interviews' you to find out, what he needs to know • Like if it's okay to hug, what to do when you have meltdowns, etc • Tries to show interest in your hyperfixation but ends up irritating you, because he acts like he knows more • Still shows interest but with less enthusiasm (enough to seem genuine (which he is) though) • Sets strick times for playing, he heavily relays on time plans • Overprotective. • He may infantilize you without noticing • If it bothers you, he'll try super hard to stop though • He's pretty sarcastic • Then he realises you may not understand that it was sarcasm • "I looove hanging out with cartman" ... "that was sarcasm-" • He tries okay 😭 • Doesn't have a big opinion to your style • (He finds it super attractive) • Buys stuff when he thinks it fits your style, he normally gets really good stuff

☆-kenny:

• Kenny doesn't really care • Not in a mean way, just he won't change anything • Except for like the small stuff you tell him you don't like (like physical touch, if you don't like it) • He cracks a few jokes about it but it's never really an important topic for him • He's a really good listener, you can ramble to him for hours • Is kinda oblivious when it comes to the more negative things • If you have a meltdown, you'd need to explain to kenny what that even is, before it happens • If he doesn't know, he'll just give you space • Doesn't care about losing track of time in games, he does it too • What he does care about is your style • He'll tell you everyday how hot you look • Goes shopping with you and helps choose what clothes to get • "6/10, i like how it looks, but it makes your legs look shorter, maybe go for a size smaller" • Real fashion guru

☆-butters:

• Has no idea what autism is • When he finds out, he'll do everything to make you feel comfortable • God bless his heart • Asks for permission to touch you, how you feel, if you aren't overwhelmed, always lets you choose what to eat, etc • Extremely considerate • As example, won't go to a party, if he knows that you don't like crowds (if you do yk) • Great at talking for you • That kind of "excuse me, he asked for no pickles" guy • He also think to much about your gaming habits • Except if you ask him to time it or something • Loves feeling like he can make stuff easier for you • Also loves your sense of fashion • Helps picking out clothes (while considering if you'd like the material) • Would buy similar clothes to match • God.Bless.His.Heart.

☆-creek:

• Neurodivergent couple goals • You'd guys' groupchat would be called something like: two autistis and the add guy • Craig and you would desperately try to find a shared hyperfixation and then battle each other with trivia • And tweek is just chilling • Craig knows how to handle you well, since he's also autistic • And tweek would also have his fair share of knowledge • Very supportive and considerate • Craig keeps track of time while playing (cuz he needs his goddamn time plan 🤝) but tweek loses track of time even faster than you • Both also like your style • But they aren't good at giving advice, in case of shopping or something • Kinda like stan yeah • You and craig have a ramble-tuesday where you tell each other stuff about your hyperfixations

[mermaidsirennikita]

ARC REVIEW: Two Can Play by Ali Hazelwood

4.25/5. Releases 10/1/2024.

The Vibes: video games, workplace rivals, snowed in, pining

Heat Index: 7/10

The Basics:

Rival indie video game design companies end up on a work retreat to collaborate on a new project. The problem for lead designer Viola? Her co-lead is Jesse, the quiet expert she had a crush on for years... until, of course, he made it very clear that he wasn't interested. They're equally invested in making this project a success, however. And as the snow falls, extending the retreat even further, Jesse and Viola realize there's a lot more to their friction than what initially met the eye.

The Review:

So cute! I needed something quick and refreshing, and this was exactly it. With a heavy dose of heat, especially for how quick a read (listen? This is a Spotify exclusive and audio only) it is. I actually started the book a little curious as to whether or not it would feel too crunched; it's half or less than half the listening length of a typical Hazelwood audiobook. But it kind of worked perfectly?

The retreat is key, I think. This is going to be perfect as the autumn and winter temperatures close in. I loved the details of the retreat, the snow, the hot tubs, the warm beds... it was all very cozy, and coziness is absolutely in Hazelwood's wheelhouse. However, it's never a boring coziness. The snap of her dialogue, the humor in the character dynamics, keeps it from being slow even when it's wholesome. Which is easier said than done!

Viola and Jesse are charming, likable leads. Speaking of Hazelwood's wheelhouse—nothing here reinvents her wheel. Which I think is less "big guy, small heroine, they are nerds" and more "He's into her from afar but for reasons can't act on it and she interprets his ambivalence as loathing" (though Not in Love was a notable exception). Personally, I think she does it very well, and as long as I'm entertained, I'm good with it.

You're not going to be shocked by the fact that Jesse's feelings for Viola may be more complicated than she thought. I found his reasoning to be pretty solidly realistic, even if the problem could've been resolved sooner. It's a normal miscommunication to me. Not too dramatic, not too slight. Just right.

I found the video game backdrop pretty fun and not too difficult to follow (I say as someone who knows approximately nothing about video games). I actually really liked the insight on the art of designing a video game, which I've always been tangentially aware of but enjoyed learning more about. There was a sweet, not super subtle but still fun, connection between the love story and the game—and speaking of? Kinda want to play the game now.

Side note: There's a subplot that's not quite a secondary romance between Jesse and Viola's bosses... I want SO much more of that situationship. I'd take a whole book, Ali!

The Sex:

OOH BUT THIS WAS SO GOOD? And I didn't expect it. I mean, Ali always writes good sex scenes, but I kind of thought this might skimp a little since it's on the shorter side. But uh... no. You get several sex scenes, and they're all very hot (I didn't expect THAT in a quick book, but I wasn't mad about it) while also maintaining a bit of emotional softness.

But what I loved most about the sex scenes was how confident Viola is. She's a good lay! Jesse's very overwhelmed! We love an overwhelmed hero!

It's quick, it's to the point, it's going to scratch your itch for a Hazelwood "nerds in love and also banging" book. And it's ideal for fall and winter.

On an audiobook note, Kelsey Navarro Foster did a great job with this one. This format served the book well; it felt like a little treat. I'd definitely recommend, especially if you're going through a bit of a reading slump.

Thanks to NetGalley and Spotify Audiobooks for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[queenofzan]

So I'm watching a VOD of frapollo94 playing through Fear and Hunger: Termina and getting ending C, and he and his chat are theorizing at the end of the run, and...driving me fucking crazy. But this video is like a year old at this point so commenting feels a little silly.

First: becoming a New God /= ascension. I thought this was spelling out pretty clearly in Funger 1 tbh; New Godhood is a trap. I thought it was a trap laid out by the Old Gods, but certainly in Termina that doesn't seem to be the case. Honestly with how the Traces are in the dungeon, it seems unlikely; they don't give that much of a shit about humans. It would be like caring about the possibility of ants taking human form to participate in society. Like...what the fuck? That's just obviously not going to happen, why would I even think about that.

Ascension is something Alll-mer did, and we know even in Funger 1 that he is more on par with the Old Gods. Alll-mer is more powerful than the New Gods, objectively, and has been relevant and in power continuously for like 1500 years, which seems to be a great deal longer than New Gods manage.

The Girl, who becomes the God of Fear and Hunger, also ascends. This is implied to be possible because of a few things, although now at least one of them has been thrown into doubt by lore in Termina. A: her experiences have been as pure as any mortal's experiences could be, as she has only known always fear and hunger, trapped in the dungeons and caged like an animal. She seems able to understand language, but reluctant to speak. She does not have a name, or else does not share it. She is visibly touched by gestures as small as giving her (back?) a creepy doll, or letting her have a dagger. She is not living a typical childhood, even by the standards of the Fear and Hunger world; her life is hell and even the bright spots in it are some of the worst days of the other party members' lives.

B: she is born of a New God and a human. This demi-god status allows her the possibility of ascension through...fate? Having higher stats than a normal human child? Unclear. Made less clear in Termina by the conflicting lore we are introduced to about Alll-mer.

In Fear and Hunger 1, Alll-mer is said to be the child of a false god and a virgin mother. Being deep in the dungeons of fear and hunger in the "New Gods are a lie" gameplay loop, this is easily interpreted as him being the child of a New God and a human.

In Fear and Hunger: Termina, the skin bible of Alll-mer suggests an alternate origin story, where Alll-mer was created as some sort of ubermensch divine science experiment by Vitruvia, or possibly as the offspring of Sylvian and a prototype human. Which would make Alll-mer an even more traditional kind of demi-god...and also less human.

Someone in frapollo's chat suggested this was to poke fun at Christianity and the idea of Jesus being just some guy, which, I guess in a Doylist sense, that makes sense. But with the entire theme of Fear and Hunger 1 being "mortals cannot become gods outside of really super specific circumstances and that's just a trap for ambitious humans to fall into" I uhhhh think there may be more to it than that.

Whoever it is that has a vested interest in humans thinking they can become gods, but actually falling into the New God trap, would also have a vested interest in supporting the origin story of Alll-mer where he is "just" a human, but managed to ascend to greater power and intense relevance. I don't think this is the Old Gods, because again why would they give a shit, but I don't know how much evidence there is in-game to really support a good hypothesis. I will say, we see the Church is not above doing some freaky shit, committing heresies, and keeping secrets from the majority of people, in both games.

The Church in Fear and Hunger has dark priests, who specifically do also study/worship the Old Gods, as well as a history of literal human and blood sacrifice. By Termina, that has supposedly ceased, but we also see the Prehevil Church doing some hinky shit, including human and blood sacrifice that is supposedly out-dated, and potentially collaborating with Sulphur cultists or even outright subverting their own outwardly Alll-merian worship.

We also know from both games that there are sects or groups that disagree with Church doctrine, at least in details, and may openly or secretly subvert their control, such as the Yellow Mages following/worshipping Nas'hrah, and Father Domek keeping Marina's secret from his superiors.

I know, queer pagan saying "ooh, the fantasy church is bad!" but like. It is. We see that they practice hypocrisy, censorship, weird bloodline requirements, and potentially worship of the Anti-Christ. I don't know if it's that much of a stretch to blame them for, if not initiating, then certainly perpetuating the cycle of the New Gods trap, and reinforcing it with a story of Alll-mer's origins that, being 1500-1940 years in the past, is hard to definitively prove or disprove, but just so happens to align with keeping the false hope of New Godhood alive.

(This is complicated by the fact that by 1942 most people seem to not believe in or remember the New Gods very well; although we see New Gods in Termina, they are in specific ritual circles and effectively summoned with offerings, including Chambara, who we know likely had to be defeated in order for the worldstate to be what it is. Idk man, it doesn't seem that much of a stretch for the Church to keep working towards an outdated goal, but that isn't satisfying.)

I don't have a conclusion here, I'm just frustrated lmao

[voidshrubsquared]

Addi oc lore!!! For the only proper addi oc I have!!! She's a purple addi and her name is Mobi L. Addison (ahaha so creative I know-)

Putting a cut here cause this is. Long

As her name suggests, she does mobile game advertising! The really obnoxious and weird and annoying kind <3 Very energetic, playful and excitable before the Incident :)

Okok so. Lore. Mobi was part of a small department of 3 ads. Her, a pink and an orange. They did smaller scale campaigns and stuff like banners in less populated websites and such. One day their orange addi got a sweet deal from a big company that would have him work at a different part of town. It was a lot of cash, and the other two encouraged him to take it. With a bit of hesitation he did, and they had a celebration and everything. Big promotion day!!!

Their orange left, and for a while he'd send texts, emails, and his sum of money to take care of bills and pay off the house and such. Then... texts became scarce, he became busier, and the money trickled to a stop. He didn't come back for the vacation they had planned months in advance. He just. Left them. What a dick >:/

Realizing this, Mo and Locke (the pink, also nicknamed Lucky), both upset but not having a lot of time to process the abandonment, had to take extra work from wherever they could to keep the house, pay bills, and keep their sales up. It was very stressful, but they were able to stay afloat for a good while. They were able to keep positive about things and even grew closer together as friends! Locke was. Clearly interested in being more than friends, but Mo was very oblivious of her advances and only saw her as a friend (she didn't know until waaaaay later, but she's aroace). And things were good! Until the INCIDENT MWAHAHAHA

So one day, Mobi did her usual morning routine, said goodbye to Locke as they went their separate ways to work until sundown, and then when she came back, Lucky wasn't home yet. Which is weird!!! Because she comes home hours before Mo!!!! Mobi sends a few texts, no dice. She makes a few phone calls, straight to voice mail. Oh no.

Like how all missing persons' cases go, eventually there's a police search, posters go up, several restless nights... After long hours of waiting for something, anything, the only thing that is found is Lucky's car parked in the grass somewhere way out of the outskirts of the city. It seemed like she was planning to return to it, because she'd left it running, and they found it out of battery. That's all they know about her, and that's all Mobi will ever know about what happened to her. (Maybe. I might let her know in the future I'm not sure.)

But you get to know!!! Heck yeah!!!! So!!!

Lucky was trying her best to help Mo out and lighten the load a little, y'know? So she may or may not. Gotten into some. Reeeeally shady business. But!! It paid well!! It totally wasn't running errands and occasionally clesning up the dirty work of a company that may or may not maybe perhaps mayhaps. Abduct people to use as snuff film props. Ahaha. Noooo. Definitely not that. Uhm. Well anyways you can guess how that ended up for her. Once she made one too many mistakes and wasn't as useful as before, well!!

At least there's a tape with evidence of her on-camera death somewhere out there. Maybe that's how Mo finds out, actually!

Anyways. So obviously Locke's disappearance leaves Mobi incredibly devastated. She barely has any time to grieve though, first she has to move out of home into a smaller apartment, she can't pay everything off by herself now. For a while, she doesn't work, sales get low, and she just. Doesn't know how to cope with this at ALL.

So!! How DO you cope with this AND work to pay rent and keep yourself alive?? Simple! Work yourself to death!!!

Mobi very healthily decides she's going to keep her mind off things by working herself until her circuits fry off. Very normal. So she goes to this big video advertising megacorp, takes as many jobs and errands as possible, and works as much as she can until she passes out from exhaustion. She becomes a veey reliable asset to the company, at least...?

Her only sustenance is coffee, energy drinks, anything that can keep her awake for as long as possible. She doesn't take sick days, she doesn't take vacation days, only works. And she enjoys it, in a way! After a month or two of initial struggles, she finds her rhythm and doesn't stop. Eventually, she forgets Locke. But she doesn't stop working! And she stays like that. For like ten years. Super exhausting, she's NOTHING like the fun, excitable addi shw used to be. She got to work for a big shot for a little while at least! If you get to see one of his old commercials, you might see her as a background actor in a few! Nowadays she mostly does video advert work, graphic design, banners, all that good stuff everyone absolutely hates. (Fun fact she loves targeting Berdly, her ads annoy him so much)

So this cycle happens for ages until there's a new addition to the company that changes everything for her. See, Mobi doesn't have friends. She doesn't have time for friends! She just works!! And then this GOOF of a yellow ad joins and brightens up the place so much, that she can't help but look their way and smile. Videon the silly goof. The plinko. (Listen I was so deep into Bright's addi lore here, I couldn't help myself-) Fun fact I chose Vid specifically for this because canonically they take a job where they aren't as home as often after the whole Spamton disappearing thing. So yeah

Mobi likes this ad, they're loud and playful and love hanging out and goofing off on stage, off stage, mischievous little shit. And it... snaps Mo out of her routine little by little. She starts interacting with them, saying hi when they come in, laughing at their stupid jokes, thinking 'wait that'd be so funny' when they suggest they do something clearly dumb. Why do you want to dump all those pounds of glitter on the actors for this commercial. No, get away from the glitter, gET AWAY-

So Mo warms up to them, and she starts conversations with them!! They start out casual until Vid makes one of those suggestions, and Mo can't catch herself when she gets excited and adds onto it. And oh god suddenly they are friends. Oh god oh no. We are so doomed guys. The more she hangs out with Vid, the more that playfulness and energy returns to her. She starts dropping a few of her dozens of jobs to take WEEKENDS off. Dear god her co-workers look at each other like she grew a second head. But she loves it. She loves hanging out with this new friend, talking to them, doing dumb stuff like pour a bottle of bubble bath into a fountain and running away from a disaster that ends up on the newspaper the next day (they never got caught). She likes inviting them home! Crashing at their place and meeting their department! Accidentally thrashing the place with them! (They did get caught and had to do all house chores for the next month. Still worth it.)

Finally, they get to that level of friendship where you can open up to one another about Life and Philosophy and Problems and Stuff. So they do, and Mo remembers that 'oh yeah. I never really grieved my friend's disappearance. I'm gonna cry for an hour now.' And she does, and Vid does too, they bond over their lost friends, talk about them, reminisce about their happy memories turned sour. Vid gets to talk about Spamton without any BLUE GUMBALL BITCH BOYS SHUNNING THEM ABOUT IT ahem huh what what was that. Uh. And Mobi gets to remember her fun times with Lucky, and share how much she hates that orange addi that I never bothered to name! This is when she learns she's aroace also. And Vid informs her Lucky obviously had a huge crush on her. Oh! Welp! Something new to process, hopefully properly this time.

Okay this is getting real long. I don't have much after this, except for the idea that Vid could offer helping to find anything they can about Lucky, any info at all, just to try and help her get some closure. She offers the same for them and Spamton's missing case. They wouldn't find anything Spam related, but they would find a lead for Lucky. And it leads them to perhaps a dangerous ARG-type rabbit-hole where they find documents of Lucky's involvement with the snuff film company, a copy of the tape of the film involving her death, and maybe even enough evidence for the authorities to launch a big investigation that saves dozens of missing ads and bringd closure to hundreds more. I like that, I think I'll make it canon. Like a buddy-cop thriller type thing or something idk.

Ok wow that was a lot. That's all I have/remember of the Mobi lore!!! Thanks for reading all this way if you did!! Woah!!!! I'm starving I'm gonna go eat BYEEEE

OH AND I SHOULD ADD HER REF SHEET TOO LEMME JUST

There we go!

( @emiplayzmc @yanderespamton78 and why not, @turntableart @solalunar-eclipse I told you guys about this but I don't remember how much so uhhh ye :3)

[familiariscanis]

i don't care if bsd is believable. i don't care if the plot twists make sense, because honestly they never really have made much sense and they don't necessarily need to. bsd tends to be kind of ridiculous and a lot of times that's what makes it fun and endearing. i am perfectly willing to suspend my disbelief for this show.

i do care if bsd is rewarding tho, and i don't feel like this was a particularly rewarding season finale as far as dazai's character goes. another dazai ex machina ending to a season isn't the problem here for me; it's the doubt that resolution is retroactively casting on everything dazai has done and said in the last arc. it makes the sincerity of everything he said suspect. it makes me wonder if he was ever really in danger. how much dazai knew, how assured he was of his victory isn't entirely clear, but that doesn't really matter. what matters is that enough of the conflict in the mersault arc was shown to be not real, and that puts everything in a different light. it makes any vulnerability or weakness dazai showed during the arc seem inconsequential, and it makes it feel less genuine dazai's speech to chuuya when he was "drowning" chuuya was interesting when the chapter released because it had so many character and relationship implications. dazai, pragmatic and logical as he is, being capable of killing chuuya if he had to but not incapable of feeling nothing about it. it made you wonder if perhaps dazai might be doing something he'd regret, if he'd realize only once it's too late the true consequences of his actions. dazai saying for years that he wants to kill chuuya and genuinely believing that he wants him dead, only to realize once he's succeeded at that that his life is missing something without chuuya there to irritate him... that's interesting! that's opening up a whole world of possibilities for dazai's character and their relationship. even if chuuya survives, dazai still may be faced with the realization that hey, he doesn't want chuuya dead. it forces him to really reckon with the magnitude of importance chuuya has in his life, which, for all of their unspoken trust, may be something dazai has taken for granted. it might make him re-examine his feelings or himself. it might change the dynamic between them.

now that there's the possibility of it being pre-planned, that speech loses it's weight— and the character implications of it are somewhat lost. of course, there is the possibility that dazai didn't know at the time, that he only figured it out at some point during the events of the game. it's certainly open to interpretation and it's definitely interesting to interpret it that he didn't know at the time, but it's an equally valid interpretation that dazai knew all along, so it shifts the exploration of dazai's character and his feelings for chuuya from the realm of canon to fanon.

but the way that the vampire fake-out plot twist is presented does strip some of the possibility for vulnerability from dazai's words. it casts enough doubt on it to make it plausible that he was just fucking around, that it doesn't really mean anything. it keeps dazai in a secure place of superiority in the narrative and makes him immune to normal character flaws and weaknesses. dazai, as a person, is supposed to be learning to trust and he wins because of that trust, but it's falling flat for dazai as a character (for me, at least) because we don't believe there was ever really a risk that he'd fall. as the audinece, we can see asagiri setting up a safety net and it negates the impact of the trust fall that dazai is supposedly doing. basically this plot twist is the emotional equivalent to seeing a video of someone jumping off a ledge and then the camera zooms out and you realize what you thought was a 30 foot drop is actually only about 3 feet. and not only is it not rewarding, but it makes me feel like i was silly for being worried in the first place.

[anotheruserwithnoname]

The rare Jenna Coleman

(If you don't know what screenshot this is from, you aren't alone)

Incredible as it may sound, 2005 will mark the 20th year of Jenna Coleman's career as a professional movie and TV actress (timed from her joining the cast of Emmerdale). In that time, while nowhere near as prolific as some of her contemporaries (such as David Tennant who, for a while, seemed to have a new show out every fortnight), she has amassed a diverse body of work.

True, she has yet to score a major role in a billion-dollar blockbuster like Karen Gillan has done (Captain America doesn't count as it was only a cameo), and she tends to get snubbed by BAFTA and Emmy, but Jenna hasn't done too bad for herself.

That said, sometimes finding some of her work can be a challenge, or even borderline impossible, especially for fans who don't live in the UK.

Writing from the perspective of someone in Canada, here is a list of the Jenna Coleman performances that have become rare and difficult to see through normal channels. Some of these have circulated unofficially/illegally over the years but I won't go into that. I'm not including adverts or PSAs as they by their nature are ephemeral and usually end up on Youtube anyway (usually posted officially) so can be viewed worldwide.

Quick courtesy break for length...

Emmerdale: This was Jenna's first big role. In her 4 years on the show she appeared in something like 440 episodes (this per an Emmerdale fan site; some counts are far less). Although MANY clips of her from the show have appeared on YouTube, no full accounting of her appearances exists online, the 2005-2009 era of the show I do not believe is available for streaming outside the UK (if anywhere), and no DVD release exists obviously (Dark Shadows remains the only "soap opera" with a complete-series home video release). A fan site once had a rather big collection of Jenna clips, including from the "infamous" pantomime episode, but these were taken down long ago. Also impossible to find is the musical number the Emmerdale cast did for Children in Need on the same night Tennant had his first minisode as the Tenth Doctor.

Room at the Top: Jenna's first major role after Emmerdale was in this two-part miniseries that was infamously pulled from broadcast a few days before its scheduled 2011 airing due to last-minute rights issues; it eventually aired a year later (after Jenna's Who debut). Although it was at one point available for streaming in North America I don't believe it is anymore and unlike Jenna's other productions from her post-Waterloo Road/pre-Who era, this never got a DVD release, likely due to those rights issues. If you just want to see her topless scene, I guess it's everywhere, but the full movie is not easily obtainable.

The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot and Doctor Who: The Ultimate Guide - while not impossible to find as I believe they got official Youtube releases at one point, if you want to see these two 50th anniversary productions you pretty much have to obtain the expensive Matt Smith Years Blu-ray box set (North America didn't get a 50th anniversary set like the UK which I think had them). Another Who-related rarity is the short Songtaran Carols which was uploaded as a joke leading up to broadcast of The Snowman. It was also viewable on Youtube, but may not be anymore. It has never had a home video release in North America (nor has the Strax Field Report videos).

Lego Dimensions: Jenna has a cameo in the Doctor Who portion of this online video game. The game I believe has now been retired so you can probably find clips of her part online, but if you want to play the game itself, it may or may not still be playable if you can find it. As far as I am aware the two Xenoblade Chronicles games and DLC she did a voiceover for are still available. You can also find Youtube videos featuring just her bits, which is cheating but at least they're archived.

Victoria: The PBS Version. With the exception of the Christmas special (which was severely edited down instead), most episodes of Victoria aired on PBS in the US with several minutes of additional scenes - a number of which feature Jenna. These versions were available exclusively in the US on the PBS website, but for DVD/Blu-ray and rebroadcasts outside PBS, the ITV commercial edits have been used (which is good news for anyone wanting to see Tom Hughes' butt in the infamous skinnydipping scene). The extra scenes haven't even turned up on Youtube. There was also a PBS edit of Death Comes to Pemberley but I never saw it so do not know if any extra Jenna footage was included; the DVD/Blu-ray once again used the UK version.

All My Sons: National Theatre Live streamed a performance of Jenna's production to cinemas in the UK; the North American "broadcast" was delayed by months but eventually happened a couple of weeks before COVID lockdowns began. During COVID the broadcast was made available for a time on NTL's streaming service, and people with access to university library accounts may still be able to view it online through an archive service, but generally speaking it's hard to find these days. Don't even think about seeing her play Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons. Despite a fan reporting a performance had cameras recording it, NTL never streamed it so, if you couldn't afford to travel to London a few years back, you're SOL.

Inside No. 9: Jenna's guest appearance is widely available in the UK on DVD and streaming. But not in North America where Inside No. 9 is not a thing. (Her other TV guest appearance on Thunderbirds Are Go is not available on home video in North America but the show is syndicated over here and I think is on streaming too).

A Separate Peace: See image at top. During lockdown Jenna and David Morrissey starred in a live-streamed Zoom-based production of a play. It felt like something out of Black Mirror and was meant to be the first of a series of plays that never happened. It has never been restreamed or released in any other format. Officially the only way to have seen this was to have been registered to view the Zoom stream on the day, as I was. Other than unrecorded stage plays this will probably remain the rarest Jenna performance.

Jackdaw: It's had some limited festival exposure, and they keep promising to put it on streaming. I've yet to find any indication of this film actually being made available in North America. Doing an online search I got a conflicting message as to whether her other recent film, Klokkenluider, is on streaming in North America or not. Outside festivals it never got a theatrical release either.

All of You: This one is still pretty new but so far no indication of a North American release/stream yet. Searching for this one is complicated because there is another film of the same title that is streaming, so searches for Jenna's film often bring up the other one.

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It remains to be seen if Control, the project Jenna completed early in her pregnancy, gets a wide release. Series 2 of Sandman will be easy to find (Season 1 even got a Blu-ray release). Her other recent streaming shows are still pretty easy to find on streaming (and DVD in the case of The Cry, though North America did not get a DVD release for The Serpent like the UK got).

[vendily-blog]

Mario & Luigi: Brothership Announcement Trailer Analysis

Okay okay, I'm done with making gifs for right now. I still can't believe it's real. And releasing in November too.

As per usual, everything goes under a read more.

So first things first. The Brothership.

It seems to be a floating island, and brings to mind the Starship Mario (the "Faceship") from Mario Galaxy 2.

At the front of the ship is the cannon, which the brothers use to launch to other islands, as you can see the sail and the cliffs behind it in this shot.

I wonder if this means we'll get a slightly less linear adventure, since there's clearly a selection for islands using the telescope mounted to the cannon.

If so, I wonder if it'll be a world map type thing, where completing an island gets you the path forward to more islands (Galaxy 2 style), or a central hub style, where you upgrade the ship to reach farther islands (Galaxy 1 style). It could go either way honestly, and there's not enough evidence either way to say yet.

What I do have evidence of, is the selection screen for different overworld Bros Moves! The Japanese trailer is very slightly different from the English one, and we get a much clearer view of the icons before they use the UFO spin one.

So it seems that Bros. Ball is back! It doesn't quite look like Ball Hop from Dream Team, it has little speed lines, so I think it really is the version of the move from Partners in Time!

We can also see there's at least 1 more action yet to be unlocked. Maybe it's a burrow action?

Speaking of UI, there's a few shortcuts in the corner. Interestingly, the top two options, a thinking bubble and a golden pipe, don't appear in the middle screenshot, which may be from early game, given the low coin counts (2201 coins, 98 coins, and 476 coins respectively). A hint system, Return to Brothership, and your normal menu to adjust gear and use items perhaps?

Speaking of currency, there's 2 of them in the game.

Seems like magic sparkles, and standard coins.

Sparkles might be used to upgrade the ship? We see in other shots that Connie seems to be a gardener of sorts and the ship is partially organic.

She has this seed or lightbulb shaped symbol on her head and there's other garden equipment here, like the trowel.

Speaking of important characters, Princess Peach being here is a fun surprise!

It seems the the Princess also ended up in this otherworld too, but not at the same time as the brothers, as she's picked up her own crew, and Dorrie. I wonder if she'll join along on the Brothership once you find her, or if she has her own adventure during the course of the story (sort of like Minion Quest/Bowser Jr.'s Journey from the Superstar Saga and Bower's Inside Story remakes).

It's also interesting that Bowser's here. He might not be behind this plot if the princess is here, he's not one to go sending Peach to alternative dimensions. Maybe he's followed them here because the Princess disappeared.

And perhaps a bit of fighting with the bros for good measure. It seems he fires upon the Brothership here, but he might not be working with the Extension Corps.

They share the same electrical theming as the other NPCs we've seen so far and their plot seems to revolve around these odd generators, which we can also see in the pre-bossfight intro here.

I suppose their plot might involve powering something. Or maybe they're taking something from these generators, given they seem to be spread out.

On the topic of battles though, either we get stat upgrades through food items, like the various coffees from Superstar Saga, or we get random rolls back (maybe both) because there's some variation in the stats of the bros at times between the JP and EN trailers.

Left is from the English video and right is from the Japanese one during the Headphone Jack Corp Boss. Which is odd, because every other part of the videos has tried its hardest to be identical save for the language change.

Same deal for the Gorumbla boss. Left English, Right Japanese.

It just seems like a rather odd decision to do the boss on different levels for the video, so that's why I think the fluctuation is from random rolls. But there could still be a cooking system, as we have this shot of the brothers and they may be in a kitchen of sorts?

I have other questions for the battle system too. We never see any battle action selection so it's hard to say in any particular way, but all the attacks we see seem to be duo attacks.

This Hammer move has an extra effect, "Kaboom Attack" but I don't know if it's an effect of the Bros. attack (it'll always do this) or a special effect of an equipped hammer for instance (much like how you could equip gear that allows you to stomp on spiked foes or spawn a spike ball to do extra damage afterwards).

On the overworld, it seems like Luigi is the one to come up with ideas? The Exclamation mark that denotes Luigi interaction is slightly shaped like an L, both in the animation and in the overworld afterwards.

Luigi retains this green glow whenever he's currently doing a Luigi action for lack of a better term.

It visually reminds me of Luiginary Works in Dream Team. I'm not sure if it's specifically a mechanic in the plot (Much like Dreamy Luigi was), or just a tool to show you Luigi is preoccupied.

(Also yes, Hammer on X and Y again, I missed that so much.)

Anyway rapid fire random thoughts before I stop.

I like the Mario Odyssey inspired Mushroom Kingdom, with the towers around the main castle.

I suppose the plot starts because they're just such good bros to each other, but that doesn't quite explain why Princess Peach and Bowser are here? I also don't see much involving this odd sparkle hand power outside the intro, but it just seems too important to ignore.

I like the one off movement abilities, just like how you had climbing pipes in Superstar Saga or the bike pads/gonzola.

[elendsessor]

Hiiii what monster hunter game would be the best to start with (and if you have a tag for our previous ask about what games is good with monster biology that would be great. if not that's fine we'll live)

oooh yesyes this is a really good question!

there’s a few things you should be aware of before stepping into the monster hunter scene in general, though!

these games are clunky and have a lot you need to learn. they’ve gotten less so over time, but it is something that tends to turn away players. don’t give up on it!!! my journey started back when 4 ultimate came out (so i think i was in my early teens?) but it was too difficult for me and it wasn’t until many years later i gave the series a shot. this is entirely okay and is a surprisingly common sentiment. you likely won’t get it at first. take baby steps, come back to it in the future if you don’t understand.

there’s a clicking moment. that’s another common sentiment. eventually it does just click with you—sticking with it is key.

3. these games are hard, especially for newer hunters. don’t be ashamed of getting the cart or finding a fight difficult. this is entirely normal and purposeful design! i know this is something that’ll probably be frustrating and that’s okay, but know you’re not “bad.” the people you may end up seeing who say git gud are joking, and stuff like speedrunning hunts takes a lot of time. the most impressive videos/hunters are ones who have stuck with the series for years upon years.

4. test any and all weapons available. some are more complex, some are easier, all play differently. i don’t recommend getting into the bowguns first only because they don’t require a ton of player input and older iterations of both weren’t the most exciting, which could take away from a newcomer’s experience.

5. i do recommend finding guides, be it basic mechanics or weapon ones. there’s a lot of moving parts to both fights and really anything on a mechanical level, so if you don’t understand something, want to build better load outs, etc., there’s plenty of resources available!

(i do recommend also messing with gathering and combining items. if it’s something you can find in the field, you’ll probably need it in the future.)

this may all sound like a little much but trust me you’ll figure it out if you stick with it. just don’t expect a typical action rpg. hunting games are unique and tend to be niche. i only say stuff like this before letting people know where to start because it is a lot, it is intimidating, but it is rewarding once it clicks and you shouldn’t make the mistake i did years ago aka skip out on something special.

one other thing is there’s some terminology you’ll need to understand when the games are discussed, which is old school vs modern. old school consists of anything before monster hunter world since it had a completely different feel and system. modern (aka monster hunter world and beyond) is more streamlined. it’s meant to be easily accessible so in some ways this is where you should start.

world and rise play differently but are part of the same generation. one is more of a slow, mmo-like game focused on the world. it’s clearly inspired by lost world stuff (dinosaur focus) but it lacks a lot of variety in monster types. also has plenty more gimmicky fights meant for multiplayer but it’s not hard to find others to play with. oh, and cutscenes aren’t skippable. and are bad. they’re not good cutscenes at all-

rise is faster paced and more focused on the monster variety and, in some ways, spectacle. it doesn’t have any real walls until late in the game and in the expansion, rather getting progressively more difficult, which is a divisive choice yet could be a better introduction. it also can be a bit harder to learn if only due to the wirebug mechanic. it’s pretty floaty and has a lot of special features (i barely use any of the wirebug moves lol).

both suit different play styles and assist in two aspects of the franchise, so it’s ultimately up to your preferences. however, regardless of which you choose, they’re amazing introductions.

most games in the franchise are slower like world while having variety/rather unique designs like rise. the series always has had a bunch of interesting ecology but the new design philosophy has been able to add more special touches. this doesn’t mean there’s no value to old school (the environments are a standout and it’s definitely charming, plus the storytelling is better tbh)!!! rather, you’re probably best going for modern.

if you’re more interested in the older games, generations ultimate is your best bet. there’s a ton of content—most mainline monsters at the time got in—and it’s the least clunky/most readily available out of all of them. it does have some jank so it isn’t perfect. i suggest the nintendo switch version if only because it has actual online play.

4 ultimate’s also a great starter and is probably the best one of all (at least old school wise, which this isn’t just my bias speaking it is something a lot of enjoyers have said). it is pretty beginner friendly with a great tutorial and optional weapon tutorials, but there’s no multiplayer anymore + it’s stuck on the 3ds. i’m sure some private servers are in the works but trust me multiplayer can be really helpful for grinding materials, knocking out gathering hub quests, etc.

whatever you do, i don’t suggest playing anything past that point as a newbie. tri/3u are great games but the underwater combat could be a total dealbreaker + is the clunkiest mechanic in the franchise. 1, freedom, freedom 2, and freedom unite are all great but are a different kind of brutal with the world’s most unfair hitboxes and jankiest of jank. everything else is japan only but are also super clunky. don’t ever play frontier unless you’re sucked into old school or the general series rabbit hole because it’s infamously hard plus is an mmo that got shut down in 2019 so setting up access to private servers is hell.

if you’re wanting just the monster experience, i suggest stories. it’s a charming monster collector that’s also heavily underrated. as a bonus, a compilation of both stories 1 and stories 2 is releasing tomorrow. you will be missing out on seeing some of the greatest monsters the series has to offer and it is a turn based rpg, but if you find yourself loving the world it sets up and/or the monsters, you should get into the mainline games.

(if you’re looking for fictional ecosystems, ik horizon has good stuff. there’s also subnautica, rain world (though rain world does go against a lot of game design rules and is more of an ecosystem simulator than a video game), god eater (another hunting game series), ark survival evolved, and though it’s based in reality, both the isle and path of titans are good dino sims!)

tldr; play world or rise if new to the franchise as a whole (world is slower while rise is faster), generations ultimate if you’re interested in old school (but can serve as an introduction albeit a clunky one), stories if you’re only interested in the monsters (but it’s an entirely different genre).

i hope this helps! enjoy the hunting purgatory.