#i am still playing it but since I finished the main story I figured I should go ahead and post the review

[pyrodolls]

yandere kung lao I’m begginf,,,,

self aware! yandere kung lao x reader pt.1

warnings: mk1 story mode spoilers, obsessiveness, gender neutral reader, ooc kung lao, self aware kung lao

summary: kung lao is aware he is in a video game, and he just loves you so much. he just wishes he didn’t have to be behind a screen.

a/n: anon im so sorry it took me a bit to get to this, anyways i decided to mix it up and make kung lao self aware bc i thought my yandere hcs were getting too repetitive and i am also a diehard SAGAU fan. (also sorry for my mini break, finals week is crazy man.)

part 2

- kung lao *hated* being stuck behind a screen. behind a stupid wall. away from you.

- you were just a regular mortal kombat fan. when mortal kombat 1 was announced, you were just so excited to get your hands on the game.

- you watched playthroughs before you could buy the game, and you were so happy when you found out that you could play as kung lao in the first chapter of story mode.

- when you got your hands on the game, you noticed that every time he had a funny one-liner in the story mode, he would look at the camera and wink. that’s weird… he didn’t do that in the playthroughs you watched… but oh well, it’s probably nothing.

- in the final battle you even chose to play as kung lao out of all the fighters. he was surprisingly easy to use, and his moves seemed to hit even harder than usual and the fights would be over in a blink of an eye. maybe he was buffed just for the fights?

- and when you finished the story mode and checked out all the skins and rewards you got, you noticed that you somehow had all of kung lao’s stuff unlocked. all of his palettes, skins, brutalities, etc. everything. you owned all of it. even the ones that weren’t out yet.

- you thought it was just a glitch, so you shut your device down and restarted it. but when you opened it again, his stuff was still there.

- and it got even weirder. when you tried to practice, the game only let you use kung lao. for some reason, you couldn’t use any other fighter. you couldn’t even use any kameo other than kung lao.

- he was still your favorite character and all, but that was weird. you tried to exit out of the game and restart it again, but it wouldn’t shut down. the game stayed on. it was frozen on kung lao. and he seemed to just stare at you. as if he knew you were there.

- you were starting to get creeped out, so you completely powered off your device and decided to leave it disconnected overnight.

- but over that little period of time, even though it was only a few hours to you, it felt like an eternity for kung lao.

- he felt hurt. a bit betrayed, even. did you not like him anymore? was he not enough for you? he gave you everything he could. he did everything he could to show his love for you, since he cannot communicate any other way.

- without you playing the game, he felt nothing. he couldn’t feel your warmth. it was nothing but a cold, dark space. he needed you. he needed you to always be with him. even if he couldn’t communicate with you, he’d figure something out.

- that’s why he was changing the coding of the game. he had to always be on your screen, or at least give you hints that he was self aware. he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if you weren’t looking at him. if you weren’t using him all the time.

- what do you mean you want to main johnny cage? or raiden? or even syzoth? what do they have that kung lao doesn’t?

- you liked the powerful fighters? no worries, he can just nerf everyone else and completely manipulate the coding of the game so he has the best damage.

- you thought the other fighters were more attractive than him? he’ll change the game so their designs were ruined and less pleasing to your eye.

- he would mend himself to your liking. he just needed you to use him. please make him feel important and useful. make him feel worthy of being your main. your favorite.

- if anyone became your favorite instead of him, he would go ballistic. he would rethink his entire existence. he’s so strong, and funny, and easy to use. so why would you choose anyone else? what’s wrong with him? is he not enough for you?

- if kung lao found out you wanted to start using a different fighter, he would erase them from the game. they would be nowhere to be found. their image in the game would be warped into a bunch of blurry pixels.

- if he has to erase the entire kast of fighters, he will. he needs your love. he needs your attention. if he isn’t your favorite, then what is the point of his existence in the game?

- kung lao needs you. and you need him too. why can’t you see that? he’s done everything he could to gain your approval. he was already so great, but he changed himself for you. accept him. please.

- the last thing he would resort to is bringing you in the game with him. what better way to stay by your side, than force you into the world of mortal kombat?

- at first, he didn’t exactly like the thought of taking away your freedom, but the more he thought about it the more he craved your company. why stay behind your screen when he can just bring you with him? now, you don’t have to turn your device on and off! he’s not going anywhere. and you aren’t either.

[incorrectfatui]

okay, more HCs. This one is only Scara, so things might get a lil dark- I'm not normal about him. anywho: Scaramouche: -autistic. I am going to say this about every Harbinger, bc it's the truth. -most traumatized mfer in all of Teyvat. Seriously. someone give this guy a licensed therapist. -as Kabukimono, he's tried to eat several non edible items. This one is inspired by that one researcher who made up a story about him eating a humans arm. The image of little Scara munching on various dangerous items is so cute -related to the above: he still does it sometimes, to fuck with people. Dottore thinks its great. Pierro had to stop him from getting Kuni to eat a delusion. -Eyes (& markings) always glow at least slightly, even if he's not using his powers. Its not really noticeable in the day, but at night you can see it pretty well -hates Pantalone. Not bc he's jealous of him hanging out with Dottore or something (if anything, Pantalone gets jealous), but just because he is an ass. -Went to the Abyss again for a long time, just after Arlecchino became a Harbinger, and kind of forgot that Crucy was replaced. Came back and was like "who the FUCK- oh right". Why? because I think its funny -In general, has a better relationship with most of the female Harbingers than the male ones. -a little self indulgent, but I like to think that he was able to float a lil with electro as well. We see Raiden and Ei do it, and I think it'd be cute if he was able to as well, if to a lesser degree. -has used almost every element at some point, testing delusions with Dotty. Mostly bc I can't really imagine all those researchers just throwing 4 extra elements at shouki no kami and being like "figure it out" -speaking of delusions: I think he didn't use one. His electro is inert and I dont think he used another element. I see people headcanoning his delusion as Anemo, and I get it, but I don't like it all that much -SPEAKING of his electro being inert to his body- I refuse to believe he lost electro completely. The whole "oh he used up his divinity" is lazy. He can still connect to Irminsul, which he only learned while ascending, but he cant use electro anymore, something that he's had since birth? Bullshit. I understand him not using it, but I think it'd be more impactful if that was a voluntary choice. I'd really like to see him recover it over the course of the story -I think Youkai like him. Obviously this excludes Yae Miko, but I think as Kabukimono it wouldn't be strange to see him being followed by some Tanuki or the lesser Kitsune. I would really like to see him interact with the Youkai Children from that one Inazuma event, I think it'd be really cute. -I like seeing people write about him and Kujou Sara, both romantic, platonic and as enemies. The two of them are very similar in some aspects, and then radically different in others. I think it'd be really interesting to see Kujou Sara confronted with her own trauma being reflected onto Ei. I guess this is mostly because I just really like Sara and I want my favs to interact xD -more of a theory, but I think Pierro and Dottore, (will) remember him. He has a lot of foreshadowing in his voiceline about Pierro & Dotty, and other things. He's very clearly endgame/lore relevant, with his story not even being finished. -not a HC, but I wanted to mention it: I'm still stuck in Inversion of Genesis on my main account. I never played past it. I did the Fontaine and Natlan quests for friends/watched them online, but I'm still in IoG on my main, because I never fully decided on a name -last one bc character limit: I really like to imagine him interacting with Neuvilette. I think there could be a lot of interesting discussions had here- Neuvi would absolutely dissaprove of his attempt to overthrow Nahida, but at the same time I think he would, to some degree, understand his obsession with the gnosis. No, the gnosis/authority doesn't belong to Scara (or Ei, for that matter), but I think if you told Neuvi that Scara was quite literally created to hold it, he'd understand, to a degree.

[absolutebl]

I Cannot Reach You - Kimi ni wa Todokanai REVIEWED

This image perfectly captures how I feel about this show. You ready? I wasn't.

I Cannot Reach You

AKA I Can't Reach You AKA Kimi ni wa Todokanai

Japan 2023 - 8 eps 20 ea approx 2.5 hours

Themes, main tropes & archetypes: friends to lovers, tsundere/sunshine, self acceptance, self worth, high school BL, live action yaoi, soft romance, kindness

Rating? 10/10

Yeah, it happened again in 2023.

Adapted from a manga.

The moment I finished binging this show I was thinking about writing about it and re-watching it. This is a sure sign that I adored a piece of media. 

This is a wonderful BL.

Truly well executed, with smooth filming and lovely acting, both of a simplistic style that felt slightly more Korean than it did Japanese. It reminded me a little bit of Seven Days and a little bit of Takara and Amagi, and since these are my two favorite high school JBLs obviously I was bound to adore ICRY.

But what it reminded me of more than anything was Cherry Blossoms After Winter.

Odd for JBL and KBL to be so closely linked. 

Like CBAW show, ICRY is classic live action yaoi.

Like the MOST classic of CLASSIC.

All the JBL tropes. I mean look at that image above? It's rooftop assignation, kabedon, and a handhold ALL AT ONCE.

There was also multiple runnings of the gays, surprise kisses (one on a bridge), and shoulder leans.

There is even a “seme looses control to desire” scene which leads to dub con. There is an abject apology after but still - you’ve been warned. 

The premise is: smart sporty hot (and hella gay) Yamato has a long standing crush on his silly sunshine sweetheart bestie, Kakeru. Yamato is also stiff, self isolated, shy, and has only ever really managed to get along with Kakeru. I love this kind of pining seme so damn much, it probably biased me. 

Unlike most uke, Kakeru starts to slowly figure out that his best friend is in love with him by ep 2 (let the chaos bisexual identity crisis commence).

So do some of the friends around them.

The story thus revolves around Yamato trying to unsuccessfully suppress his desire, and Kakeru trying to figure out if he can return Yamato‘s affection.

This biggest barrier is actually Kakeru's feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness (when compared to Yamato). But this is tempered by his genuine kindness which forces him into act with integrity around his dear friend's love and strive to fix everything (even himself) to prove worthy of it - whether he can ultimately return it or not.

Kakeru's struggles are pitted against Yamato‘s repressed need that keeps bubbling over and figuratively (sometimes literally) attacking Kakeru with romantic, emotional, and physical intensity. 

Quick pitch:

This classic friends-to-lovers BL is everything Japan does best. Angsty. Emo. Aching. Driven by real thirst. Yamato is deeply in love with his childhood bestie, Kakeru, and has been for ages, unable to hide his ungainly damaging high school need. He wants Kakeru in every way possible and it oozes off of the screen. Kakeru is silly and a little simple, but not frenetic or overly camp about it. He is earnest, and genuinely wants to keep Yamato in his life which means giving a romance (and gayness) a fair chance. We watch him realize his affection and what form it can take in a truly authentic way. This show was impossibly kind to both of its lead characters and I felt almost honored that I got to watch something so lovely and rare play out on my screen.

I’m not gonna lie, I dithered over whether to give this a 10/10 and nearly didn’t. But there is nothing wrong with it AS A BL.

And it's so GOOD to ALL of its characters and they are so good to each other. It's quiet, and because of that and its goodness, it will get overlooked, but I LOVED IT.

It's not one of those that BL outsiders will get and you must like Japan's style to enjoy it. But I'm in it. It's for me.

What am I hung up over? Even the kisses are good.

10/10

I CAN'T RECOMMEND IT HIGHLY ENOUGH

Welcome to a very elite club. I gotta change all my best of lists now.

I am sorry to tell you how difficult this show is to get hold of. It deserves a much wider distribution. As of Nov 2023 I do not know where to legally find it internationally with eng subs. Please check the comments for updates.

It's on Netflix in some countries!

Try to find it, you won't regret it.

(source)

[lylytassium]

[ Alice Zeit’s introduction post ! ]

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« Our magical cursus and language teacher, she always seems in a good mood but there is not a single class when she haven’t her head in the clouds. Yet, she teaches us so much, she always encourages you to get the best of yourself. A kind-hearted woman. »

Here’s the introduction of my beloved oc, one of my most eldest, i named Alice !

You can’t imagine how i am happy to introduce herself to you 🥹

She had been a huge part of my life since i was around 15, when i discovered twisted wonderland and had so much development. I am truly grateful towards her.

SOME INFORMATIONS ABOUT HER :

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— Alice’s unique magic is called « Through the Wonderland » : She haves the ability to rewind time, but not only : her own magic is the time, she can rewind, travel through the past, create a time loop… She CAN’T speed up time, it will cause her to die and she cannot do that. People affected by her magic won’t remember a thing.

The more Alice rewinds an event, the more it will become blurry for her, and it will harm her, as she will feels as her own organs keep spinning in her body.

It is says that, due to her magic, she can’t remember her biological family’s faces… Only a tragic event will allow her that.

For her unique magic, it’s directly linked to someone, called Time himself (or Oretem but he is @Poocadle ‘s oc, i greatly invite you to check it !) and her relation with him, is very spiky, despite anything, she still wishes he would come see her and treat her as his daughter.

— Alice dislikes Christmas due to a part of her backstory. She used to be governess to an orphanage. But at this period, overblot were truly more frequent than actually, making her lose many children, and thinks she isn’t worthy of receiving gifts.

— Concerning her relations : She is canonically view as a mother from the point of Riddle. I always liked his character. I always wanted to do something regardless the relation of the movie with the Queen if Hearts and Alice. Alice is the mother Riddle wishes he had from the beginning, someone caring, who sees him and his flaws, who treats him decently. Their relation truly bonds after his overblot, he also finishes eventually to call her mother 🥹

It’s the same way for Ruggie, for someone who had beeen growing up without any mother figure, for unknown reasons, the way Alice was with him makes him emotionally attached to her.

And for Leona and Jamil, her husband (@Poocadle ‘s oc once again) haves a beautiful relationship with those two, linking themself to Alice’s chart ! I truly invite you to see her Twisted Wonderland characters, they are unique and my favorites.

— Alice’s mains inspirations are all linked, she is Twisted from Alice in different adaptations (I didn’t have the space to include the book), along with Alice Madness Returns that gave me a HUGE help for her backstory (and it’s my favorite video game), her magic is HEAVILY inspired by Miss Peregrine and also plays a huge part of her. Lisa Tepes and Mercédès de Morcef is the reflection of her personality and to the love she shares with her husband, while Clara is also one big helps towards Alice’s story.

If you want to have anything linked with her, please feel free to reach out to me !! 🥹

I will be more than happy to have a relation with one of your ocs ❤️

Shares, comments and likes are heavily appreciates !

The template is by @/ai_kan1 ! Thank you so much for allowing us to use your template ❤️

BONUS:

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her and her husband in a chibi style, the oc belongs to @Poocadle on instagram !

[datura-tea]

holy shit this year marks 10 years of this blog and moz!! i can't remember the exact date i started posting here - my archive says i have one post from november 2013 but let's disregard that - but i do remember it was around late 2014/early 2015 :)

^ one of the very first moz art pieces i ever drew, for fallout week 2015!!

memories and art through the years under a read more bc it got long

2014 → baby's first rpg!! i started playing fnv on my cousin's jailbroken xbox late 2013 and finished mid 2014 and i loved every minute of it. i remember waking up at 8am and playing almost nonstop until 2am the next day haha!

i didn't play moz on my first playthrough - but i did start creating a character that would eventually become her: a shorthaired ex-boxer who punched her way through obstacles when diplomacy failed. i remember she spent a lot of time with boone. i liked him then, because he saved my ass more times than i can count. but i digress. this is draft 1 moz essentially

2015 → this is the year that i was doing my thesis so i could graduate but i was so depressed and stressed about it that i distracted myself by replaying fnv on pc, where i played through the dlcs for the first time. i fell in love with the dlcs' oversarching story; particularly ulysses, who i became obssessed with, especially since i couldn't find any content of him at the time. in the game, i played as moz; i had most of her personality and choices down, but her backstory was still up in the air.

fun fact: this was an existing sideblog that i remade to be a fallout blog so i could look for ulysses content, and when i couldn't find any, i made some myself, featuring moz as my main courier six. originally, i didn't ship them, but eventually i ended the year as a courier/ulysses otp shipper.

this was the year i started drawing digitally - my uncle let me borrow a drawing tablet and i used an old copy of photoshop i pirated hehe

2016 → i graduated this year!! and promptly fell deeper into my depression. this was the year that it got so bad that i had to be medicated. through it all, this blog and moz and ulysses and my fandom friends were with me. and for that i am truly grateful :) this was the year i figured out how to lock transparent pixels so that i could color my lineart lol

2017 → i started hammering out moz's backstory this year i think. there's a lot of sketches of her and her family in my files. i experimented with shading and backgrounds here but that experimentation was pretty short-lived

2018 → i started using references seriously!!!! i did a lot of oc on oc kissing this year, featuring mostly moz and many friend ocs haha

2019 → didn't draw much this year. actually this year was a blur and i can't remember much from it except from it being the year of my terrible no good bad copywriting jobs... anyway i did manage to continue my courier/ulysses brainrot and make this piece, which i'm still proud of

2020 → pandemic time. i spent a lot of time asleep at home and i think this was also the year i started doing commissions?? shoutout to anyone who has ever commissioned me - thank you so much, i truly appreciate it!!

2021 → i switched from my old-ass pirated photoshop to clip studio paint and never looked back. also i did a bunch of commissions for my grandmother's surgery, which failed, and i distracted myself from the sadness by drawing my ocs over and over and playing disco elysium

2022 → by this year, i've got moz down pat and have started vaguely developing other ocs instead. but she's still always at the back of my mind

2023 → i bought new brushes from true grit texture supply and immediately found new favorites that i started using for everything. i tentatively started incorporating background elements in some pieces!

2024 → while it's still too early to say where this year will lead me art-wise, i will say that i started experimenting in realistic paint studio (which i bought in 2021, the same time as clip studio paint) a few days ago and i'm liking the results so far. we'll see!

all in all, these last 10 years have been quite a ride, but i'm glad i stuck around and i'm glad you guys stuck around too!! much much love 💖💖💖

[gingerbravecookie]

devlog 1 - cursor and the horrors of game making. the agony and such of making a rewrite fangame

hello!! name's cursor/siffrin and i'm a poor loser making a fangame!! why did i commit to this i could have just made a fic but noooo i gotta pick up rpgmaker again

this devlog is made because. well. all devs do one ithink. also to write down my ocasional progress in this project!! this won't be monthly but whenever i have the time and got something to report yay. spare me from this hellhole

we begin 💥

ever since cookie run the darkest night got cancelled a few months ago and left us with only chapter 1 i did feel sad!! i liked the story!!! gingerbrave cool and fucking awesome moments. BUT!! because i am mentally ill,, i decided to rewrite the game myself and give it the ending it deserved to have!! will the ending be proper i dunno. i am still writing this stuff waugh. but hey it will have an ending at least

to gamedev stuff proper. i got rpgmaker mz around 2022 for the purpose of making a cr game still. an original one!! however after making a few stuff i left it in hiatus bc i had to focus on school (i still do. college is breathing on my neck dear lord). i still plan to continue that one but it will be after i'm done with this rewrite. in either way. i've been changing placeholder stuff for now,, such as menu icons and figuring out how to make the party have five members. also re learning how to use aseprite because i gotta make all sprites haha (breaks down)

i should remind folks that i am an artist/writer first and foremost. i will very likely go through pure trial and error while making and 'coding' all of this (why did i plan 14 chapters oh my godddd),, though i do have notes i took from the rpgmaker tutorial so i can refer to when i'm stuck whenever and hey!! forums are always a thing!! i wouldn't have figured how to have 5 party members if they weren't!!

to writing stuff. i've been planning the prologue and the locations of the first 3 chapters so far. as well as a vague idea of chapter 12 and the epilogue. with point A and point B set,, now i just gotta make the middle point. aka the rest of the game</3

the main party and a few relevant npcs and characters have already been set. as well as brainstoming stuff and showing said stuff to the gingerbrave council (personal friend server) for approval of sillyness. you guys are fucking awesome btw if you're reading this. also hi chat

mentally i've been setting a timeline of events. i plan to write these in a notebook so i can have them at anytime and not have to open my laptop whenever i get a cool idea. or dig through thousands of discord messages just to find an idea i wrote down in the moment. overall i believe writing (in comparison to art making and the game making process) will be the easier part for me. also i gotta decide for a proper name for the rewrite. naming it the same as the og is lame. i need something with more sauce. i'll figure it out. in the meantime. have this goober

i'm sure this should be it for this devlog!! hooray!! what have i gotten myself into!!!

in all seriousness i'm honestly pretty excited,, i really want to make this game work and for people to play it!! even if it might be a bit of a pain i really wanna finish this project so there's tgat

that's all. see you all in the next devlog whenever that might be 💥

[slipperylittleturtle]

i have caleb thoughts. specifically regarding the sibling/childhood friends discourse.

i preface this by saying that i fully understand the gege/oppa concept, i consume a fair amount of east asian media and understand the tropes at play, and i personally have no issue with this aspect of caleb being a love interest.

that being said, i am also not trying to convince anyone who doesn't enjoy the dynamic to change their mind.

anyway, infold has made mc's age a little more ambiguous, but within the timeline, it's a safe guess to put her somewhere in the range of 21-23 for the main story. fresh out of school, starting her big job, living on her own.

we now know that caleb is 25. assuming mc is 22, that puts them at a 3 year age gap.

this is particularly interesting when you consider most east asian countries have 3 years of the equivalent to high school. i feel the need to point this out because a three year age gap essentially sets the two of them to not overlap in school at all.

mc would be in middle school while caleb is in high school. caleb is away at college while mc is in high school. mc goes to college before caleb finishes college.

even if the two of them see each other on occasion, they don't really live under the same roof for a fair amount of time as mc is a teenager and entering adulthood.

this aspect of their age difference sets things up really well to fit the older-brother-figure/friend as a kid to love-interest as an adult dynamic. because there is lots of room for them to meet and get to know each other at a different stage in life.

this concept is prevalent in kdramas, web webtoons, manga, you name it. and sure, the adopted siblings aspect adds a forbidden romance twist to it that can be very enticing from a storytelling perspective.

add to this the actual main storyline we already have access to? there's still a lot of mystery to unravel. there's a reason Josephine entrusted zayne instead of caleb with the information about mc. there's a reason mc was kept in the dark and why conversations cut off when caleb was present.

it complicates things just enough to make the adopted siblings relationship dynamic feel unstable and questionable. almost like the person they call grandma/gran means very different things to each of them, just as Josephine seems to see mc and caleb in very different lights.

the new storyline will hopefully give us lots of new answers and backstory. but we currently only have access to the story as mc knows it. so even if she grew up seeing caleb as her older brother, a lot has happened since, and new information can completely shift a person's perspective.

personally, im really excited for a story that gets a bit messy and forces mc to reevaluate things she might not have understood when she was younger.

[the---hermit]

She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

I took my time with reading this book, but I loved every minute of it, and I cannot wait for the sequel to come out. This book is an historical fantasy that was also inspired by Mulan (who is indeed famous because of the movie but is also a legendary Chinese figure). The plot is quite simple and follows a girl who ends up taking her brother's identity to survive famine and war. With his name the girl also claims as hers his fate of greatness. This book was absolutely phenomenal. Our main character Zhu is amazing, and the way the author explores gender with them is absolutely great. The writing was beautiful, although at times it was a bit slower than my normal liking. It's been a few days since I finished it but I still have a lot of feelings I cannot put into coherent words. I definitely recommend this book, it was a great take on this story. I loved all characters, and as I said I cannot wait to read the sequel once in comes out this summer. I'm leaving a few additional spoilery thoughts under the cut. What I would say about this novel is don't go into it expecting heavy fantasy, as it's more of a backgroud element, but do give it a chance if this book is on your radar because it's worth it.

I read this for the pun in the title prompt of the jumbo challenge (and may I add that when I realized the word play in the title my brain exploded because I never realized it before actially thinming about it).

In the part I'll talk a bit more openly so there will be spoilers.

I am taking this spoilery section mostly to talk about how much I loved the parallel we have between Zhu and her relationship with gender and Ouyang the eunuch general that fights with the Mongols. It was a genious move in my opinion to have these two characters on each side of the war. I absolutely loved them both, because they are very much layered, especially Ouyang. He is a very complicated character emotionally and because of his past, and I am very much intrigued to learn more about him in the sequel. I would also like to add a small note on how much I loved Xu Da and his relationship with Zhu. Their friendship/brotherhood filled my heart with joy.

[elkkiel]

“shy” anon,

im gonna play a little bit of catch up here, cause theres some things i missed in previous messages. either the tags or in the replies under them lol

i would love if you drew something for me *flustered noises* your kitty art is my favourite. if youre curious or if it will help, iv is so heart eyes.

ill have to take the time to write out the blondie recipe for you, and ill get back to you with it. ill make sure to include some secrets and tricks in it ;)

as for my project, it is an original work. i cant give you any details about plot. but its a part of a very large series that im working on, like 12 part series (<- that is something i havent told anyone on here, so youre special for getting to hear about it).

weve interacted…id say a semi-decent amount, but id say we’re only acquaintances at most. you definitely know who i am though lol. its fine that you dont want to figure it out, makes it more fun >:)

FINALLY

KITTY. CUTE KITTY. HELLO BEANS *frantically waves* YOURE PRECIOUS. I MUST BOOP. she has such a :3 face. i want to squish her so bad. *cute agression noises*

the weather here has been…idk, alright i guess. we only have a few inches of snow here, but the temps are supposed to drop like -20 something in the next couple days and im NOT looking forward to it. i am so not a cold weather person.

eeooguh texture…its the thing that can ruin super tasty food so quickly.

i dont have any pets at the moment, but ive had lots growing up. dogs, cats, horses, even chickens at one point when i was really young. a pet that i want to get is a Maine Coon.

aside from sleep token, what kind of other music do you listen to? i dont remember seeing you talk about other bands/musicians on here before. second question, if youve gone to any, what was your favourite concert youve been to?

oh goodness, we've got quite the conversation going now, huh? definitely not complaining, though :3

I certainly do feel special getting those ✨exclusive details✨ hehe ^//w//^ that's such a big project wow!!!! have you made any headway on writing it yet, or are you still in the planning phase? how long do you think the finished series is gonna be, like are they short stories or multichapter stories? good on you for committing to something that big lol, I'm a little intimidated just thinking about it

oh, so we ARE a bit more familiar with each other then... well isn't that fun for you? since we've interacted before, and will almost definitely interact (off anon) again. I'll admit that I love me a little game of cat and mouse, especially when only one of us knows who we're playing with *//w//*

chickens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! there's a backyard hens program in my city and that seems like so much fun!!!!!!!! and a Maine coon would be so so nice 🩷🩷🩷 a big fluffy friend 🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷

okay!! q&a time!!

I listen to a bit of everything, but I definitely hit metalcore/djent the hardest—it scratches my brain really nicely lol. For the same reason, I like a lot of electronic music too (I'm in a weird, on-and-off drum and bass phase right now) and more experimental alt pop.

bands/artists I like: thrice (beggars album and earlier), spiritbox, jinjer, alpha wolf, thrown, electric callboy, vukovi, ice nine kills, poppy (her heavier stuff), polyphia, mothica, nothing but thieves, etc etc lol. Sorry for the grocery list of names :P

and I've never actually been to a concert before! I'm seeing killswitch engage in Calgary next year, so that'll be my first one!

again, I'll hit you with an uno reverse and pass the question back to you :3 what's your taste in music look like? you're already into sleep token, so I'm sure it's *chef kiss* lol

[isleepatfiveam]

FFXV Playthrough Update

Got pretty long so more under the cut.

But can I ask for like some beginner advice from people who played it before? Like I think I finally figured out some stuff but the more normal button controls are still a bit iffy for me.

Thanks in advance ☺️!

Session Nov 2, 2024:

Did some story quests today. And made it to Chapter 5, where I fought Titan in my longest fight (mostly due to not knowing how I was supposed to destory a giant gods arm with 4 dumbasses), found out Ardyn has a freaking car (presumably stolen from Aldercapt's garage) and followed him in a race, bonded with Gladio (confused as to why they didn't actually name Gladio's dad) got Luna healing people in the weirdest outfit I've ever seen (why does she have a belt in a straight dress) and got my car stolen (Regis is rolling in his grave) leading me to fight a big one eyed monster to get a chocobo riding service.

Did some side quests and had to deal with like 8+ sets of Magitek soldiers when I was just trying to get a stone for a sleezy amateur jewel maker...*sigh* anyone know the spawn rates of Magitek soldiers dropping from the sky?

Had a wonderful heart to heart with Prompto and fucked up the mail choice for Luna's journal. I have a favorite Blond and it certainly not Luna.

Also got this pretty cool picture of Ardyn. Leads me to ask where is his iconic hat because he still doesn't have it.

Session Nov 3, 2024:

Focused more on Main quests today and boy was Chapter 5 a loooong one. Finally got to ride my chocobo all day~ (looking for name suggestions for her BTW)

Did Ramuh's quest and got some adorable li'l Noct cutscenes. Also got attacked by a snake lady which DID NOT GIVE ME XP!!!! I CALL BULL WITH THAT!

(Also small theory that this was originally supposed to be Prom's bio mom when they thought that Evil Science Guy was supposed to be Prom's bio son instead of genetic template).

Finished Ramuh's Quest and got Noct's eyes to glow purple then committed Base Terrorism to get our car back. Also finally feed the guys.

Since they introduced the warp-kill skill in this one I dressed Noct in the Assassin robes. Also I got to play with the turrets in the base. It was real fun.

Ramuh saved our asses when we had to blow up the Generator in the base once again proving he is best Summon/Eikon/Astral in all FF games.

Finished Base Terrorism, meet Revus but more importantly Ardyn got his HAT!!!!!

(Side note I assumed that he was going to put on his hat after telling the Chocobros that he was the Chancellor, with the Hat being his symbolic crown and all. But I digress).

Finished up this chapter by Heading to talk to Iris and finding out that Jarred was dead then seeing the Omen Trailer. Weird but go off I guess.

Next time Iris joins us as a temporary party member and boy am I excited.

See you guys next time!

[petra-creat0r]

Annual Update 2025

Hooooo boy. Howdy Creative Creators. Okay, as of writing this, I just got back from a 10 day trip from Washington, and it's December 30th, of 2024. Just a couples days until 2025, so I guess let's try to review.

Most of the time, I try to make these annual updates as a sort of promise of what I'm gonna try to get done in the upcoming year (or at least what I WANT to try and get done) but... Well, looking at the state of my comic, I think it best to just, stop trying to promise anything. Between college and the huge shake up that's about to happen in my life in the upcoming months... Yeah, I don't quite see it getting done soon. I had like, one bought of wanting to work on it sometime in the beginning of December and then had to work on Christmas stuff or preparing for the trip.

So, instead, I'm gonna try and outline some personal goals for myself here. I can already tell that 2025 is gonna be a turbulent year so, I might as well have some sort of list to keep me on track. I'm gonna leave them under the cut, but if anyone wants to read them be my guest.

Hope you have a Happy New Years, Creative Creators, and I'll see you in 2025.

Graduate college with my associates degree.

Personally, I would like to go for a bachelor's but... I think that might have to wait for a while. With the change that's happening, my main source of tuition payment (my dad) will be in another state and even if I'll still qualify for in-state tuition... Stuff's gonna be hectic enough. I'm already close to being done with the associates for my current major, and could already apply for one for my previous major so, best I try and wrap that up as soon as possible. I'd already have to at some point anyways to make it easier to transfer colleges later on.

2. Get a job

Something I've been struggling with for... a while. I think I should be able to get one I can hold for longer once I'm out of college, but even before then, I really need to find something. I need a job history, I need an income, the sooner I can get to be more independent and able to pay for my own life, the better. And sadly my fanbase is a bunch of broke teens/young adults, so commissions will get me no where.

3. Make progress/finish on my Deltarune Chapter takes before Chapters 3 and 4 come out sometime this year.

We (or at least those of us active in the fandom) all know that the next chapters are coming out 2025, it's unclear WHEN in 2025 they're coming out, but Toby has confirmed they're 100000000000% coming out this year. And while I am beyond excited to FINALLY get to play through more of this story... I also want to get my personal chapter takes done before then. At the least figure out more of the characters and locations for both my chapter 3 and 4 takes before all my ideas get influenced by the canon. Bitsy, Elymas, and Veratus will always exist in my AU, mostly as it's an AU that I know is diverging from the canon, but I'm worried about aspects of my take inevitably getting influenced by the canon when it comes out. Call me silly if you want, but I want to get my takes down before the actual chapters release.

4. Enjoy and play Deltarune Chapters 3 and 4 once they release

That being said with my own takes, like I said I am excited to get to play the next chapters once they do release. I'm going to make sure I save a bit of money specifically to be able to purchase the game once it comes out. I will likely stream in on my Discord Server once I'm able to buy and play it.

5. Continue Fool's Fate

I still need to finish the Chapter 2 roleplay of Fool's Fate, and come up with more characters. I think I sorta got caught up in stuff, but at least Fool's Fate I don't have to continue or finish before the next chapters of Deltarune proper come out since it's story won't be influenced directly by Chapters 3 and 4's release.

6. Hopefully finally be able to continue AtDFF

It should be easier once I've graduated college, but I DO want to get back to work on the comic. At this point I've redesigned and reworked things AGAIN for AtDFF, and I don't think that AYC is going to be continuing. At least not in the same form it was prior. Like I mentioned, I did have a bought of comic inspiration and motivation early December, before getting caught up in other stuff, so it's not that I don't want to work on it, it's just always been a matter of time and motivation. Ideally, I'd be able to get to point where I can consistently work on it there's just... so many factors from backgrounds to scripts, thumbnails, boards, actually drawing the thing, other stuff in my life. I technically have a small team to work on this with me (mainly my girlfriend and another friend), but I would like to, I don't know, pay them? For their work and help with it? That get's difficult when again, my fanbase is as broke as I am.

7. Get to work on my other projects

Dragon Riders, POW-R, my Fakemon region, Kinder Eyes, etc. I have no doubt I'll develop them more a bit over the upcoming year, (mostly as my hyper fixations shift), but I'd also like to be able to post about them. Preferably get asks about them (whenever I decide to turn back on asks)? Undertale/Deltarune might be my main thing, but's it's never been my ONLY thing, and I want to be able to share my other projects more as well.

[fierce-little-miana]

I really like your fic and I'm love how you do Chizuru and Kaoru relationship. I must admit I'm was very disappointed with how they handle Kaoru in the game, like no kidding he did horrible things and wanted to make his sister suffer but at the same he was a victim of abuse. I wanted a route for him - platonic of course - where he and Chizuru would make up or at least come to a understanding

Thank you so much for the kind words about my fic. It is always super nice to hear some feedback on it. If you like how it focuses on the Kaoru&Chizuru relationship you might have a nice surprise in the coming days (provided that you do not hate modern AU).

I perfectly understand your frustration with how Kaoru was treated in the game (though I am even more frustrated by how he was dispatched in the movie!).

I have only finished Okita's route (good ending only - I don't have enough time to play right now) in the Hakuoki: Stories of the Shinsengumi version, but I am super eager to receive my copy of the Switch version so I can play Sannan's route and the other one (Yamazaki? Sakamoto?) in which Kaoru plays an important role. I want more Kaoru content!

That being said, I did not find the content I got in Okita's route to be frustrating at all. I think Kaoru is a well-written and coherent character in it. He is not sane, he does horrible things, his goals are megalomaniac and very probably unachievable even if everything went as he wanted, but it all makes sense. He can't come back from what happened to him, he is stuck in a headlong rush. There is no escape. He is a well-executed tragic character.

I love tragedy so I love Kaoru. I love him even more because having him as a villain sort of anchors Okita's route as a route deeply centered on Chizuru and since she is sort of the main character you know… Well, narratively the oppositions "ChizuruVsKaoru" and "OkitaVsKaoru" are super interesting to me.

So I don’t mind that Kaoru is a tragic character who could not escape his cruel fate. Even if some days I believe that there was a short window in which he could have been brought back toward the light (I might write a fic about this idea one day). Other days I truly believe that Kaoru was too far gone the minute he decided to take control of the Nagumo clan to ever come back from the path he had decided to travel.

(This is basically me about Kaoru)

But I totally agree with you about something super important: Kaoru is without a doubt a victim of abuse (child abuse from when he was seven, and the game is not clear on when this stopped, sometime before the beginning of the game? sometime in 1864 taking advantage of the political turmoil in Tosa han?) that might very well have a sexual and scientific experimental dimension. That abuse ended in blood when Kaoru killed every authority figure in the Nagumo clan that wasn't him. Generally speaking every important character in the game is more or less given a redemptive action (even if that one action does not rehabilitate the entire character) that sort of acknowledges a "what could have been" scenario. Kaoru is not given that grace. The thing that comes the closest to this is his conversation in the forest by the Yukimura village with Chizuru after she has regained her memory. He is calm and apparently open during it but he is still hellbent on his "evil" plan and, for Chizuru, this conversation is more a corruption offer than a redemptive gesture from her brother. Plus we discover later that he is still lying to her about things at this point (notably about her being able to "keep" Okita).

Having the poster child for horrifying child abuse being among the very few irredeemable characters is… a choice? As I said, Kaoru’s character is well-written and coherent but the optics of that are not super good.

I too would very much enjoy a sibling (platonic) route that would explore their relationship and Chizuru oni’s heritage. Also, but this is because I am fucked up stories enjoyer, Kaoru’s route bad end could be a non-platonic ending. A bit on the same tone as Shiraishi’s Adonis Ending in Collar x Malice in which he is still with Hoshino but both characters are merely nightmarish shells (or everything they feared they could become) of what they were before.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

Glass Onion (2022): Mixed company, mixed feelings

This movie is very Current Year, even though it finished shooting in 2021 and is set in May 2020. One minor joke early on; Blanc plays Among Us during lockdown, because he's so bored.

I am not making that up.

I had the same issue with the first movie. I wasn't sure what all the Topical References™ added to the movie. And I know we love to say that great art is timeless.

But as someone who actually does read a lot of old, public-domain, popular books, many  had topical social issues in them. Heck, the first Doc Thorndyke book is about fingerprinting, which was cutting edge science at the time, and even makes a self-depreciating joke about it's inspiration, Sherlock Holmes.

I've enjoyed the odd Clancy or Connelly or Cussler or Cavanaugh or Patterson thriller. And those tend to be pretty topical. (obnoxiously so, in one case) Not to mention my love of the Vorkosigan Saga, which was so progressive in the 80s it's still progressive now.

I've also seen stories that had poorly integrated topical issues and much better-handled ones in the same show. The same episode, even.

So I don't know why the political stuff in the two movies rankled. I'd say my issue is "politics I disgree with", but I just mentioned enjoying a book series which is clearly waaay to my left.

Heck, both movies are blatantly inspired by Agatha Christie, and I distinctly recall topical stuff in my mum's old copy of *Third Girl*.

Like, literally the whole plot.

I read it a long time ago, but I think I'd still enjoy it.

Other, less important criticism. And spoilers.

-Blanc intially felt like a caricature, which was very different from the way he appeared in the first movie. turns out that's deliberate. He later says he was playing up the folksy Southernness.

Even though he's an internationally famous detective who lives in a $10,000,000 Park Avenue penthouse.

Don't ask me about the high-waisted pants, the cute little scarf around his neck, or the 19th century bathing costume he wears to the pool. Apparently his style in this movie was partially Daniel Craig's idea.

Also, he's gay.

It's not made explicitly clear during the film, and the guy he's living with could be a roomie or friend or assistant, but Johnson confirmed it. I'm not sure what it adds to the film, except an explanation for the scarf.

And also some irony when Birdie flirts with him, even though he's famous and probably publicly known to be gay. Heck, just his visible discomfort in those scenes would be irony enough, whether or not he liked women.

Miles Bronn -possible shallow Elon musk parody --he’s fooling people w/ fake genius, when he's really just a charismatic idiot. And one who gets swindled, possibly. -There's one bit of irony. Early on, Miles guests on his private island get a COVID vaccine. It later turns out Miles is an idiot.

Since the movie takes place entirely in May 2020, the implication is that Miles should know it's basically impossible to develop a proper vaccine in just a few short months.

Cough.

The actual main protagonist isn't Blanc, it's Cassandra "Andi" Brand and Helen Brand. Andi is a tech genius who Miles ripped off. And also murdered. So her twin sister Helen, a teacher, steps in.

Anyone familiar with the Trojan War is probably going "hey, wait a minute..." Did I mention that this takes place on a Greek island in the Aegean Sea? Which has Troy on its borders?

And the first things we see in the film are tantalizing wooden boxes?

Helen poses as Andi with Blanc's help, so they can investigate the murder and figure out which of Miles friends, “the Disruptors”, killed Andi.

Both Brands are played by Janelle Monae. A famously left-wing singer and actress, whose biggest film role was in the movie Hidden Figures, where she played one of a team of black women in STEM forgotten by history.

And in this movie, Monae plays two hidden figures, eclipsed by white men. One maliciously, one charitably.

Birdie --Birdie is an idiotic middle-aged singer who keeps getting cancelled because she does dumb stuff. -She sexually harasses Blanc. This is possibly why Blanc's gay, to make it extra ironic. -She's introduced at a party during lockdowns. When she arrives at the island, she wears a completely decorative facemask.

-Birdie prides herself on her honesty. In this case, it means she's inconsiderate and narcissistic, with no filter. Which makes it kinda ironic (or something?) when the day is saved in the end by a combination of lies and truth.

Duke -Dave Bautista plays an alt-right mra. Supposedly.

-He supports a girlfriend and his mother, who abuses him. He's  three or four times mom's size. He goes "Mom, I told you not to interrupt when I'm recording!" and she physically slaps him. Not even any ramp-up, she just does it.

She also tries to disrupt his call with his friends by "helping" him solve Miles' puzzle box, right up until it's done, and she stops caring.

So the show decided to mock MRAs by...making one a male victim of domestic violence and emotional abuse from a woman.

And from what I saw on Youtube, plenty of people didn't notice the irony. In fact, I found an official Netflix short of the scene, and the comments were glad he was getting "put in his place" because he politely asked him mom to let him do his job.

Also, remember when I mentioned how Birdie sexually harasses Blanc?

This movie includes two examples of the exact sort of issues MRAs talk about all the time.

-I know he's supposed to be a parody, but of who, exactly? jordan peterson? andrew tate? Pewdiepie? All of the above?

I think they even got some alex jones in there when they mention how he sold pills. Specifically, "performance" pills for men, made from rhino horn.

-Duke carries a gun near his crotch at all times for most of the movie. Specifically, an underpowered Tokarev, I've read. On top of the abuse, he also self-cucks himself so his GF can try and pillow-talk Miles into supporting Duke's next endeavour.

Subtle.

And while I was looking up the gun, I found someone on /r/liberalGunOwners saying "well, maybe it's supposed to look Russian because he's pro-Putin like a lot of right-wingers?"

That's possible, but it would be a really obtuse reference in a movie chock full of really blatant references.

-Also, there's something a tad ironic about a supposedly (alt-)right influencer being a large, muscular, tattoo'd Hispanic man. Unless that's supposed to be a tan.

Claire -Claire is a left-wing, environmentally friendly politician. She wears beige, and always looks terrible (to Katheryn Hahn's frustration). She's also a hypocrite.

Some TVTropes editor: it's about progressive politicans that gradually turn conservative.

No, the message here isn't "conservatives bad". It's "hypocritical left-wing politicians are bad". And I'm not sure about the "left-wing" part.

Duke is a hypocrite because he self-cucks for advantage, and is also physically abused by his tiny little mom. Claire is just a straight up liar, as politicians often are. There's a contrast between his performative peacocking in every aspect of the way he presents himself, and Claire's beige cold mess.

I'm not kidding. That was the stated intent of her costume and makeup.

-claire calls duke an MRA. I'm not sure if the writers were wrong, Claire's wrong, or Duke actually calls himself an MRA in-universe. He's certainly a traditionalist, which MRAs usually aren't. He also wants women to get back in the kitchen, which MRAs usually don't.

And finally, there's Miles’ No 2., tech wizard Lionel, who spins Miles' straw - or napkin ideas - into gold. In fact, he spends most of the movie with a gold wishbone pin on his lapel. GEDDIT?

Duke is a right wing tradcon MRA who cares about physical appearances even though he has a bad social rep, Claire is a left-wing progressive with a terrible physical appearance and a good social rep, Birdie is an idiot who keeps saying un-PC things, and Lionel is the smart guy, who is apparently more or less apolitical.

Also, the movie has obvious inspiration from Christie's "And Then There Were None". And maybe Clue. Or Among Us.

Or all three.

[cursezoroark]

( waves) just woke up back read a lil and yeah. Once you finish the rebornverse games,there's still a sudden feeling of being stuck, especially with ocs. For me it helps that I have discord friends who bounce off ideas and plots for said ocs, and I'm literally reworking most of my ocs as we speak......but once that's done it's gonna be like " well now what" lol. What I'm trying to say is that I get the fear - and I can certainly say you fit :)

As for potential advice uuuuuuuuh. Well outside of my own methods, playing more fangames may help? Shifting attention to another separate thing might make you become more fueled for the main thing you wanna focus on( rebornverse). Put ur ocs in different aus for funsies ( not all have to be pokemon related). I literally have a whole separate sub with Imani just being a kid and Devil ( I don't think I ever explained him. Don't worry about it) being her parent bc she never got a good parental figure in her youth in canon, and I'm a sucker for big scary assholes getting incredibly soft for their kids. It's purely self indulgent and the sweetest of fluff but it preoccupies my mind a lot. Maybe u can find an au like that too?

....and that's all I can think of right now, lol. I swear I felt I had more advice, but weh. Here's to hoping you feel a little better though! I love your ocs and your work and I hope this big ass ask makes you feel a lil better :) - R

(Waves) It’s very very sweet for u to send anything at all thank u. :] I’m v happy for u, im glad u got your oc roots going with lots of ppl thats Amazing rlly!!

I have played other fangames! A secondary favorite has been Ashen Frost because Holy Shit what a good story and characters. Highly recommend. I think though rebornverse has like. Rlllly good battle systems that makes me like it the very most and is a very driving factor as to why I like them so much. makes me rethinking my base knowledge completely and has enough sandboxing for me to come up with creative teams. The difficulty hits a very niche sweet spot in my pokemon brain. But it isn’t a whole revamp and it doesn’t feel foreign to the concept of Pokemon itself. I’ve played Flux which I’m patiently waiting for because Woah. I have considered Xenoverse but I’ve seen walkthroughs enough to know it’s Not for me. (Though I know why ppl like it!)

As for AUs, I do have one! Only for Mona rlly which is what I Just made Up like 2 hours ago of them being recruited into Team Xen. but for aus to be not Pokemon related it hurts me just a bit cause Pokemon has been the Pinnacle of my creative life (though I have many other interests! Just not. AU worthy for me? Not enough headworms. I also have my timeskip Mercury to work with, and have my Rebornverse Trio Post-game adventure (they go missing for like a good chunk of months to the panic of Everyone) I am rather self indulgent in my ocs in terms of tropes I’m a sucker for as well I fully understand (I don’t know if u can tell but Mona is literally one of my favorite tropes ever by Existing) (like. Hi Kurusu Akira Persona 5r Third Semester Arc lmaoo)

If I were to elaborate on my laments, I always just feel uneasy drifting from the original. But I do agree AUs are Fun and I will indulge them as much as they interest me. the fear of mischaracterizing will always haunt me though I’ve got to learn to accept that it’s Probably Gonna Happen. But I also just love the canon material and want to try expanding on areas if I can find any. TBH this is probably the most fandom invested I’ve been since 2020 (if u can guess which I’ll laugh) where I went art crazy. And of course faced some endeavors because it was 2020 so. Hm. All others were oc murmurs or observations, I’ve never participated in a fandom This much in a long time.

Off topic aside, I’m very grateful for any advice on my rant, I felt better after posting and doodling some random stuff and I feel even better with very kind words. Thank u :] I will just do what I do until I don’t feel like to. I will love these ocs as much as I possibly could! And hopefully show more works of them. I’ve got two comic wips that I’m procrastinating on because I Hate Lineart. So. Hopefully I don’t give up on them :]

[sibyl-of-space]

[this will be rambly because i am writing a post to figure out what i want to say instead of going to bed]

I keep thinking about the nature of the specific project I have undertaken with Amadeus. It's incredibly personal, it's incredibly ambitious in scope, and it's incredibly focused on music in its themes. Which means that even writing wholly unrelated music to it somehow comes back around to being "about" it.

Because when the main character is Self-Projection Blorbo Extraordinnaire, and he is a composer and a musician, it becomes impossible to separate any music I write from this story. Because he is the part of me that writes music. Hell, even after Amadeus is finished I am probably still going to associate the part of me that writes music with him for, like... ever.

This isn't a bad thing. I think it's actually cool. It's neither good nor bad, it's just an observation. But I wrote my procrastination fugue because I was like "I WANT TO WRITE A FUGUE" and just kind of did literally nothing else for 3 straight days, and it had absolutely nothing to do with Amadeus, and yet at the end of it I realize it had everything to do with Amadeus. I already consider the other fugues I've written to be songs he might have written. I have already considered the worldbuilding ramifications re: the kinds of harmony contained in these fugues and what I know about specific niches in Western music history.

And when I was working on this one, I realized that I'd written a fugue that you literally can't play as one person on the piano. This was because I am not a pianist and I don't "think" like a pianist when I write, but if I consider this a fugue that was written by him, what does that mean? He IS a pianist. He ought to have written a fugue that he could actually play.

I think two people could play it on a single piano. So did he play it with someone else? Did he write it for someone in particular? Did they ever play it together?

I... I actually have some tentative answers to these questions. But these questions only came up because I wrote something for myself, for fun, and then a connection to this project emerged completely organically, and that led me in interesting directions.

This doesn't really have a point. There is no rule anywhere that says Amadeus has to have written this fugue. But it feels like he ought to have written it, and what's more, considering that he did has made me think more about the story in a way that is continuing to bring it more life.

There are many downsides to undertaking One Big Huge Project like Amadeus. Scope creep is inevitable; major milestones are incredibly difficult to get to; maintaining focus and motivation for literal years on end is an uphill battle; the chances of finishing are significantly smaller than for reasonably-scoped projects.

But there are just as many upsides I think. I keep trying to notice them because they're important for motivation.

I can do things like the anime-ass OP that would not be worth it for smaller projects. When it's done - and I will finish it - it will absolutely fucking slap to heaven. And now, I've also realized, the fact it's so huge and personal means that just kind of living my life I am adding to it. Writing a fugue has added to it. That fugue will probably end up in the game at some point. It wasn't written for that purpose, but because it was written for me and the game is (more than anything else) about me, it'll end up being part of the game anyway.

It's made it easier for me to accept those weeks/months when I just cannot focus on the game itself and feel bad about it. Because since I've decided to make the Big Huge Personal Project, it turns out that just living is still working on the project in a way. It's the kind of project I can draw from literally everything I do because it's a story that was lab-engineered to be About the things that I care about.

you're still not allowed to psychoanalyze me when you play it though btw.

[bluntforcefem]

2k24 writing in review: would you believe it. sauces again

author's note

doing my author's note BEFORE the main text of the thing this year, because: damn, it really is all sauces. i posted a sum total of two (2) things to ao3 this year, both for pretty niche medias, and while i'm very proud of them both (i hope we live to tell the tale is the longest thing i've written this year!!) i really hit my stride this year with original fiction, again. many characters featured in this year's writing-in-review belong to the lovely friends i play toys with - thanks to the beloveds for letting me knock around their guys for funsies, per usual!!

some fun statistics for the people at home: i wrote 52 fics for sauces that i would consider 'full-length' (or full-length adjacent) - 22 canonverse fics, 13 alternate universe fics, and 17 spectre-after-dark fics because this is the year that i got into writing erotica lmao. my sauces wordcount, not including a myriad of worldbuilding documents, comes out to about 91,237 words this year! that's fucking crazy. my total wordcount? 108,376. ALSO fucking crazy. i've already mentioned my longest fic this year, but my longest sauces piece (EVER!) was written this year: I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, written in september, which finished at 6375 words. lots of big achievements this year!!

i've been considering uploading my original fiction to my neocities page on-and-off through this whole year. a side project i've been rotating is a wikipedia-style fansite for sauces (so that we can inflict our years-long improv rp series on other people) but even without that, i'd like to start getting my favorites out into the world one way or another (and i'd like for there to be SOME place to get context for them. sauceswiki one day maybe). no idea how much interest there'd be for that, but i digress! let's get onto the monthly highlights, which i'm putting below a cut because damn! they're long.

JANUARY

“la-ast time i ca-ame i brought eli, and we ha-ad to leave the aqua-rium part ear-ly! ‘cause li-ittle bi-ird was looki-ing at the fi-ish like they do the on-nes in the ri-iver at home and they di-idn’t wanna cau-use an incident.” if evan’s hunch about briar rose is right, he’s pretty sure declan’s middle name is incident, but he sidesteps that thought easily as they walk into the first exhibit. “i’m sure eli has more self-control than that,” he says instead, torn between amusement and resignation at the thought of eli perching on one of the exhibits and sticking a whole hand in. “ba-arely. they cau-ught a sal-mon when they go-ot home and ate it who-ole!” declan gestures with both hands, a sort-of this big motion. it is, he thinks, entirely too big to fit in eli’s mouth, but they look so genuine he believes it anyway. “i thi-ink we were bo-oth just hun-gry though. let me kno-ow if you wan-na get snacks!” 

excerpted from JAWS!, a sauces season two story about evan and dec going to the aquarium together

FEBRUARY

when they can’t sleep they go out to the hangar overlook and lean against the railing in the dim warehouse light. they haven’t seen retribution in full since the day the program shut down, but when they stand still and watch the dark, they can see the shape of it twitching, shifting, moving, the synchronized patterns of partners sleeping, scattered across the continent.

excerpted from so i'll take the night shift, a sauces pacrim au fic about declan in the five years between one war and the next

MARCH

he’s not sure what he’s expecting, when eli tells him they’re ready to explain and then takes him out on a flight. even with the snow blurring the sharp slopes of it, the crater is huge, the site of a meteor strike or the pit of a volcano. deep, too; about halfway down the snow gets sparse and then vanishes, inexplicable, and declan wonders if its warmer down there or if its something else, some side effect of the murky blotch of darkness where he figures bedrock must be. eli flies in a lazy circle around the perimeter and then glides towards the middle, landing on a stretch of mostly-clear stone pocked with sturdy lichens. declan follows, stumbles a little on the landing and shoots eli a half-smile when they catch him. “a hi-ike, huh!” “a good day for it,” they answer, matching his smile with their own, gesturing with their folded-up cane. “in more ways than one- but, y’know, can’t be too careful. would’ve gotten us out here yesterday, but i figured neither of us wanted to deal with flying in a snowstorm.”

excerpted from come with me to the mad stone, a sauces season two story about eli introducing declan to the void

APRIL

but more keep coming. eli cocks their head to the side, slides on a patch of sloughed flesh and catches themself on the wall. “where’s the spawner?” close your eyes. follow. but it’s packed. you’re not going to be able to break it. “i can handle a few zombie bites,” eli snarls, but the way vee stills around their neck makes them hesitate. “a few. how packed is packed?” [...] packed is packed. there’s only a moment’s hesitation before the mass of bodies throws itself at them, green fading into black into the hints of pale blue, fabric sewn together that doesn’t match, limbs fused and flesh melting together. it doesn’t look like individual zombies at all, anymore - just some kind of amalgamation, bleeding so thickly onto the cobblestone that eli’s steps splash. eli doesn’t have a moment to doubt that the void will handle the spawner in the center, doesn’t have a moment to recognize anyone in the crowd beyond recognizing it. they clutch the hilts of their swords tighter and let the magic run its course, flesh popping and disintegrating as they work through the horde. a sturdy heap of scaled limbs gets too close, screaming in static, and eli’s head knocks into the ceiling as they launch themself up, talons tearing at the heads and shoulders of everything below them before they land too-heavy on the spawner itself. 

excerpted from the ground needs to be fed, a sauces season two fic about eli & the void handling a broken zombie spawner

MAY

the old man gives them a name. gives them declan shepherd, princess of hyrule, and echo still can’t remember a thing, doesn’t know how they’ll fight the apparent calamity, still just putting one foot in front of the other and tripping every once in a while. but it’s like muscle memory, really. they’ll get to him. they’ll get back to him.

excerpted from and i'll always believe in you, endlessly, a sauces breath of the wild au fic about echo remembering declan. author's note: i have been feeling endlessly shrimp about this one in particular lately

JUNE

“... swallow.” her voice gets quieter, almost uncertain, before she lifts her head and snaps again. “and i don’t actually have any answers for you, loser. i have no idea why your stupid number is a timer, or whatever. like i said, it doesn’t work like that anymore.” she draws out the no, waving one hand dismissively. “and it doesn’t work like that here. shouldn’t. i’m not even really a reaper. i don’t know what to tell you.” neku watches her, but she doesn’t say anything else. “okay,” he says, after a pause. swallow looks at him, squinting. “yeah, i believe you.” “idiot,” she says again, under her breath. neku snorts.

excerpted from i see it swallow my time, a post-canon interstitial infinity fic about neku from between twewy & neo on the infinity train, and also mirror shoka (<3)

JULY

“but you’re not my type.”  his first lie, though he’d honestly expect someone else if they truly were a figment—a strange facsimile of 10, perhaps, or even something like the shepherd. it makes them laugh again, at least, loud and echoing against the stone, and it lights up their whole face. very much a lie, echo thinks, looking them up and down again.  “i could be,” they retort, clearly playing up their offense. their voice is still tinged with laughter, cheeks flushed as they wave a hand at him. “is this an interrogation or a dream, your highness?”

excerpted from show me my silver lining, a sauces royalty au fic about echo and eli meeting in a dream. author's note again: july truly was the month of the weird echo/eli fics

AUGUST

time to play, then. they lean back as best they can in their chair, the very face of unconcerned. “and who do i owe my timely rescue to, then?” “just your favorite kidnapping victim,” a familiar voice chirps. rose stills, and she laughs, nudging the hench with a boot to make sure they’re out before she circles over. “i’ve gotten pretty good at keeping my ear to the ground in the warehouse department! and who else do i find but my dearly beloved rescuer?” “‘dearly beloved’? high compliments, shep. i didn’t even think i was your second favorite.” shepherd snorts. she sets her rifle aside and stalks forward, confidence rolling off her in waves. “only by technicality,” she assures them airily.

excerpted from and iii get a little bit genghis khan, a sauces season two story about shepherd repaying the favor of rescuing echo's supervillain persona from a kidnapping

SEPTEMBER

Shepherd has the same dream every night. It’s been the same dream from the moment she crash-landed on Spectre. The water rises as she climbs a spiral staircase in unbroken darkness, lapping at her heels, always a little faster than her. There’s no escape even if she manages to beat it, she knows – the wailing gets louder as she climbs, unbearable – but she keeps climbing. The void rises. It overtakes her before she can see what’s become of the sun. Tonight – a red light cuts through the murk. She reaches for it as her lungs fill and wakes settled, steady, her hand wrapped around cold iron.

excerpted from I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, a sauces season two story about shepherd accidentally picking up an artifact that pushes her to act on her worst impulses, and trying to kill declan about it.

OCTOBER

lucille shakes her head again, taking a step back. she loosens her grip, lets her hands fall to her sides, holding the axe in just one. “this is mine now,” she tells him, “and you can’t have it back. i don’t owe you anything.” “good,” echo answers, sharp. she stares. “you don’t owe them anything, either. not anyone.” there’s a tension in his shoulders, a distance to the way he looks at her—like he’s looking through her, talking to someone else. she doesn’t know what to say, so she just nods and turns away. he doesn’t stop her when she starts to walk home, her pace deliberate, carefully controlled. his gaze on her back itches. she doesn’t look back.

excerpted from take care, take care, a sauces canon divergence fic that asks, what if echo became a single father?, among other things

NOVEMBER

the void reaches out a hand and wipes off his cheek. its thumb comes away, coated in a mix of blood and tears. you’re starting to lose yourself, it says, and it sounds like eli, now, their voice from a facsimile of his throat. he shivers. careful, now. we were made from ghosts. the world is always hungry for another memory. declan reaches up, grabs its wrist, stares up at it unblinkingly. blood drips from his temple, his heart, stains his overalls and mars the embroidery, pools on the ground and disappears. his grip tightens. “i’m no-ot goi-i-ing any-where.” slowly, it wraps its fingers back around his. lips pull back. the shadow gains too many expanse-white teeth, a skeleton grin. aren’t you? he opens his mouth and the void floods in.

excerpted from i alone will make wrongs right, a sauces season two story about declan in a bad place trying to talk to the void while eli is out of commission

DECEMBER

shepherd unearths her face from the couch and turns to him, eyes bleary and ears flat against her head. fur climbs up her neck and the sides of her face, a patch across her forehead and down the bridge of her nose. in her boxers, he can see the rest of it, grown in thick across her body, almost complete coverage. “it’s ba-ad, huh,” declan murmurs sympathetically. “where’d yo-ou even ca-atch it?” “the crossroads,” she says. when he reaches out and pets a hand across her head, she shoves her whole face into it, the fur soft under his palm. “i didn’t know they even had it here, star, it sucks. so bad! i haven’t caught it since i was–” “fifteen?” declan laughs. shepherd blinks before she snorts and smiles back, lopsided. “go-od, that di-id suck.”

excerpted from the fever pitch, a goofy sauces season two story about catpeople catching a fever that makes them grow fur like kittens do again

FINAL NOTE

if you've read this far: thanks, first of all, i appreciate it!! second of all, there's definitely a lot i'm proud of that didn't make it onto this review (or we'd be here all day). if you want to know more about my guys or sauces in general or any of the fics these are excerpted from, i'm always down to talk shop. here's to another year of writing!!