#and then its so hard getting all the stuff out to reuse

[hrere]

hot take: spell jars are boring and wasteful. i'd rather just burn a piece of paper and drink the ashes.

[junkissed]

oh thaaaat ask... yeah i recall now hehehe i'm weirdly honored that i have a brand.. also i think i sent u an ask or two that i didn't sign off cause i was worried you'd get tired of me shshfbf so i honestly have no idea what i've sent u... anyways i can't stop thinking of brutal mean brat tamer hao suddenly switching it up one day when you brat at him and he goes "oh, i'm not tying you up because i trust you to be well behaved ^_^ you're so good, baby, i love you so much ^_^" and it surprises u so much that you actually do behave ... and maybe also slip into subspace 💤

SCREAMS OH MY GOD... switch!hao but instead of switching roles or positions it's him switching from hard dom to soft dom. like the contrast is so stark from how he is normally that even though it could be the most vanilla missionary in the world, it feels just as intense as the nights where he's got you tied to the bed with a vibrator and nipple clamps on you. they're both extremes but they're so different from each other that they're both equally pleasurable. extremes in a good way yk 🫠 and both times you just get to sit there and let him take care of you, whether it's punishment for being a brat or praise for being oh so well behaved for him

[hoejosatoru]

Skill Set -Tokyo Rev Men

What body part (hands, mouth, cock) Tokyo Rev men (+Yahuza and Senju) are best with. All characters post timeskip. Yes I reused the blurbs from my haikyu version of this there’s only so many ways to generically describe sex acts so it applies to multiple characters lmfao.

Can finger you like no one else. One of the few men who has not lost the fine art of fingering. His fingers are long and slender but so strong. His hands are rough and scarred from years of getting into fights, but it feels so good. He finds your g spot easily, pressing into it until you’re soaked and needy. “Hmm, you like when I touch you like that, angel?” He toys with your clit until you’re right at the edge before plunging his fingers back into your throbbing pussy. Loves how easy it is to tease you like that. How fully in control he is over your pleasure with just a few touches. It’s such an ordinary part of the body, the hands, and yet his can pull the sweetest moans out of you like it’s nothing. “Go on and cum all over my fingers, baby. Wanna feel you squeeze ‘em real good.” Will literally play with your pussy for hours and absolutely will.

Takemichi (I think he was intimidated by sex stuff, but fingering felt approachable so he just did that a ton & got good at it), Mitsuya (so good with his hands & makes it feel so romantic), Kisaki (he is a nasty little tease with it. Love the power imbalance of you being fully naked while he’s clothed and touching you), Takeomi (loves making you watch in front of a mirror, big into pussy slaps), Hakkai, Angry, Koko (a tease, but like its fun), Naoto

Loves eating pussy so much. Does it for his own pleasure as much as yours. Does it in all different positions - missionary, face sitting, from the back. Literally doesn’t care as long as he gets to eat you out. He presses his tongue into your tight hole, wiggling the warm, soft muscle inside you. “Mmm, tastes so fucking sweet.” Sucks on your clit until you’re squirming away from him. But don’t think you’re going anywhere. He’ll grip your hips tight, flicking his tongue over your aching clit until you’re gasping and shaking. He loves when you get lost in it, rutting your pussy against his tongue. “Yeah, baby, fuck my tongue just like that.” He’s not happy until his face is covered in your slick cum.

Shinichiro (please sit on this mans face he wants, no needs, to feel your thighs squeezing his face), Kauztora (so needy about it, loves knowing he makes you feel good. Regularly cums himself when eating you out), Smiley, Wakasa (he is so good but is a such tease. Makes you beg for it & then will eat you out until you’re begging him to stop bc you're so sensitive), Izana (also a tease, loves edging you like crazy until you’re practically in tears begging, then makes you cum w the littlest flick of his tongue), Yahuza (she knows what the fuck she is doing!)

Gives the best dick. He’s nice and big, making your pussy stretch pleasurable every time. He knows exactly where to angle himself to get you seeing stars. Loves pressing your knees up to your chest and getting himself so deep inside you. “Feel that baby? Feel me in your tummy?” A weaker man would bust when he felt your pussy squeezing him like a vice, but he has unrivaled restraint. He knows how to perfectly work you up with, slow, long thrusts, then finishes you off fast and hard snaps of his hips. He’s so strong and can put the most delicious weight behind each pounding thrust. “Fuck princess, feel so good cumming on my cock.” Expect to go multiple rounds.

Taiju (the breading kink goes crazy on this one I fear), South (actually takes it kinda slow w you bc he’s massive and he knows it), Mucho, Benkei, Baji (he is a a huge doggy style enjoyer), Mochi, Shion (nasty with it), Rindou (I feel like rindou is just fucking slinging dick like idk how else to put it. Also I feel like he has a really nice dick overall.), Sanzu (loves making you ride him and then ends up fucking up into you), Chifu (he’s the type you don’t expect much from bc he’s small but then you can barely walk the next day), Senju (ok ik she doesn’t have a dick but she DOES have a strap and is so good with it. Also will scissor you so good so she deserves to be here)

BONUS - The men who can literally do it all. Can finger you senseless, will eat your pussy for hours, and will fuck you until you can barely walk. All above applies to them

Draken (idc if I’m being bias but Draken can fuck like no other. He’s such a nice, big cock, loves having you sit on his face, and his are so rough and warm and god I need him!), Ran (he’s a SLUT), Inui (he just has so much sex appeal like? There’s just something about him that I just KNOW he’s so good a pleasuring), Kakucho (Kind of a dark horse, but he’s so, so attentive to his partner. Really good at adapting to exactly what makes you feel good), Hanma (again, slut. He makes you beg for everything and is kinda a meanie, but worth it), Mikey (I think different timeline versions of Mikey may be stronger in different areas but overall I think Mikey has solid skills across the board. Also is v good at being Dom and sub, so it keeps things interesting)

[ganondoodle]

( totk rant?)

i have talked alot about my problems with totk in detail, as most of you probably know by now- but there really is a vibe of big ambitions but then not committing to it throughout the game

they want to have that building mechanic in it no matter what in a world that isnt in any way build around it, mister "freedom = good, linear = bad" guy wanting to give you ultimate freedom in the game (which imo leads to it being nothing again) but not committing to it and it creates a really toxic loop of things being more punishing than rewarding

you can build a fuckton of weird vehicles, but big parts, ESPECIALLY the glider, is on limited time so you cant actually go anywhere you want; they know giving you absolut freedom will remove any possible challenge- so they limit it by making the glider part timed, but then they cant do that for every single part bc it would be almost impossible to create anything that works well when every part is on a timer and you dont know how much of its lifespan is left bc you accidentally hit a fan once so now its uneven with the other one AND the more parts you have the more it uses battery, it makes sense, so you cant build soemthign super overpowered right at the start and its just kinda logical, but it leads to you being incentivised to build something with the fewest parts that dont have a timer-

then theres the battery power, which they try to limit by putting its upgrades behind multiple different currency exchanges, which is frustrating and leads to alot of grinding and gets overpowered really fast (it works against itself too that said currencies are all placed in the most undeveleoped and repetetive area of the game and are all never involved in anything interesting, its reused old enemy camps and the same mines everywhere, theres not a single reward in the underground that actually feels rewarding imo)

then you get the autobuild thing, so you can skip the building part of the building mechanic that is the main selling point of tha darn game, bc they know it can get frustrating to rebuild your things over and over so they give you a skip button for that if you are one of those players that doesnt like it BUT THEN they cant jsut let you do it for free so they give it a price, either spend the same currency you need for the exchange for the one you need for battery upgrades or spend parts you collected- both of which are things players generally save up and refuse to use (like the -never use any health potions bc what if i need it more at some point- thing is a problem for a reason)

then theres the added thing of the building stuff despawning incredibly quickly, im gonna guess its otherwise a performance problem (that the game is already struggling hard with) but it makes the entire already bad loop of trying to fix a problem with bandaids over and over even worse, you dont want to go too far away from your vehicles bc it will despawn and waste all that you used to build it, its like a leash to you stopping you from actually using it for more freedom- and potentially adds another annyoance bc you might try to bring it with you as far as you can, a monster truck in the depths you spend all your parts on gets stuck on the first bits of terrain you run into and you desperately try to get it out without destroying it, and if you cant you need to spend a ton of resources to build it again, even with autobuild

which is how you get the hoverbike, stupidly overpowered and boring but doing anything else is just less efficient in every way, it uses the least amount of battery, never breaks, is only 3 parts to rebuild

(i know me in particular doesnt enjoy the building in totk at all, for all those reasons and more ...... shiekah ........ and i know you CAN still choose to doing it more creatively, but you never need to, its entirely based around YOU making it fun for yourself, and i dont think its that controverisal to say a game should be fun and challenging without you having to create all the fun yourself and set yourself limit it all yourself)

similar goes for the dungeons, they heard you want the dungeons of old times back, but their strict adherance to freedom (which they themsleves contradict) leads to them being more breakable and less dungeony than even the titans in botw, they cant make it linear, thats BAD, so you can do any puzzle in any order, it cant build on any of the others bc you need to be able to do it when you want (the only one going slightly against that is the lightning one? maybe?), totks dungeons dont even limit that you cant climb them (even the titans in botw recognized that makign it easy to break so they are made of the same unclimbable material like the shrines and other shiekah tech) and the new abilities make them laughably easy to break ( .. im not even gonna mention the water temple one bc ... you dont even need to do anything there to break it to make it easier)

they wanted to cater to people wanting old dungeons, but didnt commit to it, making them WORSE dungeons than the titans with the only bonus being they got different designs and a longer build up to it (that often feels more like artificial filler than actually part of it ... like the missing lore tablet at the zoras and the missing part is a few steps away from it at best)

(ALL THE WHILE they DO limit you in SHRINES, you cant climb the walls again, for some reason, you can climb any other sonau structure though, why not that? idk, but dont limit it enough either bc you can break it all in really cheap and unsatisfying ways with ultrahand and time reversal alone- and they CANT limit those bc those abilities are the main ways to solve the 'puzzles'- botws abilities were .. well, limited in what they could do making them much more balanced, but moving sth with ultrahand and then stepping on it and time reversing it can be the boring solution to any 'puzzle', the best and only really good shrines are the ones that take all you shit bc it wactually forces you to be creative BC ITS LIMITING YOU)

(funnily enough a big possible reason why they removed the bombs from botw is bc of the glitches with it ...... like the new stuff isnt even worse and you dont even have to try lol)

people speculated on there being underground exploration due to the first trailer? people are worried about reusing the surface? ok they put the entirety of the surface map into the game again, but dont commit to it being a full thing, its horribly underdeveloped and filled with either nothing or reused filler material, while also neglecting changing anything substantial about the surface, and then the sky isalnds they even reduced and really there isnt anything of substance on there either besides the tutorial (hey, seriously, if one of botws most defining feature is its wide and empty sky why the hell would you decide to use that same map to put in your sky islands idea in), not commiting to one idea but doing all of them badly

ganondorf? well, they sure put him in there, but really what does he do? fuck all, the entire actual game hes jsut marinating in his own miasma juice for no reason, he doesnt have any presecne in the game, all he gets its a few scenes in the "story" that are told through memory cutscenes in a stupidly mega distant past i dont give a fuck about and all he does is go through the most stereotypical villain checklist of both actions and speech, they want ganondorf in there but dont commit to him ACTUALLY being there (listen i love ganondorf but really calamtiy ganon was more interesting than totk ganondorf ok im SORRY they did him so dirty)

they want dragon zelda and link 'losing' his arm be a big epic sacrifice but then .. again, dont commit to it, they tell you its oooh so irreversible and whatever and then at the end just fukcing reverse it, with no build up at all, and NONE of your own input, it just happens, and its not JUST zelda but also links arm, reversing it BOTH even and you dont even need to have all shrines (that are supposedly to cleanse your arm of miasma, i guess thats a non problem if you just stab the source of it to death instead)

they want it to be a sequel but also its own game, not committing to either and leaving us with this weird .... more alternative universe thing, vague references to botw but also acting like it never happened, slight changes, like zeldas hair, to make her seem different when shes exactly the same (you cant imply waifu zelda would ever age and not look like a little doll) and ignoring anything about her character from botw (no im serious, ooh shes nerdy for 3 minutes at the start and one time in a written thing from some servant of da royals in the past and thats it, interest in the shiekah? whos shiekah?- if anything her character is reversed, really having even less agency than in botw, that one decision to dragon is like, it really doesnt matter and not really her decision bc she didnt have a choice and it gets reversed anyway without her even remembering)

even retreading all of botws points (but doing it worse imo), but then attempting to differentiate itself from it by removing a big thing that made it what it is (shiekah) without giving it any or any sensible explanation among more, not committing to either sequel or AU and so doing both incredibly badly

(not quite the point but what i have been questioning for a while ... they way raurus abilities work ... so do all sonau have those? was it just a normal thing to have? could all sonau just glue shit together and jump through ceilings? he never uses anything of that when we see him? why is it just in the shrines at the start and its like .. he just gives it to you ...?? huh??is it part of his arm .. jewelry??)

(anyway, tin foil hat moment but it just feels like either there was a huge internal fight about everything or they neglected it in favor for something else, like say, a movie that earns them billions and is faster and cheaper to make than a game... or just dont care anymore i guess, idk which is worse tbh)

[thewertsearch]

Ask Comp 07/09

Anonymous asked: also, thats pretty distinctly not vriskas handwriting (page 2196). the hell is terezi even talking about?

Terezi, for god's sake.

@manorinthewoods asked: I'd like to note that Pyralspite's eyes are either an eighth the brightness of Alternia's sun, or Pyralspite has the ability to psychically burn out people's eyes just by wanting to. Probably the former. ~LOSS (30/8/24)

I should have guessed that Vriska's cruel and unusual punishment for Terezi was yet another case of Mindfang Roleplay.

I think it's likely that Pyralspite does have some sort of ocular ability. After all, Terezi's lusus had a vision-based power, and she's probably Pyralspite's direct descendant.

@gogogoat495 asked: Say, what do you think of the reuse/mix of animation and music from Dave: Ascend to Seer: Ascend? Is it a simple callback or are there deeper parallels between the characters and story beats?

Well, they are both lead-ups to a climactic fight between 'siblings'. Other than that, though, I'm not really sure. Dave and Terezi have always got on very well, but I can't really see any direct parallels in their personal arcs.

@manorinthewoods asked: Mindfang's classism is ridiculous. This woman straight up said 'one of such middling 8lood' about someone literally one step below her on the ladder. If she were Tavros, she would be oppressing Aradia so hard. ~LOSS (29/8/24)

In Terezi's own words, she's 'a little too teal' to be considered a true highblood. I think there's a hard line of separation here, where anyone below Vriska's caste is considered a midblood at best.

In other words: to be a blueblood, you really need to be a blue-blood.

@manorinthewoods asked: Nepeta, whose handle is arsenicCatnip, uses arsenic's atomic number as a significant element of her quirk. This implies that arsenic has the same atomic number in Alternia as on Earth, which in turn means that, at the very least, the two universes likely share a periodic table. Odd, given how one has widespread psychic abilities and the other doesn't. ~LOSS (29/8/24)

I think it makes sense that Earth inherited some of its scientific concepts from Alternia. It wouldn't be the first thing we inherited!

@heliotropopause asked: TG: maybe if you kill her at least we can finally stop obsessing over her Hah! homestuck's been over for over for almost eight years now, and people are still doing vriscourse to this day. There is no escape, i'm afraid.

'Vriscourse' is kind of killing me. I'm kind of disappointed that this is my first time hearing the term, because I'd probably have been using it this whole time.

@probablyapineapple asked: im not completely caught up on reading this liveblog yet (currently up to s67) but i think youre on track to understanding these characters better than literally anyone

Well, thank you! I have, admittedly, posted some rather hot takes in the past, though. If I recall correctly, my Act 5 shipping chart was my most controversial post to date.

@bladekindeyewear asked: Back during these times in the comic, there were broad theoryposting camps advocating for both narrower and broader interpretations of Aspect domains/powers. I know you're avoiding as much outside influence as you can, but I'm wondering if maybe after the end of this Act, you could accept some community Theorydiving from around this time that could unlock more tools for you to understand hidden evidence for Aspect Stuff you might have missed? […]

I'm definitely considering something like that. Specifically, I'd love to take a look at some of the comic's early theories - ones that had already been disproven by this point in the comic. That'll allow me to get into the headspace of Homestuck's earliest theorists, without influencing my own as-yet-unproved theories.

@manorinthewoods asked: Perhaps an older Legislacerator's job is less actually trying to pursue justice, and more going through cargo cult-esque rhythms of justice, taking its trappings and trying to bring it about while having no understanding of what they're actually doing and what the meaning of their actions is. Maybe, like the Subjugglators, they're an entire social class/blood color based around a single cult? ~LOSS (28/8/24)

I think Dave was pretty on the mark when he described early legislacerators as bounty hunters. Maybe they assumed something marginally closer to an attorney's role in Alternia's modern age - but in Redglare's era, the ideal legislacerator was a violent thrill-seeker, more concerned with bloody combat than courtroom paperwork.

@violetsquare111 asked: I do wonder how big, exactly, is the multiverse in Homestuck. I guess that's a bit of a weird question if there are "infinite universes"… but infinite potential doesn't mean infinite already-existing universes, does it? For some reason I always thought of the amount of Sburb sessions/universes being fairly small, in the grand scheme of things. Less than a million, maybe. I really don't know where I got that from, and there's probably some throwaway line in the comic contradicting it, but if applicable then it's another possible explanation for how Perfect Jack would be one-of-a-kind.

It's not impossible. That would imply that the overwhelming majority of sessions are doomed to fail - but, honestly, they might be! After all, neither of the sessions we've seen so far have been unambiguously successful.

@iris-in-the-dark-world asked: i had a dream that you went from page 3703 to page 7053 in one day

You dreamt of Sally on Adderall.

@spiddermen asked: hihi i just caught up with your liveblog and im so happy to have a chance to reread hs along with you, the first time i read it was when i was like… twelve? so nine years ago? and pretty much all of it went over my head. but now im finally getting to appreciate this masterpiece and your observations are making a lot of stuff click for me as well. so its cool to finally get to understand how freaking good this story is and i cant wait to see you react to some of the crazy later stuff also i hope this doesnt trip the spoiler sensor but some of the answers to the questions you're asking are only answered in sequel material so i do really hope you'll read those, they're ignored by a lot of the fans but they're honestly really really good and i feel like you're the kind of person who would get the intended experience out of them. and psycholonials as well! everyone ignores it but it practically is homestuck (2) to me

Thank you! And yeah, we've talked a bit about this before. Cat and I had a discussion about the subject back in Act 3, and I'm well aware that this comic isn't going to answer all of my questions. Honestly, it would be pretty surprising if it did - I've been digging really deep into aspects of the comic that are clearly just meant to be background details.

As for whether I'll be dipping into Hussie's other projects, or Homestuck's non-canon material - I'm certainly going to check them out, but only time will tell whether they get the full liveblogging treatment. That said, if it addresses questions of mine that Homestuck itself doesn't elaborate on, consider my interests piqued.

@manorinthewoods submitted: I sorta skimmed Homestuck, and missed out on basically all of the Flashes going through, so I totally missed the fact that WQ wrote a romantic fanfic about herself, which is really funny. It does have a serious aspect, though - it implies something about her relationship with WK, no? I suspect they may be friendly with one another, but fate gives their relationship a bit of tragedy - as well as a bit of 'we are simultaneously both forced to be in a romantic relationship and also only being co-rulers'. Is WQ<3WK a thing? Doesn't have to be. I suspect it may be something like WQ<>WK […]

Plus, Carapacians are clones, so it's not like the Royals need to make any heirs. Really, they only need to be co-workers - but the idea that they might have a moirail-adjacent relationship is very cute.

Anonymous asked: Grimdark Rose: "Vengeance and rage are all I live for now, seeing my dead mother makes me feel nothing, I will-" John: Exists Rose: "OMG bestie hiiiiii" ~DJ

First Vriska, now Rose. It seems like John's the perfect calming influence for any out-of-control Light Player.

Anonymous asked: Not sure if you noticed, the tapestries about the kids' quests are all referencing the [S] pages with misattributed quotes associated with each kid (pages 82, 307, 444, and 2988). The quotes are, respectively, from Maxims by Francois de La Rochefoucauld, The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot, Drop It Like It's Hot by Snoop Dogg, and possibly an original piece by Hussie ending with a line from Hamlet. I don't think any of them mean anything.

The quotes might not be Hussie originals, but they definitely seem to evoke the kids' respective Quests. Dave's quote is a bit of an exception, though...

Anonymous asked: "They wait for he who would drop it while it's hot whilst the pimp's in the crib." I mean, you laugh NOW, but knowing Andrew and this comic, can you honestly say this won't end up having an incredibly important and literal meaning? @walkerbehindyou asked: Is there a quest more suited for Dave than to show up at his denizen’s (certainly the pimp of LOHAC) palace in the past and drop straight fire?

...but perhaps that means it's foreshadowing something we haven't seen yet. If Dave ends up making a Choice, I wouldn't put it past him to rap an answer to his Denizen.

@iris-in-the-dark-world asked: the soundtrack of the grimdark rose segment really gets to me. i'd highly recommend the first few songs of that album

Black Rose/Green Sun was a great song. It evoked a very different feeling than anything we've heard before, and really highlighted how alien Rose has become, now that she's been fully submerged in darkness.

@manorinthewoods asked: Ooh, here's an idea - when you do the Sahlee-and-Sally Let's Play, set it in an alternate Sburb that's based on all of your incorrect theories. Every Land has a God Tier Moon orbiting it, for instance. Would be really cool - your theoretical Sburb has a lot of super fun stuff in it. ~LOSS (12/8/24)

Oh, I like that idea. It means I can finally bring back the anti-Skaia, which is probably my favourite since-disproven theory.

Anonymous asked: I never realised that the pillow that Rose uses then is the one from her mum - well spotted :,(

A mother will do whatever is best for her children.

And a daughter will remember what was best about her mother.

Anonymous asked: So. Do you think that a Horrorterror-Boosted Rose has any chance against a First Guardian Prototyped Jack Noir? We've seen that if left alone Jack can destroy Entire Worlds and his teleporting is Nigh Instant, plus who knows how far he can go in a single teleport! […]

Dark Rose is arguably a God-Tier level threat, but we've just seen Jack one-shot a God Tier. I don't think she has a hope - there's only so many bullet-time stabbings she can take!

Anonymous asked: its really interesting to see you say that rose saying she felt mom was a sister and a mother at once made u feel like there must have been camraderie. for me, it reinforced the idea that moms parenting forced rose to act like a peer to mom when it came to her alcoholism? in the sense that moms alcoholism took her out of commission, and made it so that rose had to take care of herself in a lot of ways that a parent would, putting them on similar levels. So its interesting to see a different interpretation!

It's not impossible. To me, Rose's monologue reads as if she's trying to express her admiration of her mother. This is the first time she's admitted to having positive feelings for her guardian, and I think she's regretting that she never voiced these feelings to the woman herself, before it was too late.

That's just one reading of her words, though. I think her monologue here is meant to be ambiguous, just like the Lalonde mother-daughter relationship always was.

@manorinthewoods asked: Ooh, you're thinking of a Carapacian player, huh? That would be interesting - imagine if they go in with, like, complete knowledge of how Sburb works, so they prototype something super strong in order to buff the Ring that they then steal and equip. ~LOSS (12/8/24)

That would be interesting. Carapacians are the only species where the game can't fully compensate for the power of your race by buffing Underlings, since buffing the Underlings would also buff the Ring I'm abusing!

@skelekingfeddy asked: re: troll romance: i generally lean towards xenopsychology, mixed in with a secret 4th thing (humans can also feel troll romance), with a little dose of propaganda, and also an undercurrent of parody (because Hussie. everything has an undercurrent of parody (e.g. pretty much all the trolls are based on internet stereotypes). i COMPLETELY disagree with the notion that the quadrants are made up unhealthy bullshit. i think theres a genuine evolutionary biological origin for the quadrants if matespritship is all about Companionship, then kismesissitude is all about Competition, Rivalry, a drive to push yourself and make yourself better. both are generally healthy and beneficial in their own ways. the evolutionary basis for moirallegiance and auspisticism is the need for pacification, a better half, to prop up matespritships and kismesissitudes and keep them from being interfered with (as described in-comic). each quadrant is the result of a genuine primal, biological urge

I don't necessarily think the quadrants are fabricated, but I do think that the version of them that exists on Alternia are unhealthy more often than not, particularly when it comes to black romance. Monogamous auspisticism requires an overwhelming amount of emotional labor, all the kismesissitudes we've seen have been toxic at best, and there has to be a better way to do this.

Anonymous asked: My brother's been going through your liveblog recently and it's been fun getting to re-experience it through him, especially being reminded of all the theories you have that are shockingly accurate in very inaccurate ways. The two that come to mind are your theory that Jade was engineered in a lab (which, she kinda was, but that's not unique to her) and that John's version of Sburb is bugged (the meteors, it turns out, were a part of the game as it's meant to be played, but this whole 'tumour' thing sure isn't). Also, while I'm here, going to recommend checking out Temporal Shenanigans by Rachel Rose Mitchell, which is a gorgeous fansong about Aradia that shouldn't have any spoilsies at this point. I would also rec PhemieC's music with the caveat that many of their songs are spoilery - while most of the troll-specific ones should be alright, I'd definitely say to get someone else to go through them first to be certain. Hope you're doing well!! And I look forward to seeing more of your liveblog if and when you return to it! -Megido

Oh yeah, I was talking about how Jade was made in a lab! I'd totally forgotten about that theory.

You know, her Dreambot is actually interesting in retrospect. The bed that controls it looks suspiciously like a Quest Bed, which makes me wonder just how much Grandpa knew about Sburb's lore, and what exactly he was trying to do here.

Anonymous asked: I find it a bit funny (in good way) how aspects of your troll and human sona are kinda opposites, like life and death type of thing, sweet

Really, it's mostly just me hedging on my own Aspect. Plus, having two 'sonas lets me explore twice as much Sburb lore, allowing me to come up with two weapons, Lands, Title powers, and the like.

Within the hypothetical context of the fic, I've been thinking a lot about why there'd be two Sallys. Like, was one 'sona partially cloned from the other? If so, who was the original? Technically, the Alternian version would have existed 'first', but the existence of time travel ensures that that doesn't mean much.

@manorinthewoods asked: Rather appropriate that Rose's weapon is her Thorns. ~LOSS (10/8/24)

Ayyy!

@ipunchvampires asked: "You should understand [Rose has] been corrupted by various entities with some rather questionable motives," says Entity with Rather Questionable Motives corrupting her. Kind of the perfect Doc Scratch line, honestly.

Doc Scratch is an awful person, but he's still a funny fuck.

@heliotropopause asked: wait. is that *Guybrush Threepwood* in the boat there??? @elkian asked: At the risk of being the 88th person to say something, the troll in the dinghy is a Guybrush Threepwood cameo (using the more cartoony style from Curse Of Monkey Island etc.). Man's truly unfortunate, or maybe he's lucky for not being a focal character? XD Anonymous asked: that 'one random motherfucker on a little dinghy' is in fact, guybrush threepwood from the monkey island series, thrown in as an easter egg by one of the artists who made assets for the flash @sanctferum asked: the troll on the dinghy is Troll Gybrush Threepwood. the guest artist for that scene confirmed this on the now-defunct MSPA forums IIRC

Ahahaha. Mystery solved, I guess!

I've been wanting to play Monkey Island for some time - and now I need to, so that I can understand the true backstory of of GY'BRSH TRPWUD.

Anonymous asked: I love this section, because I think it really shows something about Dave (and Rose). Because Dave just says whatever pops into his head, when he's getting command prompts, he just repeats them uncritically. (That also supports that when he said he didn't love his Bro, it was his honest reaction) @ben-guy asked: David "Zero Filter" Strider was absolutely not ready to have thoughts beamed directly into his head by an exile lmao @krixwell asked: It's so funny to me how when thoughts are incepted into Dave's subconscious mind, they just come falling right back out his mouth at the first opportunity. Filter, what filter? Those sunglasses don't hide shit.

Reminds me of his stress-rambles from early on in the comic. The reason he wears those shades is, I think, because he is a naturally expressive person - he just doesn't want to be.

[pathfinderunlocked]

Healthy Boss Template (CR +3)

Wait, why did a giant health bar just appear in the sky?

Artwork by Jeff_Chee_471 on Reddit.

D&D and Pathfinder have a really unusual idea of what a "boss" is compared to, like, any video game ever made. They often tend to just take an enemy that would be part of a group of normal enemies if you were about six levels higher. When they do something more unique, it still tends to be balanced like that. Tons of offense, not that many hit points, but often extremely hard to hit. Adventure designers often try to make up for this design by making a boss weaker but giving it minions, but that doesn't change the fact that there's really no concept of a creature that's inherently a "boss creature" in this game.

And sometimes that's fine. But sometimes you just want a big chunky fight that's balanced more like how a video game boss is balanced: only a little more damage than other creatures, but way more health, and the ability to recover if you do nasty stuff like stun it. Something that lets the players go all-out using their abilities, and rewards them for doing so, instead of having to spend most of the fight just focusing on not getting attacked, because they know one attack can take them out.

This template isn't a global solution. It'll get old, and if you reuse it too much, players will find strategies that bypass it. That's why I design so many different boss monsters that each work differently. But if you want to convert an existing monster into a boss, this is one way to do so without a lot of effort, and without just giving it the advanced template and several fighter levels to max out its offense.

Some of the options for different abilities are there to deal with different kinds of player strategies, rather than because they're appropriate for different kinds of bosses. If your PCs use vital strike, give it vital negation. If they use combat maneuvers, give it reset stance. If they cast a bunch of spells on the terrain, give it undo. If they rely on hungry pit, give it escape to nowhere. Don't feel bad about using this template specifically to counter them, since the inflated HP and the limited uses of these special abilities mean that the players' strategies will still be useful, they just won't instantly win the fight.

Healthy Boss

Healthy boss is an inherited template that can be applied to any creature.

Challenge Rating: Same as the base creature + 3.

Hit Points: A healthy boss's hit points are three times as high as the base creature's.

Initiative: A healthy boss gains a +10 bonus to its initiative.

Defensive Abilities: A healthy boss can never be surprised, and is not considered flat-footed before it has acted in combat.

Special Abilities: A healthy boss gains 1 of the following special abilities:

Bolstering Cry (Ex) Twice per day as a move action, a healthy boss can grant all allies within 60 ft. a number of temporary hit points equal to its new challenge rating. When it does so, it also suppresses the following conditions on affected allies other than itself for 1 round: blinded, confused, entangled, fatigued, exhausted, nauseated, paralyzed, shaken, sickened, staggered, stunned. The healthy boss does not need line of effect to these allies, but they must be able to either see or hear it. Second Wind (Ex) Five times per day as a free action at the start of its turn, a healthy boss can gain a number of temporary hit points equal to its new challenge rating. These temporary hit points last for 10 minutes. It can only use this ability only once per round. Vital Negation (Ex) Once per round, a healthy boss can halve the damage of a single incoming source of damage. It can choose to use this ability after hearing the amount of damage that it would take. This does not require an action.

Additionally, a healthy boss gains 2 of the following other special abilities:

Aura of Recovery (Su) The healthy boss gains a 40-ft. aura. At the end of each of the healthy boss's turns, one of the healthy boss's allies within this aura (including itself) gains a new saving throw against any one ongoing harmful effect that initially allowed for a saving throw. Escape to Nowhere (Su) Once per day, at the end of an enemy's turn, a healthy boss can escape to the ethereal plane, as if using ethereal jaunt. This does not require an action. It remains in the ethereal plane during its next turn. At the start of its second turn after using this ability, the healthy boss returns to the plane it was on, but is staggered during that turn. Legendary Resistance (Ex) Once per day, when a healthy boss fails a saving throw, or when an enemy succeeds on a check against the healthy boss's spell resistance, the healthy boss can expend its legendary resistance to treat the roll as if the healthy boss had succeeded on the saving throw or the enemy had failed on the check against spell resistance. A healthy boss with a total challenge rating of at least 9 gains a second use of Legendary Resistance per day, and a healthy boss with a total challenge rating of at least 18 gains a third use of legendary resistance per day. This does not require an action. Reset Concentration (Ex) Once per day, when a healthy boss fails a concentration check, it can steel its mind against future distractions, gaining a +10 bonus on concentration checks for the next 10 minutes. This does not require an action. Reset Stance (Ex) Once per day, when a healthy boss starts its turn prone or grappled, at the start of its next turn after being successfully subjected to a combat maneuver other than trip or grapple, it can spend a move action to stand up, free itself from any grapples, pick up a single item within its reach, end the effect of a dirty trick maneuver, and move up to its move speed without provoking attacks of opportunity. Upon using this ability, the healthy boss also gains a +5 bonus to its CMD and a +10 bonus to Acrobatics, Climb, Ride, Swim, and Fly checks for the next 10 minutes. Undo (Su) As a standard action, once every 3 rounds, a healthy boss can revert the effects of any number of ongoing or instantaneous magic spells that are affecting itself, other creatures, or the surrounding environment. Each spell effect it attempts to undo must be within 60 ft. of the healthy boss, and must have been applied during the last 10 minutes. Even instantaneous spells can be reverted with Undo, but damage is not reverted. To attempt to undo a spell, a healthy boss makes a caster level check against a DC of 6 + the effect's caster level, using its hit dice as its caster level. If successful, the ongoing spell ends, or the effects of the instantaneous spell are reverted.

[kaibutsushidousha]

To be honest, your discussion of Minase's positive and negative qualities piqued my interest. What do you think are the main recurring fgo writers' strong and weak points? Also where would you rank the lilim harlot event?

For the sake of brevity, I'll stick to one per writer. Picking apart everyone to the extent I did with Minase would take forever and would be better done after their respective Ordeal Calls.

I hesitate to call Higashide's comedy his strong point because his huge hits are about as frequent as his huge misses. I suppose I'll go with clarity for Higashide's main strong point. Even when I think he sucked at delivering his point, I can always tell what he's trying to say, which is not something I can say about Sakurai's most compressed scripts. His weak point is his lack of ambition. It's nice to have at least one person in FGO's team who will never try to escalate things, but I can't see it doesn't make his stories more forgettable in the long run.

Minase was already detailed in his own post.

Meteo’s best quality is a tone setter. Requiem, Salem, and all his events come with an atmosphere that feels very tangibly different from what FGO usually does. Often his events are bad, but never they lack a unique identity. Which segues into his weak point, being that many of his events are comedy events and the man is simply not funny. Bullying Erice is his only consistently good joke, and when he tries other things, the results are more miss than hit. See Las Vegas and Wandjina World Tour for major examples of comedy events that failed hard at the comedy side.

Nasu is a master recycler. I don't know how he does it but the man is constantly reusing the same structures, the same themes, or the same dynamics and somehow it never feels repetitive. There is always something that makes the whole recipe feel fresh and unique despite being so easy to recognize the same usual ingredients there. And what I dislike about Nasu in FGO is how he's still stuck at the concept of selling waifus from the girls with routes days. Everyone has their list of characters who get ship tease with Fujimaru but only in Nasu's case it feels like an overwhelming majority and that some of the choices create too large of a difference between the summoned character and the character in the main story. Was it really necessary to do this with, say, Morgan? Melusine? Tenochtitlan?

And Sakurai I saved for last because one major reason this post took this long is that I was struggling to sort out what is characteristically good and bad about her. Well, even now I don’t have a simple and satisfying answer. Things can’t be simple with Sakurai, unfortunately. One friend of mine described the experience of reading Sakurai scripts as “playing chess against an opponent that doesn’t tell that you are in a game of chess” and that’s honestly a fascinating way to phrase it.

Sakurai is an intriguing combination of inflexibly ambitious and inflexibly professional. She has grand ideas for her characters and she will include them in the script without fail. But she's also strictly adherent to script size limitations. While Nasu is making Camelot and Avalon le Fae with total disregard to every possible limit, Sakurai is cramming so much into Septem's and London's microscopic file space that it becomes utterly incomprehensible. Nasu wrote Last Encore's plot as a whole ass novel and hired Sakurai to convert that into anime scripts because Sakurai is his expert in fitting a lot of stuff into tiny spaces. Tunguska was tossed at Sakurai because probably no one else could fit into its raid event constraints. And because she doesn't compromise on what goes in, her alternative is not revealing the mysteries about her characters but laying out all the hints so the players can figure it out themselves, which is a really fun thing once you're used to it (read: aware that you're playing chess against her).

And the answer to "Where would I rank the Lilim Harlot event" is 1st place.

[bigprettygothgf]

anyway i beat the elden ring dlc a few days ago (started lvl 100 and eventually capped at 150 and 18 scadutree blessing by the end) and my final verdict is that its fucking incredible, i cant say its a 10/10 bc theres still some frankly inexcusable bullshit (5+ reused dragon fights including a new all time worst, final boss phase 2 performance impact, npc gank fight*) but literally everything else is fucking stellar. the map is one of the best designed world maps ive ever seen in a game and going through the individual segments really recaptured the feeling of opening up lordran for the first time in ds1. as for that thing everyones talking about - im sorry to use the SI words but to be blunt all the complaints about the dlc's difficulty have entirely been a skill issue lol. yes its hard but fromsoft dlcs are always hard and given how difficult elden ring already was what else were people expecting? the expansion literally gives you its own self contained leveling mechanic. use it.

yet more camera issues aside most of the new bosses are amazing - special shoutout to messmer, the dancing lion, bayle once i switched to a longer range weapon, metyr, and maybe midra. negative shoutouts to the golden hippo and commander gayass for their ds2 hitboxes but they are comically weak to fire and i was using the new anvil weapon on them so they died in like 10 hits lol. rellana was also fucking annoying but i have a feeling ill figure her out when i get to rl1. of course the elephant in the room is the final boss and my thoughts on him are uh. well i dont know. i love the first phase but dear god they really went overboard with the onscreen effects in phase 2 and i dont think he would even be half as difficult if you could actually see wtf hes doing. the hair does not help. lorewise no one would actually be confused why hes there if they actually did the npc quests but its a fromsoft game so admittedly i cant really blame people for missing those. but still. my final thoughts are that his design decisions are highly questionable but after beating him i got that good sense of accomplishment instead of "thank fuckign christ thats over" so thats a good sign. i dont feel like going into more plot stuff rn but i think it did a mostly (but not entirely) satisfactory job answering questions i had about the base games (very messy) story. prepare to see some really bad takes about miquella lol

anyway yeah its fantastic. literally the size of an entire souls game on its own. well worth the purchase. play it

*yes i know the game really wants you to summon for it but i simply refuse to use summons and there is 0 excuse for how those npcs behave together in a 3v1. fucking eat me from behind leda.

[kelocitta]

Hello! I love your use of geometric shapes and saturated colors in your illustrations. Which artists influence your work?

Honestly while I can name a lot of artists who serve as some sort of inspiration for things like creature design or color, I can't really place ones for specifically the geometric aspect! I'm sure there are some out there, but I think a large part of specifically that is probably just me personally liking balanced/clean/symmetric stuff along with most of my sketch papers growing up being gridline paper, so doing sharp geometric shapes was common. I also tend to think of my lineless art as similar to layered paper art, which has to be physically cut out. Its sort of one of the reasons I reuse colors often? Like you'd reuse the same piece of paper

Color wise I pull a lot from my friends, save a lot of art I think does interesting stuff with colors, etc. Generally I might skip through a couple artworks for a good "starter" color or a palette I like and go from there, adjusting it for personal preference. All the parts are drawn in little individual bits, so I can change them all independently. So often I have colors in mind at the beginning, but don't actually pick them till the very end. Here's some pieces to show how that gets fiddled with

And if you go back far enough, everything starts as a yucky mash of whatever colors made it easiest to tell one piece from another with zero regards to palette

I just really like bright saturated colors and honestly just kinda feel it out from there. Sometimes that's making it brighter sometimes that's making it a little more washed out. Sometimes I decide what I was going for doesn't actually look as nice as I thought. It's sort of hard to name inspirations directly because so much of what I do I do effectively by feeling, and I have piss poor memory so naming exacts is real hard. If I tried to list people whos art I think about a lot we'd be here all day. I know a lot of my recent stuff has had more direct inspo from Boxheadpaint who has just amazing shape language (but almost the exact opposite of 'geometric' but I try and match their vibe a lot when I'm trying to draw a little looser and less stiff. Also looooove how they texture stuff)

[abavo]

My thoughts on the new LMK season

With no (or at least very minor) spoilers

TLDR: Its easy to focus on the drop in quality of the visuals since we can't focus too much on the other aspects of the series due to the language barrier, the english fandom will likely start having a more positive reaction to the season when the eng version drops and we can focus on character interaction and story.

RIP The YT channel hosting the episodes I will edit this post if it comes back up or someone reuploads them.

I'm probably gonna talk about the animation the most as I'll have to wait for the eng version to come out before I can talk too much about the story.

Also all of this is my opinion if you don't agree that's fine, make your own post with your thoughts.

Like most people, I don't really like the new animation, which sucks because WB is capable of good animation (some really good animation) but because LMK wasn't designed for puppet animation and WB was likely pushed to get this season out, the quality suffered. Some of the animation looks pretty good but a lot of it is stunted and some characters look out of place. It also doesn't help that a lot of older animation was reused (for flashbacks and such) which makes it a lot harder to adapt to the new animation style.

I'm not one to notice mistakes in animation so I wasn't taken out of the experience every time a character is off model but if you are you might have a hard time watching it.

The 3D models are also especially rough this season, there's one that keeps appearing (likely due to a tie in set) but it looks bad and it's really jarring

But I think "give workers more time to create higher quality products" is like, the coldest take in the world and I think most people wish FB had stayed or a studio that works with hand drawn animation was picked as a replacement. I think WB can do some great stuff and if they animate the next season I'm sure it will look better and I hope that lego will give the studio more time to work to achieve that polished look.

Pacing is a potential problem I'm noticing as well. I feel like some characters show up for like a minute and then disappear which is fine for some cameos of fan favorites but its frustrating when new characters that showed up in the trailer barely had any screen time (it really sucks because some of them are really cool looking! and I wanted to see more of them)

I can't talk too much about characterization but there are some things that definitely feel out of character, most notably something that happens towards the end of episode 1, I've seen some people refer to this as fandomization of the character but I'd need to wait for the eng version to come out before I can say yes to that. I think it's much more likely they just needed that character to do something and figured it could be a way to show how that character has changed although I do think it needed more buildup maybe that will change when I actually understand what's happening though lol.

Other than that I think the characterization is mostly intact (again will need to see the eng version) but its the same writers so I don't see why characters would act strange. There does appear to be some super interesting stuff that happens towards the end can't wait to figure out what thats about.

Plot is hard to follow (again language barrier) but seems fun if a little generic, I can't talk too much about it because I don't really know whats going on and this is spoiler free

New characters seem fun! Wish I knew what they were saying though! I wish some of them stuck around a little bit longer as some of them are only shown for a few minutes which again sucks! because some of them have really cool designs and I would have liked to see more of them.

[bogleech]

In 2010 I illustrated the party game "Chimera Isle," by Kevin Lanzing which randomizes creatures from heads, bodies and tails, but for both convenience and fun I drew them together as complete creatures that would be split apart later, based on simple lists the creator sent me for "attributes" he wanted in the game; like a card that would make a creature the fastest, or the tallest, or a grazer or a scavenger. The game went through some rules changes by the time it was released, and my real-life friends felt the unreleased beta rules were the easiest and most fun. For $10 patreon patrons I've uploaded a zip of all the creatures in high resolution, an extensive text file detailing my conceptual rationale, and a PDF of what those original gameplay rules were like, but I'll also include a little bit of the art stuff right here:

"GRASS EATER head," "JUMPING body," "DEXTROUS" tail: Lanzing really liked my first concept for a grazer head, a goatlike animal with a lawnmower-like trunk. I reused his concept of spring-shaped legs for the "jumping" body, and then I assigned "dextrousness" as a tail piece with a cluster of tentacles, wielding a spear. I guess most people would expect dextrousness to be tied to the torso limbs, but this was approved for being unexpected and fun.

"SCAVENGER" head, "FLIGHT" body, "FASTEST" tail: for a scavenging creature I went all out with my personal tastes, making a vulture head that's also a fly head that's also a coiling earthworm, so the all-purpose "flight" body card became condor-like. Lanzing didn't assign attributes to body parts for me, but let me decide what should be what, so I made the "fastest" attribute a tail piece and designed it like a many-finned shark. This originally had a rocket jet on the end, but we changed it to a propeller because we already had a different fire-spewing tail.

"SENSE OF SMELL" head, "SOCIAL" body, "SYMBIOTIC" tail: for sense of smell I designed a bison-like head with a huge, comical nose on the end of a little trunk and no visible eyes. Kevin's notes also included "SOCIAL" and "SYMBIOTIC" as two different attributes he wanted in the game, and they were the most fun to think of ideas for. I assigned "social" to a body card, and I drew it so whatever head card you drew, it would end in a little round rump with legs, with the rest of the body card featuring a band of different creatures: a little piglike thing, a flying eyeball, and a stalk-eyed flightless bird who leads into whatever tail card you drew. I then assigned "symbiotic" to a tail card resembling a tree branch with a little weird bird perched on it, and I decided to draw these three attributes together so they'd be a whole pack of creatures relying on a blind leader who sniffs out the food. Again these "original combinations" wouldn't be seen by players, so they're just my own internal behind-the-scenes combos. I didn't include the following in the patreon file but if you're having a hard time picturing it here's how the Symbiosis Body card looks on its own, like all body cards still lining up with any possible head and tail:

In retrospect, we settled on pretty bad background colors, the cool grey way too close to the dull green template of the creatures, especially given that they were done without any lineart. Should have gone with totally white backgrounds, but we thought that looked too cheap!

You can still buy chimera isle on the gamecrafter here, but I don't get royalties or anything, it was all one big commission, which did prove to be more money than I would have made off its sales!

[miloscat]

[Review] Sonic Rivals 2 (PSP)

Does Rivals 2 really rival Rivals 1?

Almost exactly a year after Rivals, Backbone produced a sequel. Given the quick turnaround you can't expect too much has changed—we still have a 2.5D race-based platformer—but they've done a good job stuffing new features and content into the package this time around. Is the new stuff a worthy addition though?

First I'll address the general refinements. Characters' signature moves are no longer at the whim of the rotating pickups, but given their own button and a dedicated meter that fills by collecting rings. This is a great change that adds dynamism to play, and makes character choices more meaningful. The action feels faster paced, with shortened windows to execute vaulting moves, for example. Presentation is a little more slick and the card collecting more transparently tied to your accomplishments (although they don't factor into the plot anymore). Weapon use has a little more depth as it's possible to avoid hits, and stage gimmicks get more involved at times. All these tweaks make for a stronger game experience, but I did feel like the bot players were harder, and story levels took me more retries on average... especially when playing as the characters with weaker abilities.

So the headline feature is the new playable characters. Added to the prior game's roster of Sonic, Shadow, Silver, Knuckles, and Metal are Tails, Rouge, and for some reason Espio. They bring new abilities of varied usefulness; Tails's flight is rarely helpful and Espio's merely makes you disappear from the level progress bar, but Rouge's homing bat missile is great. Apart from these powers, everyone plays identically. Story mode is still split into four perspectives as the roster of eight pair up... you can pick either character within a pair but I think this only changes which order you play out events within a zone, while each character still has a separate campaign progress. It's an odd choice.

The story follows its predecessor's example of constant misunderstandings and miscommunications as an excuse for the characters to get into petty conflicts. It also reuses the "Nega disguising himself as Eggman" plot device, although this time Eggman has an actual role in the plot. Not content to rip off its own prequel, Rivals 2 steals shamelessly from Sonic 06, as it culminates in a city of the future devastated by a raging beast of elemental fire whose name is taken from Islamic folklore, Iblis Ifrit! At least this game doesn't completely erase itself from history. Anyway, more characters means more interactions and this time the cutscenes—while still just text boxes and portraits visually—are all nicely fully voiced.

A new world map screen helps to contextualise things well and the new environments are just as nice and colourful as they were in Rivals 1. Among the race levels and boss fights (whose quality is on par with the prior entry's) are new level types. Some just have you run through a level solo against the clock or trying to collect rings or Chao; not very satisfying. Others are head-to-head battles in small arenas, and despite pushing them hard in the story mode I feel like these are a dud. Even with the standard multiplayer-type variants of deathmatch, capture the Chao, bomb tag, etc. these always seemed a drag when they came up in the campaigns. It's a shame that all these attempts at adding new things to do end up not as fun as the core gameplay.

At least the soundtrack is a step up, catchier and more exciting. The exception is the addition of a key vocal track, which only plays on the title screen and oddly in level one. It stands out, and not in the good way that His World stood out in 06. This sums up Rivals 2 in a nutshell: the core is enhanced and refined, but its new additions and ideas are a real mixed bag. This leaves Rivals 1 as a purer if rougher experience, which I prefer. Unfortunately Backbone didn't get another chance with Sonic as a couple of years later after a flurry of acquisitions and mergers this particular studio was closed down. There wouldn't be another Western-made platformer in the series until Boom seven years later... well, unless you count Unleashed for mobile phones, Jump, Jump 2, Jump Pro, Jump Fever, Dash, the Sonic CD remake, Sonic for Didj... you know what, never mind.

[devondespresso]

ITS TIME FOR SCOOPS TROOP (+ MAX) THOUGHTS BABEYYYY

sometimes i forget season 4 happens less than a year after Starcourt. meaning the party had yet to experience a little 1 year trauma anniversary of the horrors from that summer and a good few new members would be so out of the loop for it

thinking about Scoops Troop getting hit particularly hard by the anniversary of kidnapping and torture (and especially because the Russian shit is distinctly different scary than the upside down horrors that plague the party year-round) and Max's conflict with Billy's death, all of those feeling from right after starcourt coming back like it happened last week instead of last year

so with the resurgence of the old pain, Scoops Troop all decide to reuse their old coping mechanisms too

meaning for the first week of July they are physically inseparable again, the four having nightly sleepovers and basically living side-by-side. Camping out at Steve's or Robin's or Dustin's or even Erica's house different nights of the week (Steve and Robin asking the week off from work, claiming a family vacation if they can't trust their manager with the truth that its a PTSD Extravaganza)

Max joining in often to avoid being alone with her thoughts (she also hangs out with the rest of the party splitting her time up pretty evenly but ofc Scoops Troop is the ideal choice for those odd hours of the night) and all 5 (or 6, ofc Lucas joins too if they're at the Sinclair's) have fun distracting themselves most of the week with whatever they need. Silly kids movies and board games and card games, playing with Erica's dolls and discussing MLP, looking at all Dustin's science projects and playing with Tews, going through Robin's instrument collection and language books, Steve trying to teach everyone basketball or little games like horse (Lucas joins too ofc, Max watches mostly and is deemed the 'judge' of if something 'counts' aka Dustin and Erica keep barely missing and want credit for almost getting a shot)

but just like last year, distractions only last so long. every day they're doing something harmless and someone at some point breaks. maybe they let themselves space out and think a little too long, sometimes theres a reminder nobody could've avoided, sometimes they just went a little too long without acknowledging it. either way they all work with it no matter who it is or whats bothering them.

Steve and Dustin usually need to sit with whatever emotion broken them, let themselves feel after spending so much time keeping it together for the people around them. Steve needs to sit and cry, if he's around people he needs to feel like theres no rush to be better again, like he has all the time in the world to sit and cry and be useless. Dustin needs a cry with reassurance, that he did his best in a situation he had very little control over and having him there helped everyone so much. This means Steve's crys are pretty quiet, filled with hugs and soft silence that lets time slip away, while Dustin's crys have a soundtrack of gentle words with them

Robin also needs spoken reassurance. She spirals and catastrophizes very easily and needs to work through stuff out-loud without being allowed to work herself into a self-deprecating frenzy. Steve is used to working that balance of letting her let things out without getting out of hand, and Dustin and Erica are great at giving logical solutions whenever she starts catastrophizing

Erica is a middle ground between the two. She needs to sit and feel her emotions because she constantly feels she has a reputation to maintain, and she needs to work things out out-loud like Robin but doesn't catastrophize as easily. The hard part for her is getting support without pity, which has a learning curve but eventually Scoops Troop has it down and it helps her a lot having a guaranteed safety net for her more vulnerable moments

Max doesn't break around them nearly as often, partially because she's not spending all her time with the group but mostly because she grew up having to keep that stuff in for so long she still struggles being seen while vulnerable, and having open emotions is extra difficult when the person you're sad about is also responsible for your struggles being openly vulnerable.

when she does break, she needs the control over those moments. she needs to be able to control whos seeing and hearing her, how long she cries and how hard, how much she tells and who she's talking to. she prefers to be alone or with only one person with her, ideally Lucas because they have the most familiarity and trust built up. She'll either find a room to leave to or everyone will move to a different room for the time, and Lucas sits with her and lets her let everything out at her own pace. When Lucas isn't there and can't be, she'll pick someone else to sit with her, usually Robin because she's pretty easy to read and Max knows shes good at sitting and listening with Steve when he's breaking. Sometimes she'll get Steve if she needs reassurance, someone who'll know what to say to bring her out of it.

and sometimes multiple people break at once. Steve and Robin's trauma have similar triggers so often times its the two of them breaking and clinging to each other like the earth beneath them will crumble if they let go. Robin usually holds onto Steve like a little teddy bear, keeping him close so she can protect him, and Steve loves how she'll hold him and makes him feel safe. Dustin and Erica help talk Robin through her breakdown while she's holding onto Steve.

Dustin and Erica will sometimes break if they loose sight of Steve and Robin for a moment, prompting a more-talk-less-cling-and-sob pile with Robin and Steve going back and forth helping talk them through it and letting them cry it out

And if everyone breaks? chaos, at least from an outside perspective. lots of hugging and crying with the talkers working through their shit together and reassuring the others. from the outside it'd almost be comical if it weren't for the circumstances causing it

It all becomes an unspoken agreement, taking less than a day for Scoops Troop to get on the same page (after all, they're treating it basically like post-Starcourt part 2) and about a day and a half for Max to join them. Even as the emotions come back full swing, its a lot easier to deal with because of the general understanding from everyone. Their parents realize its the anniversary of The Fire and are better equipped to support their kids however they need (even if it means letting them have sleepovers all week, they learned the first time that it helps a lot and the intensity of it will pass). The Party also understands whats going on (they all have their own trauma anniversaries that hit harder like the end of November for Mike and the Byers) and being supportive too, like inviting Scoops Troop and Max to any get-togethers instead of just Dustin (so he doesn't have to awkwardly ask if they can come too) and in general inviting Max a lot so she always has the option to not be alone.

Hellfire though? and the newest party members (Eddie, Vickie, Argyle, maybe Chrissy too because i love her)? they're Lost™ at first.

Vickie is the first to kinda grasp whats going on, being closest to Robin (and Steve by extension dtjsjysj) she was hanging out with her when Robin realized she needed to be around all of Scoops Troop again to be able to calm the panic and she joined their first sleepover

Eddie and Chrissy next (assuming she joined Hellfire, which she so would) who noticed the Upside Down Trauma a mile away and just had to piece together the reason this time ("no its not back, its just the third and fourth marks a year since the Starcourt 'mall fire'- yeah no not really a fire. a lot worse actually')

Hellfire never really gets the full explanation of why Steve, Robin and Erica all also need to attend this weeks session specifically or why Gareth still isn't allowed to do a Russian accent for his Chaotic Neutral Halfling rouge Geörgov the Gruesome. Eddie gives him the most intense stink eye if he so much as attempts an accent close to it and when asked he just insists and throws in a new excuse every time thats so wild its comical and almost distracts from the fact that he's refusing to tell them

and once they actually witness Scoops Troop together (especially Steve and Robin 'what do you mean they're not dating? not even like crushes? nothing?) they just kinda have to accept that they're Just Like That Sometimes with the Party awkwardly deflecting and Eddie being amusingly cryptic

and Argyle is the last one to know, entirely because he just assumed they were close like that entirely unrelated to trauma. And everyone assumed he knew based on how chill he was. Until he asked what a Starcourt was, wondering if it was a new Star Wars thing he missed

Just Scoops Troop bonding like stray cats that should not be seperated. They've seen so many horrors at this point they definitely give No Fucks about how weird they look as long as the rest of their group doesn't have a problem

[princesstarfire1234]

I saw your RMA Post but before i ask, first i love your artstyle its so beautiful and each time i see it, it makes my day :] and second what are your thoughts of S2 part 1 and 2? And if you can rewrite it what will it be?

Aha hello!! I didn't think that RMA post would actually catch any eyes but I'm it did!!

First off, thank you so much! It's the best feeling ever knowing my art can make people happy just like that :]]

As for your question, I recently just rewatched a good chunk of S2 Part 2 but some of the details around the later bits are still fuzzy (rewatching em is quite hard for me as the english dubs aren't exactly that easy to find out there unfortunately)

I will say though, rewatching it really opened my eyes to just how much of a downgrade Part2 is compared to S1 and even just S2 Part1 itself, not just in story but in like the voice acting and animation. The voice direction is a bit off, characters sound flat, and the animation just feels... weirder, if that makes sense. It's not the worst thing in the world though, it's just an unfortunate thing I happen to notice. They also changed some of the VAs I think (liek Rema's) which was a strange decision but alright ig... There's also the reusing of so many games instead of new ones but oh well... Despite all my problems with it though, I like the inclusion of the new characters (Manus and all the other Leos Valiants). The Leos are all such silly guys :]] I do wish the DV7s got more screentime and played a bigger role though, the first episode for part2 really fooled me into thinking they would lmaoo

S2 Part1 still holds up, certainly not as good as S1 but still, it's got charm! I love the setting actually, Old City is such a bright and colorful place with like all these abstract and messed up winding pathways, it's so weird and funkyy, I dig it a lot!

So pretty!! God... just like how funky the cities look with all of them being like giant floating islands, it will always be cool af to me

Ik most of my followers don't care about runningman much but in the off chance some non-rma fan sees this, look at Tree City (pic below), I love it so much

Although... sometimes it really does feel like Season 2 is where the studio decided to lean more into it being a children's show. It's a lot less "dark" compared to S1 which is a tad disappointing. Like just compare Akong's battle (where the dude literally uses a bunch of the old guys to power up his thingy 😭) compared to CG's big mech fight. Still, I liked it! I like the neat guardians (the lil pullulu spirits who guard the gate, Vivace and Ensemble twins my beloved <3).

ALSO ALSO THE IRON BEAST, I can always appreciate a big robot guy aha

That's all I really got for the ramble aha, I'd say more stuff about S2 and maybe my views on it will change overtime but as of now, I haven't even really gotten around to properly finishing it yet. I remember watching it waaayyy back but it was all in korean with zero subtitles 😭 luckily, I am in a server with people sharing english versions so I'll probably watch those when I get more free time!

I really just miss talking about this show really and I feel like I've largely outgrown the fandom in old spaces where I used to talk in (like Facebook groups and Amino lmfaoo), so it's absolutely awesome to find RMA fans over here on tumblr!

[ganondoodle]

im pretty sure i mentioned all these things before but its too late to start drawing anything and each time i see someone talk about totk i just get sad and frustrated again

literally by FAR the biggest problem about totk is that it REFUSES to connect to botw in any way beyond reusing the same map and character models, and even taking the things botw had established and ruin them entirely

ancient hero? BAM weird sonau dog thing that remains completely unexplained and out of nowhere eight heroine myster- BAM just some guy long gone sonau peopl- BAM here they are and they have zero connection to the ones of botw mystical dragons gracing the skies with their presence- BAM probably some dude who ate a magic pebble once strange mystical nature god you could rarely encounter in one specific spot and the area was made to feel utteraly unsettling but also divine- BAM now hes everywhere and only serves you as a shorthand for man pointing at cave the strange energy all shiekah tech was powered with with certain locations being ones where alot of it was concentrated including beneath hyrule castle clearly stating that somethings up with that- welp theres evil guy donw there but he has zero connection to all that lol

the whole shiekah tech thing, i just- WHY???? LIKE THAT??? there was so much stuff in botw that seemed deliberately placed that there IS more to it and now it all vanished and nothing of that mattered??? i saw a video of someone comparing certain places directly and on some where towers literally broke away tons of debris where just like .. sanded back down like nothing ever happened???; the fuking mechanism of how the towers and shrines and the pillars around the castle worked AND WHAT THE BOTW BOSS ARENA WAS ACTUALLY FOR?? its all gone and replaced with dirt; tHE ANCIENT FUCKING FURNANCES UTTERLY GONE AND REPLACED WITH ROCKS HUH???? so nothing of all that talk about their mystery and mechanism mattered???? the luminous stoens and its connection to spirits and how concentrated spiritual energy might have been what powered the tech- like you could connect things, and they made SENSE, so much sense that that seemed like it was intentionally setting up- only for it all to be just GONE?? to literally say lol it all vanished and that we shouldnt worry about it- like what the FUCK (and it also AGAIN doesnt make sense in itself bc WE SEE GUARDIAN PARTS in the towers, and some parts of them too are made of clearly shiekah tech stuff so it cant all have vanished- all their mystery doesnt matter bc idk it just works i guess lol and its not even called shiekah tech at any point either its just there and also not lol-)

(and even the smaller things like .. where the fuck does link live if everyone treats him like a goddamn stranger in the town you had to buy a house in botw for it to not be demolished and now that house is there but its not yours and noone knows you??? sth i personalyl found strange too that dumsda, the guy you help build an entire town, taburasa, had a very specific talking quirk i loved, and its all just gone in totk too, he talks like any other person all of the sudden

also at the end of botw finally being reunited with zelda and giving you the taste of being in the game WITH her at the same time in the intro to totk- WOOP away she goes! shes your pretty prize at the end and nothing more, what a way to disrespect her and her character..)

imagine if majoras mask didnt have the opening like it has and it otherwise stayed the same and they tried to tell you that its a direct sequel happening exactly where ocarina of time happened in the same world, zelda who?? ganondorf who??? things seem weird and off? lol dont worry about that :)) that would be weird and not make any sense at all now would it??

... sorry going on another rant again, ill just never be able to accept everything from botw didnt actually matter, and despite what some people might say, its pretty hard to ignore totk bc i LOVE botw, and as much as i hate it, they are connected in canon, even if it makes no sense

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Well that Champion of Champions episode was great. Ridiculously funny from start to finish, and all the tasks were top quality (maybe apart from the studio task, but even that wasn’t bad). I thought every contestant had at least a few really memorable moments.

I love the way the COC episodes get to be celebrations of Taskmaster as a whole. They can’t really do that in the regular episodes, because they’re playing to a studio audience that hasn’t seen the previous episodes from that season, so they try not to call back to too much stuff they haven’t seen. And they’re trying to appeal to casual TV viewers who might not have seen previous seasons, so there aren’t too many references to that either. But I guess they figure that anyone watching Champion of Champions has seen the preceding stuff, and they make it full of references.

I loved bringing back the bandstand from the early seasons, and this was the perfect time for it. I wouldn’t want them to do that in any of the regular episodes, for the same reason why I think Alex is right to say they won’t reuse old tasks – too easy to slip down the road to capitalizing on nostalgia and stop being original. Seeing the new, increasingly elaborate task location is a fun part of all the new seasons, I wouldn’t want to give that up. But bringing back the site of some of the greatest, establishing early Taskmaster moments for a one-off special was perfect.

And then they got in lots of ways to bring back old seasons. Kiell referencing the banana task. Dara’s outfit being a tribute to all of season 14. Ramsey’s name coming up on Sophie Duker’s signs. The comment about proposing to Alex Horne like in season 12. And obviously the constant mentions of Mae Martin. I like how they did that. That they didn’t try to be slick TV and pretend that everything had gone exactly according to plan and this is how the lineup was meant to be; roasting Kiell for an entire episode was much more fun than that.

I think I also agree with what Ed Gamble said on the podcast, that this may be the first time there’s been a Champion of Champions that makes total sense. Let’s be honest, Josh Widdicombe was quite good at Taskmaster but not the best player out of all 25 from the first five seasons (I think that might have been Noel Fielding, but then he chose to mess around and stop being competitive in COC1). And I also agree with Ed Gamble’s assessment that Richard Herring was competent in only one episode of Taskmaster, and it was COC2. That’s what happens when you only have one episode instead of taking the winner from an aggregate. And when you add a Golden Snitch studio task to it. But Dara O’Brien might be the most competent person to play in seasons 11-15, so that’s nice to see him as a Champion of Champions.

So there was a lot to enjoy about the episode for its place in the larger Taskmaster lore, but it was also just enormous fun as a one-off. That’s the other thing that’s fun about the COC episodes – it is cool to see an episode where everyone’s actually trying and no one’s particularly bad at it and everyone brings something interesting to the table.

Alex immediately going way too hard and way too personal when Sophie asked him to insult her. Sarah Kendall clapping for like half the episode and not realizing she was wearing a watch. Dara completing an entire task without even standing up by popping elastics off his head. Morgana remembering that season 12 task where she popped all those ice cubes in her offer and roundly outdoing herself with paint. Dragging the Greg statue across the ground. Sarah Kendall just being furious for the entire episode. Kiell not even bothering to try to find Alex. Kiell getting roasted all episode for the embarrassing flaw of not being Mae Martin. Sophie calling out Greg. Dara's wig montage. Sarah Kendall being absolutely furious. Did I mention that enough? God, I’d missed Sarah Kendall being furious.

Do Something Stupid was a brilliant task concept. I’m glad that stealing things from other versions is a loophole in Alex’s stance against reusing tasks, and I’m glad they found a way to make it broadcastable (though of course we all salute Guy and Urzilla for the lost task that the NZ producers are too cowardly to show us).

Hats off to the new champion. Hats, and wigs off to the new champion.