#don't think i've ever seen video footage of one before

[golden-reedwolf]

Marbled raccoon dogs are so pretty!!!

[directdogman]

Hi, I hope you're having a decent day! I'm sorry if this is an invasive set of questions - feel free not to answer - but do you still actively like DSaF as your own creation, or is it more of a "it was fun while it lasted but i outgrew it and it's for the best to leave it behind" kind of project? Do you ever regret making the games? If you knew they would get so popular, is there anything you would have changed about them? Is there anywhere I could read more of your writing.

It fluctuates a bit. These last couple of years, I've really just been sorta nostalgic for it. I've seen a lot of people discuss those games being a source of comfort during bad times in their lives, people talking about how much the characters mean to them and it's hard not to smile when you see that.

It's a funny thing for close friends of yours to see people WITH fanmade DSaF merch out in the wild, or to watch a random youtube video and being hit with a DSaF reference outta nowhere. It happens from time to time, even today. On a few occasions, I've even had a person reference my work to me in real life and not realize who they were talking to, believe it or not. It's really fun to play dumb and get someone to explain your work to you like you don't know what it is.

I certainly didn't think any of that would happen when I first made the series, or even during development. I think the normal assumption would be to look at DSaF as it exists now and assume its release was a peak for it, but believe it or not, the official discord only had 30 people in it shortly before 3 dropped! The archive listing of the series (reposted to a single page after the series ended) is now sitting at over 1.1 MILLION downloads.

People kinda assume the true heyday of something is when it's new, when it's fresh and novel. For instance, some people look back at when FNaF itself was new and see that time as its peak because it had a lot of internet cultural relevance as big new indie thing on the block. But, raw numbers don't lie. The series has been continually growing since its conception and that growth has similarly bled over to its fan projects. This explains why DSaF, despite not having a new series release in almost 6 years, seems to be inexplicably growing.

Just recently, I saw someone post footage of a scene from DSaF 2 on Twitter, which got over 16k likes. People praised its writing and largely celebrated the scene. The ironic thing about that particular scene is that I remembered being unsure if it was good or not, so I showed it off in one of the FNaF community hubs. The response was broadly lukewarm to negative. Now, it's held up as one of the best scenes in those games. That's kind of the point I'm trying to make, my thoughts on the series have certainly changed with everyone's else with years of hindsight.

Heh. I'm not sure if I've talked about this in a long time, but y'know, the very first scene I implemented in-game was actually the very first Phone Guy scene in DSaF 1, more or less exactly how it appears in-game today. This was before I'd even written the bulk of the game. I was pretty unfamiliar with visual novels as a whole, pretty unsure if something like this would be palatable to a fandom that was really just used to sit 'n' survive stuff that were far more gameplay than text. I mean, there wasn't any FNaF fangames really LIKE DSaF before that point. Closest was FNaFb, a jokey turn based RPG made in the same engine.

The engine I made the game in is also not exactly fit for VNs out of the box either, and I wasn't 100% sure the idea would actually work. But, the very first time I added the image of the prize corner, Phone Guy, the audio of that iconic cheesy stock track and booted up a test screen, I had a little moment where I said "Oh. I think I'm onto something interesting here." I kinda remembering instantly realizing in that single moment how much potential the idea had. Over 8 years later, I still remember that moment like it was yesterday.

I think lately, that's the sort of stuff I think of when I see people coming to me and asking about the series. Yes, it's really rough around the edges, yes, there's jokes that've aged poorly. But, it is a source of comfort for people and entertains tens of thousands of people each month. And that's gotta count for something, right?

[nerdofspades]

Bruce looked at the pop-up on the Batcomputer's screen.

"Explain," he growled, glancing down at Tim.

"Not much to explain," Tim answered, pulling up lines of code. "It showed up ten seconds ago."

"I'm starting a full diagnostic," Barbara said, voice filtering through the speakers. "So far, I'm not seeing anything."

"And yet..." Time trailed off glancing at the window again. It had a video queued up to play and the words "IMPORTANT: PLEASE WATCH. DO NOT DELETE" in large text at the top.

"There's a new folder labeled 'a gift for Batman,'" Tim said. "Not something any of us made."

"Clearly."

"I'm still not finding any viruses, corrupted files, or spyware," Oracle said. "The new folder was programmed to stay in a hidden partition for a few days after it was placed. Then, obviously, the pop-up to catch our attention."

"Folder also has a text file named 'security notes,'" Tim said. "Maybe our new hacker is friendly?"

"It's starting to look like it," Oracle agreed. "The video is clean. It should be safe to watch."

Bruce sighed. "Then let's see what they've got for us."

-

The video opened with a dark room. The background hidden in shadows, while the foreground was well lit, letting them clearly see the tired teen in the center of the frame as he took a heavy swig from his mug before putting it down.

"Pulling up facial recognition."

He ran a hand through his messy black hair and then down his face, pinching his nose and hiding the bags under his blues eyes for a moment before he dropped his hand and finally looked at the camera.

"I really don't want to do this," he said, "but you need it." He glanced longingly off screen in the direction of the mug he'd put down.

"First of all, I think I should apologize for hacking you. Or asking my friend to, technically. I just. You need to know about this and I didn't know of another way to get it to you that would be secure.

"I did at least make him promise to make a record of how he got in so you can patch that.

"That out of the way... to business? I'm Danny Fenton, for the last year or so I have also been the hero Phantom in Amity Park. My parents are Jack and Maddie Fenton. They are ectobiologists and ghost hunters. While extremely biased and not actually that good at catching ghosts, their tech is easily the best in the business."

"That's a positive match."

"Running a search on Phantom."

"I- fucking shit." Danny put his head in his hands again, running them back through his hair before leaning back, almost collapsing into the chair.

"This kid has... gotten into some shit."

"Everyone knows you're the League's strategist, Batman. And. I'm strong enough. I can handle my problems, that's not what I'm worried about.

"It's been about a year and I've already been mind controlled once." Danny laughed. A dry, broken, almost desperate laugh. "And that was just some lowlife that wanted to rob jewelry stores. I'm still not worried about. It's not why I'm sending you this. The magic relic he used is broken and gone now."

"Well that explains one of his problems."

"The others?"

"An attempted kidnapping and fairly standard property damage. I want to see some footage of those fights before passing judgement."

"Even more standard given he doesn't seem to have a mentor. Batman, he was fourteen."

"No. I. I've seen a version of the future. One where I go mad. Where I snap. And the Justice League can't stop me.

"I don't know if I- he kills everyone. I don't know who, if anyone, makes it out. But it's not anyone that could really do much. I... I saw ten years after he- I snapped. Earth was little more than rubble and ash. Only one city was left holding out and it was about to fall- was falling when I got there.

"I've managed to change the time line. What broke him didn't happen here. But. I can't guarantee nothing ever could.

"So. Yeah. Next best thing is making sure you're prepared. All my powers. All my weaknesses. Everything I know of that could possibly hurt me. Schematics and blue prints for anything you could need to fight me, track me, keep me out, keep me contained. All nice and giftwrapped for your convenience.

"Uh... that's everything. Why is it always so awkward to end a video? Hopefully we never see each other? I guess? Pretty sure us actually meeting is gonna be a bad sign.

"You know what. I'm gonna turn this thing off now before I say something stupid."

-

"Batman, who's 'Phantom'?" Superman asked, glancing up from the Watchtower computer he was working at. "Aren't we supposed to vote on new members?"

Batman grunted. "He's not a member, just someone who understands the need for contingencies."

"You know what, I'm not gonna even ask."

"Probably for the best."

[reveluving]

I AM BACK AGAIN WITH MY HEAD IN HANDS AND HORNY BRUCE WAYNE ON MY MIND I NEED THAT MAN ABSOLUTELY INSANELY DESPERATE FOR BATMOM. SOMETHINNG ABOUT THE URGE.... DELICIOUS

BRB MICROWAVE NOISES ARE HAPPENING IN MY HEEEEAD 🏃🏻‍♀️💨

writing milf!Batmom was bound to happen at some point lol I was waiting for the day to finally happen fr fr SO HERE ❤

warnings: smut (18+ content, minors DNI!)

Look, with that many kids in the household, did you really think no one's going to talk about how sexy of a mother Mrs Wayne is?

Don't get me wrong, Bruce being called a DILF is not uncommon! Just look at him; a rich and respectable hunk of a man, who is also a father of six children and counting? So much hotter than when he was known as a playboy all those years ago. It was only natural for the public to talk about the missus in question as well.

Who could've possibly been the one to finally tame the Bruce Wayne and better yet, encouraged him into the married life?

You, obviously, and boy, did the public understand why.

No matter how much the media tries to deny it, they can never ignore your beauty, your grace, and dare I say, your MILF-ness.

C'mon, everyone's eyes were always on you the second you'd step foot into the gala. Oh, Mrs Wayne is here, in her new silky, silt-cut dress, matchint heels and jewellery that complements your every feature?

Sign me the fuck up!

You may have acknowledged the reputation bestowed upon you, but what you didn't realized was just how strong that power was.

But, of course, your reputation comes with a bit of a price to pay. Not by you, but by your children.

If there was one thing Dick, Jason and Tim were especially too familiar of hearing, especially on social media, it's about you, and the Internet can be very open with their thoughts. People are getting too comfortable on the app, as one would say.

While there was no denying that you were in fact beautiful, they were still your sons, and to see such language about you was almost as traumatic as seeing you and Bruce fooling around in bed.

• 'Mrs Wayne is so hot??? HAVE YOU GUYS SEEN HER IN THOSE HEELS??? GYAT'

• 'I've seen her IRL when I was visiting her café and let me tell you; photos do NOT DO HER JUSTICE 🥵'

• 'If my future husband and I don't give Bruce and (Y/N) Wayne energy, I don't want it ☝🏼🤨'

• 'mrs wayne's thighs appreciation: a thread that will having you SCREAMING [includes 10+ photos]'

That last one in particular had an intimidating number of likes, mind you. As if their own set of fans weren't a lot to deal with already.

But hoho, if we're talking about Bruce Wayne's opinion on the matter?

Picture this.

It's like watching an edit of your favourites; going from a random video of you adorably scrunching up your nose to BAM—a slow-mo of you looking like a literal model. How or where anyone's ever gotten that footage from was uncertain, but if you asked Bruce if he's ever seen that video before?

Chances are, he'd say yes.

Repeatedly, even.

Hell, he might've saved it somewhere, amongst other 'tresures', for educational purposes.

He acknowledges the fact that you may be a teenage boy's fantasy, the dream trophy wife of many men, regardless if they were in their lonesome or in a tasteless marriage, but in the end of the day, you were his, just as he was yours.

And while he has the means to save your most intimate moments via his greatest machines, he actually prefers the good ol' polaroid. Saving at least a couple of boudoir photos in his pocket, wallet, the Batmobile, locked away in one of the Batcomputer's rack and much more. Whether they're photos of you lying on your stomach cross-legged in your lingerie, or even a picture of the two of you, glistening in sweat and naked in front of the mirror, he never ran short of his precious 'supplies', and he has more where that came from.

Knowing he was the only one able to not only see you, but make you writhe and scream and cum in his bed—in your bed, around his cock? He could die a happy man, truly. And he'll do just about anything you ask him to, no question?

Want his fingers inside you while he smothers his face in between your breasts? Certainly.

Want him to lie back so you can straddle his face and make you cum with that talented tongue of his? You don't have to tell him twice.

Want him to take your dress and lingerie off so slowly, even though his cock is aching to be touched by those sweet hands of yours? Say no more.

That man is always hungry for you, borderline desperate even, but what's new.

But, if it ever goes down to you, or when the public gets too comfortable voicing out, especially in front of you, and it clearly rubs you the wrong way, best believe he'll do something about.

He doesn't need the comments of others to know how sexy of a woman his wife really is, after all.

I wanted to write smut for this, considering it is a milf!batmom after all, but we all know how long it takes for me to do that HAHA I hope y'all still liked this one tho! Please don't forget to leave some sugar! ❤

[pisspurveyor]

Ok so here's a horrifying tale of when I discovered the existence of the movie The Crow 30 years too fucking late this Friday, and somehow never even knew a remake came out for it on the exact. same. day. Bear with me.

Ok so I was on spotify listening to this song (song in question was L.I.S.Å by Taythedxn, please dont look at me) that for some reason had footage of this random ass guy in clown makeup playing in the Now Playing/More Info preview. And I was like - huh! That guy kinda reminds me of my BG3 Tav!!! Nice!!! Naturally I'm pretty interested to find out what the hell is going on with that. So, thinking it's just the music video for that song, I look it up. To my surprise, that was not the music video at all!

At this point I'm massively curious. I am sitting there absolutely dumbfounded and stubborn as shit; I had to find this gorgeous clown man, even if it was 1 am at the time. I was on a MISSION! Finally I managed to muster enough braincells up to reverse image search the guy, and lo and behold, The Crow (1994) pops up. Bingo! There's the gorgeous clown guy!

At first I'm just showing pictures of the main character to my partner like Look!!! Look!!! He looks like my Tav in clown makeup!!!! Woah!!! And then I mention the movie to him, and well- (gonna cut the post in half for you, don't worry 'just browsing' crowd)

My partner being the resident Nine Inch Nails listener pointed this out to me. SO IT HAD THE MARK OF NINE INCH NAILS? I was stoked - Trent Reznor being involved in any soundtrack has always been a great indicator in my eyes. Because of that, I just had to check out the rest of the soundtrack, and I was in AWE.

ALL THESE GOBSMACKING BANDS IN THE SAME SOUNDTRACK. I WAS ABSOLUTELY FLUNG OUT THE WINDOW ABOUT THIS (as seen above).

At this point I was sold, I was GOING to watch this movie. I was deadset on it. And, to my luck, I found it free to watch on youtube... somehow. Still surprised about that. No I'm not linking it, I'm not a snitch, but I assure you it's very accessible. Anyways, I sit down, get comfortable, and get my shit ABSOLUTELY ROCKED. Aesthetically, this movie is everything I love - I had a lot of fun watching it (big fan of the lightbulb scene btw).

Anyways I had the time of my life watching it, really soaking the music and outfits in, absolutely hollering at every indulgently gothy scene. Honestly, what a fucking experience - Eric was a sight to bloody behold. God, I was googoogaga for Myca too!!! The fashion was immaculate, a lot of the costumes are things I try to replicate and wear myself nowadays, so I was beyond stoked to see that right in front of me. I may or may not have a new style guide now!

I finished the movie in a good mood, and ultimately wondered: Why had I never heard of this before? Naturally I check wikipedia, see what production was like and what it was based off of - really neat to see it was based off of a comic, but then as I read on and found out the whole story behind Brandon Lee's death on set, I was very quickly silenced. Suddenly it was way more grave than I anticipated.

Honestly it's a bit weird to mourn a dude 30 years later, but this may be one of the sadder celebrity deaths I've ever heard of. And knowing the effect it had on the original comic artist, who had been through enough shit in his life as is, was absolutely heartbreaking.

So now I sit here, unable to stop thinking about this movie, the comic it came from, and how I managed to stumble across it without even once encountering any advertisements or trailers for the remake that had released on the exact day I had found the original. Don't get me wrong, if anyone discovers the original because of the remake, I think that'd be fucking amazing, because the original deserves lots of love on top of the love it already has - but now knowing the remake was a piece of rubbish, I'm worried people might not look into it.

This may well have been the worst time to discover The Crow (1994) but holy shit, it is forever on my mind from here on out. I wish I had known it sooner, truly. As someone who considers themselves a goth, I did myself a serious disservice by not watching this sooner, I swear.

[lowkeyrobin]

can you write a bridget bixler x reader pleaseeee 🙏🙏

[np if not- i love ur writing king :)]

YES OF COURSE. AND THANK YOU OMG 🙏🙏🙏🙏 also for any repeat requesters/anons if you want me to refer to you as like 🛒anon or smthn lmk bc I'd love to have repeat anons/requesters, I've seen other writers have them and idk it's just so cool to me knowing people repetitively give you ideas and stuff idk. but uh yeah here's a little bridget blurb thing!! sorry for taking so long on this, kinda procrastinated for a moment bc i couldn't think of a prompt lol

BRIDGET BIXLER ; 5 minute crafts

summary ; the two of you have a little YouTube channel and do some 5 minute crafts LMAO (think danny gonzalez)

warnings ; language, super short

genre ; fluff

word count ; 431

masterlist

You and Bridget sit in her shared bedroom on the floor, her phone rested on a pile of books, recording your actions. You use your phone to pull up the 5 Minute Crafts channel while she lays out the materials you'd need.

You start the video, leaving some commentary for the video before getting started.

"Yeah, I wanna look like Billie Eilish. I'm gonna look so drippy" Bridge laughs, loosely placing the large leaves on her head.

You laugh, patting her head before you plug in the hot glue gun.

"What am I even doing with this?" She questions

You shrug, "I dunno, but I'm gonna get started with that cheese-gluestick thing" You giggle, reaching for the empty glue sticks and mozzarella sticks.

The two of you talk while you're crafting for definitely more than five minutes.

"This is literally the stupidest thing ever" She laughs, doubling over as she places the leaves on her head.

"Bro does not have green ghost roots!" You laugh, biting into one of the cheese sticks. "Oh, shit! Did you not wash these? I can taste the glue!"

"I did!"

You quickly spit out the cheese into the trashcan next to you and gag, seeing some purple mixed in with the pale color of the dairy product.

"You liar! I see purple right there!"

"I'm not looking at your puke"

"You didn't wash them! End of story"

"In my defense, I didn't know you'd actually eat out of them"

"You think I was gonna waste cheese?"

"I dunno, y/n/n!"

"Whatever, Bridge" You scoff dramatically, throwing the stick at her to fake fight with her.

She glares at you, throwing a hot glue stick at you in return before you're distracted by Danny in the doorway.

"Hi!" The two of you exclaim in unison. He looks down at you in slight confusion and worry.

"What are you doing? It's midnight"

"Making pure comedy gold"

He looks between you two silently before nodding and exiting the room, leaving the two of you alone once more. You break out into a fit of giggles, her phone catching it all.

"Holy shit, what the fuck?"

"I don't even know!"

By now, you had about twenty minutes of footage and had only done one craft each. You slowly turn to the camera with pleading eyes.

"Help me"

Bridge plays into the bit, covering your mouth as she smiles, "They meant 'I'm so happy', guys, I swear"

You shout, muffled beneath her hand as you're wrestled onto the floor, laughing.

"You can't tell them about the drugs, Y/n!"

[presidential--suite]

My 2023 Year in GIFs

(Look at how much I've improved 😍)

Jan: Otherwise known as Trey's titties. This gif was the winner on that set and I mean...we know why. Also inspired a later set...This is a very juicy source vid, damn. Look at him.

Feb: The only set I made in all of February! Made for AME when someone found this video and we freaked out because shiny shirt in action!

March: My Cannibal month for sure. Fell in love with Alferd here 💖 All the sets were Cannibal! themed. (And blurry as all fuck.) I need more ship content *sigh*

April: This was the month I became obsessed with Les Claypool. We have all witnessed my progression deeper and deeper into being a Pooler haha. This was the first set I made of him.

May: My birthday month! Trey smiling: my favorite subject 😍 He's so beautiful and vibrant. Could use a sharpen. Didn't know how to do that yet lol.

June: This set is prob the most popular thing I ever made on here and the only thing I turned off notifs for. And I think it's only at like 230 notes. What a loser. Had to crop these so awkwardly to get the watermarks out.

July: More product of challenges 💖 I actually bought this clip just to get the little smile shown here. Never before seen footage, unless you watched live of course. Wow, so valuable. This set taught me my most valuable lesson: how to get around the black screen of death.

Aug: Concert month!!! Very fun doing a whole 24 hours of the 25th anniversary. 😍 Made these little cut outs to practice adding images. First time I ever did that.

Sept: Les birthday this month; I left work early just to finish all these lol. Never worked so hard on tumblr things before. 24 hours of birthday stuff. This was my favorite set because, God, he's so ethereal. 😇

Oct: To help with my PLBD, AME gave me a new activity: Lestober, in which I made so many new Les things on my 2nd blog. 😍😍😍 Of course the gif is from that (prompt: fave music video). Don't think I did anything else that month, gif wise.

Nov: What was November? Just more Les stanning. You can tell I've run out on M&T stuff that hasn't been done to death. On the other hand I have hours of Les footage that's never been gifed. 🤷‍♀️

Dec: Advent month!! Didn't actually make any m&t gifs for that though haha. I did have a 25 days of gifs going on the 2nd blog (spurring from the hours of footage...) So lots and lots of Les. Also peep how much nicer this one is...I learned how to fucking make things nicer ughhhhh Only took 2 years.

[kaurwreck]

Regarding your post about SB misinformation 👀 I’ve seen lots of people who, after reading SB, think Chuuya originally had the ability to amplify abilities before the Arahabaki Project. I assume because they think that NPC ability user from the footage was Chuuya. I’m not sure what to think about it tbh. I love SB but reading it usually raises even more questions haha. I wonder what your take on that is!

I'm not sure which part you want my take on, so I've provided several takes based on the various options:

The Ability User in the Video

I think the ability user from the video was someone I don't know or don't recognize based on the info given who was devoured by their own ability.

I don't think the ability user in the video would have survived that, at least not meaningfully. A singularity refers to the center of a black hole; people are matter, they were gone as soon as that swelled into existence, but as the center, becoming destroyed then destroyed the force creating the black hole and it disappeared too. This all makes sense to me, insofar as it follows narrative logic as much as physics principles in sci-fi and fantasy generally do. I don't know what happens to matter when it's been torn apart by a paradox, but I know it's unlikely that person was Chuuya. In part because Chuuya would have noticed if it were him, lmao.

I'm guessing at the parts of the video you might want my take on, if that's what your question referred to at all, because I don't know where it's ambiguous. I've seen people argue that N isn't reliable, but I haven't arrived at any particular detail suggesting he had an incentive to falsify that footage, nor have I ever seen anyone suggest one.

(Which is also wild to me; it's not a super useful exercise to notice a character is unreliable if you don't then follow-up with why, how, when, about what, and under which circumstances. You don't have to go through the exercise publicly, but "unreliable" is net zero information on its own, so it doesn't lend itself to the conclusion that the footage was fake or that's what Chuuya's ability was.)

Chuuya's Prior Ability

Regarding Chuuya's prior ability, I don't have any thoughts. It doesn't compel me as a question. Who we are is an amalgamation of our experiences and maybe something innate. He doesn't know the details of his prior ability either, so I'm not convinced those details have any bearing on who he is now. If I'm right, those details have nothing to say about his character or the relevant themes and story, so I don't really care.

It matters that he had a prior ability but was taken and mistreated and dehumanized until that ability collapsed on itself and created a black hole that he uniquely is capable of harboring within himself without allowing it to swallow him. But exploring that doesn't require knowing the details of his prior ability, and it wasn't shaped by his prior ability beyond the requisite capacity for paradox.

Abilities aren't separate entities, nor do they inform the person. They are manifested facets of the person. The person I care to understand in Chuuya is manifested by Arahabaki and Tainted Sorrow; not whatever came before. The extent to which who he was before matters to who he is now is already demonstrated in his capacity to be a stable singularity and his childhood memory related to his graphite scar.

So, I don't know what his prior ability was, but I can't really come up with a reason to care either.

Rereading Stormbringer

I don't think Stormbringer is ambiguous or open ended.

It surfaces a lot of lore, which, of course, prompts questions that you wouldn't have had prior to learning the lore. Some of that lore is relevant as pieces to the main story's puzzle, but, like, some of it is lore that's interesting and so much fun to explore, but not relevant to understanding Stormbringer or its implications.

Not everything that is lore or implicated by lore has a knowable answer, so it requires discernment to sort through what you know, what you don't know, what you want to know, and whether what you do or don't know matters relative to what you want to know. What you want to know is not necessarily what's relevant to the story, so that needs to be filtered through discernment, too.

Regarding the broader lore hinted at or explored in Stormbringer, I like to reread Stormbringer because it helps me interrogate what I think I know after some time away, which sometimes helps me recognize where I made assumptions based on premises that aren't certain.

But also, like, I think there are multiple potential answers for questions that won't ever have a canon answer. Both because Kafka Asagiri has repeatedly said as such, and also because that is just how most things are.

So, there's a lot in Stormbringer that I don't think is certain or definitively answerable, most of which I don't think will ever be or should be. Worldbuilding is a sandbox, I don't need someone prescribing for me what to do with the sand for me to enjoy playing with it, and I enjoy playing with it in lots of different ways, none of which preclude each other.

Some of it is relevant to the main story, even if not to Stormbringer, and that's a lot of fun to explore, too. But I don't expect to fully understand what hasn't been contextualized yet, and I'm not trying to, like, compete with the main story by somehow guessing what will happen. Stories aren't timed bar trivia or fill-in-the-blank quizzes; they're conversations and commentary and expressions of our less tangible selves. So, I like to check back in with what I've already read/watched every so often to see if there's more conversation to be had now that I have more context from the main story. So, it's not an exercise in answering outstanding questions; it's about returning to something familiar to see how my perspective might have changed based on what I've since experienced from the main story.

I'm certain of the story, even if I'm not certain about all of the lore implicated. I don't think it's ambiguous; what isn't clear in the text is clarified by reading the text in the context of the story's themes and metaframework. The literal text isn't the only information you're provided, so if it's the only information you're using, then it's like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle with a fraction of the pieces and no box. You can do that if you want, but a fraction of the pieces will only construct a fraction of a picture.

I'm not saying you have to know everything about every named author and all of their works. But, if a story's plot, themes, and perspective characters all keep relating back to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, then areas of ambiguity may be clarified when analogized to the plot, themes, and perspective characters in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

This is not only true for Stormbringer; any time you're engaging with any form of media that makes patterns of references, you are both allowed to and being enthusiastically encouraged to consider that media in the context of those references.

For example, the text in bsd doesn't explicitly state what confluence of circumstances caused the Great War. But if a work explicitly names an event in its timeline after one of the single most influential events to shape the timeline of its audience, that is the work providing its audience with an additional point of reference from which the audience can infer information. So, like, I wouldn't assume the assassination of Franz Ferdinand happened in bsd, but in broader terms, what really caused the Great War was imperialism, militarism, nationalism, and alliances. So then you can consider whether there is anything in the text of bsd evidencing the presence of any of those things. If you do this, you might notice that there are military police alongside civilian police in Yokohama; and that France and Britain are know for having powerful, state organized groups of gifted and gifted resources, which implies militarization, especially in the context of Mori framing the Great War as the first gifted war in Yosano's memories. There was probably also imperialism because the text confirms that the Yokohama Foreign Settlement exists and that there are foreign militaries stationed in Japan and that America exists and that Americans speak English (meaning Britain was probably colonizing in the bsd-verse too), plus there's a coffee shop so coffee is being cultivated somewhere and distributed globally. Nationalism absolutely exists because there are flags and armies and embassies and other signs that nations exist and are vying for their interests. Alliances exist because 55 Minutes confirms some of them in the Great War (such as France and Japan). In other words, it's safe to assume you're meant to use explicit references as information relevant to the text, and then specific relevant details of the story can be inferred by analogizing the reference with the text.

This principle doesn't only apply where there are references to irl events and systems. This is also what themes and motifs are for—if you're unsure about something in the text, then try reconciling the various possibilities with the themes and patterns. There may not be only one definitive answer, but there will be clarity.

This also means interrogating whether you have identified the themes and patterns relevant to the story. If you can't reconcile the theme with the text, it's possible you need to workshop your articulation of the theme.

As an example from Stormbringer, I've seen people say Chuuya's humanity is ambiguous because if he were human as the text suggests, that would frustrate the theme of the story, which is that it doesn't matter whether he's human or a clone. There are two issues with this assumption: (i) requiring him to be a clone to prove it doesn't matter if he's a clone would mean it did matter whether he's a clone, and the alternative is that if it really doesn't matter, then the text indicating he's human probably means he's human but since it doesn't matter, why include those scenes at all; (ii) Stormbringer is a continuation of Fifteen, and serves to apply the definition of humanity articulated by Rimbaud in Fifteen, pursuant to which clones are also human. So, the theme can't be that it doesn't matter whether or not Chuuya's human; that dichotomy is never made by the narrative and also can't really be extrapolated and applied outside of the context of a world in which there are artificially created and organically conceived people in the way themes are supposed to be. It's a false dichotomy made only made by the characters, whose arcs in the story track their unwraveling of that false dichotomy. The actual theme is easier to pin down when you consider the Frankenstein metaframework, but even if you just pay close enough attention to Fifteen and Stormbringer on their own, you should notice that the false dichotomy flourishes in each character when they are or perceive themselves to be isolated, and is only unwraveled when they acknowledge, affirm, and reciprocate their connections to others. In other words, inhumanity is not manufactured by humans in a lab but in isolation. I know this is the theme because when applied to the text of the story, it both affirms the text and fills in gaps in the text (it also reconciles with the themes in Fifteen, the main bsd story, Frankenstein, and major works by the namesake authors). So then, now that I've identified the theme, I can revisit where I think there's ambiguity and decide what would both reconcile the ambiguity and satisfy the theme. There may not only be one right answer; that's often the point. But there should be one or more answers that resonate, and therein you've done the thing storytelling is meant to do, which is relate to and make space within yourself for others.

All of which is to say that I feel like a lot of the story-relevant ambiguity that people perceive in Stormbringer is only ambiguous if you're reading only the literal Stormbringer text as projected on a wall in Plato's cave. Which is fine if you want to do that, that's certainly a choice you can make. But when your puzzle seems to be incomplete, you can't then claim those were the only pieces you were given or that your fraction of the picture is the entire picture. (Or I suppose you can, but you'd be wrong.)

I have no idea if any of this answered your question.

[jmdbjk]

Bangtan Weekly Report

Been a while. How are ya? We got a lot of shit going on and it has not been easy keeping up. I'll be glad when they are back together in 2025 so we can rest. Lol. Just kidding... I guess.

In a few hours we get Golden. I am excited to hear what Jungkook's chosen for his first album. I am excited to hear him explore these genres of songs. I am sure he's learned a lot during this process just as all the others have. He did a pre-release "press conference" and here is Dispatch's video of it: Watch Kookie's interview here.

He was very poised and articulate... dare I say "mature"? He is doing well. I'm very proud of Jungkook. He and his dance team are very excited to show us what they've created. I'm sure it will be amazing.

He mentioned a future Korean song as a gift? Don't tell me he means his gift to us before he leaves for MS...

😭

Taemin with Jimin special appearance on Suchwita. Finally watched. The dynamic between Jimin and Taemin and Jimin and Yoongi was fascinating.

I don't know a lot about Taemin. Of course I've seen he and Jimin's performance from a while back. Taemin is a great performer. He seems like a very sincere person.

Jimin's Dior campaign.

So lovely that we finally get to see him in motion. Ever since Hobi's LV campaign with the bags, I've been wanting to see Dior or Tiffany take advantage of Jimin's fluid motion and FINALLY they woke up and showed him moving. Not a fan of the oversized knit vests but those suits are wonderful.

Namjoon... Mr. Black Void for an IG pfp... showing us some images from his trip to London.

Fun fact: That Kodak Portra 400 35mm film is anywhere from $15-$25 per roll of film... then you have to pay to have it developed.

His hair is dark in the image... not taken while he was in London... but when? Japan? That sand looks black. Ibusuki Beach? Except for that ship out there... hmmm.

His documentary will be coming down the line at some point, it will be jam-packed with his meanderings from these past two years. Maybe we'll find out where he's been.

The BTS documentary will be out in December. Our Christmas present. I'm looking forward to it. There will be new footage in it.

Tae channeling him some Elvis for Celine is interesting. I suppose this is from an upcoming campaign or magazine spread.

And this was shared with us.

Jung Hoseok achieving his Corporal promotion ahead of time which I think means he would have three bars on his shirt pocket instead of the two as in this photo from his IG.

Less than a year left until Hobi's discharged and 7.5 months left before Jin is discharged.

It was the anniversary of The Astronaut this week. Can't believe this year just flew by. The reluctance to wish time to fly by but at the same time wanting it to slow down in order to live in the moment...we were so worried this time last year. We are making it through this ya'll. We are getting there.

Samsung campaign giving us Yoongi in tan pants. Doing god's work if you ask me:

Xylitol also keeping the Bangtan flame lit ...

How come Jimin and Jungkook are the only ones with their left hands in their pockets? Jikook always jikooking. You are me I am you is strong with them.

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Reflecting on my work in 2022

As this official Hell Of A Year™ draws to a close, I guess it is appropriate to both reflect on what I've been doing this year, as well as do a bit of plugging for work which I am proud of.

So here's a list of some of the videos I made this year, along with some thoughts on their creation and how I feel about them, some self-criticism, some behind-the-scenes, and a little self-congratulation where it is appropriate.

I struggle somewhat with memory and a clear sense of time - to me, time is more of a continuous stream than a series of delineated moments. This is often frustrating - I get lost in it, and when I look back on a list of my work and activities, it is less an experience of "oh yeah, ha ha, that happened" and more of a "wait what do you mean that happened then? And before that other thing? But after that one? What the hell?"

Worst case scenario, it can be kinda distressing, honestly. It feels out of control, anxiety inducing, like I don't have a handle on my life.

... which is an absolutely fantastic tone to strike for a New Year's list of my favourite videos. 2023, woo!

The Boss Designs of Bloodborne Finale (February)

It took me nearly three months after the penultimate episode of the series to finally put this video out. My The Boss Designs Of series is some of the best work I've ever created, at least I think so. It's certainly some of the most creatively fulfilling work I do, and some of the most challenging too.

I try to walk a line between providing a fresh perspective on the games I've played for the series, but not getting contrarian or off-the-wall just for the sake of it. With Bloodborne, I do think I managed some really good critical contributions to the readings of the game, like my reading of the Blood-starved Beast as a self-sacrificing martyr for the beast community of Old Yharnam, which was apparently quite novel, or my crackpot Parasite Theory of Bloodborne's madness.

And I do think I've gotten better and better at editing gameplay footage too, I think I've managed to learn a good balance between joke-edits and continuity and story editing. I always kinda fret on the one hand that the gameplay footage and my live commentary is too boring to stand on its own, and on the other hand that editing in too many jokes and gags would just be obnoxious and tedious to sit through.

The thing Bloodborne nails more than any other horror game I've seen is the sensation of the nightmare. And not just in its visuals or its monster designs or the surface storytelling, but in the push and pull between extremely specific imagery and story beats and complete ambiguity the moment you scratch at the surface. Bloodborne is on the one hand a fairly obvious story about the abuses of organized religion and unethical science, but then underneath that there's also this deep obsession with the violence done to women's bodies specifically, and how that violence spills out and caustically eats into the humanity of everyone who is complicit in it.

And then underneath that there's an exploration of birth trauma, where the Great Ones are parental figures as incomprehensible to the player as parents are to a newborn child, pushing you here and pulling you there and inflicting incomprehensible violations of your bodily autonomy out of apparent sympathy.

And underneath all of that... it's also about how cool it would be to transform into a werewolf, actually. The themes of self-creation and transformation and claiming monsterhood as self-empowerment are incredibly queer and especially apt for trans readings.

It all flows together in this soup of imagery and meaning that I cannot crystalize into a unifying Theory of Bloodborne, no definitive reading, no comprehensive hot take. Which is frustrating when you're trying to create a video essay, but infinitely compelling when trying to think about it.

I don't know that I managed to capture all of that in the The Boss Designs of Bloodborne finale, but I do know that I tried to, and I'm proud of that.

Melina, the Maiden - Boss Designs of Elden Ring #1 (March)

Staying with The Boss Designs of, here's a video about which my feelings have become decidedly mixed. Not because of anything that is in the episode, mind you, but out of a certain disempowered bitterness I've developed about Elden Ring over the course of the year.

I cannot overstate how excited I was for Elden Ring, and how desperately I enjoyed finally getting to play it back in March. It's a brilliant game, an incredibly immersive world, and one which I badly want to return to.

... and then I didn't get to play the game for nine months. It was partly my own mistake - I tried recording an absolute ton of footage for episodes early, playing as much of the game as I could while it was still fresh, hoping to put out a lot of episodes of the series early while the game was fresh and Relevant In The Algorithm™, and also just out of sheer excitement. In so doing, though, I ended up shooting myself in the foot, because as I began to edit episodes together I also found myself feeling more and more distant from the experience of playing.

The pile of footage in front of me, begging to be converted into episodes, became a roadblock of work looming over me, a source of guilt and stress and frustration, that put extra stress on my mind every time I tried to make any other video and which stood between me and getting to play more of the game I have anticipated more than any other for years.

In 2023, I will get back to Elden Ring, I swear to god I will, but in the meantime I am quite happy with how the three episodes I've made of this series so far have turned out.

Also, the new intro song I commissioned from @trewatsonmusic absolutely slaps.

What's the deal with Zeri and Neon (June)

My ambition for the What's the Deal videos has always been to expand them beyond League of Legends (and I have done videos on characters from other things), but being a YouTuber is also my job, and League of Legends is the moneymaking subject on my channel, at least for now.

Not that I resent that. For all that League deserves the criticism it gets, I still insist that it has one of the greatest casts of characters in modern gaming, underserved and ignored though most of them are by Riot Games. There's so much to talk about once you get even a little bit under the surface, and I do feel like I've been doing a better and better job at doing that in the What's the Deal videos over 2022. Zeri, for example, is a fantastic addition to the class warfare dynamics of Piltover and Zaun, especially in her conflict with Renata Glasc and the themes that could be explored through that conflict. And it's not lost of me the extent to which she was a direct response to the xenophobic attacks on Asian-Americans that have surged out of American politics in recent years, either. There is value to proclaiming that someone like Zeri belongs in the worlds of big pop culture institutions like League of Legends, even if (as always) it is the workers at Riot Games making that proclamation, and Riot Games Inc. allowing it because it serves their commercial goals.

I brought in Nickyboi for an assist on this one as well, which is something I want to do more. I want to do more collaboration. First of all because it's nice to offload work to someone else, but also because this job is fundamentally kind of lonely. I'm just a guy in his office making videos 99% of the time, and collaborating with a fellow creator feels like being part of a creative community in a way that solo work and shitposting at each other on Twitter simply doesn't.

And I am proud of the little fanfiction snippets I've started writing in the The Future segments. One of the points of the What's the Deal videos is to communicate to an audience why I'm excited about a character, why I feel like they're worth giving a shit about, and I think those fanfiction segments have done a better job at getting that across than almost all of my character design and animation chatter. Plus, it's nice to flex a bit of creative muscle in that way now and then.

Speaking of which, I still need to write that happier ending for Kai'sa and Taliyah, don't I? I have A Plan™ for that, it's just about finding the time to make it real...

The 15 Most Beautiful Splash Arts in League of Legends (September)

This one is easily the biggest surprise of the year for me. In the latter half of 2022, I took quite a lot of sponsorships - first of all because they were offered (good lord there was a rush of them in August!), but also because I really wanted to save up and pay down debts.

One of the consequences of that was the extreme delay of Elden Ring, but another was that all of a sudden I had to get content out on a very set schedule. Most of my work is done on the steam of Whatever Catches My Creative Attention At The Time, but with a deadline hanging over my head, suddenly I had to find video ideas whether they presented themselves naturally or not.

I feared that a list-video would be a turn-off for my audience, I feared that it would be seen as shallow and tacky, like a 2010s Buzzfeed listicle. I feared that people just wouldn't be interested in the kind of art analysis I like to do, or would find it pretentious to seek meaning in what is - let's be real - commercial artwork meant to promote game cosmetics.

The benefit of a sponsorship is that the video has already made a profit, whether it does well or not, and I thought that in making this video, I was being self-indulgent and "ignoring" the desires of my audience.

Instead, it's one of the best performing videos ever on my channel, and people have cited it as a favorite among my videos quite a number of times.

Which was really... encouraging, honestly. I didn't expect it, but this video really did give me a confidence boost that the things I care about and find interesting do have an audience, even extra-nerdy rambling about League of Legends cosmetics.

Building a Better Soraka (September)

Building a Better is a series title I sometimes regret a little bit, because no matter how much I try to explain in the videos themselves that there is no such thing as a perfect character design and that my revisions and ideas are not meant to be definitive in any way, I always get comments from people accusing me of declaring myself The God of Character Design and sitting in holy judgment over the work I'm critiquing.

To an extent, I guess that's unavoidable on the internet, but... maybe the series title was a bad gamble on that front.

I do stand by, though, that my designs have a reasonable argument that they are improvements over the originals. Arguments that can be interrogated and criticized, but valid, reasonaed arguments, not mere polemics.

Building a Better Soraka was an experiment in creating the series, as instead of working with a single artist to iterate on design improvements, I ended up commissioning more than a half dozen people for artwork and using different renditions to make my argument. It did hurt the coherency of the video a little, I feel, but it did open me up to a much more flexible way to produce videos like it in the future, which I'm happy with.

Plus, I really do like what I came up with here, and I adore the ways that @sabtherobot, @sinizade and @lekyrin executed my ideas and brought their own visions of the character. Soraka is a character who deserves a lot better than the basic design she's stuck with, and whose story can do so much more visually than Riot is willing to allow it to do.

"Not Without You" - the story of Nasus and Renekton (November)

Of all the writing I did this year, this is by far what I am most proud of.

The video itself did not perform very well, nor did I expect it to, but the reactions I saw from the audience on this piece... yeah. That filled a very hungry part of my heart, I'm not gonna lie.

Writing a novel is a life ambition for me, as it is for many people. Actually writing it is a lot more elusive, though, in part because I struggle to feel confidence that my writing would ever hold up to the scrutiny of an audience. I struggle to feel that I would ever be able to connect emotionally with people, that I would be able to make what I feel sensible through writing.

This story proved that I can. Not to a big audience, perhaps, and I certainly don't have any delusions of genius or grandeur. I do not ever expect to be a famous or fêted writer, nor an important one. But... I do feel like with this story, I proved that I can at least be a competent one, which is frankly all I want.

And Nasus and Renekton were grateful subjects, too. Their story is naturally deeply emotional, albeit strangled by Riot's chronic indifference towards their most compelling narratives, and a lot of what I ended up exploring in there did come from a very genuine place in myself. It was nice to touch that part of my soul, and make something out of it, even if it's only silly fanfiction for a silly video game.

I am cautiously optimistic about 2023

Looking back over the videos I made this year, while I have a lot of work that I am proud of, I also see a lot of videos that I think I made less out of a desire to make them and more out of a fear of not making them. Videos that I made because I felt like the audience expected it, because the algorithm demanded it, because rent is always coming due and I am petrified of ever being broke again.

This is normal and natural, it is to some extent just the nature of the creative process under a capitalist market system where your work must always have some sort of price tag. But... I don't want to keep doing it. If I have an ambition for 2023, it is to make more of the videos I want to make, more videos that I only I can make. To give myself a little bit of a break and ease up on the self-recrimination and stress.

I have so many projects I want to get to, and being in my 30s I am becoming more and more conscious that while I (hopefully) have something like twice my current lifetime left to create the things I want, time is a finite resource, and spending it trying to please a website algorithm probably won't do me that much good in the end.

Anyway, some other things I did which I am quite proud of:

Played through God of War: Ragnarök while telling stories about the mythology of my childhood.

Ran around the world of Eorzea, accompanied by some of the funniest, silliest and most generous FFXIV players a man could dream of.

Finished a Pokémon HeartGold Nuzlocke with possibly the most nerve-wracking finish I have ever had to a Pokémon game

Reviewed every single Gen 1 Pokémon

Finished Great Ace Attorney Chronicles 1, probably the let's play with the most voice acting I have ever done. Some of it is even good!

If you've read this far, thank you so much for your time, your attention, your interest and your indulgence. Your 2023 be a good year, and may the tides of history wash gently over us all.

[xplrvibes]

Thoughts on episode 2?

It was fine.

I just answered an ask where I kind of touched on the Cody and Satori thing, but it bares repeating - the more I see of that, the more I side eye the entire thing.

It's interesting, but I just...I don't know.

I will say that I find the Abigail ghost, whether real or made-up, to be the sweetest thing on earth with her little excited dances and her whole "yea, I'll protect you guys!" routine.

And, you know she's down to ride for these boys for life after she got hit with the full offensive of the Colby Brock Patented Charm™️, lol. "I know you're the protector of the house, I know you're the matriach, and we want to consider you that as well," with that intensely earnest stare right at where he thinks this ghost is standing.

Like, fuck yea, I will catch a paranormal grenade for you now, you are now my soul child for life.

The Estes Method is always fun, but it's less fun when you've now got TWO people who won't stop bombarding with the questions and the on-the-spot dot connecting. We need less of that. I would love for them to do the old school Ghost Hunters method of just doing this shit and then reviewing the footage later to connect the dots after the fact. I feel like it would be less chaotic and honestly, they'd probably see better results at the end of the day.

Couple of random things that I'll mention, but don't want to dive too deeply into:

Something is severely wrong with their core body temperatures if they can go out into the woods of Rhode Island in August and sleep bundled up like they're in Alaska in December.

The dancing on the grave thing - I feel like doing something like that is way more likely to get you cursed than looking at a factory manufactured reproduction of a doll, but what do I know (I'm sorry Robert, for speaking about your reproduction dolls without your permission).

The REM pod at the door of the library...honestly, I think even when they were standing way far away, it was picking them up. Colby closes the door, and it immediately ceased. I mean, come on.

It was cool that they caught the door opening on camera from two different angles. Getting it from one angle is one thing, but getting it from both sides of the door makes it so much more impactful. Multiple camera angles, boys. More of that.

Oh! The names in the sand thing. I can't believe they are still trying to push that as having been paranormal in nature. It pissed me off when they did this in the video from last year (for that review, feel free to browse my "snc video review" tag, I'm almost positive i talked about that one), but to bring it back and use the people who work in the house and their sort of sus knocking method to "confirm" that this was some lonely soldier ghost who wanted to get with Amanda? No. 0/10 right there.

To end these bullet points on a positive...the Josh shirt pulling thing was pretty cool.

So, the last 30 seconds of this video is not something I am going to discuss, because trust me when I say you guys do not want to hear my opinion on that. You won't like it, I won't like hearing about how you won't like it, and honestly, I don't even want to talk about it. Just know that it deflated my balloon, and let's leave it at that.

But, commenting on the 5 minutes before the last 30 seconds - if anyone ever comes in new to the snc world and asks for a summation of who snc are and how they function as a duo, I'm sending them the clip of Sam deciding to summon every the basement demon to the upstairs and Colby just giving him the most deadpan, "I'm gonna kill you when we get home" look and then popping out from behind a wall (when did he even get there) to start a "I told you not to do that!" argument with Sam right then and there. That was the most long-suffering married couple interaction I've seen them have in a long time.

And then Colby turned into a theater kid there for a few seconds, with that whole dramatic diatribe on the steps about the Perrons. That was...a choice he made, lol.

And then yea, the video ended right when Colby rolled under the table to sleep (cause that won't end with a concussion when you wake up in the middle of the night lol) and I left happy. Nothing happened after that. That's where the whole screen goes black.

I'm giving the video (minus the last 30 seconds that don't exist in my mind) a 6.9/10. It was fun at parts, there was some good evidence, I enjoyed it...but there were some things that didn't hit for me.

Anyway, reminder to all that the preceeding was MY OPINION, and MY OPINION IS NOT LAW.

[castlebyersafterdark]

ALLOW ME TO ELABORATE on static kiss lore

so no one knows the provenance of the image itself, but this is the background. i am an accidental static kiss truther, as ive said before its the one irrational thing i believe with insufficient evidence and this is because im an artist at heart and when i look at the image i can't not see them kissing. i am well aware of how it could be nothing though. i can't explain how illogical this is haha

so the provenance: during the countdown to s4, they officially released a video vignette set up of a real grandfather clock somewhere (atlanta?) in a city. it was cordoned off but fans could come and photograph from a distance. a live stream video of this clock counting down (24 hours possibly idk) was put out on YT. during this stream, the video buzzed periodically in and out with clips of the show and white noise static.

word is that a fan got a screenshot of one of the transitional white noise parts of the video, the 'interruptions' of radio static, and within this, the shapes of two people appearing to kiss appeared. i've seen early screenshots of the static itself and couldn't find mike or will within them, but seeing as the stream was removed from online immediately, there's no way to see the original again.

so this image then appeared online. it could be fabricated. it could be edited. it could be nothing. but because part of the ST experience and early screenings of s4 included moving photos of the characters/scenes where static interrupted them, people think it's become a thematic possibility that alludes to time/radio communication in the show.

so basically only insane people believe it haha! but something about it seems like something they would do, and i also believe that the filmed a decent portion of s5 during s4, so mike and will could have already kissed (even as a pre-filmed vecna vision that flashes back to s4 era within s5). i believe this because the way finn and noah acted during press seemed like two actors who are finding the byler speculation funny precisely because their characters have already kissed but it won't be revealed for years.

so yeah, it's irrational, but to me it's more feasible than other vague theories relating to byler or foah lol! even if there's no true evidence, it seems like something that the duffers would do.

Finally 😭 The lore... 💋⚡💋⚡

I always thought it was from some trailer or some promo but I could only ever see static kiss mentioned in lists of "gates" but since I missed this one and so much was happening all the time, by the time I got curious info was just buried. So. Fascinating though. Based on the screencap I'll share below, how tf did someone even notice this? So, def could be faked but it's so random?

I mean, this is such a fun conspiracy, I don't think I believe it totally necessarily, but it's more plausible than most wild ramblings (mostly revolving around some h.creel and his not-so-evil twin theories to be honest) 🤭🤭 Shade intended.

I do believe there has been footage filmed during the season 4 filming that will show up in season 5. I am standing by being 75% sure there was something extra filmed using the roller rink set we haven't seen yet - tying into Birthdaygate. Maybe a kiss is part of some taunting vision or nightmare Will faces reliving that day!! That's the only way I think this frame could be something real and WILD if it was caught and they added this tiny tiny easter egg into some random promo. It's like the dick frame spliced into the theater scene (and in the movie itself) in Fight Club. "No one really knows that they've seen it. But they did."

[moreofthatdrowse]

JO Survey: What's a favorite JO moment of yours? Could be very small or something big

There were too many good answers in the questions with open answers in my Joker Out Survey, so below the cut are the answers to Question no. 14: What's a favorite JO moment of yours? Could be very small or something big

When bojan exists but also when they sung the boys are back from HSM in an interview in all the languages

Nace & Bojan completing my heart hands thing at a concert :) (& Nace showing the heart on his bass in my direction )

sparklative, the turtle interview, every interaction between jan and nace (it's hard to pick a favourite)

It's so hard to choose! Aside from repeating what I said before, I'll say I love them doing stuff with pride flags during concerts, and them hanging out together during Novi Val. Also them just wearing each others clothes. And the whole thing with Because of You during Eurovision. And Bojan singing Cha Cha Cha. And Tavastia. And Kris during the Katrina video whirling around his jacket. Ok I can't choose and I can go on forever.

When Nace started talking about his turtles

kris being a hater 🫶

how dare you make me pick one smh i guess the performance of novi val in Glasgow with the pride flag i dotn get emotional about artists raising pride flags in general even tho im queer but that specific moment in a CHURCH with THAT song made me sob

I can't choose so I've got 3: 1. WHY THIS HAS BEEN SO HAS BIVEN SPARKLY?! SPARKLING?! SPARKLATIVE?!?!?! 2. the interview where they talk about Nace's turtles ("shiiiit, they don't like to be pet!") 3. every time Bojan and Kris banter with each other 😭 and I saw this irl too when I was at their concert in London and Kris wouldn't stop playing his guitar whilst Bojan was trying to tune his

I've really enjoyed watching the behind the scenes video series' from Eurovision and the tour.

It's a tie between (i) pretty much any interview they've ever done and (ii) the Cvetličarna concert (didn't attend but have watched the footage)

Them comforting Käärijä together after his loss

Bojan's thighs lol

I really like drunk Kris at Barcelona preparty screaming "OH, SSF!" and dancing like the tall tree he is 🤣❤️‍🔥

Their joy in eurovision

"Sparklative"

The moment that Jan signed my jacket

Jan and Nace interacting on stage

Idk i love all the behind the scenes videos?

Them all singing together (see carpe diem series ep 7 amsterdam :D)

The backstage series

The Electric Ballroom gig in London & their reaction when Slovenia entered the grand final at ESC

Jan and Nace playing kazoos in the UK tour ep 2

You expect me to chose?? /j

Every Novi val performance.

anything Jan and Nace get up to tbh

Every moment in that "joker out being bros for 5 min straight" video or wtv or was called. Need friendships like that fr

don't know if it's my favorite moment per se but i do love how they all immeadiately fell in love with jere (käärijä), especially bojan ofc <3

Why has been so sparkling? ✨

Bojan draped in a pride flag in an old church while singing novi val. Top 3 moments to cry about at 3am tbh

The performance of Novi Val in Križanke. Also, this is not a JO moment as such, but a clip where Bojan imitates a german kid telling his mom he wants to jump on the trampoline(?) I'm sorry, but man's funny as fuck, I think about that clip often.

I haven't seen them live yet, so all the best moments are yet to come :)

All of them cuddles

I don’t knoww Maček in a box

kris tilting his head back, eurovision in my city, SEEING THEIR TOUR BUS IN LIVERPOOL WJEN ME AND MY FRIEND WERE OUT IN THE CITY CENTER THE DAY AFTER WE SAW THEM @ MANCHESTER

I don't know yet - there's so many moments! So many smiles and like laying their heads on each others shoulders during concerts and looking out for each other. <3

I liked how promptly they got rid of gregor on a serious level and also on a happy level when they qualified to the Eurovision final

cvetličarna

Bojan and Kaarija’s bromance

I don't know to many options

Love how often TURTOL is brought up. Nace would be proud <3

QUESTIONS 1-11 I QUESTION 12 I QUESTION 13 I QUESTION 14

[foodfightnovelization]

Things I'm Not Allowed To Talk About Yet; or How I Learned More About Foodfight! Than I Ever Thought I Would

Okay, so I'm just going to come right out and say it; I know a lot more about Foodfight! than I've let on in this blog. Like, a LOT more. Shortly after I wrote my original series of posts cataloguing the novelization and various other Foodfight! trivia, I was contacted online by someone named Ziggy Cashmere. He'd been working on a book called Drawing For Nothing, exploring the history of unfinished and underappreciated animated films (with a chapter on Foodfight! among its many pages), as well as a full-on documentary about the movie called "ROTTEN: Behind The Foodfight".

Obviously me being the fan of Foodfight! that I am, I wanted to be a part of it in any way that I could. We talked for a while along with another Foodfight! fan in an internet chatroom appropriately titled "Foodfight Obsessives" and fast became friends. Since then I've been shown an early script I never thought I'd see, videos containing behind-the-scenes footage I never dreamed ANYONE would see, and interviews with people who worked on the movie I never imagined anyone would be able to track down. I've seen so much stuff over the past few months and it's been SO EXCITING... but I'm not allowed to talk about it, share any of it, or show anyone just yet! Gah!

It's been SO HARD keeping quiet about this for as long as I have, but since a trailer for the documentary has been up on YouTube for a while, I just wanted to let the cat out of the bag and preemptively say before it comes out: yes I knew about this, I've seen everything that's going to be in the documentary and it's fascinating, yes I was involved in it (in a very minor sense- I have a small cameo and helped with some of the research, Ziggy did 95% of the work) and it's going to be AMAZING. Ziggy's work on this is streets ahead of anything I've managed to do with this blog- the production materials he's dug up and the crewmembers he's managed to get in touch with are nothing short of incredible, and the amount of work that's gone into this is insane. It's like those true crime podcasts where a journalist talks to the victims of some decade-old crime, but instead of a murder case it's a below-average animated children's movie.

Everything Ziggy has on the movie (documents, video footage, pictures, interviews, the whole shebang) will be released alongside the documentary, so don't feel like you're missing out- you'll get to see everything soon enough, and I promise it'll be worth the wait. "ROTTEN: Behind The Foodfight" answers the decade-long mystery about Foodfight! as best, if not better than any one person possibly could, and closes the book on what happened behind the scenes on this enigma of a movie once and for all. I'm seriously SO excited for it to be out so I can talk about all the crazy things I've seen, you have NO idea what's in store for you guys. Check out the trailer here:

And if you can't wait for the documentary to come out, you'll see a preview of the kind of thing you can expect in his book, Drawing For Nothing. It's a fascinating free ebook with behind the scenes trivia and concept art from all kinds of lost and forgotten animated movies from over the years (for example, there's a chapter dedicated to Joe Jump, a Disney movie that eventually ended up becoming Wreck It Ralph) It's genuinely a work of art, and speaks strongly to my passion of films that feel like they deserve a second chance.

There's a fantastic chapter on Foodfight! showing off concept art, storyboards, unreleased merchandise and excerpts from an early draft of the script- it's truly fantastic. For example, check out this concept art for the Asian food aisle! I think pieces like this really show more than anything the strength of Foodfight!'s core concept, and how genuinely phenomenal of a movie it could've been were it managed better.

So I highly recommend you check out the book, and stay tuned for ROTTEN: Behind The Foodfight, because it's gonna be one hell of a ride. I'll make a much more in-depth post about it once it's out and I can actually talk about the contents of the documentary, but for now it's Tiffany Amber, strawberry jamming out of here!

[moonchild-in-blue]

Hello!! 8D I'm new to the Sleep Token fandom; I saw like 2 concert videos on my TikTok feed yesterday morning and proceeded to complete the fastest casual to full blown fan speedrun of my life in a single day XD And I don't really have anyone I can yell about them to, not even the person who originally introduced me to their music, so :P I'm still working my way through listening to their full discography, but I wanted to say a MAJOR part of how fast I got into them I feel is because of the Wembley show from this past weekend?? It says so much about Vessel that he handled the whole thing the way that he did, and the more footage I see from that specific show the more my heart is FULL for this man <3 That on top of the cool and intriguing lore, AMAZING aesthetics, and of course the music (which I was already into before but even moreso now XD), and it was a RECIPE for a hyperfixation :3 I also wanted to say as a newbie that I love the new masks?? Especially Vessel's; the red edgings are SO cool and put even more emphasis on his TEETH :P His whole look is Iconic (though I wonder if that cloak must be heavy to wear??), I love that the other members of the band are developing their own distinctive looks too?? And it's super cool to see how their look evolves as they become more and more successful, just from what I've seen so far <3 I also just REALLY love how more and more music artists are embracing the innately religious experience that comes with a live concert?? As you can probably tell I'm a Swiftie so I had the same thought about the Eras tour XD but also with other punk-rock/metal artists like Ghost :P So calling their shows a "Ritual" or a "Worship" is metal as hell, I think :3 Plus just as a somewhat personal note, lately I've been running out of podcast episodes that I feel comfortable falling asleep to, and I already want Vessel's voice just PUMPED DIRECTLY INTO MY VEINS, so the natural progression I think is using ST to fall asleep to as well?? Which I mean, given their lore and everything, worshipping the eldritch god of sleep, feels appropriate XD Last thing -- so far my fave song of theirs is The Love You Want, I can't stop listening to it :3 I originally got into them through The Summoning, of course, and now I also love Alkaline cause it was in one of the videos I mentioned XD I started downloading more and more individual songs that I saw mentioned by name on here until I just caved and basically downloaded their entire discography, it was gonna happen anyway at this rate XD But I'd love to know what your faves are, too!! <3 (and bless you for reading this long-ass message from a total stranger lol XD)

Hello there! Wow, that's quite the achievement!! I totally understand though, once you get sucked into their tar trap (hehe) it's pretty much impossible to leave (not that I have ever wanted to).

Welcome to the family!! I hope you enjoy your stay here - there are warm beverages and snacks on the table, take as much as you want and get cosy. 💙🍵🍪 You are more than welcome to scream about our beloved cryptics - we shall all join you, like a pack of feral wolves howling at the moon Sleep 🐺🌕

I have recently gotten an ask from another lovely new member of this weird little community, and did an introductory post of sorts. I will link it here - it's a nice read, and there is a very good post linked there with some more background on the band - how did they start, album evolution, some important lore info, etc etc, by our lovely local archivist and knowledge keeper hehe. It's an incredibly thorough and comprehensive read - 100% reccomend!

So, about Wembley. Yeah, I think we're all still collectively recovering from it. There was A LOT of expection for it, being their last Ritual of the year, and the biggest headline to date, and even more things happening (New masks, iii's return, and of course Vessel's unfortunate situation). Vessel, the band and choir, and every single crew member involved did a fantastic, admirable job under the circumstances.

I won't dwell too much on it, as I've already shared my thoughts on another post, as so did many others, but yes - the fact that Vessel chose to perform at all given his condition, and somewhat stil managed to blow everyone away, is nothing short of an indicative of how sweet and beautiful, and loving that man is. I have nothing but respect for him and the guys - it must've been pretty hard on them as well to perform in such sad circumstances. The show was incredible, and my heart is still so so full with it 💙

The masks are pretty amazing!! I'm personally still attached to the old black ones, and in mourning of iii's victorian child look, but I do loooove the new costumes (they got me feeling some type of way, but I won't be weird here. Just Thinking Things)! Very yummy 😚 The new Choir outfits are INCREDIBLE aaaaaa (you will see me fangirl about them a lot).

Vessel's mask in not new per-se - he's had this one since May or June I believe (around the time TMBTE came out). His mask (and shoulder piece) is AMAZING, I am so in love with it still. It was done by Hysteria Machine - the same artists who did the new Espera (my lovely choir ladies) masks (debuted in the first German Ritual of December). His cloak is actually super lightweight, and the shirtless look helps to keep him cool during his adorable zoomies hehe (not sure about the fur on the back - but he seems to be okay with it, for the ~aesthetic~. My love is a nerd lol)

Yeah, the religious vibes are definitely there, even if just for the lore. I'm not a fan of neither Taylor Swift nor Ghost, so I can't really comment on that, but concerts to have a very transcedent feel to it. "Worship" is kind of a tagline for the band and fans, while Rituals are the actual shows!

I have lost count to how many night's I've fallen asleep to Vessel's voice lmao. As someone with severe insomnia issues, their music is nothing short of divine. 💙

I too was a victim of The Summoning - I suppose it really worked! TLYW funnily enough was my least favourite from that album during the first 2 or 3 listens. Then I watched the live performance for it and OMG. Now it occupies a very special place in my heart - even more after iii's brief absence!

My favourite song is Atlantic - it will forever and always have my heart. Very closely followed by Chokehold / The Apparition / Drag Me Under. Special kiss with tongue to Fields of Elation and Jaws (among others)! Do not sleep (hehe) on their eps/singles!!!! They are fenomenal!!! I always reccomend you listen to the albums in full, at least at first, to really get the full experience. But of course, you do you hun!

If you like the lore aspect of the band, I'd definitely recommend you scroll through the ST lore tag. There are so many amazing posts with lyric analysis, lore headcanons, among others. Also thought the fanart tag!!! The amount of talent and care in this fandom is insane. Everyone is so kind and loving and sweet here - I'm sure you'll have a good time! Don't be shy, go full unhinged if you so wish, and feel free to drop by anytime with any thoughts, questions, or anything else 💙

[mysmorgasbordoffantabulosa]

https://www.tumblr.com/mysmorgasbordoffantabulosa/734970910597136384/hybe-pulled-out-seems-like-such-a-reach-im

"Like he wants to use his status for this, normalizing idols dating" Normalise idols dating how? His paris pap walk isn't normalising anything anon. He's never even acknowledged Jennie's existence before or after that charade. If tae has no bullshit uncaring attitude then the minimum he could have done was use her latest song in one of his lives to show his gf some support.

How can you watch that paris video and not doubt it's authenticity? Yes it was tae, I am not saying it was a cosplayer (the dumbest theory acc to me), but did you not see their body language? I've seen more chemistry between jn and her "friends" than she had with tae. They were out for a walk in Paris during a film festival and the only pap who caught them had a camera from the 1800s? My old Nokia has better picture quality. This wasn't a "statement", it was very clearly thought out and executed coz the blurry footage can be denied very easily later on.

Taennie shippers change narratives as per the situation. The paris walk was them trying to go public but his radio silence ever since is now him trying to keep his relationship private. Make it make sense 🙄. She was being dragged left and right by everyone bcs of that show but tae kept himself as far from her as possible. But acc to your idea of tae he should've spoken in favour of her, shown some sort of support to her.

Do you really have no idea of how real life works? Tae wouldn't do this he wouldn't do that... people do many things that they don't like for work. So many queer artists used to do this back when Hollywood wasn't as open. Sk is very backwards in terms of queer support. Holland is a prime example of that. Not one label was ready to launch him bcs of his sexuality. So pls don't be delusional and think that if tae or any other idol of his stature were to come out they'd be welcomed with open arms.

Unlike you I don't want to assume his sexuality but I will say that tae wouldn't want to attract any unwanted attention during his ms by coming out before enlistment. As for his career, do you really want to believe that people will still support him as much as they do rn if he decided to come out rn? He is at the peak of his career why would he want to jeopardize that?

As for the rest of your ask, admin explained it in detail.

Even if i would have liked to keep living in my delusional taekook bubble -no one's forcing you to believe in tkk. If you want to believe in a relationship that has never been anything but a publicity stunt, you never were a tkkr though were you? If your ship is based off of matching random pieces of jewellery then you do you ig 🤷🏻‍♀️

Here I am again... Piggy-in-the-Middle

Anon of the linked ask, here is another anon responding you said ask... I will respond your response forth-with.... (stay tuned)