#i actually think the goat theme is really interesting because of the story of the sheep and the goats in the bible

[starrysharks]

hotel manager

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading update: October 2024

hello, ahoy, and welcome to my October reading recap.

I made a real effort to focus on spooOOOoooky books this month, in the name of the season; you may even recall that I started early and read some spooky stories at the tail end of September. (read Carmen Maria Machado's comic The Low, Low Woods, btw.)

I've never been great at sticking to a theme but I think it helped that what gets classified as "horror" can vary greatly, so I never really got bored of the genre. I did get disappointed more than once by how Not Spooky some of these books turned out to be, but that's a totally different question.

right at the end of the month you'll notice a couple of outliers with Caped Crusade and Luster, which happened entirely because I was out of library books and on the road for a conference, so I was reading what I could get my hands on! I've been working on rereading Caped Crusade on and off for a couple months and I bought Luster at a cool indie bookstore in the town I was visiting and then inhaled most of it on the way home.

ANYWAY. to the books!

And Then I Woke Up (Malcolm Devlin, 2022) - this is a novella with an interesting spin on the zombie story, where the "zombies" are actually people who have started suffering hallucinations that fill them with paranoia and force them see other people as monsters. so, like, there were never any REAL monsters, but a woman looked at her young son and saw him as a cannibalistic monster, so she killed him. so who's the real monster? it's very deep. this story's explanation for this is "the narrative," an idea so strong that it simply seems to take hold of anyone who's around a sufficiently charismatic ringleader who drives them to join in their delusions and kill innocents who don't share their worldview. it's not a super subtle zombie metaphor, but I guess very few zombie metaphors are. it's fine.

Through the Woods (Emily Carroll, 2014) - I truly wholeheartedly wish I had more to say about this but it's just a very charming creepy collection of comics. my favorite was the one that was the scariest, involving humans getting taken over by body-snatching worm monsters, but on the whole it was a very minor creepy factor. the art's great the whole way through.

Happy Medium (Sarah Adler, 2024) - Happy Medium is October's romance novel as picked by my patreonites, and I will admit: my hopes were not high going in. a conwoman posing as a psychic clashing with a skeptical hottie goat farmer didn't ping me as a great mix, but honestly? HONESTLY? it kind of served. there was a much more well-rounded emotional core to this book than I often encounter in my romance novels; at risk of sounding like a cornball it genuinely had a lot of heart. the conwoman is actually extremely charming, I was rooting for her in a big way, and her emotional journey goes so far beyond just falling in love with the goat farmer. I'll happily claim Happy Medium as my #1 romance of the year unless a challenger arises in the next two months, but it's not looking likely.

The Ones That Got Away (Stephen Graham Jones, 2010) - this is a collection of Graham's short stories that was published long before he became a huge name in horror with books like The Only Good Indians and My Heart Is a Chainsaw. and as much as I hate to say it, I think I personally prefer his longer form fiction. none of these short stories were bad, per se, and they're incredibly stylized and polished, but I think I like Jones' work a lot more when it has time to simmer out. I may have also been biased by the fact that I was desperately seeking something scary to read, because while Jones plays with some pretty narsty concepts, the horror tends not to hit until a last page reveal that recontextualizes everything that's come before. which is cool! but not scaring me as much as I wish it was.

The Salt Grows Heavy (Cassandra Khaw, 2023) - a lot of people told me I should read this because it stars a killer mermaid and a plague doctor, which are two aesthetic archetypes I love, and I will give this to Cassandra Khaw: I liked this a lot more than their other book, Nothing But Blackened Teeth. which is clearing a very low bar, since I didn't really like that book at all, but I do think Salt is genuinely a pretty marked improvement. the prose is still kind of torturously overwrought in many places and I desperately wish that Khaw would put the thesaurus away, but there's like. a Concept here. the core is fun.

Tell Me I'm Worthless (Alison Rumfitt, 2021) - this book is by far the scariest I read, because the horror is hatred and bigotry and a fucked up, evil house that brings out the very worst of everyone who steps inside of it. this book gets so fucked up and bloody and downright nasty in its exploration of the characters and the underlying bigotries that turn them against each other and drive them apart. I don't want to spoil anything, but the book follows a white trans woman named Alice and her mixed race, cis ex-girlfriend Ila. in the past Alice and Ila entered the evil house with their friend Hannah; that ended with Hannah dead and missing and Alice and Ila both scarred and traumatized, each certain that they were raped by the other. so that's what this book is like! not a lighthearted undertaking, but one that I could. not. put. down.

A Sunny Place for Shady People (Mariana Enríquez, trans. Megan McDowell 2024) - what is there to say? Enríquez is my short story queens, and her new release absolutely lived up to the precedent set for me by The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, which was originally published in 2009 but not translated into English until 2021. this collection is sooo aptly named, because many of the stories are obsessed with the terror of places: hotels haunted by memories, neighborhoods filled with ghosts, junkyards where bodies are hidden, towns abandoned and taken over by something sinister. also, completely detached from the quality of the writing, this book has one of the most striking covers I've encountered this year. the screaming yellow cover and bold purple text looked SO COOL under the purple string lights in my bedroom, which was a little +1 to my mood every time I saw it :)

Thirst (Marina Yuszczuk, trans. Heather Cleary 2024) - I think if I had to pick a favorite book from my spooktober reading, Thirst would edge Tell Me I'm Worthless out by just a hair, because I'm just SUCH a sucker for a modern gothic. this novel is split into two chunks. the first is narrated by a vampire (hinted to be one of Dracula's infamous brides) who flees the Old World and crosses the sea to find safety in a young Buenos Aires, where she struggles to figure out how to slake her thirst and escape from loneliness while avoiding detection in a modernizing world. ultimately she seals herself away in a crypt to escape the relentless pace of change around her, and that's when our perspective shifts. here we join a modern woman with a young son, an ex husband, and a dying mother, who's struggling under the pressure of grief as she watches her mother waste away. she ends up accidentally reawakening the vampire from the first half of the book, and you can imagine things get weirder from there. honestly, for me, the part of this book that's most brilliant is the latter half and it's deep meditation on grief, but the historical portion of the book also plays the vampire gothic to the hilt. delicious!

The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture (Glen Weldon, 2016) - this is a really fun piece of pop culture history, tracking how Batman came to be DC's little #1 it boy alongside the developing prominence of nerds and fandom as a cultural force to be reckoned with. as I said above, this was a reread for me, because I wanted to circle back now that I've actually read most of the major comic events discussed in the book. Weldon weaves between Batman in comics, TV, and movies to examine on how one portrayal influences another - for instance: the goofy '66 TV series saw a huge backlash in comics, which went way dark to reinforce a grim and serious Batman for 'real' fans who objected to the show making Batman a joke to much of the normie population - and I think that's a really neat lineage to trace. while I think Weldon is sometimes a bit too transparent with his own disdain for certain adaptations, he overall has an extremely levelheaded approach to Batfandom and a conversationally informative approach that I really enjoy. of particular note is the fact that Weldon is himself a gay man, making him one of the only writers I trust to talk about why he personally dislikes Joel Schmacher's movies without getting homophobic about it.

Luster (Raven Leilani, 2020) - this book!!! this was one of three novels recommended to me by Bonnie at Snowbound Books, and Bonnie if you are on this website I owe you my LIFE because you were 100% correct. I was obsessed from the very first line and it only gets better from there; Leilani's prose is painting a searing, witty Sistine Chapel to render her protagonist's miserable life in vivid color and detail. the short version is that our 23 year old hot mess finds herself jobless and homeless and ends up moving in with her married boyfriend who's 23 years her senior, where she forms a powerfully weird connection with his rage-filled wife and develops a bond with the couple's nerdy adopted daughter, as the two of them are the only Black women in the excessively white neighborhood. (spoiler alert: she also realizes that her married boyfriend is a fucking loser.) it's a simple enough premise but the execution is bananas in its flair. I couldn't believe this is Leilani's first and so far only novel; if she ever drops another I'll drag myself through barbed wire to get my hands on it.

Juniper & Thorn (Ava Reid, 2022) - I first became aware of this novel via twitter thread of Reid's that made its way to tumblr, in which Reid bemoaned being harangued by readers who were shocked that her dark fairy tale retelling had, you know, dark shit in it. having now read the book, I have to say: these people are fucking pussies. going into this book I was under the impression that there was full on-page father/daughter rape happening, which is actually NOT the case, so you can breathe easy if incest is a hard no for you. what's actually here is a wizard dad who's emotionally abusive, non-incestuous sexual abuse in the backstories of the main character and her love interest, some moderately explicit consensual sex, some bulimia, and [spoiler alert!] admittedly a lot more cannibalism than expected. it's not a lighthearted romp but it's also like, come on. come on. grow up. in terms of the actual book, rather than its controversy, I didn't LOVE it but I'm still compelled enough by the world building (particularly Jewish author Reid's Hueli people, who are a fairly obvious stand-in for Jews down to people claiming that they have horns and using phrenology to prove the have an unfair advantage at making money) that I'm going to check out Reid's earlier novel, The Wolf and the Woodsman, a novel set in the same world. it felt a little repetitive in places and the characters were largely pretty predictable, both of which may be a byproduct of trying to encapsulate the vibe of a classic fairy tale, but I had a good time reading it.

[akabaka-dev]

Can I ask, what made you think of the "date to die for" thing.

I mean, what did you think when writing the story? (I love your games.)

So way back in 2021, SFL was first conceptualized as part of a game-jam style game collection (Dread X Collection 2), where the theme was adapting Lovecraftian lore. That version of the game you can play for free as Sucker for Love: Prelude on steam. After that iteration, our publisher signed Akabaka for a three game contract

The Sucker for Love story was loosely planned from the start as a 3 game narrative, with interconnected stories following different protagonists and their romantic encounters with the Outer Gods. The original plans were to first expand Sucker for Love: Prelude into a full, dating-sim game, with the protag, Darling, attempting to win a kiss from multiple detailed Eldritch ladies. Cthulu, the King in Yellow, and Nyarlathotep are 3 of the most recognizable lovecraftian gods with a lot of lore to pull from (along with Azathoth and the Black Goat of the Woods.) For SFL First Date, to keep the scope of the game smaller, Akabaka focused on just those three.

The second game was always planned to be a foil to the first game, where the player could go deep with a single Eldritch goddess instead of wide, so the player could get to spend a lot of time with their love interest. For SFL Date to Die For, the Black Goat of the Woods was a complex but interesting character to adapt from Lovecraft's writings. (That's a whole post on its own...) But for a series about "dating sexy versions of eldritch gods", the Black Goat of the Woods fit really well as a datable love interest, when stripped down to her core trait of being the all-mother with a powerful aura who drives everyone in her proximity to madness with desire.

Originally, the protagonist was planned to be a disaster lesbian, sort of a female version of Darling. But in the actual writing of the plot and dialouge, Aka kept hitting a major plot hole: if Rhok'zan has a powerful sex aura that make everyone go mad with lust, wouldn't Stardust basically get vaporized from her already next-level lust being magnified 1000 fold? The solution was surprisingly simple though- the only human who could survive Rhok'zan's aura even for a second would be an asexual person. (An aside: I think that's something really special about DTDF actually- Stardust truly is the only person that could have saved the day, BECAUSE of her asexuality- not in spite of it. Her asexuality is as central to her story as Darling's all-consuming lust is to his ☆)

Also as a foil to SFL First Date, the second game was planned from the start to have a heavier focus on the 'horror' aspect of the series, and a focus on cultists as a real, present danger. Main inspiration here was The Dunwich Horror, where the threat comes not from the Outer Gods, but from the rabid town of cultists who want all outsiders dead.

So with all of those aspects set, the rest of the narrative for Date to Die For came together from there :)

(As for the third game, the plot has been mostly set for a while, but yall will have to wait and see~)

[plutaztix]

Finished first draft designs of the hazbin cast- Alastor., Charlie, Angeldust, Nifty , and Vaggie.

Some of them got minor redesigns while others got revamped, so I’ll be going down the line and discussing my reasoning for each one (please note, these are not perfect, and probably are not animator friendly, I did this for fun, and a lot of the decisions I made were because I felt like it. Do not throw a fit if you don’t like them)

Alastor- when redesigning alastor I focused on 3 major details: that he was from the 1920s-1930s, he was from the south, and that he was a “radio demon”. I took away the voodoo stuff cause that felt like a really weird way to associate him with Louisiana culture, and instead went for the more “southern gentleman” feel using the slicked back hair and simple clothes. I also replaced his monocle with a full pair of glasses, because I think not being able to see his eyes makes him more menacing, same thing with the straight teeth. I made his color palette into warm browns to kind of give the vibe of an old timey radio- with a highlight of gold as well. Side note: I like to imagine he doesn’t open his mouth, and instead it just lights up like an actual radio- cause I think that’s cool character flavor. I also kept his deer motif cause ,apparently, it was supposed to connect with how he died- plus I’m always a sucker for the kind of evil character that has an innocent animal theme, super fun. (Also his microphone is sentient and does change the text depending on the situation)

Charlie Morningstar- I think Charlie is a lovely character, she’s one of favorites, but she felt pretty plain in some aspects. I learned that she was kind of inspired by porcelain dolls, which gave me an interesting idea of making into kind of a “devils Pinocchio”- because what’s more innocent than a doll imbued with the power of her father’s dreams? So I really leaned into the soft friendly doll look, giving her ball joints and large eyes that stare into your soul. I softened a lot of her colors and gave her rounder shapes as well as leaning into the goat aspects of her character, because i thought it could be fun to have her play off the deer motif that alastor has.

Angel Dust- My boy , my good lad. He is also pretty solid when it comes to design , however- HE DID NOT LOOK LIKE A SPIDER. I had no idea that his freckles were supposed to be eyes until I rewatched it. Soooo I definitely tried to make him more spider like by making his eyes more prominent and giving him pointy side burns that act as mandibles. I also gave him him his spider butt and some weird ass legs. Oh and , unrelated, I like to imagine he does burlesque.

Nifty- MY FAVORITEE , I love nifty guys, she’s my POOKIE bear. When going into her design I knew I wanted to make her look older since I thought it was weird how much she was infantilized so I gave her lipstick and pearl earrings to make her look more like a refine 1950s housewife, as well as give her an apron and cleaning gloves to make her feel more like a maid. I also leaned into her subtle bug theme by giving her antennae, and giving polka dots on her dress for a very subtle lady bug theme (cause she’s my little lady). Some more small things I gave her a little swirl in her bangs to call back to victory rolls, as well as some subtle hints of green to call back to the uranium craze of that time.

Vaggie- she was difficult. Initially, I had no idea what I wanted to do with her, but I think that’s also because she’s not a very fleshed out character? Her whole story is kind of , Support Charlie and be a fallen angel.(still love chaggie tho) So I took some creative liberties, and gave her a more mature look- with some periwinkle to act as a subtle hint to her angelic nature. I also gave her the monocle from alastor design cause I thought it made more sense for her? Like, if anyone is gonna have the one eyed visual aid it’s gonna be the bitch with one eye. It also makes her look more matured? And I gave her a moth broach to call back to her moth inspo.

Annnd that’s it! I’ll be working on the next batch soon, which will likely have husk and sir pentious, if you have any other people you wanna see lmk!

[munchkinmarauder]

Let's talk Magneto's letter!

I'm not marking this as spoilers because we've probably all seen the panels from Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver floating around the internet at this point (but I do apologise if I do accidentally spoil it for someone - take this as your warning to scroll past and not read this post).

So after many months of speculation as to what the letter could be and if it has big reveals the contents of the letter is not a lore changing or retcon inducing reveal but .... Drum roll please.... that Magneto thinks the twins should stay apart, that they are dangerous together (particularly that Pietro is dangerous to Wanda and Wanda coddles Pietro) and that Pietro should have stayed dead after Magneto murdered him.

Wow isn't Maggie father of the year? What a girldad!

Jokes aside and let's get this out of the way because I know a lot of the Magneto is right crowd have been calling for Orlando's head over this character assassination or trying to argue Magneto is in fact right about the twins (despite the story and the twins themselves saying otherwise) - Magneto being an abusive douchbag to his kids is the norm, we only have 60 years of their relationship in the 616 verse alone to prove this. Yes there is nuance to this that makes it all very interesting, one of the most interesting dynamics in Marvel, and I personally never expected to hear Magneto saying the silent part out loud because I do think cannon shows that he loves all his kids Pietro included (but is incapable of loving them the way a parent should), but this is simply an over exaggeration and not out of character. Its no surprise he says this to his son. It's also of note that Magneto never actually intended for the twins to see the letter or Storm would have given it to Wanda when she visited in SW#2 to deliver the news of Magneto's passing, it might have been Magneto trying to work out some feelings and opinions rather than protect them as he claims (cause again he didn't actually intend for anyone to see the letter, he sealed it shut in a box). He is justified in feeling frustrated that his last words were weaponised against his children (lol Mags being like how dare my own hurtful words were used to hurt my kids - no one hurts them but me)

Magneto is one of those genderbended boymoms that is jealous of their daughter and views then as competition. Only in this case it is with his son and the competition is for Wanda's affections. The fact is, Magneto is always going to loose that fight and he knows it.

The more I think about it the more I like that this letter wasn't a big reveal (though I'm sure the recton everyone is hoping for will come some day -I'm glad it wasn't today) but something that played into the themes of this series. Their father, the Wizard and the Giver are all saying the twins should stay apart and the story and the twins say no and prove them wrong. A lot of the twins greatest feats are reactive and evolving, tying back to the red queen hypothesis mentioned in issue 4.

On a side note if the Giver really wanted to deal with the twins she should have gone to dear old daddy Mags and he would have nipped that problem in the bud in a jiffy seeing as he and the giver are of a like mind when it comes to the twins. Technically you just need to get rid of one of them seeing as the Givers worry is about the twins together but let's see what the new Scarlet Witch solo has to say about that (I hope Pietro's role in this isn't forgotten but you can never tell with Marvel)

What the letter is is a classic case of a narcissist parent setting up a golden child and scape goat dynamic. Seeking to isolate the twins from each other. It's very clear he's self projecting onto his son (and Lorenzo Tammetta deliberately emphasises the similaries the two have in appearance to drive this fact home) and blaming Pietro for moments that happened that can apply to himself and are in fact caused by his actions for example his willingness to abandon his daughter to die and murder of his son in HoM. Both the major trigger points for the creation of the HOM verse and no more mutants. I'm not saying Magneto is souly to blame here but he does have a big contribution to what happens that he never has taken accountability for (along with the X-Men who play as victims and the avengers who did own up to what they did but otherwise keep silent about the blame the twins get from the X-Men).

A lot has been said about the impact of the letter on Pietro and I don't think I can add much more other than to emphasise how crushing that has be to hear from a parent and abuser even if you hate them. The twins helped each other survive for a very long time and we're each others everything parent, twins, best friend, protector, etc. You've spent time and energy and dedicated a portion of your life to protecting someone to the degree of making it your reason for living for a long time (please note I am not saying this is a healthy mindset for Pietro- hes taken it too far sometimes) and in a hypocritical tyraid are told it's all for nothing. Pietro handles it really well and comes out this with his head held high. Reacting calmly, expressing his love for his sister and throwing Magneto's words back at him. I think as a Quicksilver fan we can be reasonably happy with this outcome (but I do understand some fans frustration to hear Quicksilver be degraded that way and told he's bad for Wanda while she gets forced to interact with men that did treat her like shit like Vision and Magneto - however the point is that Magneto is WRONG and Wanda herself reiterates this point).

Now the one person who's screwed over by the writing and out of character in that scene is WANDA. Sure she tells Magneto he is wrong but that gentle response (even if she does react with a degree of unhappiness to see Magneto back) and effort to be neutral is so odd for her given that she sent the Wizard to a hell dimension for hurting her brother a few pages prior and has been even more vocal than Pietro in calling her father out in the past. She's as protective of her brother as he is her and I can't believe she would be written as a daddies girl and standby while a man who abused them both continues to abuse her brother.

The contents of the letter is also not great for Wanda. And I would argue is a subtler abuse tactic. Like a lot of the focus is rightly on how shitty it was for Magneto to say what he did in his letter to Pietro but we're also not considering the the negative implications it has for Wanda as well. Wanda has been working to establish herself as independent and not defined by the men in her life for so long and here is her "father", infantalising her and saying he knows better than her about her own life and what keeps her safe, that is seeking to take away from her the one pillar of support she's always had and one of if not the important relationship to her, a lot of Wanda's lowest moments did happen when Pietro wasn't even around, when everyone including Magneto abandoned her, her brother was there. The twins do have a codependency and that codependency does have it's toxic elements, Magneto touches on it but doesn't go into detail. Wanda is codasended to and told she is "coddling" her brother and everything else is Pietro's fault. The letter is worse for Pietro but it's shitty for Wanda too, she is a grown woman& a mother here is a man that abused her talking down to her, saying he knows best for her and her opinions are wrong, seeking to isolate her and undermining her authority.

The twins are right for saying Magneto is wrong but wish Wanda would get more angry at this undermining. Maybe like Pietro she is just very jaded and tired of the whole thing with Magneto. These words would be upsetting if they didn't in their own way love their father too as fucked up as it all is.

Now to be fair - does Magneto's letter have any merit? That isn't to easy to answer but in the interests of equal analysis let's try!

So I think one think that Magneto touches on but doesn't go into or outright say is the twins codependancy. He is a few years late to the party but he's been dead and their not dad for a while so well give him a small amount of leeway in his old age. I don't think the twins codependency is necessary a wholly bad thing but it does have it's nagative elements and in some cases has held the twins back. If we are to adopt a charitable approach her Magneto in his own twisted and emotionally constipated way may be trying to encourage the twins to be independent, to discourage his son from defining his self worth around his ability to protect his sister. Ofc I am reaching a bit here as Magneto could have just said this (though we'll never see the full contents of the letter - both Wanda and Mags may be summerising the worst parts of it) and done so in a way that wasnt cruel.

I also do believe that Magneto in writing those words to a degree did believe or convinced himself that he was not writing those words out of Malice and that it was an attempt to protect the twins (though I will reiterate how much it was actually intended to protect them when Magneto didn't actually intend for the twins to see the letter but at least he owns up to the fact he did write those words). In his mind he was being cruel to be kind but the narrative makes it clear that even if he had "good" intentions - he is nevertheless still fundamentally misunderstanding his children and self projecting onto his son. I'm not mad about this -its in character and I feel this letter is set up for a longer plot thread and I hope it's explored but let's see!

It certainly makes me feel that Pietro's lack of mention in RoM was extremely deliberate as was his lack of appearance in last week's FoX issue despite his cameo in the previous one to save the Magneto and Pietro reunion for this comic (the Xoffice are collaborative)

Is the writing for this scene perfect? no! Is Magneto potentially a tad one note? Yes but being a dick to his kids is in character and it's unsubtle but sometimes it needs to be.

[literallys-illiteracy]

The floor of language:

Did you expect this to be the scheduled essay that got expedited?

On another note, thank you to goat boy Cinna Faun who requested "something Little red (mercenary) related", which caused me to end up finishing this, and also planning a new entirely separate essay which i will explain in a separate post probably It is also interesting to note that, as he has not finished Ruina, he probably should't be reading past the... first(?) section.

and because i care, SPOILERS FOR LIBRARY OF RUINA, INCLUDING TRUE ENDING WHEN MARKED

Desires, Mindless drive, and Inner Nature:

Due to the nature of abnormalities manifesting, the themes of desire are unsurprising, however the abnormalities on this floor are more directly tied to the lens of a bestial, innate desire. The bloodlust inherent to these creatures, being consumed by these desires, losing ones outer mask, showing their bestial urges: 

The story of the Riding Hood and the Wolf is one intertwined, paralleling the fairytale of little red riding hood; yet beyond the ending, Red continues to hunt the big bad wolf.

The primary divergence from the original fairy tale comes in the attitude of Red herself, acknowledging the endless cycle that the two share, yet still seeking the day which she can hang the wolf’s head up to rest; Little Red Mercenary is a person who, through being raised in the bloodshed, become desensitised to it, having the hunt be her every waking hour, endlessly seeking to bring an end to the wolf, so she may continue the hunt unimpeded. 

The Big and “will be” bad wolf serves as not only the Wolf of the riding hood tale, but also as that from the three little pigs, and likely endless other tales passed over time; The Wolf in these tales never had a name, was never a character in the same way that the pigs or little red was, it was simply the big evil wolf, so everyone called it, so naturally it must be true.

The Wolf embodies ones bestial nature, despite how it may have wanted to be, what its nature could have been, it always was, and always will be, the evil wolf of the tale; 

The Big Bad Wolf poses the question of one's nature, with the one of the wolf being largely defined, a flesh hungry beast, yet, through its dialogue we see it regretting its actions, trying to protect others from itself, yet in time, giving into its hunger, its base instinct that, if it were to fill its stomach, it would be happy.

I'll be honest i try to extend the themes when i can, with the semi poetic - video essay-esque way that i write, but really with Mountain of Smiling Bodies there is next to nothing to discuss, it's a big heap of corpses who wants to make you part of the big pile of corpses that is itself. All that's left is a mindless amalgamation of flesh and viscera, endlessly driven forward by bloodlust, by its desire to make others the same way that it is. I'm moving on now, I don't respect this abnormality enough to give it multiple paragraphs.

Unsurprisingly, on the floor that embodies desire in the form of bloodlust, the vampire is not an exception.

Despite not having lore page to draw from like the past 3, I actually have some things to say about Nosferatu.

So first of all, the quite literal bloodthirsty nature of the abnormality, wearing the facade of humanity only to hold back its thirst; transforming it abandons the pretence of humanity in order to quench its thirst, which reveals its nature as a rampaging beast, the madness of the thirst overtaking it.

The second thing of note is the effect “Fear of Water”, which i believe has two possible inspirations behind it, the first of which (and the more likely) being of vampire lore, where vampires are unable to cross running water, and die if submerged in it (i think, i've not read up on vampires too much). The second is simultaneously more and less esoteric, as it links less to the direct lore of vampires, but rather to the thematics of losing oneself to bloodlust. I am, of course, referring to Rabies, who’s patients experience a strong aversion to water, which inhibits the virus’s ability to spread throughout your body.

Thematically the concept of Rabies is in line with Nosferatu, with the Abnormality page sharing the name of its passive, describing the mindlessness in searching and feeding, losing oneself and losing their sight of purpose.

I never actually made the potential connection between those two before, the comparison is interesting but i'm not sure if it goes anywhere.

The Abnormality named “Nothing There” is a creature with a singular goal in mind, to become a “human”, to look like, act like, and in the end, “Become” one of us.

Akin to the Mountain of Smiling Bodies, Nothing There can be thought of as an amalgamation of humanity, the outer shells being worn, making up its whole, a monster wearing the shape of, trying to fool you into thinking it is, a human.

It goes further than the mimicking of our appearance, it also repeats phrases it has heard “Hello”, “Goodbye”, “i love you” and “Manager”.

Nothing there is best described as a doppelganger, a creature which imitates humans, attempting to disguise itself in order to get closer to us.

There is also a possibility that this Abnormality is based on the creature from the movie “The Thing” 

Floor realisation links:

The most obvious connection between Roland and this floor would be that of bloodlust — His blind rampage across the city, killing indiscriminately in an attempt to avenge Angelica.

"The first and last request I do for myself…"

The first Abnormality which Roland resonates with is that of the mercenary, a fitting choice given his past career as a fixer being best described as a “Mercenary” of sorts. The red hood mirrors Roland, being haunted by a beast of the past, never calm, never at rest, until they are able to slay their wolf — Both mercenaries seek the blood of their wolves, each beast having their own story, their own reasons for acting- 

“SHUT UP!!! You want to hear the excuses of those wolves after all that’s happened?"

-neither mercenary caring, only looking to end their nightmare, to finally be at rest “In the affliction of these terrible dreams that shake us nightly: better be with the dead”. 

Likewise to the Riding Hood, Roland sought out the one beast which had haunted him, the source of the distortion, whom he thought to be Angela — Angela, who had her own sorrows, acted as Roland’s wolf. Though she had suffered the same, if not more, than Roland had in the past, he viewed it as separate, after all…

“That's That, and This is This” 

Roland next embraces the EGO of the “Will be” big and bad wolf — Though he has due cause, his own reasons, though he has suffered the same, if not more, than the city folk in the past, he was viewed as a mindless beast.

Like Crimson Scar (Red Hood), Cobalt Scar (anyone else remember when this was just called blue scar?) reflects Roland’s drive for peace, for contentment. Through Roland’s rampage, he only wished to fill the hole within him, the piece of himself whom was by the distortion stolen, to fill this hole with his vengeance, the blood of others. Who would have thought the woman to have so much blood in the end. (I apologise I am re-reading Macbeth and these references keep happening subconsciously).

Oddly Enough the secondary thematic contained within this phase is more akin to one of Chesed’s theme, alongside that of Yan, and the city at large: 

“All humans grow into brutal beings. Why would I be different?"

Roland’s belief is one of nihilism (the fucking clown is back), that the city is a construct which grinds those within down to a cohesive — That all those within the city are the same in the end, that good people cannot survive in the city, Angelica acted as his proof of that.

"I won’t remember your faces… But you will remember mine…"

The Mountain of smiling corpses is as simple thematically as it is to suppress, the amalgamation of all those that roland has killed in the rampage, all those that had their own lives, all those lives he cut short, formed together, smiling, facing him, nothing more than a collective.

The Mountain is the memories of all those he killed in the slaughter, the blind rampage, all those whose faces he cannot remember, all smiling, taunting him.

The alternative lens to view this abnormality though is that of Roland being the mountain itself, fulfilling the same role as the wolf to come, simply a heap of flesh, searching out more to join it.

"Be honest with myself. Was it for revenge? Wasn’t I merely thirsty?" 

Here we have roland’s acknowledgement of his myopic rage in the rampage, never thinking ahead, not seeing a reason to continue living, he simply thirsted for blood, for his primal urges to be released — He planned for, as he puts it:

A night when one is allowed to pursue all kinds of desire… A neverending, blood-red night."

(Of course referencing the star of the city, Blood Red Night, also known as Elena, whom had been defeated by Roland and Angelica in the past)

Just like the bloodfiend he takes the form of, just like the bloodfiend he slew all those years ago, Just like a mindless beast.

The only thing to note here is the name of the EGO he takes on: Dipsia, being a suffix used to mean “Thirst” — Presumably this is simply the name of nosferatu’s EGO in itself, but I thought I would mention this detail.

"The reason I exist…? I’m not even sure anymore."

The final form taken is that of a husk, the purposeless, meaningless Roland, with no desire to continue living, wears the shell of nothing there, the pretence of humanity used to gain his way closer to others, only living to kill, living by way of rote instinct.

Roland is hollow, empty, losing what made him human, simply a monster wearing the shell of one.

The Courage to Protect:

The story of the red mist is one that precedes most other sephirot in the game; Kali, the legendary colour fixer, “The Strongest”, and the first to join Carmen’s entourage (other than A/B). 

* This section contains true ending spoilers * * Also Lobotomy Corporation spoilers * *I mean its expected that you've finished the game to be reading a 3000 word analysis post about it but still *

Hailing from the backstreets of district 23, Kali was an orphan child who learned to survive on her own, her oldest memories being when she was seven, surrounded by viscera in an open alleyway. Becoming a fixer at 20, the child was able to live a stable life, giving money to those who helped her survive, and vowing to use her newfound power as a fixer to protect them — Kali found her hands and legs bound in bed, her neighbours sprawling through her apartment searching for any money they could find.

Disillusioned, the child killed these intruders, these neighbours who she had done nothing but protect; Kali realised that these people were no different from the syndicates, seeking power to use against those beneath them, a natural cycle of humanity. 

Kali, too, had undergone the role of the beast and hunter throughout her lives. In the beginning she was akin to the riding hood, chasing an ephemeral beast, the only thing that stops her from sleeping at night, the evil of humanity – In truth, it was when she was sleeping at night that the beast struck her, when she became disillusioned, began to see the nature of human minds, it was then that she, momentarily, lost her way.

In this exact manner, Gebura mirrors Roland’s past, and Roland her’s; the life of a fixer, though originally a life one could enter wholeheartedly, is one that reveals the underbelly of humanity, the grievous festering wounds of the city, and the rot that infects every mind within – Roland, too, once lost his way, though being a powerful fixer, leading a grade one office before he had achieved this rank himself, he slowly degraded into the mask he wore.

I am aware that I have written about Roland alongside the mask of the persona like… thrice already? At the same time it is really important to state that this psychological overtone within these games’ stories is not one that is being added arbitrarily, and are key to understanding the fundamental themes of human identity within. O’er these characters, neath the worldbuilding, lays a story that is beyond the game, a story of humanity and growth. I have a mutual, @jugendraws whom has said to have a script akin to my own, which covers these same kinds of themes, and I implore you if you like reading these at all, that you should keep an eye out for theirs.

Tangent over

Like Roland, Kali’s emergence from this shell, from their mask of a stoic fixer, came forth from meaning delivered by an angelic woman. Angelica. Carmen. Though the stories are not perfect analogues, they each mirror another so forth that Roland cannot deny his similarity to Gebura’s past – Gebura even shared in his mindless rampage, also following in the death of her loved, ‘the return of the red mist’ in lobotomy Corporation, but where Gebura realised, remembered her past, the reason for her strength, she ended in this. 

Roland, too, ends in the same realisation, protecting those who dare to dream, who sought to live, who wished for paradise, defending Angela from the Reverberation’s ensemble, before making a final decision found through his past realisations, and saving Angela from disappearing.

Uuh also something thighs, ok.

There is also something interesting to note about Geburah herself, so let's do that:

Kabbalah:

So, while I am not an expert on this topic, nor jewish myself, I wanted to note something that I found interesting correlating between Gevurah’s representation in Lobotomy Corporation and in the tree of life.

Gevurah, being adjacent to Tifres and across from Hesed, is a word meaning “strength”. The sephira herself is representative of a loving protection, being the love that comes from limitation.

This correlates, as mentioned before, with Project Moon’s Gebura through her desires to protect Carmen, using her strength to show love to others.

This concept is parallelled in more ways than this however, as the method which the aspect Gevurah shows kindness is that of channelling the Ohr Ein Sof (infinite light), and ensuring that all creations are able to receive this light according to their limitations – the show of affection through limitation, and understanding of another – this may be represented, in a anthropomorphised form, as the ways that we show our care for others, using our various strengths and understanding of others, alongside our dedication, which in its own is a form of strength, to show affection and love.

Gebura, in her Lobotomy Corporation story, shows these traits quite explicitly, being the first to channel the light and manifest EGO, for the purpose of protecting those that she cares of; Gebura’s brutality regarding the abnormalities can be interpreted as her understanding employee’s limitations, wishing to protect them from the unbridled light, or humanity, of the abnormalities.

Departing from the Kabbalah, which I am far from qualified to talk in depth on, we will now be featuring a surprise guest, on a topic I am somewhat more familiar with.

Her:

This section stemmed forth from my wondering of how Carmen relates to the above passage, as despite my obsession with the pretty distortion lady, I had yet to look into any religious or biblical roots regarding her character.

Carmen is a name with two distinct origins, Latin and Hebrew.

In Latin, from the word Carmen meaning song, and being the root of the word “charm” (which is extremely accurate to Carmen LC considering she is extremely charming) (also there's probably some correlation to song and her radiant voice but i’d rather just obsess over her for a bit).

In Hebrew, from the mountain Carmel, which is translated roughly into “Vineyard of God”, and is the namesake of the Mendicant order of the Carmelites, alongside a settlement mentioned in the bible.

It is also important to note that the name Carmen has become innocuous with that of Mary, Mother of Jesus, due to the aforementioned order, once again11 linking Carmen to abrahamic religious themes. 

The settlement of Carmel itself was important on its own due to it containing a natural spring of water, which then man made pools were constructed near to collect from; Carmen herself sought after the “river” of humanity within Lobotomy Corporation, and prior connotations with her names significance in Catholicism make a compelling argument for her entourage being figurative of the Carmelites, woking in poverty for the betterment of the world.

(as an additional note, the Carmelites claim ‘Elijah’ to be their order’s spiritual father, or their beginning of sorts, in the same manner that Elijah is the first researcher to die, and the first of their group we learn the real name of, our beginning of sorts).

(also i don't know if this is intentional, as like 90% of what i say about anything is conjecture). This is rather short as I am likely a decade away from finishing a Carmen essay proper due to the fact that she is the root of every game’s story, and something something 10 years of Limbus Company. Also I'm a needless perfectionist pedant who thinks that it's impossible for me to create something that does justice to the concepts.

[munchboxart]

I finished Mario & Luigi Brothership!!! I am writing this right after the credits, so I have no idea if there's post credits stuff.

Big warning, major spoilers, I will spit everything out!!!

Also, the only other M&L game I've finished was Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions, so I can't say anything between those 2 games for experience.

Super long by the way, the game is like 40+ hours long.

So I will be going in order from story + characters, gameplay and then misc. if I have anything else to say.

STORY

I can't lie, the first half felt so fucking boring LMFAO. I think that was also an issue in Superstar Saga but I did pay more attention there (probably because it was the first M&L game I played). Man I'm sorry I do not gaf about "new world new characters" shit. Kirby did this too when they first went 3D and I couldn't care less I'm sorry, not. I do like the Extension Corps. though.

BUT THE SECOND HALF? IT HAD ME LIKE THIS

The first time I heard Bowser Jr.'s voice I started to lock in. LIKE DAMN? CHARACTERS I ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT?

I'm happy that they gave Bowser a more subdued role in the game since I heard he played more major parts in older games. I'm also happy that they're tagging along Bowser Jr. more in these stories!! I wish we got a little more but I'll happily eat the crumbs. I'm so happy they gave him a friend, albeit, a little bittersweet since he and everyone else from Mario world don't belong there :( I'm a little shocked that they didn't have a scene together in the end in the credits though? I figured they would've shown him and buddy saying goodbye, though I'm also happy with them showing Bowser saving 2 Goombas. He is that guy!!!

SORRY going back to Concordia, I'll be honest, I paid half attention in the first part of the story. I can't say I was too invested in any of the characters. Peach joining IDLE was cute. I did like the story in Rumbla island and the one with Chilliam and Burnadette, don't care much for the rest. Extension Corps. were fun, I definitely like all of the bosses from them. The Bowser arc was definitely one of my favorites, albiet, it felt... shoehorned in I can't lie. Bowser Jr.'s story makes sense in it but Bowser's story just felt really short compared to the rest, especially when collecting the bond tear things?

The Great Conductor is fucking awesome. I love that guy. Shamefully, when he did that quiz on if you know Luigi or Mario, I got all of the Luigi's right but every single Mario wrong 😔. Did not care about that fraud, only saw the goat in my eyes. I would love to have a giant plushie of the Great Conductor.

As for the Glohm part of the story. Since I didn't pay attention that much, Cozette being Zokket was a surprise to me LMFAO, HONESTLY, I CAN SEE HOW SOMEONE CAN SEE THE CONNECTION, but I didn't sadly. I'm a little sad that Zokket is a guy though, there are not a lot of fem villains in general so I don't really understand why they made him a guy aside from just making the twist harder to catch.

Anyways, let's talk about the big bad baddie, Reclusa. Oh my god, Nintendo loves their vague jester-esque characters LMFAOOOOOOO

Before I get to his character, can I think the puzzles dragged it way too long LMFAO. WHEN I SAW THE PUZZLE ROOM I GROANED SO LOUDLY. LIKE FIRST THE BONDS AND NOW THIS?

Anyways, Reclusa's motivation is very very interesting. At first the "everything's better in an isolated world!" thing doesn't make sense, especially since the TVs he forces onto people are just simulations of them with their friends and bonds, things he's trying to get away from. But it makes more sense as a selfish point of view, where HE wants to live alone. Also I remember hearing someone talk about how he also could kill everyone this way from starvation. Munch to think about.

I think I like Reclusa way more than Cackletta? A little more memorable I think but I think Cackletta's personality is a little better? At least along with Fawful. Also I think Reclusa has the better theme, phase 3 is pretty awesome.

As for the fight with Reclusa. Uhm, ok so I might have over-prepared LMFAO. PHASE 3 TOOK ME LIKE 3-4 TURNS. I had to be sure to have Waitaminnit (where it gives you an extra turn in a row), Bros. Boost, Item Share and Performance Bonus. I also made sure to get that Golden Grampy Turnip glove where it gives you like 30% pow and decreases speed or something. Reclusa's ball form gave me more trouble than phase 3 💀 it's a little sad. I wish he had more HP. But it was fun, Glohm forms of the Zok bosses definitely gave me a harder time when it was their turns too (I suck at dodging). I wanna try again to see his other moves.

OH ACTUALLY I just remembered, the looping Mushroom Kingdom goes hard. I think that's such a cool part of the story it's awesome. Plus it's the first and only part of the Mushroom Kingdom we get to see in 3D for M&L.

Overall, I think it was fun. A lot of slow times to be honest but there are some very good parts that make it worth while. My feelings toward it reminds me of how I felt with Kirby's Forgotten Land, but this one definitely went better for the story and some characters. Still foreign but not foreign enough that it becomes unrecognizable (compliment). Definitely won't replay it, though.

GAMEPLAY

It's fun, especially when you unlock all of the Bros. moves. I think it's extremely strange that Luigi's select button isn't B anymore when you pick his menu stuff. Although, him auto jumping makes sense in the 3d environment, would probably frustrate players if it wasn't auto. Although, I hate how he just jumps in place sometimes instead of moving forward. I love spamming jump while walking, especially one at a time per brother, so him jumping in place and lagging behind is annoying.

Also, Luigi's AI in the overworld is finicky but not bothersome most of the time, since there are very few times you'll be needing him alone. This was definitely the most frustrating part I had to experience. I took too long to pass the bomb but he wouldn't pick up another one (this happened 3 times because I am slow).

Also I love Luigi Logic. I forgot to mention this in the story part but one time I was so entranced by Luigi Logic that I didn't pay attention to a word he said. Haha Luigi you're so smart and funny twirls my hair /j

I love Bros. Attacks so much, definitely what makes M&L iconic. Although, the same issue I had in Superstars is in here too, where it takes forever to get the first/second bros. move. It makes the gameplay so boring. Although, I do think I prefer Superstar Saga's more? I like that they incorporated types way more, like what do you mean a fire only Max-Mix Vortex doesn't do more damage on the ice type Pipegunk? Whatever.

Plugs are cool I think, although I think it's kind of crazy that they give you 4-5 extensions at the end. The gloves and treasures are basically useless aside from like 2 treasures/gloves. Item Share is also busted, I was interchanging those on and off with other plugs when I needed a shroom. I wish changing plugs actually took a turn because of that? Sure I could make it harder for myself but whatever.

OH ALSO I DIDN'T BRING THIS UP EITHER IN THE STORY MODE, MY FAVORITE ENEMY ARE THE SHY GUYS. I love that their attacks are basically just Mario Party mini-games. Shy Guy Says!!!! It's so fucking awesome.

Misc.

Some out of order stuff that I think of.

I like that they're ragging on Luigi less, maybe it's because it's a new world so they don't know about Luigi much, but it's nice that they're treating him better.

I didn't mention this in the story section but I really like Reclusa's world in phase 2-3. Splatoon Side Order vibes much? Does a good job mixing in electricity and brain stuff I think, if that makes sense.

This made me laugh, I'm sorry.

I'm obsessed with this, THIS IS SO CUTE. THE LITTLE PAWS ON THE ARM REST, and Jr.'s spikes matching the ones on his head, while Bowser's matches his shell. I FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT THIS, BUT THE ARMY CARING ABOUT BOWSER JR.'S FRIENDSHIP WITH BUDDY..... I wish they pushed it more but 😭😭😭I also wish they pushed Bowser trying to protect Jr. a bit more too. Like give me more content pleaseeee 😭😭😭😭😭

Uhmm music. I'll be so honest, I don't think the M&L series has had that much of interesting OSTs aside from a couple. I did mention this earlier but Reclusa's theme definitely is a big standout for me, since I never really liked all of the other final bosses themes. Speaking of which, I'm shocked Bowser and Zokket doesn't have a unique theme? The only ones that get a unique theme is the Extension Corps & Reclusa, which is... strange. Especially when Zokket was framed as the big baddie for most of the game.

I hate the "rhythm game" Dyode and the other one makes you play, THAT IS NOT A RHYTHM GAME, THAT IS A BABY'S FIRST MUSICAL TOY. I hate that it's not even that accurate to the song either so I sometimes get "Great" because the beat is weird!!!

Oh yeah, when I first fought a full set of Bowser's army, it just felt so right. This is Mario and Luigi!! It just reminds me so much of how I felt with Forgotten Land. Speaking of which, I'm seeing a correlation of games that started out as 2D, moving into 3D for the first time (for Mario & Luigi, it's more like a first time on a console) and the story being about going to another world. And if that becomes a trope (or already is), I hate it very much. Like why is the first thing you want to do when celebrating your game moving to another dimension, is to go to another world? It feels alienating. I want to see the original characters!! I don't care about tweedle dee and tweedle dumb in this new dimension we don't have any history with. At least M&L's wasn't that bad of a change.

I think that's all for now? I'll definitely talk more if I have any other thoughts. Not really much to talk about in-depth for. I don't regret playing it but I definitely wish there was less fluff in the gameplay (stuff that makes the game longer, like hunting for the bonds).

[a-minke-whales-tale]

The Path Forward is Fuzzy, but still, I see it

I had originally written this to Sonar plus a bit from a talk with a friend but I am feeling really positive and hopeful lately and I wanted to share because I do right now really have hope that we will return to the water, that things will be okay.

I will still CW this as Unreality and Delusion because that is what the humans think, even if it is something that does bring me a lot of joy.

When I look at what must be done, especially if we were to live in captivity, the problems to solve really do not seem very insurmountable at all. Most of the suit would be essentially silicone casts of various hardness and conductivity. The thermal loading isn't actually an issue for us and a package for use to see our environment could be as simple as some cameras and screens (though having directional hearing I think would be nice as well as something which could create a delay in sound for Sonar allowing a sort of echolocation). In the simplest form I think the greatest complication is how to make a blowhole that opens and closes passively, particularly for a odontecete style blowhole (toothed whales) since mystecete blowholes have a lot more available movement for making more effective seals. But even that I have ideas on how to do. There are ideas which would introduce greater complexity which I would very much like to be able to at some point and I think are doable so we could do things like catch food, especially things a trainer might throw to us like deboned fishy or gelatine. Even in the most complex of situations, if I could come up with an effective way to remove solid waste there are only a few aspects that seem particularly difficult and we could potentially exist without needing to come out to change things for near two months.

We also aren't the first to do something like this. There are various stories of people using prosthetics or costume to transform their bodies. They may not be like us in the same way, or not openly so, but others have made themselves much more as animals at least for a short bit like the story of the man who became a goat. And techniques among furries I think can allow us to make a really rather convincing whale and dolphin, fix our bodies as much as we can without whatever technology the humans used to render us like this.

I think even finding a place to go might not be so difficult even. There are so many places that have held cetaceans, and many seem to be phasing out various orca exhibits. What may have been a very small pool for a 6-7 meter orca might not be so small to a 3 meter minke that will never get bigger than a calf and hopefully their dolphin friend and maybe some place would find that appealing. Even beyond zoos and aquariums and marine parks, I think there are a lot of places that might be willing to take us just for the novelty of us. There are Orca that live in an amusement park in Chimelong Spaceship (and Sea World and a few others are essentially amusement parks themselves at this point). I think other places be it amusement/theme parks, or a resort, or some other form of attraction might like to have the strange little cetaceans we are and there are so many across the world. I imagine in those cases we would have to perform for the humans and they might have something with them touching or swimming with us, but at least we would do so as ourselves and the humans would give us fish and it would help break up some of the monotonous boredom of most days. Humans might even be interested in it for scientific reasons, could we reintegrate with other cetaceans, could we learn more, could we be used to learn about wild cetaceans we struggle to map. Or possibly the humans might let us for artistic reasons or even some argument about the ethics of captivity since we could speak more to the experience though I don't think that would make an actually useful experiment and I imagine in that last case they might not let us stay in the water forever, but it might at least be a way to get us into the water in the first place.

The path forward is fuzzy still, I cannot see my way fully through the murk, but when I spyhop above the waters I can see so many paths forward, so many possibilities that will grant us our freedom. I do not think the waters are unnavigable, they are a bit unknown, but our kind have been navigating changing waters for 50 million years, we are good navigators, and clever animals. I do really think that someday we will finally return to the water, escape this wretched nightmare, that we will swim free, and we will swim forever.

Those first nights sleeping in the water once the suits are made will no doubt be terrifying, and in truth living like that I very much doubt I would live to my natural lifespan of 55-60 years, cetaceans who haven't had done to them what we have do not live to their natural life in captivity and any number of things could probably fairly quickly end us. Still 25+ years if I could have that in a tank would give me an incredible joy. My memory span is somewhere between 12 and 18 months, and only longer if something specifically reminds me and even then it is often spotty. I know the place I am from, but I have no memory of it, it is a name and little more. I know I have only been here a few years, and yet this is the only home I know. After a year and a half I would remember almost nothing of human life, I would be a whale again, simple as that. I might remember I was once human, and I might still understand that the humans changed me and that is why I need to come out and the humans do things to me periodically. And since I would not have constant reminders of human life, much of that memory might fade in a month or two as I return to whale life. If I were in a tank 25 years, I would go through that cycle 16 times over, I would just be a whale, the nightmare of the human life maybe would have all but disappeared from me when I return to the current. Even in a shorter time, even after a few cycles I would remember nothing, gone into the murk behind me. Likely I would have a sense of boredom and lonliness and plenty of other captive cetaceans problems, but no longer would I remember or feel the horror of what was done to me, I would be free (which is an ironic thing to say for an animal that would be held in a relatively small pool and unable to leave but it is a different type of free). Even after just a few cycles I would be free, and I hope that we would swim together forever until it is time to return to the current.

~Kala

[xrd]

yknow what let's just go with everything. Go crazy go stupid. Have funsies <33

Getting a little silly?

Under the cut major spoilers for P4/P5/P5T

🎭 favorite Phantom Thief?

I used to flip flop round alot more but I think strikers (haven't finished it yet) has probably confirmed it's Makoto for me. I'm kind of sad I know she ends up sticking to her plan to become a cop because I think the way Zenkichi challenges her on it is really interesting.

Also he's not a Phantom Thief technically but shout out to Toshiro Kasukabe my goat!!!!

👓 favorite Investigation Team member?

Kanji by a landslide but we'll get to him soon enough.

Other then that I really like Yukiko. She's consistently very funny and charming to me and I like how her character flaw of passivity influences parts of her character outside of her home life. Really memorable part of my Golden playthrough was her beating me at the Trivia game several times

🔫 favorite S.E.E.S member?

Probably Yukari. I just think her character progression is really well handled, and I like seeing her grow out of her shell and grow closer with the group. I also think her dynamic with Mitsuru is really interesting, and I love the way it progresses. She was really good in The Answer too.

🎁 favorite character?

Kanji is among, if not my favourite character of all time and I find answering why I like him very difficult because of this. He's a surprisingly multifaceted character who has really unique inner struggles. I agree that the writers often go too far with alot of jokes surrounding him but I feel like there's still an earnestness to his portrayal as a teenager struggling with his newly questioned sexuality, as well as trying to find approval among his parents and peers. I like him he means alot to me.

🔗 favorite social link?

I really struggle with narrowing this down. Here's a few favourites from each game.

P3: Aigis, P3P Junpei, Akinari, Tanaka

P4: Teddie, Kanji, Nanako, Dojima, Naoto (platonic), Marie

P5: Takemi, Hifumi, Yoshida

🎶 favorite Persona song?

Extremely hard question to answer, but hearing Heartful Cry for the first time in the Answer was extremely memorable, so I want to say that. I also really like Naoto's dungeon theme

😈 best antagonist?

Adachi is like one of my favourite villians ever I think he's a genius foil to a protagonist of a game like this considering that a large part of how her functions as a villain is how mundane he is. I'll get around to actually making a dedicated post about my thoughts on him eventually.

⚔️ best boss fight?

Definitely the shadow Toshiro confrontation/cognitive Eri fight. Incredibly memorable moment in terms of story and I love how the addition of Toshiro as a party member changes up the gameplay from then on.

😶‍🌫️ favorite dungeon

I really really like Shido's palace I think the ship theming is really evocative and I think the outside is just visually very stunning, especially in game where it looks like it's atop an ocean of blood.

👾 have you played persona 1 or 2?

Played a fair bit of the sebec route but I have not finished it. I'll get back to it eventually. People drastically play up P1's flaws and it makes me sad that it seems to diswade so many people. If you meet it where it's at and make sure to buy items to lower the encounter rate it's a fun enough time if you like first person dungeon crawling.

I've played a little of IS ages ago but I lost my save file a few dungons in and never picked it back up. I'll get to it when I finish P1

❤️ favorite ship(s)?

Teddie/Labrys sweeps everything else for me they're incredibly sweet and charming. Labrys feels like the first person Teddie's ever taken an earnest interest in romantically which is a really fun change of pace for his character. (And it's metal surprisingly?!) I really like the similarities in their struggles. Teddie's arena story mode is sooooo good everyone please read it.

💛 favorite dynamic(s)?

I've been thinking about Akihiko and Mitsuru alot. I think they're really interesting because they have an incredible amount of trust in each other and I feel alot of their relationship is formed from the fact that they were defending each-others lives before they were even really friends.

🔥 character you would bully for eternity?

We all need to make fun of Adachi for being incredibly jealous of that 17 year old and also for saying this

👀 character that you hated but now love?

Keep bringing him up, but I used to really dislike Teddie during my initial play through of the game but I ended up doing almost a complete 180 of his character and now he's probably one of my favourites.

🤓 any spinoffs/remakes you want to see?

I really really want them to make a persona 5 arena in the same vein as the persona 4 one with returning 3/4 characters.

I think a P1 remake would also be welcome but I don't want them to try and make it like

🥺 a character you will defend at all costs?

I was talking about this the other day but the was people talk about Marie sometimes is absurd. I'm not huge on some of the implementation of her storyline, mainly that it gives away the stuff with Izanami but I like what she adds thematically a lot. People really over-exaggerate any faults in her plotline as well as writing her off because she's rude to the main character.

🤩 how did you get into persona?

A friend lent me Persona 5 on the PS3 and my and my brother ended up playing it. He liked it so much he bought all the avaliable persona games on the ps3 and I ended up just continuing as I finished 5. I ended up emulated p3p instead of playing fes on the ps3 though because I really wanted to play as the girl.

🥳 do you have any blogs/artists/writers/creators in the fandom you love? Drop recs.

Off the top of my head here some oomfs and other creators I like on here. (Sorry for the pings) @mustdie @parasitoidism @mangocandies @nyanfish @owainigo @akolnoix @retrokinetics @hoshizoralone @fizzily @evilresidentz Probably missing some obvious inclusions. Sorry

🤔 favorite headcanon(s)?

Yosuke making really bad music is like integral to my perception of him now.

[assignmentimprobable]

I haven’t subjected anybody to my posting in the last month so it’s time to break my streak with a dose of word salad.

To Start… It really gets my goat that it’s sort of integrated into Wolverine lore on a fandom level now that Stryker was the Weapon X culprit. Not necessarily because ‘oh that’s not how it was in the comics!’, even though that’s part of it. More because I think there is something genuinely interesting in the kind of evil that Stryker presented in God Loves, Man Kills (1982), the story that made up half of the movie’s plot elements and themes.

More below the cut. Warning for discussions of eugenics, racism, mentions of lynching.

Yes. This comic.

There’s a lot to be said about the prevailing relevance of televangelists using religious hypocrisy and white supremacist ideology in mass media to spead bigotry and incite lynchings within their following.

I do actually recognize the value of compositing Stryker’s character with Dr. Thornton from the Weapon X (1991) story. You only get 2 hours to hash out what’s happening, the writers wanted to pick up the threads from the last movie. For the purpose of a movie, a military contractor and scientist is an easy evil to swallow, because duh, and an easier one to clean up. That said, I think it was only ever good for that one outing.

Seeing him again in Origins can be explained as taking us back full circle— But even then, it falls apart because there’s such a Nothingness to his inclusion. He’s a generic CO without anything to add to the overarching dialogue on mutants, or the underpinnings of the original Weapon X story (Which is a problem for another post because I’ve got some fucking WORDS to say about the entirety of… all that. And how the movie undertook it). I KNOW that you’re probably thinking ‘why would you expect intelligence from origins’, and it’s like, I don’t. I watched that shit when it hit bootleg fresh off the DVD guy’s trunk collection. But if you’re gonna make such a big change with these kinds of ramifications on a movie timeline and stand on it, then well. I’m gonna write about it. Especially when he’s in fuckin DOFP and I’ve gotta see his foreshadowed impact getting waved around.

The point of Stryker in GLMK was that he couldn’t be easily handled by sending the X-Men in, he’s a political figure using the cover of free speech, fundamentalist Christian “values” and gathering enough clout to perpetrate some heinous shit.

Stryker didn’t need to experiment on anybody or invade the X-Mansion to make their lives palpably worse. He was gathering up the already large following of people gung ho as fuck to legislate on mutant rights. I used the word “lynching” earlier with intent, because that’s exactly what he did: the comic starts with two black mutant children being lynched and having a sign with the mutant slur hung on the bodies. Which. Alright. The use of black pain and black death in a story like this inevitably serves the allegory and makes the conclusion inescapable for even the most braindead readers of 1982. Dare I say, inescapable for the braindead readers of 2024. That said, the margin of leeway you can give it (if you even want to) gets smaller when you consider Kitty Pryde dropping the n word to ‘prove a point’ in the same story. How the mutant metaphor constantly assumes the volatility and natural genetic power of the underclass. Or how the team never seemed to have more than one face of color at a time having something vital to do, if even that. Hm.

Anyways, in invoking the imagery for this murder: The story illustrates that Stryker’s ultimate conclusion is 1-to-1 with his real life counterparts. It’s the last stop on the train to annihilation, and it never stops at just one group of arbitrarily picked undesirables. Bigotry never has one layer . You peel it back and you get another. You get down to the root of eugenics, the exclusion it’s all white supremacy. The same fire and brimstone preacher tactics, the same righteous indignation about problems that aren’t even Real. Designations of ‘natural’ that are presupposed by European defaults. The front runners of it have just gotten enough fucking simpletons thinking that they won’t be next, or not even *caring* that they’ll be next, as long as the object of their hate gets to suffer. It all comes down to the fuckin race science with these people. It does stink something fierce that FOX/Marvel were so afraid of pissing off evangelists that they bit the bullet and changed things up. It’s really a disservice to the story it’s adapting, and I LIKE X2! It’s probably my favorite of the movies?

TLDR: Corporations are cowards when it comes to standing on business. The Strykers of the world were real 42 years ago and they’re real now. Oh, and if I never see William Stryker again in an X-Men film, it’ll be too soon.

[quibbs126]

Oh yeah, I made this last night

I was complaining yesterday about how I can’t draw, and while I tried and failed to draw traditionally (I think I’ve been out of practice too long and I can’t adjust to the layout of it not being right in front of my face at the same angle, if that makes sense), I decided maybe I can try drawing these guys again

I’m pretty happy with how the main trio turned out in this redesign, I think I was able to give them all distinct looks

Cassidy got some changes, Rasmus pretty much stayed the same other than a permanent ponytail, and Rowan's hair got completely changed. Mostly because I wanted to make his hair have a more distinct shape

I still need to come up with new names for them though. Best I got is Rowan becomes Rusty, but I don’t know for the other two. All I know is that in another world, Cassidy would be Peppermint, or some other variation of mint

Anyways, a while ago I was considering changing the setting of the story to be cowboy themed. It was mostly because at the time, a Discord I was on was making a Cookie Run cowboy AU that I really like, but also because the story never had a clear time period setting. It was part modern day, part fantasy, and I never really got it to be consistent

Though the big problem is that I’m pretty unfamiliar with cowboys and how they operate. Which is ironic because I’ve been living in Texas for over a decade. But like, I’ve never been that interested in Westerns or that cowboy stuff, probably in part because I heavily dislike country music. So I don't really know much about the era other than Victorian times were also happening

I would also have to change some things around so that they fit in the time period, most importantly the whole situation with Rasmus and the others. I'm thinking maybe I can turn that from science experiment to witchcraft and have magic be more of a thing, since they are meant to have magic

I've given a little thought into how the story works now, like that these three got hired either to drive cattle to a certain area or keep watch of a ranch. I guess if they got to travel, then the former, but if I just want them to hang out, then the latter. Former's probably better though, since if I want to make an actual plot, there's your overarching goal

I think I need to do more research on the time period though, so I know what I'm doing. Though also this isn't going to be like, completely historically accurate. I mean these guys are fictional goat thing people with magic powers. I don't think something like the Civil War happened recently, and I'm not sure I want sexism to be a prevalent thing in the plot. And I think I also personally I need that reminder since sometimes I forget that I can give myself wiggle room

In that vein, the cattle are probably also semi fictional, or at least maybe they shouldn't be exactly the same as real cows. I don't know, I feel like it'd be really jarring to have normal cows alongside brightly colored goat people

Anyways I trailed off, back to the actual drawings

So because of the cowboy consideration, I tried to sketch out outfits they could wear. As well as body types (though they didn't turn out as varied as I'd like). Cassidy and Rasmus I think are fine, but Rowan might need more tweaking. I also need more cowboy refs, especially ones that aren't just costumes or AI pictures in Google Images

Then afterwards I decided to start sketching some of the other characters I've made up. Which just so happen to be the parents of the main characters. Who also have names because I came up with the naming scheme at that point

Top to bottom is Periwinkle, Basil and Silver

Of those three, I think Periwinkle turned out the best, but for one thing, she's been in my mind much longer than the other two, so I have a much clearer idea of what she's supposed to look like. And on top of that, I've actually drawn her before, so I know what to change. Basil and Silver are very much first drafts, and first drafts are usually not the best when it comes to designing new characters. No wonder redesigns of characters usually end up better than the original, since you have a base design where you already know what works and doesn't, as opposed to working from the ground up

And with Silver, I made it a point that he and his son don't look anything alike other than both having darker hair, so I quite literally had nothing to work with, unlike Basil or Perri

I'm also realizing that I've made a pattern with the parent designs, namely that all three of the main characters pretty much exclusively look similar to their moms. I suppose you can't tell much here, since Rasmus was born green but got changed via the experimentation, while I drew Silver, Rowan's dad that he looks nothing like, with the mom he does look like not being depicted. But yes, Cassidy and her bio mom are blue, Rasmus and Basil are green, and Rowan and his mom are red

Periwinkle and Cassidy are probably the two who look the most distinct from another, in part because they're two different shades of blue. Which is ironic because in my more recent working of this world, I made it a point that Perri's family has crazy strong genes, with everyone in the family (outside of marriage) is blue. I might have to take that out or just change how this works

I mean with Rowan, I don't really know how to change it, since his dad's family is all in the greyscale, so him being red would have to come from his mom. And with Rasmus, his parents are supposed to be green and red, with the idea that it's plausible that he could turn out brown, while in reality he was born green. But I mean I guess I could turn him a more yellow-ish green? I don't know, I'll figure it out

And uh yeah, I guess that's it. Not really anything that remarkable, but at least I drew something

[white-weasel]

Saw IV and V thoughts after my Saw Saturday movie viewing experience last night:

Really glad we got some new characters introduced into the series. It breathed a lot of life into things I feel like

Finally got to meet Hoffman and Strahm let’s gooooo! I knew that these were popular characters and honestly they did not disappoint

I cannot believe that John Kramer ate a fucking tape before dying. My friend and I were discussing how he did that so cleanly without gagging or choking and our only explanation is that he’s a throat goat

Rigg’s whole trial was rough man, but it was actually very interesting. Basically “You’re obsessed with saving everyone, so the only way you can win this gauntlet (and save your friends) is to let it go.” I think that this series of traps was MUCH more well done than the series of traps Jeff went through in 3 and they also did each feel like they were testing different aspects of the same “sin” so to speak.

Favorite of those trial traps was probably the one with the husband and wife and them being impaled. I thought it was clever in its theme and its conceit. Sometimes I look at some of these saw traps and go “okay so somebody just thought of the most fucked up thing they could for the shock value” but this was not one of those so I enjoyed that

The iceblock trap though? Amazing idea and execution on that shit. Just the concept of a melting block of ice slowly hanging someone while that melted ice water fills a pool that will eventually touch another person, thereby electrocuting them because there’s a current running through the pool? Very very cool. Plus the added mechanism that kills you if someone (Rigg) walks through the door. Very scary but very good

The puppet still makes me laugh. Him just sitting on the chair before (unfortunately) blowing up at Perez got me. My friend is convinced that I need a little Saw puppet for my apartment now, though I think having the actual thing and seeing it irl might freak me out

Not sure I *needed* to learn more about John’s past before his diagnosis and his descent into becoming Jigsaw, but I also didn’t absolutely hate it. I liked getting to see his ex wife at least and get an insight into his interpersonal relationships

I’m 50/50 split if I like John’s first victim being someone who personally wronged him and ruined his life. On the one hand, I think it does great to kinda show his own hypocrisy in all of this. He says it’s not emotional and these traps are meant to save his victims, and he does at least give him a way out, it did not seem like he really wanted to reform him and that’s interesting to me. On the other hand, I don’t think the movie presents this action or putting him in the trap this way so??? Yeah

My new motto for these movies is “If I don’t see you get murked on screen, you’re still alive somewhere.” Because I was *positive* Eric was dead before they revealed him, but, well, he’s certainly dead now I guess lol

The reveal this movie that it was all taking place at the same time as 3 and that Hoffman is Jigsaw’s apprentice was amazing. Absolutely brilliant, no notes at all

I really liked how Saw 4 and 5 basically felt like a TV show in that they were very obviously meant to be viewed together/feel like one continuous story. I’m assuming that production wise the studio knew that they had 4 and 5 guaranteed so they could leave some stuff for the next movie which I appreciated

(I’m assuming they knew they were at least getting a 6 too because we didn’t get any answers for what was in that box Jill got 👀)

Hoffman carrying that little girl out of the warehouse and being like “We were the only survivors :((“ only for Strahm to get wheeled out on the gurney literally seconds afterwards was so funny

Speaking of, I can’t believe Hoffman didn’t take Strahm’s pen from out of his pocket during the water cube trap. He took all his other stuff but it’s weird he overlooked that. Granted, I doubt that he knew that Strahm would perform a tracheotomy on himself but wow

I liked the backstory we got with Hoffman and how he came to know Jigsaw. The idea of a copycat killer designing his own “trap” but it really just being a way to murder someone he wants revenge on was marvelous. Then the whole part with John kidnapping him and teaching him his ways was also cool

(Hoffman tied up with the shotgun nestled right underneath his neck? Unfortunately kinda hot)

The trap gauntlet for the five people was fine. The first trap I was like “oh my god he’s telling you to all work together! Just go get your keys one by one or have someone get their key, unlock, and then get the next person’s after they’re unlocked” at least for that one though I can see why they panicked. The second one they had no excuses lol I literally said out loud “you can definitely fit at least two people in a cubby hole”. That one seemed sooo obvious, too obvious to at least not give it a try. I didn’t totally hate the set up though, just moreso me getting mad at horror movie characters lmao

And I get Hoffstrahm now lmao. Saw IV I was like “? They barely interacted what’s this?” And then we got the whole cat and mouse game in Saw V and went “Oh yup. There it is. Theres the dynamic.” Especially with the whole glass coffin bit at the end

Speaking of the glass coffin I loved that scene. Just the wasy Strahm shoves Hoffman into the coffin and you can see Hoffman start to gloat and taunt Strahm from behind the glass because he’s sealed his own fate? Amazing. No notes. I did have to look away at the end of the trap though because watching the Saw movies has taught me I cannot handle broken bones, especially when they are very prominent. As soon as I saw Strahm start pushing on the walls I went “I know where this is going” and dutifully turned my head away

Anyways Hoffman is an interesting new antagonist! I’m curious what’s gonna happen next in this little murder soap opera. Honestly, I hope that Agent Perez gets out of the hospital and fucks up Hoffman. She finds out that Strahm is supposedly Jigsaw, goes “wtf no I could never believe that” and starts trying to pursue the real killer

Current Saw movie ranking (giving this because I gave it to my friend after discussing Saw V and my thoughts on the franchise overall)

Saw (The og and the goat, don’t think anything will really topple this one. I was glued to the screen the entire time and loved how this one really focused on Adam and Lawrence, the people in the trap, rather than the killer himself. I feel a lot of future installments lack compelling trap victims which is kinda a shame)

Saw V (I liked the story of Hoffman in this and the cat and mouse between Hoffman and Strahm a lot)

Saw IV (This was a really well done trap gauntlet for the main portion of the plot and the ending reveal was so awesome. Lots of adrenaline pumping for this one, but it did get lowered because I’m still meh on a lot of the John Kramer additional backstory stuff atm)

Saw II (Saw II gave me so many issues ranking it because the final reveal was PHENOMENAL but the main game portion didn’t always work for me. I did like the idea of Eric’s game of just having to wait out the clock but I kinda count that as being a part of the final reveal and thus it can’t elevate the whole movie. There’s potential this and Saw IV could flip flop depending on my moods. This one just has higher highs but lower lows for me)

Saw III (I liked Amanda getting tested and the whole ending with the chain reaction of violence/death, but that’s about it. The main traps in this game did not do it for me, nor did the story connecting those traps. This one also just really felt that they needed to escalate the traps for escalation’s sake rather than to tell a compelling story, which I know is probably a dumb complaint for the gory trap horror franchise but idk I just didn’t like it)

[doktorpeace]

The Great All Generation Nuzlocks Roundup - Part 2

A continuation of Part 1, this encompasses the remaining games.

BLACK 2 - I love you Unova I love you so much you're so fucking good. I know B/W1 like the back of my hand, they're like home to me. So I went with B/W2 for additional challenge and just because of the broader encounter variety. Little did I suspect, that fate would have something in store for me.

This game had by far the most tumultuous early game, and it is in fact the game I wiped most in! I wiped three times before the second badge, and two of those were at Cheren! However, soldiering on, we eventually broke through the early game and clean through to the opposite side of a run. For most of this run a core contributor was a Magneton which I gave Eviolite to. As expected, a Steel/Electric type with 1.5x defensive stats is incredible for in game purposes, however, I blundered them away late in the run. Despite being consistent and undeniably helpful, I wasn't all that torn up by the loss. It actually freed up my team to have less type weakness overlap! This is definitely one of the stronger teams overall we got, with Whimsicott in particular truly surprising me with the sheer number of enemies it could just sit on and whittle down at little to no risk. A true champion.

But most importantly of all, our friend returned to us! A 10% chance of encounter, in only one location, Chargestone Cave. I didn't even know Nosepass could appear there! I was ecstatic and broke naming convention for the return of our true friend, Cao Cao the Probopass. This run, which had overcome the trials of the early game, now held the Mandate of Heaven and was destined for success. But getting through wasn't enough. Our true quest was now getting Cao Cao through to the end.

Unlike in Platinum, he had a +Sp. Attack nature this time and with Power Gem could dish out some serious damage! A very slow Volt Switch also allowed him to safely pivot us into our other team members to keep momentum up and enable a lot of powerful plays. Mienshao was a remarkable lategame encounter who truly did a lot to trivialize the late and endgame and paired well for a Volt/Turn core with Cao Cao. A very powerful team indeed, though Ampharos was mostly just There and saw no use in any major battle. She simply was late game, just-in-case backup filler after we lost Magneton on the Plasma Frigate.

In the end, not only did we succeed in getting our new friend through to the end of the game. He even dealt the finishing blow to Champion Iris. Fate blessed us with a second chance and we did not squander it!

In his well earned retirement, we've managed to move him all the way up to Paldea, thanks to his return in Kitakami. Any Region, Any Adventure, True Friends Always Stick Together!!

I love Unova and now I have another great memory thanks to it. Truly the GOAT region.

This game had a nickname theme - Food Biproducts, and Cao Cao

Total Wipes - 3 (Wild Magnemite Gym Leader Cheren Gym Leader Cheren)

Y - I hadn't played through Y except the once at launch, so I was honestly rather excited to give it another try. I did, however, challenge myself to not use any of the gift pokemon given to the player since you can make a whole team of them and I had a great time for it.

Gameplay wise, I quite like Kalos. It has great aesthetics and introduced pretty much nothing but great new designs. Unfortunately, however, it contains Writing and Characters and that part is basically all bad. I do think there's a seed of an interesting story with Lysandre and Team Flare but like, damn, they totally beefed it on this one, lmao.

Oh well, at least I had fun! And I don't have much else to say.

Aerodactyl and Snorlax were our absolute GOATs this run, plowing through most of the game. We actually blundered away Oats on the literal last trainer in Victory Road by not playing around a crit and I REALLY didn't want to grind up another Pokemon, so I simply carried his fainted body through the Elite Four and Diantha, largely on the back of Garchomp. This run really did endear me more to Garchomp, whom I've never used before and never been the biggest fan of. Even with a -Attack nature in the Fairy Region she simply annihilated everything I set her upon. Great pokemon, makes any team dramatically better for having it, lol.

Overall Kalos was exactly as mediocre as I remembered. But a mediocre Pokemon game is still quite fun minute to minute, so it's not all bad and it really let me look forward to the next region, which does away with TMs and is generally excellent.

Garchomp Sweep.

Total Wipes - 1 Gym Leader Viola

SUN - I recently played through Ultra Sun for the first time and jeez that game is quite the letdown compared to the vanilla version. Almost every change made worsens the experience in some way, and in many cases outright erases core character's arcs. It's not totally without merit, but picking vanilla Sun was an easy choice.

Alola is just plain fun. I had a great time but also don't have much to say! This run overall went pretty smoothly with the only critical loss being our Decidueye at Aether Paradise super late in the game! As a result, Exeggutor was a super late filler who ended up doing almost nothing.

Almost every member of this team impressed me though. I genuinely did not know Toucannon was so good! An incredible moveset and genuinely great stats for the early and mid game let him do a ton of work! Undeniably falls off late, but that's okay. Eviolite Charjabug is also shockingly great as a pivot and defensive stopgap for most of the game. It was almost better unevolved than fully evolved, lol. The real star of this team in the late game was Carracosta, what a beast. Shell Smash setups with sturdy and wide lens for high base power, perfectly accurate STAB just CRUSHED the elite four, champion, and final Hau fights.

Alola was fun, easy breezy, and a nice step up from Y, though I think it's the game that took by far the longest to clear. It does have a lot of cutscenes, but I like the charcaters and story so that's fine.

Total Wipes - 0

SHIELD - I'm a Galar appreciator. This region has issues but the core gameplay experience is not one of them. In fact, I think Galar has one of the strongest campaigns in the series for purposes like this, it's very Arcade-like. Brisk pacing, a well balanced difficulty curve, a shockingly tough final boss, and just a great and fun mechanic in dynamaxing. This game is a lot of fun to play through and I was pretty happy to get to return to it. I love cooking curry and playing with my funny guys in camp but I had to be careful not to do that so it wouldn't give me mechanical benefits, lol.

On the story side it's thin boned and that's fine, imo. After several generations of more serious or involved stories it's a nice palette cleanser for the franchise and further it helps serve the core experience of this game being 'you start the game and are in the wild area with access to 100+ species within 30-45 minutes'. There is truly no region better for, simply, playing through with a new set of 6 guys you've never used before. Even with that thin plot I still think Hop is the best rival in the franchise's history. He has a strong, easily identifiable character arc and uses the most different species of any trainer in the entire series besides N, who's whole thing is he uses completely different teams every time.

Hop struggles with inferiority to Leon and then to you and in the mid game dramatically changes his team around several times just to try and beat you! He even boxes his starter for one of them and NO other rival does that! In the postgame he realizes he's not necessarily in the top 1% of battling trainers, but pursues a career as a researcher which is great! I really like Hop, he's ace. I just wish his final team weren't so shit though. He uses so many different, cool, species and his final team has both Dubwool and Snorlax on it, for some reason? It's weird.

Anyway, I love playing through this region and this team rocked. I blundered away several encounters, including losing Badnik the Golisopod, at level 50, to Raihan because I didn't pay attention to the fact that his Duraludon has Rock Type coverage. Mantine was a very late filler pick, however, he actually accomplished a good bit and was a great teammate for what little time we had him.

This team has the biggest gap in level between its top runner and 6th man, and that's largely because I saved every rare candy in the game to ensure Cinderace specifically was equal to Leon's Charizard before that fight. It's such a strong mon I wanted to maximize what it could do. This region does have extremely few encounters outside of the Wild Area so it had two modifications to normal encounter rules - 1) In areas with no Wild Encounters (the two Mines) the first pokemon I run into is my encounter. One was a Drillbur and the other was Badnik, both of which I lost :(

2) I'm allowed to have one encounter from the Wild Area each time the game directs me there, for a total of three. Once right at the start, once after clearing Kabu's Gym, and once after clearing Raihan's gym. For these, I still took Random Encounters from shaking grass, but I did allow myself the nicety of choosing which region I wanted them from.

Overall, the former had a moderately large impact on the run since Golisopod was a great encounter but the latter didn't end up mattering really at all.

The true star of this run was our Route 1 encounter, Greedent. He is Him. Payback is the first TM in the game, immediately giving him a 100BP Dark move to hit ghosts with. Body Slam for STAB, Cheek Pouch gives RIDICULOUS survival with sitrus berries (58% extra HP in every battle! Equal to basically 150 extra health in the mid and late game!) all game long, stockpile for defensive boosts, rest to net heal even while continuously attacked. He swept the ghost gym, he swept the fairy gym. He swept half of Leon's team, including Haxorus and Dragapult. HE IS HIM!!! Greedent is so fucking strong and is my friend, I love you Greedent.

This game is the first time since Crystal where our starter made it all the way through.

Total Wipes - 0

VIOLET -

RAAAAAAUUGGGHH THIS GAME RUNS LIKE DOGSHIT LMAO!!!! IT'S BEEN LIKE 6 MONTHS AND IT STILL RUNS AWFUL!!!!!!!

However, I do like Violet for what it is. It lacks so may QoL features and just generally basic niceties and polish and yet it's so much more than the sum of it's parts. I guess that's what happens when you get the author of Cowboy Bebop to help write your game's story. Like, imaging getting that guy and then rushing the game out after a ONE YEAR development cycle. Geez.

Paldea itself is a fairly forgettable region that is full to bursting with incredible Pokemon designs and characters. It's the small things that are memorable rather than the region itself and I truly wish to see a 'complete' version of this game someday. Hopefully, the game being rightfully lambasted and made a mockery for releasing blatantly unfinished and buggy as fuck will light a fire under The Pokemon Company's ass and force them into actually giving GameFreak time to produce their damn games! You know GF themselves want to put out better than this!

Still, it has its strengths. Again, the scenario design and gameplay are quite fun and they're what I would consider the only 'truly' nonlinear Pokemon games. Gens 1 and 2 have 'Fake Nonlinearity' since doing things in a nonlinear fashion is basically a waste of time and effort. Those games were still made with specific paths in mind, but Paldea wasn't (mostly). While the gyms, titans, and team star encounters each have set levels, you're still free to do them out of order and you actually get the breadth of the region to explore and run around basically immediately. If you master some basic movement tech you can get practically anywhere without any of Koraidon/Miraidon's upgrades, too! The one true downside to this is only Gym Badges increase Pokemon obey levels when it really should be any badges that do.

For encounters in this game I only got encounters via Tera Raid Dens (Besides the Starter and Poco Path, which can't have Raid Dens) since those are truly random! This region also has BY FAR the fewest possible encounters with this method, at only thirty-ish, which makes every last one count! Thankfully, with easy access to vitamins, EXP candies, and nature changing mints, maximizing your few encounters is easy and fun.

Getting a Steel Tera Type Applin as our very first random encounter set the stage for the whole run. Eviolite Dipplin was an unbreakable monster. Dragon/Grass coverage with Recover and Reflect made a mockery even of super effective hits and crits. This whole team is slow and bulky (besides Cetitan) but Dipplin was the slowest and bulkiest of all by a mile. All six members worked in great harmony and were able to overcome all challenges without any real risk or nail biter moments. They were just plain consistent and strong. Lumineon is a firmly Mediocre Pokemon, but thanks to aforementioned mints and vitamins, we were able to max out his HP and Physical Defense. With Leftovers, Aqua Ring, and the debuffing moves Chilling Water and Icy Wind, he could turn any physical threat into setup fodder for Skeledirge (Torch Song), Muk (Minimize), Dudunsparce (Coil), or Cetitan (Snowscape + Slush Rush). This team's playstyle was often slow and methodical but could explode into vicious sweeps very easily.

Cetitan in particular truly just bowled over the endgame. The Elite 4, Champion, Final Nemona and Final Boss all got swept mostly or entirely by Cetitan after a single turn of setup with Snowscape. Slush Rush with Ice/Ground STAB on Ice Spinner and Earthquake just annihilated everything. What a monster, I love my huge whale friend. This team was basically perfect and nothing could challenge their stability and strength. A truly excellent note to end on.

This team reached it's 'final' state earliest of all, solidifying after just the fifth gym, whose level cap is 36 while Muk's evolution is 37.

This game is the only one where I completed all endgame content, and still lost no major team members.

Total Wipes - 1 (Team Star Leader Atticus)

I love Pokemon. It's a fun and fantastic series. It's got its ups and downs and right now it's definitely far from what it could, or should, be. But it's just such an impossible to fuck up gameplay loop it's just FUN to raise and bond with new guys!

If you've read this far, thank you! I hope you enjoyed a glimpse into my experiences, and I'm willing to field questions!

My kingdom for Gen 10 to get a six year dev cycle.

[auroraeternal]

What’s you’re favorite pieces of media? Games? Shows? Movies? Music?

Hi Cris! I actually have before in my pinned post list with my fav media, but I removed it bcs I think this post is too big. Sorry for late reply again :/ For music (bcs its my most favorite of all media so its easiest to answer): I created two Spotify playlists - one with my fav songs of all genres and other dedicated purely to black metal and related to it other genres (because I have some ick when its mixes with other music, idk why :/). second playlist may be too hard, I understand this. For games: The Sims 3 and Medieval, VTMB (ofc), Stardew Valley, Silent Hill 2&3, Alice: Madness Returns, Skyrim, GTA SA, Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (I know that visual novels is a slightly different thing, but it was the only one that I don't think its boring for me XD). Also, I used to love Civilization VI, Minecraft, Detroit: Become human (but I watched it on yt because I don't have PS4 at the moment it came out), Plague Inc, Mortal Combat and old school mobile and Flash games (now I have Flashpoint installed). I'm interested in these games, but I haven't played them yet, I've only watched videos and/or read articles about them: F.E.A.R, Hitman (newer games size are insanely huge, maybe I try Blood Money instead), Fatal Frame, Postal 1&2, Painkiller (its OST is the GOAT), Cry of fear, videogame version of I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream (also original book is really good!).

For movies/tv shows: I have a longer list of what I WANT to watch than a list of what I like :D but my favorite genres are horror/thriller, science fiction, detectives (true crime too!, but not in romanticizing way), dramas (including historical) and documentaries. Also I love some "serious" or darker comics adaptations like The Dark Knight or The Crow. For more specific names, then: American Mary, Perfect Blue (I actually not really into anime/manga but love this one), The Act (TV show about Gypsy-Rose Blanchard), Devil Wears Prada, Marie-Antoinette (2006), Until the Light Takes Us (black metal documentary) and some more, I'm not good at remembering movies. I want to watch: Saw movies, Thirteen, Ginger Snaps, Jennifer's Body, Pearl, Fleabag, From Dusk Till Dawn, Pulp Fiction, The Godfather, American Horror Story, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Junji Ito Collection, and many more. Also I want to rewatch The Handmaid's Tale (and/or read the book). For books: again, I have the same problem like with the movies, but here situation is slightly better, bcs I downloaded a bunch of books that I want to read in my phone :D I mostly google recommendations or classics of genres/themes that I interested in, and my favorite genres are the same as the movies. The last books I read were Writer and suicide (not sure if this one exist in English, use translator. It was recommended to me by my friend) and Little Mushroom (BL post-apocalyptic novel, recommended to me by other friend xd).

Thank u for good asks, luv u 💗

[astronicht]

For the ask meme, I’d love if you answered 1, 8, and 10

I hope you don't mind that this got a bit long!

1. What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read any of your work? (In other words, what do you think is the best introduction to your fics?)

Oh I always wonder about this! I don't think I'd say the fic I actually consider my best piece of writing ("the field meets the wood"), but probably "pro bono" (aka lan fangji), which is a pretty good billboard for the things I love and tend to write about. In my heart it should be "hush now" (lesbian modern au wangxian), but that's mostly because it's the first fic i really wrote in the style I use now, so it literally WAS an introduction, and was directly and indirectly responsible for introducing me to some really dear friends. Actually I think "hush now" and "pro bono" are an interesting mirror of each other in terms of how I wrote them and handled similar themes? But I've strayed SO far off the question.

8. What song would make a great fic (to either write or read)?

Up the Wolves by the Mountain Goats!! Love Interruption by Jack White doesn't have a plot per se but by god it's got a vibe. Literally any classic country song like. Charlie Parker said "The stories, man. Listen to the stories!" and he was right.

10. How do you decide what to write?

Short answer i don't, which is why it's good that I am not a professional. True but annoying answer is that it comes to me in a vision. literally i start a story around a single pearl of an idea, which is usually one murky image: lan zhan in the bath in "hush now", an adapted version of my aunt's side yard in "in the pines", the view from above of the main room of the inn that smells like sweet soy sauce in "the belly of it". and then i have to write everything around it until it feels alive.

Slightly longer answer is that I tend to simply write what I want to step into, somewhere I want to be. Not always literally, and sometimes I'm furious and want to see a car-crash of a scene. Sometimes I need to be somewhere good. A lot of my writing is lodged in longing, even if it is not, of course, a simple 1:1 statement. I want to go somewhere in a story so I build it. Or else I build it for a friend who has had a bad day. Same idea. It's so delightful for me, to be able to do that.

[felixantares]

Thank you for the tag @allalrightagain 💚

Hardcover or Paperback? I'm just taking LT's answer but yes, ebook! I can use dark mode, write as many notes as I want, and something about reading on the small screen tricks my ADHD brain into thinking I'm not actually reading a whole book. To answer the actual question, paperback.

Bookstore or Library? Libraries! So many free books, and the librarians can find you pretty much anything you want! Also if I said bookstore my librarian mother would materialize behind me and end my entire existence (but my answer would be the same regardless).

Bookmark or Receipt? I mean receipt or scrap paper if I have it, but I'll be real i'm a terrible awful person who has very few issues dog-earing a page.

Standalone or Series? Typically standalone, but if a series is really good then it can win me over. All my favourites are series (Percy Jackson, Harry Potter) but I've also read so many series where I feel like the story and themes gets lost or muddled over too many books. I've had more consistent success finding well defined stories with standalones.

Nonfiction or Fiction? Oh easy, fiction. I read to escape reality, why on earth would I want to read about reality?? I mean I do like research but only with a goal in mind. Non-fiction just for the fun of it? No thanks.

Thriller or Fantasy? Fantasy, all day every day. It's the D&D obsession shining through, I think.

Under 300 Pages or Over? Over!!! I set my ao3 search functions to sort by word count and if it's under 100k I gently place it in my marked for later list for when I want a 'light easy read' 😂 I'm way more likely to be interested if you tell me a book/fic is over 250k (or however many pages that is equivalent to).

Children’s or YA? I like a few kids books for the nostalgia, but I mostly read YA.

Friends to Lovers or Enemies to Lovers? I'm giving up and just quoting LT here because I agree 100% and couldn't say it better: "Friends. Enemies can be fun too, but I love the layers when you get into friends to lovers. Enemies to friends to lovers or friends to enemies to lovers or other permutations of Messy can be even better."

Read in Bed or Read on the Couch? I mostly read on my bed because my roommate tends to keep youtube videos running on the TV while he does various crafts around the house (right now he's painting a mirror frame with really pretty flowers!) but if we're just chilling listening to music then I like the couch better. We've got about 30 plants in our living room and we can open the balcony door when it rains and it's lovely.

Read at Night or Read in the Morning? I mean, the morning is definitely safer. If I start reading at night I'll never put the book down and I won't sleep, but if I start in the morning things won't get done. It's lose-lose.

Keep Pristine or Markup? Markup. This is why I have digital books, so I can write essays in the notes section. I once had to tape a piece of paper inside my book because there wasn't enough room in the margins for my notes.

Cracked Spine or Dogear? (this part is mostly for LT but I have a copy of OotP where the spine is also cracked so bad you can't read it!! samsies!) But uhhhh both? I do try to take care of my books, but I don't have many and the ones I do have are my favourites that have survived the various purges of many moves, so they're all very beat up with cracked spines and dogears and notations everywhere 😂 I call it a sign of a well-loved book. I'm pretty sure my copy of HBP lost its cover at some point and I hot glued it back on.

Tagging: @girl-with-goats @luxuriousmalfoy @gloivy @venom0usbarbie