#and in retrospect thats really really funny

[enchanted-book]

it was a really late night at the trailer, and i wanted chocolate milk. so, naturally, i asked my very tired father if i could have a glass. he said alright, and we headed to the incredibly dark kitchen. he poured the milk and let me stir in the chocolate (that’s the best part!). when i finished stirring, i put the (wet) spoon onto the wooden table, because it looked clean in the dark, so i figured it was fine.

i took a sip of the chocolate milk, and decided that it needed more chocolate. i poured in the syrup, stirred it in, and when i tasted it again…

“daddy, i think i put tobacco in my chocolate milk.”

“what? no you didnt. did you? how did you do that?”

[xxplastic-cubexx]

show us the antithesis of cute and funny 👀👀👀 the people demand it!!!

patience my friends i have at least 14 asks about cats to get through first ☝️

[snekdood]

my abuser really wants me to feel humiliated by them, but i never do, i only ever feel disappointed and sad and heartbroken that they’re not who they said they were. like, i didn’t even think they were the type to want to humiliate people and bully them.

[feline-evil]

Also yeah ok funny fact from someone who's been a part of the online side of the fandom a really long time; drawing furries accurately was once highly discouraged by the *checks notes* people telling you to kill yourself for giving your bipedal anthro dewclaws or having their spine not being perfectly upright or having an accurate muzzle because this meant you were a real life animal abuser who wanted to fuck dogs. I'm not bringing this up to morally posture it's kind of not related to my first posts point ig, I just feel like I never see it talked about and I feel crazy, like was it just me who saw that. Am I insane. Am I insane!!! Do y'all remember!!! I had to live through that!!!

Anyway most those people left the community when it turned out they were kiwifarm using grifters but still some of them linger. They're still out there.

"Ugh why do furries draw animals inaccurate" dog it's also standing on two legs and taking a FAT bong rip wdym

[youkaigakkou-tl]

I adore how serious yohaji can get despite being a comedy manga. Although there are comedic elements thrown in, which is expected, you really feel how serious the situation truly is and how high the stakes are. Yohaji has come far from having the typical slice of life troubles to destroying a youkai trafficking ring. Will a time come for Haruaki where things can’t be solve peacefully.

thats how it gets ya, if a story takes itself too seriously it comes off as cringe, but if a story doesn't take itself too seriously you let your guard down and then it sneak attacks you

stakes are real funny in yohaji because of the narrative problem that haruaki is kind of a nuke and can solve any supernatural-based problem with violence, so sensei has to work around that almost

it gets sidestepped a bit by haruaki Not Wanting To Do Violence (which is also what some comments i've seen totally miss, the comments like "why doesn't he realise the bracelet is blocking his power")

but yohaji gets funnier in retrospect once you realise "what's stopping haruaki from solving this with violence" is a question tanamai has to constantly answer for for every single conflict that arises

miki arc: haruaki Does Not Want to straight up kill miki's mom. also rip out his soul take him out of commission for a bit lol

youkai train: for once a case where the solution is violence, the problem is "how"!

renren arc: not using his power is the one rule explicitly set at the very start (and also set like, thematically), almost certainly to preempt this question

turned into a student: ah see! he did try it! didnt work cus hes asleep!

kyoto arc: an actual ordeal that could have been solved by his nuke (and is eventually solved by it), that's why he got taken out of commission immediately and spends half of it MIA

meiji arc: actually too insane of a circumstance to solve with brute force even if he wanted to

[nicomrade]

2024 was full of disappointing reads, we will of course remember everyone yelling at me to just stop reading [insert title] if i dislike it so much and well! i finished all the ones everyone wanted me to stop blogging about. and im not even going to talk about them now cause no way in hell they even crack the top 10 of what i read this year. 2024 is not the year of the flop shounen. it was the year of 5 timeless bangers. lets never forget this.

Ashita No Joe - Kajiwara Ikki, Takamori Asao, Chiba Tetsuya (1968-1973)

ashita no joe is the crown jewel of the sports manga. thats the entire review like seriously i read it super early in the year and i immediately knew it was going to be the very first title in the years retrospective and nothing i read afterwards changed this. deeply haunting story that has not left me, probably never will. genuinely no one else had me on my ass, dropped jaw like ANJ. what if the only thing that could save you would also ruin your entire life? what if the only thing that mattered in this whole world, sucked so deeply and entirely? but you love it so much. and you cant live without it. and everyone can see its burning you alive.

No Home - Wanan (2018-2024)

another one that i just knew would make this list immediately after finishing it. no home looks into what it means to not have a home/that you shouldnt live at home. it deals with being parentless, with abusive parents, with healthy parents that you still shouldnt live with, family and home in all that it means. its also a deeply optimistic story despite its evil and twisted ways. story thats equally convinced that relapses + harm are never-ending and everywhere, and that people still grow and change despite it all. read no home and remember what it means to be someone's child

Ajin: Demi-Human - Sakurai Gamon, Miura Tsuina (2012-2021)

ajin is deeply interested in the actual ramifications of immortality through body regeneration and has one of my favorite #idgafer protagonists which is always a plus. i liked what it does with the human instinct to game-ify things, i liked when it denies the catharsis of death to characters, i liked what it does with its terrorism plot. i liked its allegories and i liked its metaphors. and it was a story told masterfully from start to finish, deeply engaging, deeply enjoyable, awesome art. the kinda work that made me turn off the analysis brain and instead just enjoy the things happening !!! i just frankly really liked this one nothing more nothing less

National Quiz - Sugimoto Reiichi, Katou Shinkichi (1993-1995)

surely youve heard this one before, a dystopic government puts on a game show where the winner will have any wish granted but all the losers will have their lives ruined. the national quiz is not only really funny about it with awesome art its also actually interested in what it means to dismantle a “death game” (and what that death game existing might mean for the society its part of!) read the national quiz for a look into imperialism and how foreign nations profit from intervening in other countries and read the national quiz for fun. but mostly, read the national quiz for my best friend K-I K-Ichi

Let's Go to Karaoke! - Wayama Yama (2019)

and finally of course this was also the year of wayama yama!... i reread the ones i knew and read the ones i hadnt gotten to yet and well, lets go karaoke is the only one thats completed AND i read for the 1st time so. for my purposes its also the only one i CAN put on this list. do not let me imply its not worthwhile on its own, though. its stupid easy to pinpoint the specific afternoons i read it both time cause i Cannot not post about lets go karaoke when i read lets go karaoke. its hilarious and scary and it has a powerful hold over me. lets go karaoke is the story of a middle schooler having the worlds worst gay awakening- orrrr i mean its a story about change, how scary it is to grow out of the things you once liked and finding yourself liking different new things instead. its about not getting into strangers' cars. its about what if a terrifying guy imprinted on you. and its about going to freaking karaoke !!

AND the bonus mention, Touhou - The Tiles That I Cannot Cut Are Next to None! - Uki Hayahiro (2020-2024)

finally some good fucking mahjong with superpowered girls manga… no more saki, please i beg you lets just stop reading saki. what if we forgot all the bad, awful, stupid, mahjong mangas weve all read and that left a bad taste in our mouths. lets all read the touhou mahjong doujin. on my hands and knees. its actually good mahjong manga except for that one drawing mistake that one time. who cares. its smart about its superpowers usage, its got plenty of hot mahjong action, the problem solving feels fun, the jokes are funny, only time ive seen local yakus spotlighted w such love, what more can you possibly ask from me? remember what made you fall in love with mahjong in the first place and read the touhou mahjong doujin today.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

to preface this im in my twenties and would never do this now but i still think its funny that i did this when i was thirteen. my sibling thinks its shitty that i find it funny so: aita for thinking its funny that i reposted art on deviantart when i was thirteen?

occasionally (emphasis on occasionally) when i would get bored i would pick a random furry artist with a big following (think griffsnuff), save a pic or two from their gallery, make a burner account, and upload the art with a really overblown stupid description, "original character donut steel" etc. the point was not to pass the art off as my own but to try and make it obvious that it was stolen. i would wait until a few people had noticed the account and commented on the original artist's page letting them know that someone was stealing their art, and then watch hate comments roll in. sometimes i would get it on it and make a journal post about it on my main account telling all my friends to go flame the fake account (but not let them in on the ruse). i think one time i even told the artist myself on my main account because it was taking too long for someone else to notice it. i would usually delete the fake account within a few hours and i dont think it ever lasted longer than a day. i thought this was fun for some reason and the only reason i stopped doing it was because someone threatened to get me ip banned.

thats the gist of it but ill make it very clear that i never did this to smaller accounts that were actually susceptible to having their art stolen because i knew that was wrong (or more wrong than what i was doing). i figured it was a victimless crime sort of thing because the artists id steal pics from had big enough followings that 1) someone was bound to recognize that the art was stolen, and 2) they could enlist their watchers to go flame the shit out of art thieves because harassment was strongly encouraged back in those days. i still think this is funny because i was thirteen when i did it and its a very thirteen year old thing to do. again, i would never do this now because i know its wrong, obviously. i just think its hilarious that i did.

to be clear i dont think my sibling is the asshole for not finding it funny (and i know i was the asshole for doing it in the first place), im just curious if im the asshole for laughing about it in retrospect over a decade later. thanks!

What are these acronyms?

[podfeels]

Podfeels Season 1 Retrospective

4/13/2024 marked the two year anniversary of Podfeels’ first airing, and in August, we will celebrate the three year anniversary of its inception as a project. It feels so strange, looking back on it all. To me, it feels simultaneously like its always been in my life, and also like it just started yesterday.

I’ve spent nearly three years now spearheading this project, and we’ve expanded from a team of ten to a team of thirty in that time, and have put out roughly four hours of highly produced, full cast, full sound effect audio drama.

That may not sound like much, but for a team composed almost exclusively of first timers at its inception, and with two big hiatuses out of everyone’s control, I’m pretty damn proud.

With Season 1 ending back in January, us currently in the exact two month midpoint between anniversaries, and Season 2 being worked on behind the scenes, I thought now would be a good time to release a bit of a retrospective on our first season. Talk about the process, what went wrong, what went right, and also release our assets for the public.

I’m splitting this into three sections so you can skip around based on what you give a shit about. 

Looking 8ack

Reminiscence about how I got into godfeels through a series of insane coincidences that make my heart feel warm.

2. Adapt8ion

Discussing the process of adapting the work into our medium.

3. Portr8s, 8ackgrounds, and Sound8ites

A release of Season 1’s art and sound assets for your perusal outside of the videos, use as desktop wallpapers, or what have you. 

Looking 8ack

In March 2020, I got covid for the first time. My workplace had no protections for it yet, so I lost my job. And while bedridden with covid, subsisting off a diet of lukewarm broth, saltines, and nyquil, I set my youtube Watch Later (ok, thats a lie, it was my Likes, which i used ((still use)) as a watch later instead of using the actual watch later function, BUT-) playlist to shuffle. And in this fugue state, I stumbled on the video that would completely change the trajectory of my life.

“What I Learned Writing 50,000 Words of Homestuck Fanfiction”, by Sarah Zedig. I vaguely remembered her from some video about the McElroys and from Hbomberguy’s stream, and I had put off watching this because at the time of its release, I hadn’t yet finished Homestuck. So I shuffled it away for later, and it found its way back into my lap at the perfect time. Having now finished the comic, read the Epilogues, actively reading Homestuck ^2: Beyond Canon, and five months in to my first ever real creative outlet in my semi-abandoned video essay channel, I was interested to hear what this goat had to say.

In the video Sarah went into detail about a ton of wider context about the Homestuck Renaissance that I was fully unaware of, and made a very strong case for her own postcanon work, godfeels. Her passion bled through and I figured, sure, why not, I’ve got nothing better going on, I’ll read the story of Spiderjeggings’ No Good Very Bad Transition. Why not!

55,660 words later, crying alone in bed, I was now a girl. Reading the scene of June making her list of wants the morning after Terezi’s return, I said out loud to myself, hoarse as can be, “I can’t put it off any longer.” 

After reading to current I ended up joining the godfeels fanserver, and from getting settled in these circles I’ve met so many people I wouldn’t have otherwise, and come into myself in ways I can’t begin to fully quantify. I went from one relationship to fourteen to now a stable four, the other person in my head shook back loose after a decade of suppression by me (sorry again, Aegis), I’ve become more cultured, I’ve gained more friends, I’ve gained more hobbies, and most relevant of all… I’ve gained Podfeels.

Podfeels proper actually started in a really funny and impromptu way. In Sarah’s video she mentions wanting to start a podfic adaptation of it, but with that being two years past with no more word, a conversation about it cropped up in the server, and it was revealed that it had been canceled for various reasons. Everyone immediately understood why that had to happen. It was an insane amount of work, especially now that Godfeels was entering the territory of a space opera. But the demand was there among all of us, and after almost a dozen loops of us all going “drat, would be cool. I wish someone would take the helm on that!”, I just went ALRIGHT I GET IT and opened up casting. Podfeels was actually originally a joke name made by someone in the server before I even entered the conversation, but we used it for so long during development that by the time we came to release day it just felt wrong to call the project anything else. The name just stuck.

After a few hours of people daydreaming about it happening, and me encouraging other people to take the helm, I finally gave in and opened up casting. Now, it’s important to understand, I had never directed ANYTHING like this before in my life. I made a really terrible sketch in high school theater class and that’s about it. I’ve always been a bit of a natural leader but never anything with the kind of scale this would require, and it showed. I crowdfunded almost all ideas for what to do and how to handle it, and my best idea for how to do auditions was “just send in a few lines of you doing whatever character you want”. And my language was… insufferably fawning. I was hedging my bets at every opportunity. Every development in the project was “tentative”, I was the “director” until someone else took charge, etc. Looking back its actually kind of adorable? 

Look at that sweetheart. She’s so scared. She has no idea the beautiful changes she is in for.

The casting process was an unmitigated DISASTER. Nobody there knew how to audition, and I didn’t know how to wrangle. We were an unstructured gaggle of doofasses stumbling into each other. And due to the limited pool, I was stretched kind of thin on where to put people. Obviously I stand by all our decisions and love our cast, but because I was pulling entirely from the fanserver, options were very limited. I wanted to get everyone who wanted one into a role, but having to do the math of “this person is 40% good at Character A and 60% good at Character B, but this OTHER person is 80% good at Character B and the closest runner up for Character A is only 35% good” was agonizing.

We ended up deciding to make a few demos first, to test our chops as actors and mine as editor. We had four planned. But after we fully produced our first two demos and had recorded the third… I decided we should immediately start chronological production.

Why did I make this decision, you ask? Well. We had a few months until 4/13/2022. If we immediately all went overdrive, me especially, we had the chance to get our first episode out on the 13th 4/13 anniversary of Homestuck, and like HELL was I about to let us pass that up. 

This was the right call, I think, but it did bring us into a BUNCH of complications. First off, it meant we never really tested our violence and drama chops on the houseraid. Second, if I had waited, we would have been able to dodge our first big hiatus, where I put us on pause for a couple months while we waited to see if our Terezi wanted to leave after she floated the idea, which she ended up doing. If we had stayed in prepro, we would have skipped a huge hiatus and not replaced a key character between episode one and two. It also meant that we didn’t fully solidify an editing pipeline, and I was handling practically all editing until around episode 3. Additional prepro time would have helped us iron that out, as well, rather than me breaking myself on the first couple episodes before bringing in help out of desperation. This rush ALSO led to us having to release episode 1’s video around a week after the audio’s release, and with a fucked up background because I was crunching so hard I didn’t notice I’d accidentally completely butchered John’s bedroom somehow! I think I somehow content aware filled the wall? Fucked if I know why!

This is an abridged version because I want to get us to the meat of the matter today and I feel a lot of the longer story is best saved for a video I plan on making down the line, when we’ve reached 50 hours of runtime. For now, let’s move on.

Adapt8ion

A few folks have asked for indepth adaptation notes for what we change in an episode and why. As a general rule, we make changes with three primary motivations. First, adjusting text-based ideas to sound-based. Godfeels plays with its medium in countless compelling ways that, when shifted to a different medium, are either clunky or incomprehensible. So our first job is to translate those into sound. Second, turning narration into sound effects. We don’t need to discuss sounds in the scene, or a character’s tone, when we can just hear it all ourselves now. This then expands into further issues, however, as some things DO need to stay as narration. There’s a lot of pathos in the narration, and often there’s details that can’t be conveyed through audio alone. But by removing just the audio cues, we are left with very clunky phrasing that does our source material no justice. So we have to rephrase entire sections to give them the same resonance, meaning, and clarity while also getting rid of all the things that are now extraneous in our medium. The third main type of edit is bringing it more in line with what comes later. Godfeels has been running a long time and has become a very different beast from where it began. I love this about it, but some ideas have ended up with insufficient preparation, and some thematic resonances are easy to see looking back but may be partially unintentional. We can take advantage of hindsight and bring certain things more in line with the work’s modern philosophies, such as putting an additional focus on the citizens of Earth C, introducing X as its own entity, playing with Dirk more as a villain, and introducing the question of “what happens to the leftover Junes in a retcon?”, all during Episode 6. 

I’ll be releasing a few other posts soon with detailed adaptation notes for every episode in the coming days, but I’ll leave it here for now and bring us to our final section-

Portr8s, 8ackgrounds, and Sound8ites

While the idea for video versions was a relatively late addition to our process, I’m very proud of the work everyone has put into making them what they are. Our art team and video editor do wonders. First up, we’ve got the talkpogs.

The talkpogs were my own invention, but I can hardly claim they’re an original idea. I’m sure something almost identical has been done before. What directly inspired me, though, was the old Polygon podcasts, where they’d have the hosts faces made out of polygons, with one loose and separated, synced to that host’s audio track. It was the first time I’d seen something like that and I knew I wanted something similar to indicate who was talking. From there it all fell into place pretty easily. The outer ring and the waveform is the character’s text color, and the background is their name color. If those two are the same (as they usually are), I apply a slight darkening to the background just for differentiation. The sprites, though, were all the art team. Unfortunately we didn’t have a base early on, so different artists drew to different scales. 

For the art style I told the artists to try to strike a middleground between Homestuck classic and girlpillz’s style which had just been shown in GF3.1.8.E, where godfeels got its first spritework. Otherwise, designs were largely up to the artists but we had conversations about them as a project. Overall I’m very satisfied with the work everyone turned in.

Backgrounds were a more complicated beast, but paradoxically also have less to talk about. We started out with one background per episode, which was pretty doable, but with the season 1 finale, and our expanded art team, we opted to expand out into a background per setting. The first two are just Pesterquest backgrounds I edited by hand, but after that we started having custom art. That was largely due to restraints lifting as the team grew, but it also turned out pretty good thematically, as the first episode with custom art was Episode 3, where June’s egg cracks. We left official art behind as June left the officially plotted course. I think it’s resonant.

Now we come to our latest introduction. KEY ART. We started doing this in Episode 6 and it’s so sick. Don’t expect these inclusions to be TOO common, but… we have some cool things in store here, and I think you’ll all be really excited to see ‘em. For now, here’s our first and so far only public piece of key art, Dirk menacing June against the tree. The final piece of art of Season 1, and the final piece of art of Season 1’s retrospective. It only seems fair.

Which now brings us to my own inclusion: sound assets. I’m very proud of the work I’ve put in to giving each character and concept their own unique aural profile. From the magical girl burning radiation of Jade’s magic, to the shattering static of June’s retcon, to threading the needle of Hammer, Sword, Plastic Toy, Dice, And Doomsday Device in June’s vrillyhoo. 

That’s all for today. In the coming week or so I’ll put together a few more posts, going over each episode in more detail, from point by point script edit notes, to specific art discussions. I also plan to bring in a few people who have been around since day one to talk about our experience setting up the project.

But for now, look forward to seeing more from us soon. Both in the upcoming devposts, and in Season 2. We've been on a hiatus to get our preproduction pipeline settled, and because we wanted to get a few episodes prepped so we can try to maintain a monthly schedule. But we're getting to the end of this phase now, and will be announcing Episode 7's release date very soon.

Until next time! :::;)

[alienssstufff]

your thoughts on the symbolism in slimecicles build is so fascinating !!!! its funny that even without intention someone can create something that so perfectly represents their character's story !

"a comment on how much Slime's life and traumas are easily seen and/or even put on display" really puts so much into perspective, especially when you consider how much he down plays his present-day bonds with the others on the island (like he doesnt realize they Can even care for him despite his past)

slimecicle is such a tragic character, i'm glad that he's finally letting himself start to heal

thank you ^^! Smth about unconscious habits or the draw to certain elements -- I'm not sure www ><

I thinks it's not rly that q!Slime 'downplays' his present-day bonds, we know he holds his friends and confidants in VERY high regards by the framing the QSMP Preamble in the basement + Pomme's rare flowers she gave him today. His relationship as tio to Tilin also was one of the reasons he threw himself into Eggxile in the first place. His relationships mean the world to him - but he's stuck on believing those feelings are simply not reciprocated / better yet he believes he doesnt deserve that same level of love. (tho thats probably what you're talking about skjdhvbd)

And it certainly felt that way initially, back when people barely knew him - they treated his life (those items in the basement) as a Cautionary Tale to steer clear from. I mean that impression of Slime is very evident by the way q!Quackity used to talk about Slimeriana. But now that he's Here, as both Slime and Gegg, the Elections had allowed people to know more about Slime other than just items in the basement. There's a person who built that space and put meaning into those items.

q!Slime is SUCH a tragic character YES! he's my favourite cuz he's written tragically in a way that's sensible for what he's been through, and that there's always hope for things to get better; which in retrospect communicates such a beautiful message. Anyone can learn love and anyone can be loved :.]

[morganpdf]

i made an oc in middle school that was an emo little red riding hood character who wore a red hoodie to hide her face and surprise.. shes actually a werewolf and also she was 15 which was soooo cool and (middle schooler voice) Practically An Adult TM .. which i only bring up bc at some point i wanted to poke fun at that and draw her how she REALLY looked: an angsty little teenager going Thru it bc she's a 15 year old girl. and i remember doing that design and thinking haha thats so funny bc i can realize now how cringe and silly she was.

anyways i just found the drawing i did of her being a lame little 15 year old and i actually drew that in 2012 when i was (checks calendar) 17. in retrospect its killing me bc bestie YOU were still in your cringe teen years. you were still in highschool 😭😭😭

[diaphin93]

Damn, thats racist Episode V: M'Lady Bübche knibbelt Retour

You all now, I originally I didn't reblogg because I wanted to comment without engaging in an argument with some reddit coded white knight, who makes his entire identity being obsessively hateful towards the only queer and only female Lord of the game whose entire deal is wanting to abolish feudalism and divine rule.

Now on the other hand, I'm doing it because it became instantly super fun, knowing that it obviously pisses him off. Also I'm doing him a favor by not doing that on Twitter. Like, I had my fair share of over the top edgy takes and bad jokes here on Tumblr, after which I took a pause from it and now decided to make this the site where I'm on my good behavior. I'm a good girl now here. Twitter on the other hand? Ever since Elon took it over, I really don't give a shit about my account there, so thats where I go all out with little fucks to spare, so I really would have gone all out with the M'Lady Fedora chud jokes. It would have been super funny.

And yeah, I don't believe his fake moral outrage, thats literally after I told him how shitty the implications of him justifying Faerghus stealing all the fertile lands of Sreng and forcing them into a frozen desert were, especially in our current day and age. Should I have done it? In retrospect probably not immediately, but he really doubles down and decides tha thet validity of faerghian colonialism, because Faerghus has a right to defend itself, is the hill he wants to die on.

Also he is still all about how brown people lie about racism in his video games, because there is no way that a medieval catholic coded church lead by whiter than white dragon people who view humanity in its entirety as inheritly lesser creatures could ever be xenophobic, lol.

Finally, I still don't know what this deal with this Moonlitboar person was, the only thing I know is that he allegedly said something shitty, got backlash and pissed off afterwards? While...you know...meanwhile Edelgard fans constantly receive targeted harassment, like a fanfiction author being bullied off of social media and even a fanartist getting harassed during a convention recently, and there is constant bait and harassment post in the Edelgard positive tag, not to forget this guy tagging Edelgard even when his posts don't have anything to do with her.

All in all, I get the slight suspicion that this guy is not just a clown. He is the entire Margrave Matthias Raoul Gautier.

[tiredtriedfailures]

its so funny to see this dynamic

play out but these two bring a whole new level

cuz we see again and again that Dong Eun, as relentless as she is to start and continue this plan, as calm and cold as she needs to be to execute it, as ruthless as she is to not feel any guilt for everything that happens to her abusers, wont harm anyone directly. yes, the plan ends up killing and destroying them, but never with her own hands, she is more inclined to let them do the work themselves, always, only themselves(even with her own mom! she plays the waiting game). the biggest proof of her mercy is giving Yeon Jin an out for Ha Do Yeong's single kind gesture. as we find out at the end, as broken and invisible she thought she is, Dong Eun is an inherently kind person who cant directly harm them.

this freak on the other hand spends day and night daydreaming stabbing the one person protected behind safety of prison bars(lets be honest at that point the bars arent protecting the people from that guy but him from Yeo Jeong) and is fully okay with killing anyone she asks as well. now you may be likely to take his entire, committed, likening himself to her Royal Executioner as simply just an expression of devotion, i get it since he doesnt end up doing that for her, but after watching the last episode i was convinced he didnt kill any of her abusers because she wouldnt have him do it.

see, his little speech to his prison bird just reveals an important piece of his psyche, he tells him his oath is to protect and save people but doesnt say anything about animals, inhumans, like him. meaning this guy has a mentality where at some point of immorality you lose your humanity in his eyes and become discarded. it is a line where he wont hesitate, he wont regret, he wont even have guilty dreams about the person he killed, maybe not even think about them again for the rest of his life. Light Yagami ass views. he doesnt ask Dong eun if she killed Miyoung-o cuz he literally doesnt give a shit. not a single question mark on his mind. hes like "if she dids it she dids it, if she didnst it she didnst it" and thats that.

and his insanity is written so well, all of his scenes with Dong Eun's abusers were tense as shit. because while you dont know how dangerous he really is till the last speech, in all of them his mere entering of their spaces is threatening, he either has them under his knife or under his car, even his first meeting with Ha Do Yeong is invading, not the park he frequents, no, its invading his mind. he leaves that meeting with the information of what kind of a person he is, enough to make a dead on prediction of his step-by-step behavior. he is smiling and cracking jokes through the interactions but YOU, the viewer, are aware there is something wrong with him.

when he buys that funeral home i was fully expecting him to fill it with corpses himself. in retrospect, that plot would have been too taxing on Dong Eun and im not sure she would ever let herself live after that but cant see Yeo Jeong being too bothered to be honest.

[sasukeless]

what do you think of kakashi

uhhhhh

kakashi is a character i try not to talk about because i know his fandom is rabid and way too big but let me do an exception because i have an exam in a few hours and i need to get distracted

anyways. kakashi’s character is like sakura to me in which i like the possible scenarios i can create with them because i find them funny or interesting but as a character alone i cant really find anything interesting to like. and just like with sakura kakashi is one of those characters that the fandom has completely changed from how they are in canon than most of the fan content about them is unappealing to me because its like seeing a whole different character. he also gets the itachi treatment where people see them being bootlickers and go Well he was traumatized as a child and brainwashed by the system and yes sure thats true but, hes not a kid anymore. he’s a grown man a little bit of retrospection wont hurt him and yet…

that being said i like the fanarts.

also i enjoy thinking of his dynamic w sasuke (my enjoyment of everything is only through things i can connect to sasuke) but in the way they are genuinely in canon like “oh here’s another adult figure that failed me” and “oh here’s a child i care for but all my care is useless because i keep projecting myself and my traumas into him” < which is very fucked up and not the dad-son dynamic people give them in fanon but whats new

[seerofmike]

mike 2024 year in review

2022 vers

2023 vers

this is something i do every year to reflect on my top 7 movies and top 7 games that i watched and played :D i really think doing my monthly stuff this year has helped me retain a lot of information better.

there were several movies i didn't get to see this year that i wanted to (the substance, anora, and lisa frankenstein, most notably) but i will probably get to those this year)

ALL movies are 2024 releases, but the games can be from any year since i don't often play games the year of release--not major games anyways. anyways here are my top 7 movies and top 7 games, in alphabetical and alternating order (i.e. movie/game/movie/game etc):

I Saw the TV Glow

i was not kidding when i said this movie changed my life its been over 6 months since i saw it and im still thinking about it literally all the time. im considering getting a tattoo???? anyways if u are trans (or even if ur not actually. go enjoy cinema) please watch this. u will feel so so so so different. forever.

Balatro (2024)

this game has irreparably changed my brain chemistry. number go up

Late Night with the Devil

i still think this movie was lame as hell for that AI shit but ive been thinking about it a lot this year. having a 'lost special' / 'found footage' film about the behind the scenes material of a set being terrorized by the occult becuz their host sucks ..... it was cool ! just sucks about the AI thing. hopefully david dastmalchian gets other bigger projects

Cult of the Lamb (2022)

i think gameplay wise cotl has a lot to live up to but i cant count hades 2 for my year in review since its in early access to cotl gets to be here instead. i DO find all of its aesthetics charming and neat. so this isnt a pity spot in the list. but it is carried here entirely by little guys and a banging ost

Love Lies Bleeding

in retrospect i still think the ending of Love Lies Bleeding was my favorite theater experience of the year. man. you had to be there. people were screaming. laughing. cheering. yelling "WHAT" at the screen. top tier moment. extremely sweaty greasy wlw revenge that ends in the most batshit bonkers way possible. im obsessed. genuinely

Long Live the Queen (2012)

i had to uninstall this from my computer because i was doing math for fun in my free time whenever i wasnt playing it, planning ahead. the demons are tempting me back

Transformers One

im kind of in awe that this movie flopped so hard because i thought it was GOOD. like actually good. it was funny and i really enjoyed the character arcs am i just lame or is everyone else lame

Marvel Rivals (2024)

in a year where apex sucks absolute bootywater, and i needed a new shooter the most, marvel rivals came to me. and this time, if the lore sucks, most of the characters have decades worth of comic history to look into! hurray

Wicked

i saw this movie 5 times in theaters. i am not a musical fan. thats all im gonna say

Mouthwashing (2024)

im giving mouthwashing my fav game of the year award. theres just so much to say about it and i dont think ill ever have time to articulate it all. its just so mundanely horrifying beneath the flashing lights and body horror. and i think that really, really helps it stand out, as well as having a strong visual identity with these ps2-ass graphics and the way certain interactions are framed with cinematic intent in mind. theres so many deeply haunting moments in this game that arent even necessarily borne from the true horror stuff like the gore and the nightmare sequences. theres a reason that so many people have drawn art to represent that dead pixel

The Wild Robot

i thought this movie was just kind of delightful, a very pleasant experience. not particularly deep but i dont think it needs to be. lupita nyong'o i love you

Night in the Woods (2017)

so i've tried playing nitw like twice before and i could just never really stick it out. both first playthroughs i think i made it as far as day 3 when you have to decide whether to start hanging out with bea or gregg and then for some reason i was just never interested enough to go back and finish the game. but this year i decided i was gonna, and not only that, but i ended up 100%'ing the game! i can see why so many people fell in love with it and there are several moments i think about a lot, particularly mae meeting 'god' and everything with germ becuz i like him :)

Young Woman and the Sea

i kinda had to sit and go damn would this movie really make my top 7? and i decided yeah. it would. i really enjoyed it. it's just a solid entertaining time. i even learned a little something. it's not often that happens xp

Slay the Spire (2017)

so like nitw, i have played slay the spire before, but i never really was too deep into it? this year, however, i GOT into slay the spire, and man i am not looking forward to when my job starts back up and i sink another 40 hours into this thing out of boredom. it consumed my life. just one more run....

[evilneo]

idk why I'm sending this in but its funny as shit to me, I used to like Hateee your ass during the peak of hlvrai fandom in 2020 and I stumbled upon your blog again now. You're really just a guy idk what was up with me at age 17 but apologies in retrospect. godspeed?

SCREAM THATS REALLY FUNNY. i was 15-16 in 2020, the natural enemy of the 17yo, so that makes sense. do you remember why or was it just like "man this dude vibes are fucked as hell" KSJSLSKSKS

[for-gilded-cups-are-empty]

Katalepsis after live-read thoughts collection

So, now that im caught up about in time for book 1 to end, i am just regurgitating half-thoughts ive had along the ride, doing some retrospection and working my way through all the stuff i still want to draw.

I think thats one of the big things i really noticed and appreciated about katalepsis. Theres just drawability to it. I havent decided yet if its Hungrys writing style in general, the genre, or most likely, a characteristic of Heathers that got me to figure out i can use my laptop as a drawing tablet. Heather in her internal monologue just has a real appreciation for spaces.

A space is rarely a backdrop to do a scene in, the places and buildings and dimensions are characters to heather in a way that just makest a lot of sense for someone who grew up seeing the personified spirits of the everyday world as well as the varied wilds of Outside.

When the Stairwell trap is sprung, theres a very real feeling of betrayal, the willow house has forsaken raine and heather, who previously thought it a sanctuary.

We later learn that the space was bound, artificial, forced to act against its inhabitants in a way a house usually would not, which fits some themes that come up waaaaayy later.

I originally thought this would just be a quirk of heathers, some flavor to her thought processes, but it really did get picked up as an actual story beat, not just an aesthetic, with the soul of edward lilburnes house.

The Outside places are a bit more metaphorical about this, but strangely more clearly alive as well. The Library is an extension of the catalogue, wonderland is dominated by the eye. Ooran Juhs Projected space is his own physical gullet. Carcosa is the stage of a living play. The very first outside space we get to properly see is on the back of some giant creature, hairs and all.

Theres just Personality to every place that keeps them all so very, very vivid.

Ive been planning to draw wonderland ever since the mirror incident at the very beginning of the story, and in a very funny way, as ive drawn other stuff along the way ive been training for wonderland and the eye along with the cast. I really want to do it justice.

Staying on said cast for a bit, ive already talked about raine for a good bit, but theyre all amazing. I was always happy to see that an arc or a few chapters would become a cast members designated backstory time, because i really do want to know more about them and how they work as people. After about the middle point of the story though, those moments and how they connected became pretty hard for me to keep track off

For a reader who was along for the ride since the start, having to wait between chapters as they come out, the pacing probably works way better than it did for me.

I found myself really wishing for more time with the spookycule in each stage of development it had. Early katalepsis with just raine evee and heather is probably where it was the closest to ideal for me, in terms of just vibes i enjoy and things to keep track of.

I dont want to be too analytical, im bad at that, but for example we only see the fractal used to banish a sharrowford cult servitor once.

There could have been way more time spent in the twilight of magic, the street level zone, where every accidental slip outside is a moment of grand terror, and heather learns to live with the idea that the spirits are real.

For someone who gets called “Shaman” a lot later on, we only really see her asking a spirit for directions once (the wrecking ball hands gorilla), where i was expecting that to become a very integral bit of her kit as a character. I love the cephalopod changeling we got instead, but i do feel there could have been a heather who learned to work with her non brain pain vomit inducing abilities for practical reasons, at least for a little while.

After that comes the Messenger demon and maisies message. Knowing the rest of the story, i love that the primary motivation set up here has jack and shit to do with Ed or Alex. This isnt a story about killing the bad guy, its in a very serious way a story about love and that is what should motivate the characters.

Ed and Alex really are just invaders to the story, who grasp at threads that should not concern them at all, with their meddling eventually causing the collapse of Alexs portion of the cult under the Eyes gaze.

I dont quite know how much actual space is in between Kimberly and Zheng joining the household, but this is really the part of the story where just a lot happened at once. We get both badger and sarika, the entire abyss transformation and zheng so very close together.

During the time of the dead hands there is actually some breathing room though. Mostly because set dead hands keep us consigned to a breathable atmosphere for a bit.

The other big stretch of story that i wish lasted longer is the post proposal journey with sevens and saldis through carcosa. Given how time works outside, that whole stretch of time could have really stretched for a while without threatening the maisie limit, and i do wish that some of sevens later character development had happened in here, since i didnt quite know what to think of her after they left the palace, whereas right now in the end she is one of my favourites. I still dont know what i think of the king in yellow being in this story at all, but thats a me issue.

Yeah, so given that most of the smaller thoughts ive already posted in the liveread chat, i guess ive now covered my two big thoughts. I love how katalepsis treats spaces, and the only thing i had any problems with was the pacing, which tbh might just be because i didnt take my time when reading at all.

Time for even less structured thoughts now, just a rapid fire of things that come to mind after reading:

I hope we eventually get a perspective on the worlds cosmology from a mage fully unconnected to the vaguely interconnected british underworld of mages, im very curious how deeply different interpretations of outside, the abyss, demons and beyonders a person might have if they never interacted with the humunculus wars environment. The abyss beeing wet and aquatic seemed to be a general truth, to edward, zheng and even lozzie, until we met taika for example. I want to see more of that.

I said earlier that sevens has become one of my favourites, which is kinda stupid since most characters are my favourite at something by some measure, but Raine and Evee are still the two that are the most meaningful or connected to me. Ive already gone into maybe too much detail on how Raine just works in a way that ive never seen portrayed in anything for some reason. What i havent really realized until about now is how similar evees struggle is. There is that same need to feel useful. They both define their fundamental self via a skill that is in some way repulsive to them for whatever reason, and must cling to another to point them in a direction where they feel they can use it to do good. Evee has to feel useful, has to justify her presence and her dangerous knowledge to herself to some degree, and helping heather is how she does it for now.

The fundamental difference i think is that Raine chose to define herself that way, as knight errant, as supporter, while evee feels any other option to act on the world was taken from her by her mother. This mostly takes the form of her physical disability often stopping her from acting in time, reaching places, but also stopping her anorgasmia seemingly stopping her from loving in the way she thinks is correct (at that point of the story at least. Both of those are changing of course, mostly thanks to Praem).

It kind of lines up with Kimberly in a funky way, since she essentially decided not to use sorcery to justify her presence, both in the house and the story, but still remained around and appreciated, as a sort of in universe counterpoint to evees negative view of herself.

Thats all i can think of for now, i dont actually now how to end this, this isnt a sotry analysis, i have no conclusion except that im glad i caught up so close to the end, because im excited to see all of us react to whatever crazy shit is going down live!