#how derpy got fired

[outofworkderpy]

Out of Work Derpy: Fired (Comic #1) Derpy has been fired from the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic TV show and needs a job stat! Can she survive on odd jobs from the community? Or will Derpy and her daughter Dinky go hungry? And if that was not bad enough, Derpy contracts an illness that has her appearing in and out of different alternate universes! How will she deal with all this craziness and get home to her daughter?!

This comic includes the "How Derpy Got Fired," "Derpy's Home Tour," and the "Teleportitis" arcs!  

When you buy this comic it comes with a FREE SURPRISE inside! Kinda like a box of cereal! but you know, not edible...

YOU CAN PURCHASE THE COMIC HERE ON MY SHOP SITE!

Psst... if you purchase all three comics and use the discount code OoWD10 you will get a 10% discount on each of the comics!  Only going to keep this secret code active for a few weeks so act fast! 

[the-californicationist]

Good Fences (Fluffuary #28) - Finale

FEB28: Reader Request - John Needs a Shave

Concept idea from my besites, @ofdivinity01 and @glitterypirateduck! Hope y'all like it!

xoxoxoxoxoxox

John’s hand was cleaned and bandaged, but he had hurt it pretty badly. He had been cleaning a huge fish outside on the patio, one that he had caught himself from the river behind your house, and the knife caught and slipped, jamming into his palm. It was healing fine, but he was struggling with his grip.

“Bloody hell!” He shouted from the bathroom, and you heard a metallic clatter follow with it. 

You hurried to check on him, rushing to his side,

“John? Are you alright?”

“Yeah, love,” he sighed out of frustration, “It’s just this hand. Can’t grab my shaver properly. Tired of this messy face, and I’m sure you are, too.”

He smiled down at you, half-shaven and half-wild. You shook your head,

“It’s okay, babe. But, we can’t have you walking around half-finished. Can I help?”

“Ever used a straight razor?”

“No,” you sighed, “But, I can go slowly.”

“Aye,” he nodded, “Alright.” 

“Here,” you said, staring up at his great height, “Why don’t you come have a seat in the kitchen.”

You set him up by the sink, filling up a bowl with water to wash the razor, and squirting some shaving cream into your palm. He was sitting in the chair, and you hovered over him, smearing the soft foam onto his skin, making sure to leave his chops and sideburns untouched. 

“Chin’s the hard part, so just do little strokes,” he instructed, “And, hey,” he grabbed your arm, “Thank you for this.”

You kissed his forehead, 

“No problem, John. I’ve got you.”

You set to work, shaving off his chin bit by bit. The razor made quiet little scraping noises, and you tried to cut as close as you could to the skin without nicking him. It was hard to get the right angle. 

“Sorry,” you said, “Do you mind if I sit in your lap. It’s hard for me to –”

“Tha’s fine, love,” John uncrossed his leg and patted his thigh. 

You straddled him, trying to ignore the fire that rose in your belly. You focused back on your work, moving down to his neck. With each little swipe and swish of your blade, you noticed that he was breathing a little harder. You stopped, looking up at him,

“Are you alright? Do you need a break?”

There was a low rumble in his chest that was almost a moan, and then he answered darkly, 

“No…”

He put both of his hands on your hips in a very familiar fashion, and you shifted your weight. As you did, you felt him, hard as a lead pipe beneath you. 

“Ahh…” You smiled, “I see. Be patient, mister. Almost done.”

He grunted in response, choosing to remain silent. 

You didn’t spare him any mercy while he was under your body. You shifted back and forth, teasing his rigid cock, shaving even slower, taking longer than you needed to. And by the time you were done, cleaning up the stray foam, your husband was a panting, growling mess. 

The last wipe of the dry cloth brought his face down to yours, his mouth only inches from your lips, and you could taste his warm breath. 

You kissed him languidly, not giving him any room to be ravenous with you, and you smiled coyly, 

“All done, babe. How does it feel?”

He scooped you up, leaving the chair in the kitchen, and lay you on the couch, shucking your pajama pants off of your body and spreading your legs apart with his rough hands. He chuckled, 

“Why don’t you tell me?”

That's all, folks! Here lies the end of our smutless, fluffy adventure. Thanks so much to everyone for all of their support. I would've stopped weeks ago if it wasn't for y'all. Looking back, I think this exercise really helped me improve, and it got me out of my rut.

If you had a good time, please consider donating to my coffee fund. This derpy cat needs caffeine, and your hard-earned dollars are very much appreciated.

Reblogs, comments, and kudos (AO3) also bring me so much joy, so thank you for interacting with me and my work. More Price is on the way!

Y'all are the best ✌️🩷

P.S. Do these two deserve a smutty follow-up tomorrow? I think they do. 😈 It is a leap year, after all.

AO3 Link

[yourdrugisafartbreaker]

Happy holidays folks! Last Christmas, I did a drawing challenge as a present for my mutuals. I would draw their PFPs, which is hard enough when I’m not good at doing art, BUT I imposed the rules of using only one layer and no ctrl+z on myself as well. This Christmas, I’m back at it! For both old and new mutuals, listed in terms of when I did them, here are all of the PFPs I drew for this Christmas (that I did not already do last year)!

@labbildung I decided to go with you first considering your PFP is only two colors, not to mention that you are my newest mutual, but Max’s head and the fire was not totally easy.

@hwljpg I went with you next since you are my oldest mutual and I am familiar with your style, so with it only being three colors and having simple lines, I feel like I can say that this one was the easiest one for me.

@funni-bunny-thing Your PFP wasn’t too different from the one I drew for you last year, but the background and the need for a good big circle was a small step up from the other two, I hope I kept enough derpiness in it.

@plutoons I feel your PFP is the intermediate difficulty transition between the easy and hard PFPs I drew this year, I felt I kept getting tripped up on the small flourishes with yours, although I’m glad I got to draw Snoopy.

@impostorsshow While the colors in your PFP are bright and distinct, it’s very busy with the amount of details and I just simply could not grasp how to replicate the mistletoe, this was the first PFP I had to work on over two days since I kept getting some shapes messed up.

@artfartt While I am so glad that Max is in your PFP this year instead of Sam since Max is easier to draw, how moody this was kinda messed with me, I had to turn up my phone’s brightness a good bit and I am honestly not the proudest of my shading attempts.

@oswaldepic This one was the hardest by far as I needed 3 days for this one instead of 2 days for the last two, the Francisco Goya type Dark Romanticism vibes made me need to crank up my phone’s brightness all the way up to really observe any of the details but I still didn’t even realize the outer green jacket until the third day I worked on this, but I am happy to say that Jonathan in your PFP is probably the most detailed human I have ever drawn.

Thank you to my mutuals for agreeing to this, y’all are the best, happy holidays cool folks!

[theultimatekamehamehavoc]

Naegami Fluff and/or Shenanigans 6

Since Byakuya's never done a lot of commoner activities before, Makoto helps him out occasionally when the two of them are bored. Like, they both have nothing exciting going on at the moment. So, perhaps during one of those days where both of the boys need their boredom cured, Makoto offers to take Byakuya to a little fair or something. And, since Byakuya does NOT wanna read the same sentence he's been reading over and over from one of his books, he just sighs and is like "I suppose I could join you to ensure you don't accidently cause a fire on your way out" Cue a montage of them getting dressed! Eventually, once both of the boys go to a fair or something, (I dunno. Don't question it. Shhhh) Makoto teaches Byakuya how to play a crane game! It's not like they have anything better to do. They definitely go to a quieter place in the fair area though. Like hell does Byakuya wanna be in crowds, even if he dressed down for a change to look innocuous. Byakuya obviously complains but he IS a wee bit curious about the commoner contraption that is the crane game. Like, he both has and hasn't seen one before. He's not dumb or anything. Just partially! Also, in canon, he didn't know how a gachapon vending machine worked and a crane game isn't TOO far from those. They just have different mechanics with the similar goal of obtaining a trinket or toy. So, anyway, Makoto tries his bet to help Byakuya out. The heir struggles a bit more than he'd like to admit. Like, he wants NONE of these lame plushies anyway. It's about the pride though. The accomplishment. Like, he's the Togami heir! He can do ANYTHING! Insert Byakuya failing miserably at a crane game while sounding like a frustrated goose. Yeah. Maybe not... The two eventually kinda give up on this after a while to be honest. And sure, Byakuya is a little flustered that he couldn't accomplish something some so rudimentary and archaic. However, all is well cus Makoto helps him win THIS in the fair instead.

Giga chimpken. GIANT CHIMPKEN! And YEAH. Is this chicken cheap as hell? Most definitely. Does it have print-on colors? You betcha! Does it ALSO have a weird musk to it? Why wouldn't it! And yet, Byakuya's oddly proud? Somehow? Yeah. The heir is confused about it too. Mostly cus, yeah, Makoto helped him. But, they did it together. As a unit. And, he's a bit weak to that kinda shit! Yet another thing he won't admit to though! Also, after the two go home and have had this giga chicken for a while, Byakuya secretly hugs and cuddles it occasionally even if it's cheap as hell and is uber derpy. Also, the guy definetly got the chimpken plush cleaned after. Maybe had a maid to handwash it and paid her over a fortune to never tell a soul. Like. "I swear to you, Ms. Tomoko. If you spill this secret to even effing excrement, I WILL find you and you WILL pay."

[glassprism]

Hi, Glass! It’s been a while now, but what are your thoughts on the Broadway performance you got to see? 😊

Oh yes, my review.

To be honest, I think there's little to be said about the cast that hasn't been said a thousand times already, by better writers than me. So I thought I'd switch it up by giving you a review as given by... (drum roll) ...my sister, a total Phantom newbie!

So here is the April 12, 2023 Broadway performance of The Phantom of the Opera, starring Ted Keegan as the Phantom, Julia Udine as Christine, John Riddle as Raoul, and I believe the rest of the principal cast in the supporting roles, as quoted directly by my sister (with some asides).

Before the show began: "Tell me when there are going to be any loud parts, okay?"

Overture: "AH. LOUD."

Hannibal: "Everything is so sparkly!"

'Think of Me': "Her voice is so strong! It's so loud! It's a bit heavy on that vibrating thing-y, but she sounds so good! She's so clear!"

'Music of the Night': "THE PHANTOM SOUNDS SO GOOD! His voice is like butter! It's so smooth but so powerful!"

After the First Lair Sister: "Wow, I didn't know the Phantom was so... so..." Me: "Hot? Scary? Elegant?" Sister: "...Pathetic." Me: *laughing* Sister: "He was crawling on his belly!" Me: "That's the appeal! He's hot but he's also scary but he's also pathetic! It pushes all the buttons!"

Rooftop scene: "The Raoul is so good too! His voice is amazing!"

Chandelier Crash Little boy sitting behind me: "Daddy why was the chandelier falling in slow-mo?"

Intermission Sister: *turning to me with wide eyes* "I forgot the Phantom kills a guy." Me: "And he'll do it again!" Sister: "What?" Me: "Nothing."

Why So Silent: "GAH I'M BLIND"

'Wandering Child': "GAH I'M BLIND AGAIN"

Still 'Wandering Child': "OMG FIRE"

'Seal My Fate': "AH LOUD AGAIN"

'Point of No Return': "Lololol look at how she's spreading her legs. It looks so derpy."

End of the show Me: "So, what'd you think?" Sister: *sobbing loudly* "This was the greatest thing I've ever seen!"

Sister: "Wait, where are we going?"

Sister: "ARE THOSE THE ACTORS COMING OUT???"

Sister: "Was that the Phantom??" Me: "Yep!" Sister: "I didn't even recognize him!" Sister: "And he's so... so..." Sister: "Old." Sister: "...That's really cool."

Sister: "You got all their signatures?!? Aaahhhh so lucky! I could never do that with BTS!!!"

THE END

[seregios-seer]

Monster Review: Plesioth

So I kinda wanted to save this one until I got to Green Plesioth in 3U (yes I’m still not at G Rank, I wanted to try Alatreon before I started hun quests but I think I’ve given up now), but that’ll take a while so instead I want to tackle this fish before it tackles me. So I actually sit on the side that really enjoys Plesioths design, there’s something primarily powerful looking in it. Even with the admittedly derpy run, Plesioth still feels surprisingly threatening to witness. It’s especially helpful that I first saw it in 3U, where naturally being a fish monster it thrives. The solid eyes, incredibly spiny yet natural body, and honestly really cool colors all make Plesioth a surprising favorite design of mine. I hadn’t realized until I first fought one, but when people said Plesioth was massive, they meant MASSIVE. I genuinely didn’t expect Plesioth to be quite as big as they are, and coupling that extreme size with how they’re usually found well into High Rank, it wasn’t hard for the games to sell Plesioth as a real threat.

3U (DB): So, by nature of being an underwater combat game, 3 Ultimate serves Plesioth really well. Underwater is where you'll be for the vast majority of the fight, and it's also by far the most interesting. So Plesioth can obviosly swim rather faster underwater for positioning and attacks, but being hit while it's swimming is only somewhat dangerous, but since it's such a constant threat, is still pretty noteworthy. Plesioth also uses its tail in several attacks, from a sweeping turn that's most dangerous going for part breaks on the tail and wings, as well as one of my personal favorite attacks where it twists around and flicks itself tail over head and deals some serious damage. That last attack isn't too threatening due to the long windup, but that may be because of my weapon of choice's fast evasion, and the attack deals some pretty serious damage. Plesioth also uses a hyper pressurized water jet, which in High rank at least it simply fires straight ahead of itself, so as long as you're paying attention, you're not really in danger from this one, although being hit and blighted can be seriously annoying. The final, and probably most standout attack from the waterborne move pool is Plesioth's breach. It positions itself, flies out of the water and comes crashing down after a second or two. This attack can be devastating if you're hit, and also looks pretty spectacular with a monster this big, so I'm quite a fan. When it comes to ground combat however, Plesioth is pretty much identical to the GU encounter I talk about later, so I'll stay brief here (and apparently nowhere else lol). On land, Plesioth has the famous hip check and tail sweep, neither of which I really felt as threatened by as expected since I never really bothered trying to hit anything beside the legs with my limited weapon reach, so I was mostly immune to them. Plesioth's run and thrashing attacks are more dangerous, and can honestly be pretty annoying when the ai decides to loop into them over and over, meaning your just running around to be smacked away so you're only up in time to be hit again. The most notable difference from the GU fight is really only in Plessy's bite, which in this game doesn't seem to inflict sleep for some reason. I'm not gonna question why it was removed, but I'm certainly curious.

4U (Casting Machine): This fight's easy as hell! Plesioth's literally the easiest thing to hit in the game and it only take one to kill. I could do this one irl.

GU (Various): I was initially a bit nervous for this one since I’d heard some terrible things about a predominantly land Plesioth, but if I’m being honest, it wasn’t nearly so bad as I thought. The biggest issue with this fight actually is how hard it is to break parts. I took Plesioth on mostly with Adept Dual Blades and Aerial Insect Glaive, and this fight felt right at home with those two styles, especially IG, where it was really easy to keep the pressure on the fish the whole time, really only stopping to sharpen (and heal when I inevitably got hurt trying to sharpen). For actual attacks, I’ll just get the water beams out of the way first, since I want to get through Plesioth’s underwater attacks first, and it really only has the one (in High Rank at least). So the straight beam of pressurized water Plesioth uses the most often is pretty easily avoided, whether in land or sea. There’s a great deal of windup to the attack, and the hitzone’s fairly small, so it isn’t often you even have to dive to evade it, just pick a direction and walk. The sweeping spray Plesioth occasionally does however is far more threatening, as I was far more likely to be hit by it thinking I could rush the fish after it missed the first sweep. I’m never right, so I just keep getting hit anyways. Aside from the water jets, Plesioth really only fights with some basic physical attacks, although they still come off as shockingly fresh just due to the sheer size and weird movement that comes with being a leggy fish freak. The most famous of Plessy’s attacks are pretty obviously the hip check and tail sweep, but I’ll be honest they were less of a problem than expected. The hip check was simple enough to dodge unless I was in an attack combo and couldn’t roll, which usually felt like my fault for greed anyways. And the tail sweeps were pretty cleaned up from the obscene hit boxes I’ve heard of from the early gens. It felt fair enough to dodge since it does look low enough to hit a standing character nowadays rather than fly over them, and since the legs are the easiest to hit, it was also pretty often that I didn’t need to worry about it at all. Plessy’s last big attack is the sleep-inducing bite, which frankly I actually kinda love. The sharklike look on Pleaioth already looks scary, and gets even worse when it leans around to snap at your face with what feels like real force. I never actually had to worry about sleep though since I found out pretty early on if you make a beeline for the feet, Plesioth will follow that bite up with small stomps almost every time, knocking you out of sleep state and doing just about zero damage. I’m actually pretty proud of this trick since it felt like such a unique workaround that’s never fly outside of this fight.

Rating: 8.6/10

Insert 'fish fear me' joke here

[halfbakedideas]

NINBINGO MASTERLIST

~~2022~~

Water & Fire ~ [written for personal board prompts 'protective' and 'tear']

We've Come A Long Way From Where We Began ~ My take on a finale scene, written pre-Cystalised [written for personal board prompt 'smile']

There's No Way That Your Puzzle Piece, Fits Into Our Puzzle Wrong ~ See we don't really care who you are. We've kinda got this, Non-exclusive policy on determining, Exactly who we open up to And let into our families. Then who becomes a part of our united mass of harmony. - Sanctuary by Paradise Fears [TLNM. Written for personal board prompts 'support' and 'bond']

Braced Myself For the Good-bye ~ Kai sacrifices himself to save not only Lloyd, the rest of the Ninja and the Samurais but the entirety of Ninjago. This time, they’re certain that he’s not going to come back. This time is different from how it was with Zane’s death, from how it was with Nya’s merging with the sea. This can’t be undone. [written for personal board prompt 'grief']

Memorbilia ~ Membrabellia. Noun; A record of things worth remembering. Or, Every so often, Lloyd and Kai would spend a day together in New Ninjago City laughing at how derpy the Ninja merch could be. [written for verve board prompts 'merch' and 'laughter']

Ghost Story ~ ghost!Cole hurt/comfort ficlet [written for verve board prompt 'ghost']

Nyctophobia ~ After the events of March of the Oni, Cole wakes up in the dark. That is a recipe for a sure-fire disaster. [written for verve board prompt 'lights']

Stuck in the Middle Between Now and Then ~ “I didn’t realise you’ll grow up into such a crybaby,” “Shut up.” Or, Season 15!Kai goes back in time to talk with season 1!Nya. [written for verve board prompt 'time']

[whoovesnassistant]

Skit Contest Entry 16

“Get Well Soon” - By Jestre DeRama

Derpy: Doctor? *sniff*

Doctor: Yes? Oh… you look a little green.

Derpy: Tick Tock got it too, but he went to his workshop to find a cure.

Doctor: Easier said than done, but I didn’t know he dabbled in pharmaceuticals.

Derpy: What do pig calls on a farm have to do with having a cold?

Doctor: Haha, I mean I never actually asked how much he knows about medicine.

Doctor: Go get some rest and tell Tick Tock to do the same. I’ll bring you two some nice, soothing soup.

[to the kitchen!]

Doctor: This shouldn’t be hard at all! Just make some classic chicken soup with maybe some dumplings and their cold will be warmed right out!

[minor noises of clamor from pots and pans and canned goods, followed by the clicking of stovetop handles]

Doctor: I’m lucky I had some chicken somehow left over and premade.

Tick Tock: (from his room) I can almost smell something, and it makes me want to try some. Is The Doctor making breakfast instead of egg drop soup like Derpy said?

[ringtone for a small intercom-phone to the kitchen]

Doctor, answering: Hello, Feel Better Diner! Chef Doctor speaking! …Or should I make it Doctor Chef? Both are titles while one is actually my na—

Tick Tock: Greetings, Doctor. Are you making extra food? *sniffle*

Doctor: Anything I’m making would be for the soup. I’m surprised you were able to catch a scent!

Tick Tock: It smells a little different than the egg drop soup that I got used to when *sniffle* I got sick in Fort Neighers. Almost like a meaty smell.

Doctor: (pauses in realization) Oh, yeah! I’m making this extra special for you and Derpy, but don’t worry! I understand equine physiology doesn’t tolerate meats well. It’s mostly the seasonings if anything! It’ll be done within the next hour and I’ll bring it to the both if you in your bedrooms.

Tick Tock: Most appreciated, Doctor.

Doctor: Anytime, my fine unicorn!

[click]

Doctor: Oh dear gods! Horses and ponies can’t eat meat! I can’t risk it in this universe, magic or not!

[Doctor tries grabbing the broth pot without thinking to grab mitts, and spills it onto the stovetop, causing a loud crash and sizzle]

Doctor: Ah, bloody hell, that hurt!

[crackle, crackle]

Doctor: My tie is on fire! Derpy will kill me if I ruin this! [pats out his tie] Seriously?! It’s singed! I should really figure out some self-cleaning, self-repairing apparel if I’m always bound to get this caught in something…

[louder crackling]

Doctor: Oh, no!! Not another kitchen disaster!

[fruitlessly tries to put out the flames with lids]

Doctor: AAAHHHHH! IT’S NOT WORKING! Where’s the baking soda?! Oh right, I put a lever for this!

[fwoosh]

Doctor: [coughs] Oh… [koff]. Not my cleanest fire. I’ll just order something together for some egg drop soup, but I’ll still make it extra special.

[ding!]

Doctor: Nothing more satisfying than a dinner bell! This might just be a fancier microwave, but all I need to do is literally thrown in ingredients and I get exactly the output dish I need! I’ll call it Eggs Erroneous Mark 1… I really invent too many things when no one is nearby to share the 10 other things I make per hour.

-Doctor quickly cleans up, and covers a stained tie with an apron (he "wanted to look the part")

[Doctor looking down at his tie and self]

Doctor: Oh, dear, I don’t look clean at all, and it’s about when I said I was going to serve soup.

[Doctor grabs an apron saying “Cooked in Thyme” and grabs the bowls of soup on the tray at the special bite-grip handle]

[arriving at Derpy’s room]

(interior)

Tick Tock: Do you think he started the soup over?

[hoof knock]

Doctor: “Thoop’s on!”

[Derpy opens the door]

Derpy: Hi, Doctor! The soup looks good!

Doctor: Thnnk you!

[Doctor walking in to set the tray down on a side table or dresser counter]

Doctor: Wasn’t expecting you to be visiting, Tick Tock, but you saved me a trip! Egg drop soup made special for the both you to feel better and back to 100% sooner than you can say Rexacoricofalipatorious three times fast!

Derpy: Rexacoricoco- Recacorx- Rexacofaliptorious?

Doctor: Close! But I think this soup will help you get that tongue twister in time!

[Derpy and Tick Tock take a sip and have an almost simultaneous “mmmm” of a ‘that’s the good stuff’ kind of feeling]

Tick Tock: Very appreciated, Doctor.

Derpy: Thank you, Doctor! Nice apron, by the way! [sniffle]

Doctor: Had to carry my sense of humor with me and keep my tie clean! You two get some bed rest and those sniffles will be warded right off!

Tick Tock: What are you planning to do in the meantime.

Doctor: You know me, gotta keep busy. I’ll probably do some general maintenance and cleaning. Rest well. Have a good night, you two~.

[door clicks shut]

NOTE: Doctor actually spiked the soup with special metabolizers to break down the sickness faster (because he's too damn impatient to wait a week)

-Goes on a cleaning spree around the TARDIS, wearing earbuds

-end bit of the small montage will have Doctor being walked in on by the bubble clock duo while dusting, and singing lyrics from his earbuds out loud, needing to be interrupted (song TBD)

Doctor: Oh! You got better! That's fantastic!

Tick Tock: So did your singing, it would seem.

Derpy: Still a little forced though.

Doctor: Well, I didn't have much time to hire a backing showtune orchestra. I thought you might prefer some occasional quiet while sick. We can always go to the zero room if you need an extra boost!

Derpy: No, thank you. I want to get my endurance back.

Tick Tock: What's that room for?

Doctor: Basically, resting in place with zero gravity. Sensory deprivation isn't for ev-- Oh, right sorry.

Tick Tock: Doctor, I'm not that worried about sense of touch at this point in time. I'm actually very fascinated by the idea of thinking while in free space as long as water isn't involved.

Doctor: Mostly abstract, liminal space.

Tick Tock: Infinite?

Derpy: Wait, where did fishing come in?

DnT: (amused and confused): What?

Derpy: Well Tick Tock is asking if he can fin it, but I thought he wanted to stay out of the water.

Doctor: [snrk] We'll 'float' a visit for another time, I'm just happy to see you two up and well again!

Derpy: Yeah! We were wondering why the soup seemed a little fizzy after we were finshed.

Doctor: (kinda caught) ... Fizzy?

Tick Tock: Isn't medicine usually given separately?

Doctor: Yeahhhh, it was a small spill that became a two for one deal. I'll be sure to set it to the side if you get sick again.

Tick Tock: What do you mean by 'if?'

Derpy: And what is chicken soup?

Doctor: Wait, what?

Derpy: Tick Tock told me you were making that for your first soup.

Doctor: Well, you might not want to know.

Derpy: Well, chickens make great eggs. How is that any different from egg drop soup?

Tick Tock: Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought it up by name. I was sort of used to it from my old town from all species that were around.

Derpy: Tell me? It’s not fair if I’m the only one left out of knowing a new dish!

Doctor: May as well rip off the bandage… [somewhat rapidly] In my universe, we have omnivores that eat vegetables and meat. So, for “chicken soup,” all parts of the bird are used. Humans pluck the birds, cook the meat, and boil their bones to make a broth.

[Derpy’s face is in shock and horror (oh, my sweet summer canary)]

Doctor: Are you o—

Derpy: Is that some kind of evil human ritual?!

Tick Tock: It’s really just soup that helps sustain more carnivorous beings who need protein in their diet.

Derpy: It sounds so gross and cursed!

Doctor: Well, not entirely wrong.

Derpy: Wait, Tick Tock. You said it was around Neighers. Did you actually try any?!

Tick Tock: Well… yes. It has a good taste, but it made me feel sick later in the day I tried it.

Doctor: This is why I didn’t want you to know I forgot about our equine diets!

Tick Tock: You have a diet?

Derpy: Don’t pluck me!!

Doctor: Wait, don’t what?!!

Tick Tock: Well, this conversation is certainly pl—

Doctor: Don’t you even try!

Derpy: Oh, my Celestia! I’m leaving! [woosh away!]

Tick Tock: You put something in the soup to speed up our metabolism for our immune systems, didn’t you?

Doctor: How did--? Yeah. I’d prefer a get-well situation to not get worse.

Tick Tock: Is that why you’re still wearing the apron?

Doctor: Would you happen to know any fabric repair spells?

Tick Tock: I doubt it would have been as bad as it having caught on fire.

Doctor: Wellll…

Tick Tock: [sigh] Bring it over to me later and it will hopefully look as fresh as when you got it, but I request that you don’t disrobe in front of me.

Doctor: But it’s just a shirt collar, tie and apron.

Tick Tock: Think about it Doctor…

Doctor: Wh—OH! Oh! …Have we hit the bottom of this situation yet?

Tick Tock: For now.

END

[auri0318]

Derpy hooves, made of many names (fanfic based on canon and headcanon)

Derpy hooves, or whatever her real name was, hadn’t always been cross-eyed. Back in her filly days, she had actually been a great flier. She had even surpassed the wonderbolts to be in the senior competitive circuit, and was the fastest there. Each time, she came oh so close to breaking the sound barrier, but unlike rainbow dash, her body, and thus her eyes, we’re not able to withstand the speed. At the end of each circuit, her eyes became more and more crossed, and her brain couldn’t handle it either. She became disoriented in both hoof/wing-eye coordination, but also she often forgot important things, such as her name, her birthday, and some days even to pay her taxes. She became a failure in her parents eyes, and they kicked her out the first time she got fired from her job.

In tears, she crashed into a small quaint town called ponyville, where nopony belittled her and she made friends with timeturner, a stallion scientist otherwise known as dr whooves. He had introduced her to his unicorn brother, who she has a brief… *fling* with, but as soon as he found out derpy was pregnant, he moved far from ponyville and cut all contacts to ponies there. Months later, doo was born, dinky hooves was born. She was a filly with her mothers hair and a slightly pinkish grey coat. Dinky being in the picture meant derpy had to get a job, and the Equestria mail company was looking for a strong flyer to deliver mail to ponies across the kingdom. She signed up, but despite the countless crashes, the job kept her, as all other fast pegasi flew for sport, and derpy was still very fast.

Most of her names come from her friend’s own silly nicknames, such as bubbles, referencing her cutie mark, ditzy doo, a name formed by pinkie pie and rainbow dash, muffins, based on her favorite treat, and derpy hooves from an old insult she turned into a name.

That’s the story of how she ended up being the most beloved mail pony in all of equestria, she’s even specially requested by princess twilight herself, she orders new books every week, without fail.

[lumonafox]

Watching Van Helsing for the first time and I have thoughts and feelings

Disclamers first: My previous experience with the movie was clip of the masquarade on youtube and some Leather-Jackman encounters on my dash every once in a while. I only know Dracula and Van Helsing by name and at this point I can’t be bothered to memorize the rest. My taste in men is questionable and unapologetic, if fancy vampire Count kissed my neck and said he wants me to be his spouse, I would simply fold. Not entirely into the idea of laying clutches of cocoabean-like-gremlin-eggs for him, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it I guess. With that out of the way, let’s begin. Quick notes during the watch: 1 they gave Jackman machinegun-crossbow and he still can't hit shit with it 2 if Dracula got pegged every once in a while he might be a little less edgy and murdery which would make the world a better place overall 3 Catherine Zeta Jones got even more faisty, corsetty and not-catherine-zeta-jones-y, I guess the budget only had place for one big name 4-derpy little monk with his derpy little sunshine invention and derpy little forshadowing 5-Zeta Jones is surprisingly tan for a Transylvania native. 6-why does everyone seem to want to fuck everyone? To be fair... I too want to fuck most of them. Point taken. 7-if thes had stopped dropping their weapons for one second the plot would have been over in first 30 mins...you mean to tell me that trained killers can't keep a hold on their gun? 8-ofc the bro is the new werewolf but also does his transformation NEED to be such artistic spin-aroundy balerina style? (Also naming the werewolf brother Velkan is about as clever as naming him Remus, Lupin, Remus Lupin, Barker, Wolfer Mc Wolfenstein etc...) 9-nobody in this movie takes fall damage and Dracula has literal gravityhacks. It should be threatening but it is hilarious 10-young Jackman during night rainstorm looks like Orlando Bloom in Pirates of carribean (I refuse to elaborate, just trust me) 11-Vampire kids look like cocoa beans before they hatch. After getting tazed they turn into bat gremlins. Then they feed (?) and turn into hot-wife-in-grayscale material (?) Having larval and mid stage would imply that vampires are some sort of insect which makes them considerably more yucky 12-Gabriel? Is he also a vampire? Serving the church? Is he anti-vampire? 13- *little evil man voice* we have SUCH history Gabriel (we broke up during the crusades and I have gotten three wives to compensate) 14- funky little monk, sorry, a friar, and funky little loopholes 15- not to ruin your happy moment but the roof is still very much on fire and there is still mr Wolfenstein trying to kill you 16- can't turn into a werewolf it you already are one my dear Helsing, yknow. friar found the knight fighting gif... 17- Did she just MOAN? (lowkey same sis) 18- the whole masquarade thing is slightly disturbing but mostly hot 19- he just proposed to her 20- monsterhunter with few levels in rogue, undersood 21- sorry to break it to you love but you will not kill all of them vampires with one flail and rage 22- so he IS werewolferized? Shouldn't that be fixed by rubbing some wolfsbane on him? 23- the group shares one braincell, which is mostly with the friar, sometimes borrowed by van Helsing to keep them alive in the more pragmatic sense 24- so NOBODY touched any of them ‘inconspicous’ wall decorations or translated the latin text on the SUSPICIOUSLY large wall map even though they have been searching for clues for hundereds of years in the house...sure 25- password protected mirror teleport 27- say friend to enter...wait, wrong movie 28- the banter, the writing, god I love this (why should I not kill you? Uhmmm...) also (Cut off his finger...I'll cut off SOMETHING) 29- convenient amount of storms in the area 30- assuming they need a living matter to conduct the electricity couldn't they just strap a jellyfish in the box and be done with it? Does the matter need to be inteligent? If so, how much? Would like Eel level sufice? Was this tested or did he just go like NAAAH NOT DRAMATIC ENOUGH 31- conveniently placed ball of steel-melting acid in a glass jug 32- fidget-spinning-vampires 33- what method of conduction do they use ffor reanimation process? Nobody wants partly fried offsprings or an undercooked batch 34- nobody in this movie takes fall damage...except for poor Igor 35- after a brief pause, Dracula accepted Gabriel as a furry and tried to get back together with him 36- slowest clock ever, since the first strike, they managed to throw eachother around, Zeta Jones befriended the Frankenmonster, defied gravity, killed vampirewife, almost killed the friar, boys had some more toss-around and we’re still not done... 37- we could have been friends, partners, brothers in arms (no homo) 38- convenient cloud for conversation purposes 39- she dead? She dead dead? 40- *sad werewolf noises*(but seriously...after ALL THAT FALLING the thing that kills her is lying down a bit faster on a cussioned sofa??? Seriously?) 41-yep, she dead...lol

Afterthoughts: 1-so what exactly is Van Helsing? Apparently immortal yet neither vam nor were? 2-can't bring myself to care enough about the monster to dive deeper into his very much unresolved ending or story in general but big F for him 3-Zeta Jones got into heaven because Dracula died like three minutes sooner than she did, imagine if the timing was other way around. Gotta love contracts. 4- so is this like post-high fantasy?  Lost technology (teleports and cures for werewolfism) and ancient order with access to higher technological level than common folk (Helsing's spinning pizza cutters, machine-bow, the holy sun-granade)? It could also read as steampunk but there is not nerly enough cogs, brown and brass and too much horny, edgy and dark for that I think. 5- Faramir? In this economy? More likely than you think. 6- I couldn’t get the spelling of friar right, so I settled for calling him a fryer during the watch. It didn’t seem right but it looked wrong enough to be something christian. Spellchecked after and I’m glad I did. 7- The soundtrack slaps and the writing is solid, 10/10 would recommend

[bstroobery]

Hehe. Ooh boy. We got a few alters in cofront together so we all gonna answer this shit!

I (🧡🐍) literally just answer all of these immediately so… yeah. All of us cofronters are gonna answer these asks together!

🐠: After delegation, we’re just gonna say 🧡🐍. He’s very into the types of people that can absolutely destroy you with their pinky toe. Other than that, maybe 🍓?

🦀: It’s a tie between 🍞 and 📺. Both are British. Very British.

🐬: Everyone automatically said 💻.

🦑: List of current fronters’ pillow pets

🍓 - Ladybug because that’s the pillow pet we had as a child and we loved that thing to death

🔦 - Toothless or Momo

🧡🐍 - The frog or a green triceratops. Gotta be green tho.

📺 - Unicorn. 100% the unicorn

💻 - The derpy looking Freddy Fazbear that makes me laugh my ass off every time I see his face

💀 - The unicorn or the regular bear

📖 - The bumble bee

🐳: 🍎, 🍓, and 🔦 are constantly using it unironically. Especially since we hail from some mid-southern states and they say it constantly where we’re from

🐙: 🍓 and 🔦 because they’re the hosts. No one else knows how to properly act /j Aside from the hosts though, it’d have to be 🍮 because he actually knows what the fuck he’s doing most the time.

🪼: Some octives that come from 🍓’s original stories are definitely the most obscure since… literally no one but us knows them. As for the most well known? Probably any of the TMNT, Transformers, or Supernatural Introjects.

🐡: 👑🐝 and 🫧 for the little guy insect trait. The kill it with fire one? 🗑️

🐟: 💀, 🕷️, and 💅 should definitely be at the club right now. 💀 should also bring 💻 because bro needs a damn break.

system ask game except the questions are moderately unhinged

🐠 who has the strangest fictional crush?

🦀 who is the BRITISH one

🐬 most likely to be turned into a frog by an evil witch :(

🦑 which pillow pet are you (current fronter)

🐳 who says y’all unironically

🐙 who’s the best at fronting (interpret this how you will)

🪼 who has the most obscure source? who has the most well known?

🐡 who’s the most insect adjacent. either in the little guy way or the EEEAAAAGHHHTKGJF FNN KILL IT way

🐟 who should be at the club rn

[vaovalis]

Been an interesting day, journal.   Finally cleared the last interview process with the FBSA.  Assistant Director Maria Carver’s been useful in clearing some of the red tape that was pissing me off so much in the first place, but I’ve had to make my peace with the existence and necessity of it all irrespective. It took me a bit, but I’ve got my long term goal and, with a goal in mind, putting up with bullshit becomes a necessary part of getting there rather than a pointless exercise. I don’t know why my head works like this, but it does.  If I have a specific goal in mind, I can put up with all kinds of dumb shit to make it happen.  If I’m just aimlessly wandering, the dumb shit bothers the absolute hell out of me. In any event, I didn’t tell Carver fuck-all about what I’m really up to.  Part of the bullshit they’re suddenly finding me tying my issues up all nice and neatly with is lying by omission.  I’m not a fan of having to have it be this way, but that’s on them - they’ve created a system that doesn’t and cannot work unless you’re a liar. So, as the primal Earth phrase says, when in Rome, wear the toga.  I got a whole fucking closet full of togas ready to go now, and the laurels, and the sandals. I’ve decided to take a page out of the Carnival of Shadows’ book of nonsense and look at it all as being a stage, upon which we are all but actors whether we know it or, more often, do not.   They’ll all see me, but they’ll never see what I don’t put there for them to look at, and who amongst them will look even at that?   If there’s anything I can count on, it’s that the vast majority of other people I’ll ever be dealing with here shall be, and will always remain, preoccupied with their own day to day interests and concerns. All I have to do to avoid the prying curiosities of even the unusually inquiring is to not be that interesting, to present myself as a cliche, or just render myself invisible by appearing to try to look different-just-like-the-others. So I’ll have a derpy costume and I’ll have a derpy little ‘Hero name’ and I’ll cavort about when it suits me, fighting the monsters of this world as I’ve been doing anyway and playing the unfortunately necessary little sleight-of-mind games that I never liked having to play at any other point in my life. The FBSA knows that I have impressive powers over fire. They don’t know a thing about how I’ve been exploring my true potential and that, with the insightful help of a dead woman, I’ve figured out that I can invert the Fire. Light becomes Absence and thus darkness. Heat becomes Emptiness and thus cold. Energetic chaos becomes the stillness of death itself.   I’ve learned that all I’ve ever done with my Fire is exhale; projected it. I’ve learned of late to inhale; to consume it.   The dead woman speaks to me of balance, and she’s right - I will be nothing but improved in all ways to...breathe properly. To exhale and to inhale.  The correct this internal imbalance I’ve lived manically with all my days.  Even with these revelations and practices new in my mind, I find myself feeling less restless and manic inside.  I feel calmer, more consistent and dare it be said, more and more balanced within.   I can tell that I’ll need to find the right rhythm within; the right cadence of breathing, like the tides coming in and going back out again. But I’m confident that I will accomplish that without difficulty.  I’m already accomplishing it, and my greatest difficulty so far is in marveling at how I never figured this out on my own. Never let it be said that good help from smart people isn’t valuable. The FBSA doesn’t need to know any of this. Most of my ersatz ‘friends’ are better off if they don’t know.  The few that wouldn’t be worried and wary of it outright would, I think, regard it is just more Vao-trivia they didn’t ask to know in the first place.  I can count on them to not look too hard or care too much about any of it if none of it is ever put in front of them as either a problem for them or a puzzle for them to solve. By the time anyone is permitted to know what I’m about, it will be because it’s already happening and there will be no more time to interfere. There will be no screams. There won’t be anything they’ll recognize to scream at or about after all.  The Happy Folk want to sleep peacefully, and to fill their days with their small occupations and what are, for them, their momentous moments of graduating from college and having children and dying of things.  They are boring, and they like being bored. The tedium of their lives is something they’ve been bred like generations of cattle to both depend upon and to take solace in, even to the point that a certain degree of distracting disaffection with it is good for them with all their cute little ‘counter-culture’ expressions and art forms. In overwhelmingly vast majority, there are no rebels and no hearts yearning for true rebellion amongst them.  They covet the jewels embedded in the walls of their comfortable prisons, and while humanity here might once have been a species that survived in wilder, harsher environments...well, they’ve very broadly domesticated that out of themselves so thoroughly that any attempt to reignite that potential in them would be like turning house pets loose into the wilderness. The poor, stupid little things would just be terrified and die to the point of near extinction of starvation and from overwhelming ignorance.  This is how they want it. So, why should I make my life tedious and difficult by trying to give them things they don’t want? They don’t want freedom. They’d cry and weep and wail and label me the gravest of all villains if I took their Up-and-Away Burger and their 2pm tee time and their Monday Night Football and their 30 packs of beer for only $23 away from them. I’ve traveled this world sufficiently at this point to understand that what I’ve long called The Powers That Be don’t actually exist here in the severity that I had assumed.  Primal Earth is as it is, in vast majority, because the true Autarchs here are governments and smarmy little ‘secret cabals’ such as Malta - petty humans grasping for control they can never have over things they are no more capable of comprehending than are ants of the cadence of stars. There’s a wildly unchecked arrogance toxically married to the crippling terror humanity of Primal Earth feels towards The Other, The Alien and The Things That Don’t Belong. They tell themselves pretty stories about how, through sheer willpower and by wanting it more, they can do anything, kill any god, break any barrier.  Why, some of them are so terrified of their own smallness and cosmic irrelevance that they’ve sublimated that terror into egotism and the mania they need to cling to lest they wind up huddled in corners, devoured by despair over the truths they cannot beat or force or negotiate into compliance with their wishes. Humanity here hates, fears and resents reality itself in a way that I feel I’ve gotten a finger onto the pulse of.  The things they cannot change, they lie to themselves about and turn blind eyes towards with zealous, often literally religious fervor.   Humanity has accomplished fantastic things, but they aren’t everything they wish they were.  They do have limits, and those limits fall well short of where they’d like them to be.   This neurotic little species of monkey tells me who and what it is in everything it has created.  From the beautiful to the monstrous, they tell on themselves. They yearn for saviors, as much to be protected by them as to crucify them.  In overwhelmingly vast majority, they are desperate to be taken care of and to have a caretaker to rage against, to blame and to displace all of their guilt and misgivings of self onto.   They yearn with every fiber of their beings for both comfort and engagement. Some few of the ambitious and mostly psychopathic amongst them yearn for absolute control and dictatorial dominance over others, but their ambition doesn’t make them smarter than their fellows any more than their psychopathy renders them wise or insightful. They want to be gods, but they can barely manage to be what I’d call functional, whole adults most of the time.  Tell them the stories they want to hear in a manner that massages their egos and flatters their delusions and they’ll love you even if you’re blatantly killing them. Crey does it every day. Their whole PR and propaganda machine is a study in both the art and the science of telling the ignorant masses what they want to hear so that they placate themselves into complacency and indolence.  Crey is literally an evil corporation and, inasmuch as pretty much everyone knows it...gosh darn it, their products are pretty good and you just can’t beat Creymart’s prices on a lot of things.  Humanity tells on itself in these ways. I am told what they really want no matter what nonsense pours from their mouths or what lofty prose and praise they wrap their noble ideals in.   Humanity of Primal Earth wants to feel noble without putting the work into being noble. They want to feel free without any of that pesky danger, risk and inconsistency that comes with real freedom. They like to watch the seasons change from behind triple-pane windows in the comfort of heated and air conditioned environments, and to go on brief visits of tamed wilderness that they call by glamorous terms that flatter themselves. What do they really think of their pristine world?  They feel a bit awkward about it, but if it keeps them in bottled water, they’re not going to do much more than complain and bury their feelings of guilt about how much they don’t want to think about any of it. And me? I’ve figured out what the nature of the theatrical work playing out upon this stage is.  I won’t pretend to know all of its nuances and intricacies yet, but I’ve gotten the gist of what’s going on here and how Primal Humanity ... is. If I appear to be just one more caped crusader protecting their status quos and giving them encouragements to feel however it was they wanted to feel about it all, I could commit war crimes galore and many will turn a blind eye to it. Some might wind up feeling a bit awkward about it, but if I keep their United States safe, they’re not going to do much more than complain and bury their feelings of guilt about how much they don’t want to think about any of it. I’ve gotta be practical about which horse I’m going to back in this race, after all.  Why would I side with a loser like Recluse?  He lives in squalor and is so bad at peopling that the closest thing he has to ‘friends’ are slaves of circumstance, mind-controlled minions and parasitical leeches that he’s using and being used by in hilariously blatant ways? For all his power, Recluse is clearly a very intelligent man that’s used all of his intellect to render himself a staggering idiot that thinks he’s going to beat human nature into conformity.   Meanwhile, I’ve seen and smelled ‘Grandville’.  I’ve seen the dude’s house.  Hell, I’ve seen the closest thing he has to friends up close and personally too. There’s nothing at all to be impressed with, by or about.  They live like animals in the filth not because they like it, but because they’re too incompetent and stupid to do better. The United States is pretty competent by comparison. As a hideously evil government goes, they collectively understand that they’re in the business of farming human cattle and that you don’t get anything you’ll want by abusing your cattle for shits and giggles like Recluse and his lackies do. The rest of the world as that I’ve seen has its own things going on, but the United States is the real superpower as Primal Earth’s nations go.  China clearly wishes it were, and maybe it could get there someday, but ‘maybe someday’ doesn’t carry water in my warcamp. For now and into the foreseeable future, I’m going to back the United States, and I’m going to give them the show they like to see. I’ve got nothing but time to implement my plans and to modify them on the fly as one always must throughout the dance of changing tides and times. In this world of cartoonish heroes and comic book grade villains, they really won’t see this coming.  The masquerade must go on. Masks on, shields up. Here...we...go.

[captaindsina]

So I had this thought a while ago where I was just thinking of Touya and how if he fell in love he would literally love so HARD. Keep in mind I write with a black reader in my mind. If you have a problem with that I ask you to keep it yourself and keep it moving. I thought I would have more to say but....

Introducing my first work on this blog...

Touya Todoroki x afab reader (still gn, reader just has a uterus)

Word Count: 613 (I'll write more in the future this is just a lil sum sum I got encouraged to write)

"Shit- that hurt" you say after stubbing your toe into a chair that was awkwardly out of place.

"Y/n you okay?" Touya says sprinting towards you making sure you're okay and all in one piece.

"Yeah I just hit my toe hard as hell on this chair...." but before you can continue speaking your words get cut off "Touya why the hell did you do that?"

"You said you hit your toe on this chair so I helped fix your problem" he says standing over the pile of ash while shrugging.

"That didn't mean destroy it dumbass" you say reaching for the broom but before you can Touya grabs it.

"Nope you are not lifting a single finger. I said this when you told me you were pregnant"

"Yeah but I can still move around. My bump isn't even too big yet" 

"Yet. You need to save up all the energy you have. Cause pretty soon" he crouches down and speaks to your stomach "our little munchkin is going to eat all that up and then we're going to wreak absolute havoc, aren't we little buddy?"

"Do not give our child bad ideas. You're enough of a headache already"

"Can you say that again for me?" He says still crouching down hugging you with his face against your stomach.

"Say what?"

"What you just said love"

" 'Do not give our child bad ideas. You're enough of a headache already' That?" you feel his body warm up against yours and see him grinning against your tummy with his eyes closed.

"I love when you say that, 'our child'. It sounds so nice. God I love you" he says saying the last part quietly.

You feel your stomach begin to bubble and heart throb in your chest. "Babe...you're going to make me cry" you say pouting.

He sits up quickly "why? I didn't hurt you did I?" the warm sensation of his body wrapped around you quickly leave you but just as quick you grab the sides of his face and pull him into a kiss. A tear slowly finds its way out of your eyes and down your cheek coming in between your lips. He wraps his arms back around your body pulling you in deeper. He pulls his lips away to wipe your tear off your face.

"I love you so much. I hope you know that" you say stroking his face with your thumb with a small smile on your lips. He leans back in and places a chaste kiss on your lips.

"I love you too."

You could stay this way forever bodies wrapped into each others while staring at each other with so much love in between you two. You feel warm. You feel loved. You feel...happy and you wouldn't trade it for anything in the world

Reluctantly pulling away, you turn away hiding your face from Touya wiping tears out of your eyes. "What's for dinner babe?" Despite your tears there's a smile on your lips.

He turns you around wiping your tears from your face. "How about we go out tonight to our favorite food truck and then that ice cream spot by the beach?"

"Sounds like a plan. Let me put on my shoes so we can go" you smile up at him with a derpy and doughy looking smile- one that makes Touya melt into a puddle- and give him a quick kiss on the lips.

As you walk away into your shared bedroom all Touya can see, smell, and hear is you. You're his ball of light; his love, and he would do anything to keep you with him even if it meant setting the world ablaze or jumping into a pit of fire, he would do it.

[phoenix-manga]

How would the other twst cast react to their Pokémon evolving and how would their families react

This is going to be very long so everything is below the cut...

Divus, Sam, Ashton, Trey, Jack, Rook, Sebek, and Ortho won't be included as their Pokemon are already fully evolved or has no other evolution stages by the time they got theirs...

Also, this is a what-if and I won't be including this headcanon in my story in the works.

Heartslabyul

Riddle evolving his Budew would take place probably during a match in school, his Budew is small and fragile but he has learned to utilize the spores she can inflict. Budew felt his determination and began to evolve into a Roselia.

Riddle would be proud at this point to know that his way of raising Budew was different from how his mother raised him. He felt like he was slowly recovering from his past.

Also if he wanted to evolve Roselia further into a Roserade, he'd ask Phoebe for a Shiny Stone but that won't happen for a while since he was satisfied with Roselia. He'll ask his Pokemon's consent if they want to evolve.

Of course, Riddle's mom would ask why his familiar looked different so quickly and he just said that the familiar changes form when it gets stronger. She just took his word for it and didn't question it.

No doubt she'd force him to evolve Roselia and that's not what Riddle wants for his Pokemon.

Ace would have to ask Phoebe for a Fire Stone if he wants to evolve Growlithe. He wondered why no matter how many times he trained his Pokemon, he never evolved. Though he wants to ask Growlithe first if ever, the Pokemon agrees to evolution by putting his paw on the stone.

He does this in front of the family and they watch in awe as the small doggo goes to the big doggo. All is fine at first until Growlithe, now Arcanine still thinks he's a lap dog.

His mom would now tell Ace to start being more responsible because Arcanine is no longer a puppy! I'm talking about using the garden hose to give him a bath and brushing all that fur! Not to mention he has to stop him from chewing the furniture.

Oh and walks? good luck bro! He fast as heck boi!

Deuce would cry when Togepi finally evolves into Togetic. It would happen when he comforts the crying Pokemon during a thunderstorm.

Togepi is calmed down by Deuce gentle and caring tone. The Pokemon would feel so comforted that she'll start to glow.

He would yell for his mom to come to see and she would be dumbfounded when her son showed him a different yet familiar face. His mom would be proud of him when they both called Phoebe to ask what happened.

It turns out, that most baby Pokemon evolve through happiness. If they feel that you love them enough then they get the strength to evolve.

Deuce feels like he's gotten over his delinquent past. If this little Pokemon felt his affection despite being a bit clumsy, then he can definitely make his mother prouder of him.

Just like RIddle, Deuce would want to ask Togetic for consent when evolving.

Cater isn't much of a battler, mainly because he doesn't want to hurt his little friend. As cool as Pokemon battles are, he doesn't see himself putting his little Wynaut through that.

But unfortunately for him, Vargas wanted the ones with Pokemon to test their strength. Cater was forced to participate but his Wynaut seemed eager.

He was surprised to see the little guy counter every attack dealt to him. Eventually defeating the opponent. Which in turn, caused Wynaut to evolve into Wobbuffet. (The bane of nuzlockers everywhere).

Cater was stunned that once he realized his Pokemon evolved and that he won, he celebrated by taking pictures and bragging about it on magicam.

His sisters thought that it lost its's cuteness though. Wynaut was small and derpy hence why it was so cute. Cater thinks Wobbuffet was just as cute, if not cuter. At least those two won't hound his Pokemon anymore.

Savanaclaw

Leona and Alolan Meowth would be at the palace wandering around and looking for places to nap. But he couldn't sleep in peace when servants and guards are bad-mouthing him nearby. Not caring if he heard them or not.

Alolan Meowth looked calm but inside she was seething, how dare those people to make fun of her trainer! She goes over to them all sneaky and stealthy and ends up tying a curtain to their belts.

They were embarrassed when they ended up breaking a rather expensive vase. What timing, a person of high standing saw it and now reprimands the servants.

Meowth smirks as she goes back to Leona who was awake all this time. Though he did find some satisfaction in the prank, he tells her not to do that again because they weren't worth it.

He says this with such certainty that Meowth took it as him saying, "Royals such as themselves don't need servants who aren't worth gracing their presence"

Imagine Leona's shock when the Pokemon started to glow and appeared as Alolan Persian.

Farena and his family were surprised to see Missy change so much. They just saw her the other day but now it looks so different. Leona only told them that the familiar he was given is able to evolve if certain conditions were met. He didn't elaborate further.

He didn't want to tell them that Phoebe explained how Alolan Meowth evolved through happiness. He's not going to admit how there was someone who genuinely wanted to be in his presence.

What a tsundere.

Alolan Persian is much more mischievous to those who badmouth them now. No one knows why these unlucky events happen to certain servants, they can't trace the source, how odd hehe.

Ruggie and his Murkrow were just playing around with the other kids in the slum but of course, not everyone is all buddy-buddy. In another part of the slums were some thugs who picked on anyone in the territory, rich or poor be damned!

Murkrow tried to assist Ruggie in keeping some of the kids in their neighborhood safe when one of them accidentally wandered into the wrong territory.

Ruggie remembered being given a Dusk Stone by Phoebe. Told him if he wanted, he can evolve his Pokemon by giving them the stone. While the two had planned on just selling it, circumstances called for a different solution.

Tossing it to Murkrow to finally evolve him into a Honckrow, they finally managed to scare off the thugs. The kids and his granny were so surprised to see Murkrow, now a Honchkrow, change.

He becomes the guardian of the neighborhood. Rallying the kids into schemes to drive away even the sturdiest of adults who dare to pick on their family.

Honckrow looks after his flock, so what if they have fur and fangs instead of feathers and beaks? Don't mess with the boss!

Octavinelle

Azul and his Clobbopus were just swimming around when a group of sharks surrounded them. Usually, sharks tend to stay away from mer-inhabited waters but they seemed to be either brave or foolish to do so.

Azul could just spew an ink cloud and sneak away but that only works on one or two opponents. He was facing an entire group.

His Pokemon suddenly felt the need to defend his trainer and raised his fists in defense. The sharks just laughed and paid no mind to the little octopus.

But Clobbopus punched one in the nose and it hurt a LOT. That got the sharks to chase the little Pokemon all over the place. Azul was scared for his little friend.

But Clobbopus started to taunt the sharks to swim up to him, and all of a sudden he evolved into a Grapploct just as the sharks were swimming upwards. Azul was stunned as the sharks were all beaten up.

His parents thought Azul brought home a new familiar but they were stunned to find out it was the small Clobbopus.

He makes a call to Phoebe later who tells him that it evolves after learning the move Taunt. That's... way too specific for an evolution requirement, he thinks.

But he feels so damn proud of Grapploct! He may or may not start to try thinking more positively about his octopus form. Grapploct will support Azul if he wants to do so.

Floyd and his Wooper were just walking all over the forest but at that moment, they found a large bear roaming the area. Floyd was just going to ignore it because he wants to go somewhere with his little buddy.

The bear tries to scare him off by tossing branches, but the branch struck Wooper.

Floyd goes feral when he sees a bruise on his little buddy. Wooper watched in awe as the eel boy wrestled the now scared bear.

After the fight, Wooper was so in awe of Floyd's display of power that it simply evolved just because as a Quagsire he can clap for Floyd.

That was unpredictably wholesome, I guess some Pokemon take after their trainers after all...

Jade's Foongus would evolve after the little shroom has beaten enough students who got too close to the mushroom logs Jade was growing.

He was cultivating rare mushrooms that would fetch a hefty price if grown successfully. Some punks thought they could sneak past Jade and get some.

I guess beating people counts as a form of experience too, huh?

Jade arrived in time to witness his Foongus become an Amoonguss. Jade is very excitable and gushes over his newly evolved mushroom friend.

When he finds out the Spores that Amoonguss releases grow more mushrooms, you bet he's gonna start cultivating almost EVERYWHERE!

Floyd shrieks when he wakes up to mushroom on his blanket.

Jade is in mushroom heaven.

Scarabia

Kalim no doubt loves to pamper his Sunkern with gifts. Though he hears that trainers from Phoebe's world think that Sunkern is the weakest out of all the Pokemon. Kalim still thinks nothing less of his buddy!

To show how he loves his Sunkern, he would sometimes tag along with Phoebe to her world to buy gifts that he thinks Sunkern would like. Though he could easily purchase the most expensive pot and greenhouse in Twisted Wonderland, he wanted to make it more personal.

A gift he personally picked would show his Pokemon his sincerity.

He would walk a thousand miles to get dew drops from the mountain if Sunkern asked him to!

While looking at the market with Phoebe, he sees a stone that looks like a sun. It reminds him of Sunkern's sunny personality. He buys a Sun Stone and gifts it to Sunkern.

He was shocked to see his Pokemon glow when it touched the Sun Stone. In its place, a Sunflora stood. Kalim had to call Phoebe to ask what happened to his Sunkern.

He'll be relieved that his Pokemon just evolved, he had no idea just by giving a certain stone, his little Sunkern literally blossomed into a beautiful flower.

His family would be surprised to hear about the concept of familiars evolving but they were happy for him. Sunflora's bright petals shimmer and rustle in joy. His 30+ siblings can't help but have a desire for anything sunflower after spending time with Sunflora.

Though he has to get used to Sunflora staying still during nighttime.

Jamil and his Natu would be just doing their chores in the manor when a rather haughty noble comes into the estate to have a chat with Kalim's father about trade and stuff.

Jamil didn't like the noble, he was greedy and liked to own things because he wants them.

Kalim can't help but agree because at one point he wanted to buy off an expensive family heirloom, thankfully his father managed to politely tell him no without causing a fuss.

But he let his guard down when the noble saw Natu and since he's just a servant, he expects Jamil to hand over the exotic-looking parrot to him.

Kalim comes in time to nicely tell him that the academy, therefore an education system that holds influence, has given Jamil ownership. It's not for trade!

The noble doesn't see Kalim as someone he should listen to unless he inherits his father's title already. He demands once more to hand over Natu.

He wasn't going to hand over his Pokemon! He's had enough of having things taken from him, Jamil suggests they duel it out fairly. If Jamil lost then the Natu is his, if he wins then the noble gets nothing.

Under the permission of the head of the Asim family, they prepare the garden square as an arena.

Though it won't be just Jamil who will face the noble, Natu joins too. The noble has his best guards to face Jamil.

The thing is, Jamil is quite cunning. Strength can only be used properly if they were smart too, but the guards were just meatheads. No doubt just picked because they were strong.

Jamil and Natu easily won. The noble was about to protest but Mr. Asim already announced the winner. Unless the noble wants his supply cut off then he should be wise about his next course of action.

After the noble left, Jamil and his family celebrated in their home. At that time, Natu evolves into Xatu. The entire family was shocked and were asking Jamil what happened.

He remembered Phoebe telling him that Pokemon evolve through battling usually.

He feels proud of himself for some reason, seeing the familiar he was given become stronger under his care.

Though Xatu doesn't wander off like Natu, the Pokemon just stands there watching the sun in one spot that would almost be mistaken for a statue.

How odd...

Pomefiore

Vil and his Snom would be brought to so many interviews after there was news of some students getting a special familiar. The public and his fans were eager to know what kind of elegant and powerful familiar he got.

Though the entirety of Twisted Wonderland shook when he presented his Snom, his fans got over that initial shock and gushed over how cute it was!

Cue merchandise based on Snom to go along with Vil merch.

Even Neige can't help but see how cute Snom is, though Vil was being so secretive and never reveals to him where he got it.

But a few people among the crowd were disapproving of Vil's Snom. Saying it looks weird and weak. Not like Vil's image.

He pays them no mind as he continues to post how much he cherishes Snom.

One night in his home, he rants to Snom how people call her icky or weak. But he doesn't care about their opinions, he loves his familiar.

Snom must have felt his sincerity because she started to glow and all of a sudden evolved into a Frosmoth.

Vil and his family were stunned but that turned into awe when they gazed at the beautiful wings of Frosmoth.

Choke on that haters! He posts Frosmoth's form and the video that was taken by his father who managed to tape it seconds before evolving.

Epel brought his Applin home and his granny thought he got a rare large apple to grow on the farm. Imagine her surprise when a small worm dragon pops out.

His family got used to an apple rolling all over the place following Epel. It was very cute yet the little worm was feisty like their boy.

During dinner, Epel accidentally gave it a sour apple instead of a sweet one. He initially planned on using an Appletun to be an unstoppable tank.

But what he ended up with is a small dragon in an apple.

He was disappointed at first, he called Phoebe about it and mentioned that Applin can evolve depending on which apple you fed it, it comes out either Appletun or Flapple. He must've forgotten that part.

He tries to give Flapple a chance since he won't be heartless as to release him into the wild just because he couldn't get the evolution he wanted.

To his surprise, Flapple was faster and hits just as hard as an Appletun would. Though the defense isn't as good as Appletun's the speed makes up for it.

Epel is easily won over by the little guy.

His family is grateful for Flapple as he would scare off potential thieves who try to steal apples from the farm.

Granny Felmier knitted a special tiny hat and blanket for Flapple in the winter.

Ignihyde

Idia thought about evolving his Porygon at some point though no matter how much he trains it, it doesn't seem to be close to evolving.

Upon asking Phoebe, he realized that Porygon is a special Pokemon that is made up of code, therefore would require trade evolution while holding a certain object.

Not to mention this needs to be done twice if he wanted to evolve it into a Porygon Z.

Idia would've picked to evolve it into the last stage until he read the dex entry. He does not want the unpredictability that comes with a Porygon Z.

So he chooses to evolve it into a Porygon 2 instead. Phoebe was shocked because Idia made his own version of a trading machine to evolve Porygon.

Phoebe would only have to find an Upgrade for him back home.

He's only telling Ortho. STYX can't know about his little buddy. No doubt they'd use it for experiments, Idia has few good things to protect, he'll do so with all his might.

Diasomnia

Malleus' Pokemon would definitely evolve after sparring with his retainers and even challenging other nobles who wish to witness the power of the prince's familiar.

The first time Vanillite evolved into Vanillish was when he and Sebek's Pokemon were sparring. Vanillite was getting so pumped up that it eventually evolved.

The first time it happened, Sebek panicked and thought he did something to his waka-sama's Pokemon.

But thankfully, Lilia remembered that Pokemon evolve if they have gained enough experience.

Malleus was very pleased, as, in giddy pleased, his precious ice cream monster has gotten bigger.

The second time this happened, Malleus asked Phoebe if his Pokemon was going to be a banana split. He was a little disappointed to realize this was now the final stage.

But at least the Vanillish, now a Vanillux, has two heads to show affection to.

The nobles and his grandmother would grow curious as to how a creature can quickly change by simply becoming stronger.

Lilia would probably evolve his Gulpin by feeding him all that cooking he did. Gulpin probably decided that he needed a bigger body to eat more of Lilia's food then...

Bigger mouth to eat food with! Lilia just came back from the kitchen to see his not so little friend eating half the furniture now.

Lilia is tearing up, to think that his cooking was so delicious that his familiar wanted more of it.

Diasomnia praises the evolution because Lilia's cooking is entirely focused on Swallot.

Oh, Lilia can't make dinner tonight? That's okay... THAT'S MORE THAN OKAY!

Silver would fall asleep as usual while his Teddiursa ventures into the woods to find honey but meets a bigger bear who was stingy for the honey.

No matter how much the little Teddiursa tried, they just got smacked away.

The Pokemon grew frustrated that it ended up evolving Just to get the honey!

Ursaring returns and plops next to Silver who woke up and just shrugged it off like, eh... he just think he was still dreaming.

But once he realized that he wasn't, he shot up and poked at Ursaring who was chowing down on honey.

[broken-everlark]

Okay so I updated the cards because I was bored

Of course, I got rid of the legends. Because the other cards, I was just imagining what legends they would have)

(I was also too lazy to edit the characters in the place of the pokemon characters lol)

Wednesday Addams, of course, her team doesn't really change.

I actually enjoyed the team I picked for Wednesday. The only difference is I gave her a ghost/fire type in Hisiuan Typhlosion. Cause he fits her Gothic like vibe.

~~~~~

Tyler's team doesn't really change other than I gave him Umbreon and Hisuian Zoroark.

I kept Cubone because it's his partner. (And because he lost his mother. Like cubone did.)

Scovillian because it reminds me of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Two different sides - The Hyde and Tyler.

Umbreon because Wednesday gave this to him as a gift when it was an eevee and it happened to evolve when him and Wednesday were walking through the cemetery on their date.

I gave him H. Zoroark because it's known to be aggressive and wary of others. Reminds me of the Hyde being very aggressive. But it's also very loyal to those it considers family/or earn it's trust.

Mimikyu stays because he only wants love like my baby Tyler. He was hiding amongst Enids stuffed animals and she screamed at the sight of him, Tyler being the only one to defend the poor pokemon from Enids screeching, the pokemon clings to Tyler but never actually touches him, scared he'd kill his trainer.

Enids team roughly stays the same but I gave her stufful & Dachsbun

Stufful because she loves her stuffed animals and Ajax gave it to her as a gift, thinking it was a stuffed animal but was proven wrong when it immediately hugged Enid & moved on its own. Dachsbun is a mon she found in the Weathervane in the back while Tyler was baking.

Ajax's team roughly stays the same. But I gave him Clodsire and Charmander.

Clodsire because he's just so derpy & I feel like Ajax would just love the little brownie. Charmander because Enid gave it to him as a gift when they found it wandering the halls alone.

Eugene team stays the same other than I gave him nymble I just feel like Eugene is friends with all the small bug types.

I decided to give Bianca H. Lilligant because it just reminds me of how agile she is when she's fencing, Vaporeon was given to her by her ex Xavier as an eevee. Floette cause I just wanted to give her a small cute flower mon, Mismagius was caught as a misdrevus and has always hated Wednesday's Duskull having a similar rivalry as Wednesday does with Bianca. Ninetales because it's a very beautiful pokemon and I feel like Bianca would have very elegant mons.

Xaviers team changes a bit. He gets Alolan Persian because he's rich & snobby. Which I imagine he would have a chubby judgy cat. A. Persian is very picky with its trainer. Grafaiai because he's a painter same with smeargle. Garbodor because he's a trash/throw away character, Glaceon is his eevee he had when dating Bianca. His eevee and her eevee didn't like each other and he was upset that's how she'd see their relationship. It evolved into glaceon because of how cold Xavier is. (In a bad way), skunktank cause he's untrustworthy.

Welp my dumbass decided to make Wednesday pokemon trainer cards instead of updating my WIPs. Which I'm going to do after I post this🤣

I'm not fully happy about Tyler, eugene, and the xaviers teams. Those may change.

Almost everyone always gets a legendary/mythical.

I know literally no one will read this or care. But I figured I could post it anyway.

I gave her Skorupi because of Nero, so he's her partner.

Gliscor because he's just a beast of a mon and reminds me of a scorpion/bat that fits Wednesday's dark theme. Tyler had given this to her as a present. On their first anniversary, it immediately became a favorite.

Corviknight because Wednesday is referred to as the Raven, and he just seems like the most raven mon (even though he's a crow). Wednesday found this pokemon back when it was a Rookiedee. It had fallen out of its nest. Instead of feeding it to her mother's Pyroar, she kept it.

Hydreigon because he's just a dark dragon, and I feel like he fits Wednesday's style. Wednesday had found him as a deino, the poor blind Dino had injured himself. She decided to take him in and raise him to become a terrifying dragon.

Dusknoir because he's a big scary ghost that eats souls in his chest. Out of all the ghost types, i feel like this one fits Wednesday the most. This mon snuck up on Wednesday and followed her throughout a haunted graveyard, not giving up until she caught him.

It was between Giratina (the underworld/antimatter legend) or Yveltal. Her legend I chose is Yveltal, He's the legendary of Death, basically destroying everything in sight.

(I feel bad for doing this to Tyler)

His partner - Cubone - because they both lost their moms. Cubone wears his mothers dead skull on his head. Tyler's mother had given this to him just before she passed.

(Might replace.) Bewear - literally because Tyler is sweet & adorable on the outside, but on the inside, he's hiding a dangerous monster, just like bewear.

Mimikyu - because the creature inside the suit just wants to be loved, just like Tyler. So he hides behind a suit made up of a beloved pokemon. But everytime it's trainer looks underneath the suit, they die.

Scovillian - because it's a funny play on Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Two faces, two different personalities.

Garchomp - Because this mon is anger filled and very hard to tame also very powerful. Kinda reminds me of the hyde.

His legend is Mewtwo. A legend made by humans and hates humanity. Reminds me of Tyler's tragic past, hating others who don't understand what he's been through.

Her partner is a shiny Spheal - Honestly, I just feel like Enid would love every single pokemon that's adorable.

Shiny) Politoad because he's just a very happy frog, and I feel like it matches. It Enids a very bubbly personality.

Arcanine - i feel like even though it's a big scary dog, she loves it because it's Fluffy and loyal. Just like Enid.

Lycanroc (Day form) just a little nod to her wolf form.

Dragonair - Honestly, it's just a beautiful mid evo that I feel like Enid would love

And her legend is Mew. It's just a cute, sweet cat that has all the DNA of each pokemon. Something I think Enid would take care of and love.

So Ajax's starter is Ivysaur - because the bulbasaur line is famous for smoking grass

Ekans because of Ajax being a Gorgon and his little snakes poke their heads out sometimes.

Slowbro because it seems like a good pokemon to get high with.

Hisuian Typhlosion because he just looks like a depressed cool boy like my baby Ajax.

Noivern - because I just see Ajax being the chill guy at parties and noiverns ears remind me of speakers.

His legend is a shiny Rayquaza just because he's a giant space snek noodle🤣

Eugene's starter is a shiny caterpie, figured he'd just be a bug type trainee.

Beedrill - because of his powers to control bees.

Heracross- same as the caterpie. Just figured he'd have a bug army.

Dewpider because he's just an adorable bean like Eugene.

Appletun because I just feel like he'd love chunky pokemon. Because chunky pokemon are the best.

wobbuffet because its a psychic pokemon and it's insane ability to use counter and I feel like Eugene would need a happy mon to keep him company.

Yes Eugene doesn't get a legend. Just couldn't find one that fit.

Her partner being Primarina - has to do with her being a siren outcast. Her partner looks like a mermaid and sings like sirens and mermaids are known for.

Being the popular girl at school, I'd imagine she'd have tons of beautiful pokemon. A florges. Being a bouquet of flowers fits that perfectly

Again, Hatterene fits the popular girl status perfectly. Another beautiful fairy type to add to Bianca's team

Bianca would also have a shiny Altaria, it being her pride since it's a rare golden color.

Beautifly - a rare evolution of Wurmple, being very beautiful & every time it flaps its wings, sparkly pollen falls with each flap.

I chose Meloetta fighting form for her mythical pokemon. It has unique singing abilities, and being strong but beautiful would fit Bianca perfectly.

Xavier surprisingly got a card. I didn't want to download a picture of him into my phone so he gets no picture.

He gets a shiny muk as his partner. Because he looks like throw up. Just like how I feel about Xaviers character.

He gets an Exeggutor because it's derpy in a stupid way🤣

Grafaiai because he's an artist.

Garbordor - because it's a pokemon made of trash.

Xavier does get a legend. But it's the worst one. He gets regice because it's a trash legend.🤣

[serenasolaris]

Serena sitting down and continuing her work on a semi-consistent schedule? I know, I know, kind of insane. 

Anyways, let’s cut right back to the chase: We left last post with an in-depth understanding of the basic workings of the mechanics present in The Binding of Isaac, having categorised its combat system and understood how to maximise our advantages. We’ve learnt a few things about this game, namely, that it’s a heavily randomised rogue-like action game with a great emphasis on utilising resources in intelligent ways to min-max the advantages available to the player, and thus make combat easier to survive. Now, we’ll delve into how these mechanics are explored and elaborated on in the flash version’s greatest initial moments, and then lay witness to all that came after that. We might explore the ways in which the game’s scope and focus changed along its history, and finally explain Why Everything About The Binding of Isaac Pisses Me Off, at least gameplay-wise. So, without further ado, let us clear the basement’s floors, and proceed to what lurks below. Follow me as we jump down the trapdoor to the caves, and we discuss...

The Binding of Isaac (and why everything about it pisses me off) 

Part Two: Repentant

After having utilised the resources available to us in the best of our ability for a few floors, we should be prepared to deal with the bosses lurking in the depths of the game or at least have some self respect in order to cut our losses and restart to save time. Since, in our case, we got a quality 4 item in the literal first floor of the game, I’d say luck has smiled upon us and the amount of painstaking work we have to put into surviving what’s to come is fairly minimal. So allow us to, instead, jump right into what’s next.

This is actually the boss I was hoping to get in Basement 1 last time, because (while I consider Monstro a better introductory boss with basic attacks) I feel like Gemini exemplifies the cooperation between chasers and clutters to great effect.

(Just a heads up, I had to hop on a different run to get some of these screenshots, namely this one of the Gemini fight and one later on of the Mom’s Heart/It Lives! fight, so I’m sorry for the inconsistency and for not having the funny laser beam in some of the following screenshots. Doesn’t really matter, but I figured some would be curious anyways.)

Gemini is a pair of parasitic twins composed by a tall, derpy looking guy with a visible wound (called Contusion) and a tiny baby guy that fires shots directly at the player (called Suture). They are connected via an umbilical cord of some sort, and their boss fight is fairly simple.

But it also serves to teach the player something a bit more important: clutters are there to make chasers harder. See how each boss has their own health bar? That’s actually from a mod, normally their health would be collapsed into a single bar, but each twin does have its own health. And the order in which they are killed affects the fight.

Contusion is a medium difficulty chaser that follows the player around. On ocassion, he will sprint for a short period and chase the player a bit faster, getting tired and having to stop for a breath after doing so for a few seconds. 

Suture, on the other hand, is simply attached to Contusion, getting dragged around by him and periodically firing shorts straight towards the player when they enter his line of sight. While the shots he fires could be considered chaser-y, the fact that he fires them continuously even when Contusion is catching a breath after running makes him more of a clutter: an annoyance that aims to put the player in a disfavourable position in order to increase the general difficulty of the chaser’s actual directed attacks. 

This boss, then, becomes a lesson on the cooperation between clutters and chasers during battle, which makes up the game’s battle system and only grows in complexity over time. 

If Contusion is killed first, Suture goes from a fairly easy clutter to a high difficulty chaser with high health. He takes great knockback from Isaac’s tears and moves frantically, similar to level 2 flies, trying to chase Isaac directly. The fact that attacking him makes him move in unpredictable directions due to tear knockback and the fact that he can fly over obstacles that most characters cannot fire over without certain items, as well as the fact that room layouts containing Gemini are often full of rocks and other obstacles that make it harder for the player to get around makes him a surprisingly difficult fight for a single tiny fetus attacking the player in a fairly basic way, and makes him especially dangerous for newer players. Most new players will get this as Gemini’s second phase most of the time, as firing backwards towards Contusion while he chases you is a lot easier than actively going out of your way to fire at Suture during the first phase of the battle. 

However, a knowledgeable player can do something else instead.

(Ignore the fact that I’m at half health. Paying attention to when would be a good time to take a screenshot while you’re being chased by a medium speed enemy is a good way to have your hearts cut in half, especially when you have only a single bad item.)

By killing Suture first, and leaving Contusion without clutter support, the fight goes from a clutter + chaser duo that transforms into a high difficulty chaser battle to a clutter + chaser duo that simply loses its clutter and transforms into a medium to low difficulty chaser battle. This demonstrates how the support of clutter enemies can greatly increase the difficulty of chasers, but also how chasers are the ones actually going in and putting in the work. Gemini’s main attack is getting chased by Contusion, and if he’s gone, then the main attack becomes a much more difficult chase by Suture which, unlike the one performed by his larger brother, has no pause. But if the player understands how attacks interact and how Suture’s constant shots force them to move around the stage, they can utilise strategy to make Contusion less of a risk by eliminating Suture first, and in doing so make the fight have an easier second phase too. The game even rewards players that do this: On alternate “Champion” versions of the boss that sometimes appear and replace the regular one, killing Suture first and Contusion second gives the boss a chance to drop red or soul health upon death, but if Contusion is killed first then Suture is guaranteed to drop nothing. This fight teaches the player how to manage a very basic duo by exemplifying how enemies amplify each other’s difficulty, and the next fight we’ll talk about will be the final lesson the player needs to learn about how battles in this game work.

Mom is a main story boss, meaning you will always encounter her during your runs, and she’s the final boss of the Depths (or Mausoleum, if you take the alternative path) chapter. She’s the fakeout final boss of the game, being presented as the final enemy the player must defeat, but upon killing her for the first time the Womb chapter is unlocked and the real final story boss of the (flash version of the) game, Mom’s Heart, becomes available. Mom, then, becomes both a test and a final lesson for the player, as their understanding of the game’s battle system will be tested by everything to come after her.

Okay, so, remember what I said about enemies being divided into chasers and clutters? That’s not entirely true: Chasers and clutters are actually types of attacks, it’s just that most enemies and some bosses only have one attack method. But mom, as a self-respecting story boss with a theme of her own, has several. So let’s break down each of them. 

Mom’s main chaser attack is her stomp, so iconic that it’s even potrayed as her boss transition screen portrait and in some of the floor transition nightmare sequences. She will periodically grunt, after which a shadow will appear directly below the player, and then try to stomp down on the player with her foot. This attack does a full heart of damage, as opposed to the half heart that most attacks have been doing up until this point, but even though it’s dangerous it does not make an entire final boss fight on its own.

This leads us to her next attack: If Isaac is close enough to any of the four boss room doors present in her arena, mom can use her hand to reach out from it and attack. Since only mom’s foot, hands, and her eyes (which she can periodically stick out of the doors in the room as well) can be damaged, this measure serves to prevent the player from just running up to the eyes as they appear and firing at them up close without thinking. However, it also serves as a very effective clutter attack: Mom’s arena is full of rocks that hinder the player’s movement. While mom’s stomp attack will slowly clear the way if it happens to hit the rocks in the arena, at the start of the fight there will barely be any empty room besides the center of the arena itself, where mom will try to stomp the player, and the area immediately connected to the doors, where she will try to grab the player with her hand. 

Now, for the next fight, we’ll see a boss that doesn’t teach the player, but rather challenges them, and it does this by turning the boss fight formula on its head.

These two attacks synergise nicely, limiting the player’s options and forcing them to act and think fast and strategically in order to clear the rocks impeding their movement and not get hit by the other attacks mom uses. However, again, mom wouldn’t be a final boss only with these two attacks, not even a fakeout final boss, so this is where her final ability comes in: Mom can actually summon other enemies to the stage. 

The enemies Mom summons are quite over the place, but due to the role they serve during mom’s fight, I feel quite comfortable saying that they are clutters. They’re there to force the player to move around, coming from the doors around the walls of the room and moving towards the center, while also fighting them off in order to avoid getting cornered and hit by mom’s stomp attack. The player will need a solid damage stat in order to fight them off, as even though mom can only summon 3 at a time they still can very much overwhelm a player who got unlucky and didn’t try to make up for it via other means, but mom’s stomp attack can actually help the player with this, getting rid of the enemies attacking them. This fight, then, becomes a battle between the player and mom’s army of clutters, to clear them out of the way and make her attacks manageable to then be finally able to damage mom herself. It’s a masterclass on TBOI’s, again, fairly simple combat system, and utilises the resources available to it in the perfect way to make the most of the game’s strengths.

Mom’s Heart, or It Lives! if you’ve beaten it enough times (although the fight remains the same) is the final boss of the Womb, and the final main story boss of the original flash game (dear flash veterans, remember that Satan was added as a post-game boss in a later update). As the final boss in the game, mom’s heart serves less as a lesson and more as a test, challenging the player’s ability and minmaxing knowledge in order to present them with an unconventional final showdown.

Woo! Now that we’ve mastered the game’s combat system through various examples and minmaxed our way through the eight floors of the original game, with a little luck on our side we’ll be able to face whatever else the game is going to throw at us next! Surely no challenge shall be too great for our understanding of the game’s systems! Now let’s go and see what was added after the flash version!

Mom’s heart is somewhat strange for a boss, as unlike most bosses it barely has any chaser attacks (and only uses them in the later phases of its fight). Instead, it also summons enemies to her arena like mom, but unlike mom’s usage of her enemy summons to support her own attacks, mom’s heart mainly uses powerful clutter attacks to provide support for high difficulty enemies with long and short distance chaser attacks, making it harder for the player to avoid what would otherwise be not much different to a random string of unconnected rooms.

The challenge that mom’s heart brings to the table is something nothing else in the game does, because it creates difficulty by creating permanent support for chaser attacks that’s there until the fight is finally over.  By making the player unable to defeat the clutter support first and fight the chasers last, mom’s heart is testing their ability to survive and their power to push through all of its enemies as fast as possible. It creates difficulty not by giving the player particularly difficult chaser attacks to deal with, but instead by taking chaser attacks and giving them an environment to thrive in, and within which they can do serious harm they wouldn’t be able to otherwise. This is the final test for the player after the final lesson that mom taught them, and it is excellently designed for that goal: a fast paced dangerous fight against an onslaught of chasers with permanent clutter support that won’t go away until the battle is finally over. It’s not difficult to see why these two are the final bosses of the original flash game.

For example... What’s that strange hole in the back there?

This, my friends, is the Blue Womb.

And this is where The Binding of Isaac starts to break.

The Blue Womb is a strange floor with barely any rooms. It contains two treasure rooms, four golden chests you can open for pickups (which you can actually look inside of thanks to an item in my inventory!), and a shop. It also contains a strange boss room, 2x2 rooms large. Alright, let’s get all we can out of these last few resources and look at whatever’s in there!

One first thing before we do: The Blue Womb can only be accessed by beating the entire game up until this point (that is, the Basement, Caves, Depths and Womb) in a single run under 30 minutes. That’s... kind of strange for a game so devoted to long periods of minmaxing followed by climactic quick showdowns against difficult foes, but not that strange. In Rebirth, the remake that all the new DLCs came out for, they added the Boss Rush, which you can get by defeating mom in under 20 minutes, so it’s not completely out of left field that they do something like this. The Boss Rush tests players’ game knowledge and their ability to come up with the most powerful build they can in the shortest amount of time possible, and rewards them with a climactic, fast paced, risky showdown against 15 waves of the bosses we’ve fought up until this point, so it also ends up being a very rewarding experience for those who have mastered the game and its deckbuilding mechanics, while also rewarding lucky runs with a fun optional battle that truly showcases the power they’ve obtained in order to get here. Surely this must be just like the boss rush: a fast paced battle to showcase the power of a build that could defeat mom’s heart in under 30 minutes! I mean, the boss room is even the size of the boss rush room. That seems like enough space for an onslaught of enemies to me.

Let me see what I can make of these last few resources, and go right in there.

Oh, a single boss! I’m ready for a frantic battle. Let’s go!

Hm. This just seems to be a reskin of the Blue Baby (or ???) boss in the chest, one of the areas added in the first DLC, Wrath of The Lamb, but... slower, for some reason? Did they give him higher health to compensate for the larger room size? Oh well.

Oh. Okay. When you kill that guy, a large face comes from the floor and starts performing a maelstrom of clutter attacks! That’s why the room is so large, to give you breathing room for when the chasers come. Obviously. Let’s start going at him!

Hm. No chasers yet, but he does seem to be firing some of his shots straight at me. I guess this guy wants to have his cake and eat it too? Nothing wrong with that. He does seem to have a lot of health, though...

Rings of bullets. Good thing I got lucky and got brimstone before this fight, I don’t really know how you’re supposed to avoid these attacks while consistently firing at him. The room size doesn’t really help, either... Oh well, at least he’s always in the center of the room. 

...Cluttering. With little to no chasers to speak of.

Hm.

Oh, look! There’s the chasers! They’re... a ring of tiny flies with low health that come straight at me at a moderate speed.

Huh??? This guy is incomprehensible! What is he trying to do? Do his clutter attacks even give support to his allies? And why does he have so much health? He’s trying to be mom’s heart, but falling just short! Eh, whatever, maybe he has a second phase and gets better then.

Okay, what the hell is this attack? He just fires shots randomly towards one side, and then they go out that side and come out from the other side of the stage? Why are the shots zigzagging up and down nonsensically? What is going on? How am I supposed to dodge this?

...Oh, there’s a safespot that you can hide in when he does this attack and if you do that you take literally no damage? Hm. But wouldn’t the chaser attacks force you out of there? Is this guy just pure clutter? Weird. Oh well. I died, but thanks to one of my items, 1up, I get to respawn right where I left off in the last room. Since I’m trying to showcase this guy, being at half a soul heart could prove inconvenient, so I’m just going to deck myself out with a full healthbar through the console.

Oh look! He’s summoning chasers now! Finally the REAL fight is starting. I do wonder if he’s gonna keep doing those attacks while these guys are here, though... That would require the player to luck out with some high damage or extra health in order to be able to tank all the hits from the enemies everywhere.

Nevermind, those guys were pitifully weak and died almost instantly, and so he went back to full clutter mode. And now he’s moving away from the center of the room? If he keeps spamming attacks like that, I would straight up just not be able to hit him without getting hit myself or waiting for him to stop attacking. Thank the heavens for brimstone’s infinite range.

...Why’s this fight taking so long, anyway?

And out of nowhere, during the attack that literally requires a safe spot to consistently dodge, he decides out of nowhere to start firing fast as hell chaser beams after me??? I don’t think I’d be able to avoid these if my speed stat was lower, although, to be fair, The Binding of Isaac never set out to be a fair or balanced game. The fun of it is precisely found in the imbalance of creating a broken build and flattening your enemies like sheets of paper under a wartank. Although this guy doesn’t really seem flatten-able? Hm. Something’s up here.

And now, he’s finally dead. That was surprisingly long for Isaac. I wonder how long I would’ve been stuck here if I didn’t have some of the best items in the game and the ability to give myself health through console commands. His attacks are weird as hell? What was up with that guy, anyway?

Dropping the character now and discussing this boss utilising my now extensive knowledge of the game: This, my friends, was Hush.

And Hush is where The Binding of Isaac’s core design goes to die.

Hush, added in the Afterbirth DLC, is a point of no return. He signals a before and an after in the way TBOI is designed, setting a precedent for future endgame bosses, floors and enemies to follow. He is the ultimate challenge for Isaac players because he’s not an Isaac boss, he’s something that was fitted into Isaac as Edmund McMillen’s thoughts on his own game started changing. Hush is when The Binding of Isaac stops being a casual rogue-like game with some bits of critique towards parental and religious abuse, and starts becoming Content.

500 (at minimum) hours of pure, raw, unfiltered content. 

Because all this game decides to turn into is a gigantic container for the world’s grossest, most cheaply made slaw.

The Binding of Isaac is an action rogue-like based heavily around luck and strategy. It requires the player to get lucky with good resources and then be aware of how to utilise those resources to their fullest potential in order to grant themselves major advantages. It has a fairly simple combat system that relies on “clutter” enemies and attacks to make “chaser” enemies and attacks, also known as the main threats in battle, more difficult to avoid for the player. To keep itself satisfying, Isaac uses a format of short runs where everything can go by fast and fights are often more sudden frantic skirmishes than long endurance tests. However, the game itself also encourages the player to take their time in order to maximise their advantages and make themselves as powerful as possible, because creating strong builds that make the player feel like a god on earth is the most fun part of the entire game.

...Okay, that might have been a bit of exaggeration. But let me explain why I just despise Hush so much.

Remember everything I’ve told you up until this point about the game? I know you do, but let’s just summarise all that we know about this game for good measure. 

Now, let’s see what the developers think about their own game.

Okay, okay, okay. Let’s ignore the part about the lore for now, because I also want to talk about it, but now is not the time.

It’s an... action RPG shooter? Well, the word “RPG” has no meaning nowadays, so that’s technically accurate. And you do shoot things. I wouldn’t call it a shooter, games with a focus on shooting tend to put more of a focus on interesting bullet patterns and consistency, and value skill much more highly than knowledge, putting the player in difficult and long battles they will have to work hard to survive. You know, actually, that’s a bit like Hush; he has a hidden attribute that makes you deal reduced damage if your damage stat is too high, forcing the battle to be longer, and tight bullet patterns that require lots of attention to dodge, and... Wait a second...

Does Hush think he’s in a Shoot ‘Em Up???

Nah, there’s no way. The next line in the description makes that clear: Players will find “bizarre treasures that change Isaac’s form giving him super human abilities”. There’s clearly more of a focus on strategy here. This is a game about strategising around resources in ways that maximise the player’s advantage, it’s not a shmup, it’s not Touhou, and it knows that. The devs know it. They must... How could they just be ignorant to the strengths of their own game?

That does beg the question though... Why is Hush Like That?

Maybe checking the patch notes for the latest update could give us a little more insight into what the game’s devs were thinking when they introduced certain new things to the game.

Hmm. Alright, that’s just a bunch of changes to certain items and stuff. But there’s one thing here that seems important...

...What does that mean?

Let me explain. 

Tainted characters are alternate versions of the game’s main cast that can be unlocked by opening a secret door in one of the newest final floors added in DLC. Their characteristics are different and they usually have weirder playstyles. Tainted Cain is no different, having a set of characteristics that make him different from everyone else.

Tainted Cain starts with a special item, the Crafting Bag. He also can’t pick up items in any rooms (with like, one exception that only exists thanks to an item you unlock by beating most of the entire game), turning item pedestals into various pickups upon coming into contact with them. However, he can still get items: His crafting bag can turn 8 pickups of any type into an item, allowing the player to plausibly craft any item in the entire game.

You see, Tainted Cain is the ultimate min-maxer.

And the way that he’s been treated allows me to perfectly illustrate my point regarding how the devs feeling about min-maxing nowadays.

When I first heard about this character, I was honestly pumped to play as him. His ability to let the players create the item they want and craft themselves an extremely broken run seemed really cool and like the ultimate incarnation of the spirit of the game. With the help of the list of craftable recipes, and a bit of luck to get the pickups they need, the player now had the ability to get their favourite items every run and ascend to unthinkable levels of power!

First, on a previous patch, Tainted Cain lost the universal crafting list. From that moment onwards, every crafting recipe was randomly generated per seed, meaning that the player had no hope of actually learning useful recipes and applying that knowledge in the future, but rather was forced to rely on external tools in order to plan ahead and create a strategy. Something else also changed in that patch: Higher quality pickups now correlated with higher quality items. This was actually a fairly sound decision, although it made higher quality items rarer, because it rewarded the usage of higher quality pickups in the crafting bag. 

But... Well, that’s not how that went.

Tainted Cain, much like the game itself, was bent and torn in the name of forcefully creating challenge, but in spite of the many attempts of the developers, he survived. Just as much less of a man than before.

This was all done with the intent to encourage the players to play without guides, or at least that’s how it appears. Since better drops were made more consistent thanks to the pickup quality rule and the special room drops, and since recipes were now randomised per seed, the devs wanted to get the players to simply pick whatever in their crafting bag and hope for the best. Or at least that’s what it seems they were going for, but in practice they ended up forcing players to use guides in order to know what items they could make on every seed, because people play Tainted Cain in order to get busted powerful runs and not in order to settle with whatever they happen to get like Every Other Character In The Game. By reducing Tainted Cain’s consistency, they forced him into more exploitative playstyles that made use of certain game mechanics in quite possibly unintended ways, while not changing anything about the power level of the character itself, just making him more reliant on external guides.

They also added one final thing: The “special drop” mechanic. Certain rooms (like secret rooms, curse rooms, or devil rooms) were now associated with certain types of heart pickups. This meant that if you, for example, salvaged an item pedestal located in an angel room, you would always get an eternal heart, and recipes for angel room items included eternal hearts in them.

And this mechanic brought with itself a whole new way of breaking the game: Since the player only had space for one active item (or two if they had the schoolbag passive item), this meant that crafting other active items would force them out of the inventory. On Tainted Cain, this meant that crafting an active item would immediately force the previous one to be salvaged into pickups, and these pickups would actually pull from the current room’s special drop pool. Since there were a few set recipes for items (namely, a few active items with limited and basic uses could be crafted by filling the crafting bag completely with one type of pickup, for instance giving the player a reusable bomb active item if they filled the bag with bombs), Tainted Cain then gained the ability to farm these special drops by crafting cheap and consistent active items in a certain room over and over, thereby gaining plenty of resources to then craft more useful (and quite possibly gamebreaking) items.

And now, instead of realising their mistake and playing to the character’s strengths, they attempted to nerf Tainted Cain by making it harder for him to obtain special drops! This is really, really funny to me, because it shows just how much the developers have lost sight of their game to the point where they’re nerfing the minmax and strategise character in the minmax and strategise game for being too good at minmaxing and strategising, but also because they didn’t even fix the “issue”. Since special drops are just pickups that have a special use when they’re in the crafting bag, they can (of course) be obtained through a multitude of other methods, or even as just random drops Tainted Cain can get from salvaging items elsewhere! A drop not being guaranteed doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to not drop, but it does mean it will take quite a few tries to get it to drop. So these absolute geniuses of game design “fixed” the character that best capitalises on their own game’s strengths by making him more luck-based, less consistent, and grindier to get to actually do what he’s supposed to be doing (or, at least, what most people are playing him for).

From boss armour being added to level the playing field between players who were lucky and strategised and players who didn’t, to the alternative Greed mode (a special gamemode where the player fights waves of enemies to get money and buy items at an expanded shop) being “expanded upon” with the difficulty setting Greedier mode (which gives the player less money and more enemies, and has to be completed with all characters in order to get all Greed mode unlocks), to gamebreaking combos and items that smart and lucky players could utilise to gain the upperhand, the game clearly has looked for a bit into becoming more challenging. But not in the sense of forcing the player to strategise or think beforehand in order to break the game and win through their wit and gained power, no. The game wants to be challenging... By having difficult fights. And one of these fights is Hush.

But why would they do this? Why would they try so hard to break a character that perfectly exemplified the best their own game had to offer? What was the need for any of this?

Well, it’s that TBOI is, apparently, supposed to be challenging.

Okay, okay, this kind of forces us to question everything we previously thought about TBOI. Let’s try to reconstruct our understanding of the game by utilising the things we’ve learnt over this time about the mindset the developers have.

The Binding of Isaac is a top down rogue-like game with... heavy shoot ‘em up elements, that aims to create an experience in which, with little variation between runs, the player can test their skill against difficult bosses in high-stakes endurance battles where they must keep their senses sharp in order to avoid attacks from every angle, and... How in hell is this TBOI????

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING???

Like, okay, okay, okay. I like shoot ‘em ups, right? I’m a big fan of the Touhou Project and I practically grew up on Undertale (yeah, I’m one of Those Kids), and I’m not that good at them but I still find enjoyment in playing them and getting better!

But that just... Isn’t what Isaac has been trying to achieve all this time? Like, the BASIC FOUNDATION of the game, the concept of gambling and minmaxing for better items and resources in order to be able to make the most of what’s available to the player and destroy enemies with their immense power goes completely AGAINST something like boss armour even existing. Like, why would you reduce the impact of good items in battle? To make the battles more into a test of the player’s bullet dodging skill? But Isaac isn’t skill-based! It’s luck and knowledge based! The fun in this game is supposed to be derived from being smart enough to devise a plan to break it, and then lucky enough to actually be able to go through with it! That’s antithetical to the game’s basic design! And not only that, but shmup design is also antithetical to Isaac’s! If ZUN made it so that in the next Touhou game your character had a limited range and low damage and speed but you could randomly get items through defeating bosses in order to make up for those faults (if you were fortunate enough to get the ones you actually needed), people would look at him like he was crazy! Bullet hells, tests of meticulous moment to moment skill, NEED consistency, because if you add random variables that affect how the player can interact with the world and also affect each other, you’re not going to have a consistent experience no matter how much you try to balance these effects out! Some people will just be stuck in situations that will make them unable to damage certain bosses or kill the enemies they summon as fast as required, but the game just ignores that because it also adds a mechanic which makes lucky and knowledgeable players get less use out of their luck and knowledge, just to make it fair to the others! Isaac encourages the player to understand it, but then turns the player’s understanding into what almost seems to be a requirement in order to even make the slow, tanky bosses that the game calls “tests of skill” passable! And don’t even get me started on the bullet patterns these bosses actually have! Their hitboxes aren’t even clear because Isaac bullet hitboxes were (obviously) not designed for needle bullet hell precision, but even leaving that aside they look like an Undertale fan’s AU fever dream. Like, who thought that it would be a good idea to make a bullet pattern where the INTENDED SOLUTION is requiring the player to stand still and wait until the attack is over, leaving themselves open to WHATEVER THE HELL THE BOSS WANTS TO DO RIGHT AFTER?

But, oh well. The bullet patterns did get better in some Repentance bosses, for whatever that’s worth (even though some of them are still fairly unintuitive, particularly one a boss does which references an item that you can only unlock by beating every boss including that one with one of the hardest characters in the game, and is not intuitive at all to dodge otherwise), and they manage to make decently fun to fight bosses (mother being one of my favourites in the entire game), even though they are kind of making bosses for an entirely different videogame that has nothing to do with the one we’ve been playing up until this point and often finds itself at odds with that one.

I would’ve talked about The Lost and his tainted counterpart more (two characters who’s entire gimmick is basically “don’t get hit), because I quite like them in concept but feel they also illustrate my point quite well, however I didn’t find the space to do so before, so let me just fit it here: While I often like no-hit characters in games, The Binding of Isaac is just not the game for them. No matter how much Hush and Mother and Dogma try to be no-hittable, the game’s basic battle design that most combats in the game use does not accomodate for characters like them existing at all, because if you get unlucky and don’t have enough damage or good enough items to kill clutters fast enough in some rooms chasers literally just murder you (and that’s leaving aside some rooms that feel almost deliberately impossible to no-hit). Just like Tainted Cain illustrates how the game tries so hard to stop being what it is, these two demonstrate how the game tries so hard to be something it isn’t, being presented as the ultimate challenge characters for a game that wasn’t ever meant to be played hitless in the first place. The Binding of Isaac tries really hard to paint itself as a fair and balanced game based on player skill and not luck or gamebreak knowledge, but that doesn’t work when the bases your game is built on are exactly the things you want to not be, and the way the game actively tries to avoid itself in order to become something else feels strange as hell to me...

It’s almost like Edmund wanted to release DLCs for one of his most successful games but didn’t know where to push it next so he just decided to push it off a cliff and onto an entirely different genre for no other reason than a need to add more Content. If The Binding of Isaac stayed as what Rebirth gave us and the ideas that were put into the other DLCs were utilised for another completely different game built from the ground up to be a shoot ‘em up that tests the player’s skill in a consistent environment that not only lets them beat hard bosses but builds itself around making it fun to do so, maybe we could’ve gotten two good games instead of one bad one. But I’m not Edmund, and I don’t get to decide what he makes, and he decided to make this. 

But, oh well. Maybe this is all a big misunderstanding on my part. I mean, it could have been that this was Edmund’s vision from the start! He wanted to create a shmup with rogue-like elements, but didn’t know what made shmups good and went a bit too hard on the rogue-like, and so he ended up creating a rogue-like action game with a heavy component of strategy and no shmup elements to be seen besides a few tangential comparisons. I mean, it’s not like he’s changed his mind halfway through developing a franchise before, especially not this one!

The Binding of Isaac is a game that actively fights against itself, presenting gameplay ideas that contradict themselves when you progress more and more into the unknown depths below Isaac’s home, and tries really hard all of a sudden to become a skill-based shmup when it simply is not. It’s okay to be luck based, it’s okay to be simple and it’s okay to be easy. Not everything has to be a hardcore game that people will play for hours and hours in order to conquer and completely master in order to be good. But when you take a casual game that very clearly is not that, and you stretch it into, as the steam page says, 500+ hours of Content, you get a lackluster game that tries to balance two different ideas by putting them in a blender and mixing them carelessly, and then has to be botched and reworked and changed and have 3 DLCs released for it in order to be in line with what you wanted to create. The Binding of Isaac, as we will soon see is one of the things this game tends to do, had to pick a side, but in the heat of the moment just refused to do so and came up with an excuse as to why it didn’t. The Binding of Isaac has to be challenging, getting 100% has to be hard, even if that means it doesn’t have to be fun. And when the game manages to convince itself of this lie, it mangles itself into a form completely different to what it was built to be. Challenge in the name of challenge is prioritised over fun in a game that’s strong because it’s fast, bite sized, casual fun, just because the devs said so. And that’s how The Binding of Isaac breaks itself: by misunderstanding what made it work in the first place.

Chasers and clutters are just a made up concept, a thing I invented to make the game easier to understand and explain, but it looks like they explained the game wrong. Or at least, that’s what the developers seem to think, and that’s why bosses in the latest DLCs think they can get away with pretending to be Touhou.

Oh, good lord. Welp, looks like we have a lot of ground to cover when we return... Tune in next time for my discussion of this game’s story, because it has one, and it is not that great. We’ll cover everything from child abuse to religious abuse and how the game explores all these topics: Poorly! We’ll talk about how the game misutilises its own tools and symbolism in order to make the simplest narrative ever as convoluted as possible, and finally get to the bottom of why I am so mad about a story that should, on the surface, be the most “me” thing ever.

Hey, hold on. I’m getting a phone call from the voices in my head.

...What’s that?

...Demonic Isaac?

...Mom is a good guy?

...THAT’S THE FINAL ENDING?

But that’s all I had to discuss for this part. This has been SerenaOculis, tune in next time for more insane ramblings, and until then: See you guys on the next post.