#i digress. i spent a lot of money.

[bibibbon]

I'm so done with MHA now which is so sad because at one point in time I loved it.

Just all this time, (and MONEY!) I and all of us spent on this shit of a series , and the conclusion is that all the 99% of the main villians die, (and fail to be saved by thier hero counterparts eventhough that was poorly set up - but I digress).

Izuku remains abused by Bakugou (with Bakugou growing over Izuku's character and role as MC.)

Todoroki Enji remains free and relatively well off despite being outed as an abuser (with his narrative growing over Shoto's story especially but also Rei's, Dabi's and every other Todofam members too.)

Talking of Izuku, ironically, the poor kid has become more of a literal 'Deku' controlled by the narrative the more the series has gone on. To the point where I couldn't feel connected to him anymore, despite him being my favourite at one point, because all these major things have happened, such as losing OFA he's like 😐 / softly smiling at Bkg while Bkg, his abuser, is the one who bawls about it.

I'm so dissatisfied, so angry that even my love for fic of this has faded because it's so rare to find one that offers true concequence to Bakugou, Endeavor and Aizawa - that also treats Izuku well.

Sorry for the vent, I was furious, but now I am just sad and needed someone like minded to anonymously talk this out with.

That's a totally valid feeling to have towards MHA. To be honest I have kind of gotten used to watching/interacting with shows that have a lot of wasted potential so MHA doesn't bother me as much (even if I go on long rants about it's wasted potential tbh I find it more fun to just ramble at this point)

I have never actually spent money on a lot of the media I consume so I can't actually relate but dam I do feel bad and can empathize with you over that.

Overall I do every much agree with your rant and the way the narrative simply sucks everything interesting out of izuku is so disappointing. Ironically izuku has been turned literally into a physical "deku" whether that be 1) by the narrative or 2) in his fight with shigaraki where he literally couldn't move without the help of blackwhip.

[dr-spectre]

Ranting about the Splatoon Fandom Wiki....

I wanna quickly make fun of the Splatoon fandom wiki because like most fandom wikis, it's covered with ads unless you use an adblocker, is poorly formatted, poorly structured, has less info than Inkipedia, doesn't update frequently, has missing information, and genuinely is less "professional" than Inkipedia. It also just copies and pastes info from Inkipedia too so there's that as well... I'm not exactly sure how fandom wiki works and how the moderation works but it seems scattered and not good enough by any means.

Like Callie's page for example has this weird ass paragraph that says Callie was left unstable after Splatoon 2??? And it contains a lot of errors and a very weird subjective piece of text in what is supposed to be an objective as possible page, cause you know, ITS A WIKI!!!

She wants to splat shielded Octarians over and over again because that's just in line with her character, she's energetic and silly, she doesn't give a fuck that you need to go behind them to attack them better, she's just gonna splat them up front with her roller, that's just who she is, she represented team Show No Mercy in Splatoon 1 for a reason. Also that dialogue is cut off from what she actually says to further paint this idea that Callie is some broken unstable girl who was a victim of kidnapping and forced brainwashing, for some fucking reason i don't know. I can't even seem to find the original dialogue they stated because THEY DON'T LINK SOURCES!!! HOW DOES A WIKI NOT PROVIDE SOURCES TO THEIR QUOTES!?!?? WHAT!?? I tried checking Inkipedia and even they don't have this dialogue from Callie, so idfk man. All I know is that the dialogue was cut off. Ugh...

From my memory i don't even recall Callie having a new facial animation where her pupils shrink, or it's just so incredibly minor that it's not worth bringing up at all. She also wasn't smiling to hide her panic when her grandfather was kidnapped and insulting Mr. Grizz what the fuck? She was frowning when Cuttlefish dried up and died for a moment!! She was UPSET! and didn't hide it at all! What the hell?! Also facial animations in Splatoon work by the characters swapping between different mouth presets in quick succession, you can see it for yourself when you watch the Idols perform and sing, their mouths don't move smoothly and it makes sense because their language is just gibberish and clipped together audio clips. You can't animate that smoothly unless you spent an INSANE amount of time to animate their mouths incredibly smoothly to match the intentional gibberish and messy vocals. And you gotta do that for EVERY. CUTSCENE. IN. THE. STORY. MODE. That's why the developers just do the cheaper and simpler option to save on time, money and labour.

The "Plenty!" line in response to Shiver's "what is wrong with you?" Is most likely a reference to her quote on quote "airheaded" personality and a subtle nod at her putting the shades back on again and again.

Callie does seem to have mental health issues but it wasn't caused by some "brain warping evil shades oooo", it was due to various things prior to that. Waking up very early in the morning every single day and working non stop, getting harassed by paparazzi, being incredibly lonely and having a strained relationship with someone you used to care about would fuck up anyone's mental health and cause you to overthink and make bad decisions, like join the Octarians and end up wanting to adopt their ideals due to not wanting to go back to your old life and having to deal a fractured relationship with a family member that you think insulted you multiple times on live television, and those feelings and that darkness inside your heart get further amplified by hypnotic shades that cause the restraints in your head to finally break through. But i digress....

Another BIG issue with the fandom wiki is that it's not updated at all, it's extremely outdated, you can check for yourself, find your favorite Idol or character and see if they have the latest info on them, chances are, they don't.

Marina's page is missing Side Order information and new songs.

Shiver's is missing a LOT of gallery and Splatfest information. (No info on Suffer No Fools and "What would you do at world's end?" Splatfest)

Same with Frye. (Frye has the most up to date info on her Splatfest wins and loses yet Shiver doesn't? Huh?)

DJ Octavio's page spreads the incorrect narrative that he uses music to directly control Octarians which has been proven false.

Inkipedia gets it right by saying it's more like propaganda and military marches.

(Although i have my own personal issues with how sometimes Inkpedia talks about Hypno Callie but at least they bothered to include the god damn relationship chart in her page.)

Yeah the Splatoon fandom wiki is just.... bad man. it's awful. It's dogshit. Sometimes i see it as the top result when i search for characters and other Splatoon related content, i don't want casual fans and newcomers to go on that website which has false and outdated information. Please give all the support you can to Inkipedia. It's incredibly rich in information and updates fairly quickly. As a game wiki it's insanely well put together and one of the best wikis out there. It's amazing. If you want to do a wiki scroll and you're mildly interested in Splatoon then it's a great place to get lost for a while and spend some time in.

I just wanted to do a little ranting is all right now. I know that a large majority of people in the community don't like the fandom wiki and Inkipedia is superior by 10000000x but. I just wanted to rant a little. Get my thoughts out there. I'm too attached to a certain cephalopod woman to let poor information about her slide under the radar.

[floofanflurr]

What's a Papyrus made of???

A SKELETON, OF COURSE!

Other than a skeleton.

PUZZLE PASSIONEERING, AND DARING TO A GREAT EXTREME? OR PERHAPS YOU MEAN MY ENDLESS HANDSOMENESS AND CHARM!

Well, those too! But how do people draw you? You aren't made of the same shapes as your brother, after all!

I AM MADE OF MANY SHAPES! GREAT SHAPES! SANS IS MADE OF... SLIME. OR SOMETHING.

He's made of circles.

THAT'S WHAT I SAID! SLIME, CIRCLES, BROTHERS—IT'S ALL THE SAME THING.

Hmmm, I guess you kind of have a point, but—

...Well! I digressed! Here's a little thing I put together containing a lot of my observations about how artists commonly draw Papyrus! There's a lot of variation, (a lot a lot!) but I have found some common trends! Like building blocks!

OR A PUZZLE!

A Papyrus-shaped puzzle!

Not pictured here is the variation in the top part of the skull! (What I have depicted as a circle here.) Some people draw it more angularly, or even more like a square.

ARE YOU CALLING ME A SQUARE?

No-

GOOD! BECAUSE I AM ONE! A SQUARE, THAT IS! NEVER BROKEN A RULE IN MY LIFE, NO SIREE!!!

...Are you sweating right now?

NO!

...Hmmm. Anyway! This post is getting long, so there's more under the cut!

WHAT'S A CUT?

Well, this is a tumblr post, so that means that I want to put some of the longer content I make behind a read more line. That will collapse the rest of the text so that it doesn't make it too hard for people to scroll.

TUMBLER? SCROLLING? YOU SOUND LIKE SANS.

Sans uses tumblr?! Oh no...

...Well, onto the rest!

There's a lot more variation of Papyrus's mouth. People can get really creative! But most of the common depictions I see follow these building blocks.

YOU MEAN PUZZLE PIECES!

Yeah! Puzzle pieces.

THIS PUZZLE NEEDS MORE SPIKES! IT IS DISTINCTLY LACKING IN THE DEADLY SPIKE DEPARTMENT.

Wait, no— Papyrus put that down! This is not a spike kind of puzzle!

And finally, eye sockets! I've seen people do them in a lot of different ways, including like Sans's sockets but slightly longer. But again, this is how I see it done most frequently! And Papyrus has a lot of more extreme expressions, such as his eye boggle and his sparkling sockets that adds even more variation.

And that's it for now! There's still a lot I didn't go over, and I don't know if this could be counted as a tutorial? (Though if it helps, that's great!) I'm more just here to ramble about all the cool art I see of Papyrus!

I didn't get a chance to go over Papyrus's nose, nasal ridge, or the way people draw his neck. Not to mention the rest of his body! And his clothes! There's lots more common depictions (building blocks!) there.

PUZZLE PIECES!

Puzzle pieces. Like scarf vs. cape, gloves vs. mittens, round battle body or more square. (Or even a normal crop top!) Shorts vs. bowl, black tight material vs. bare bones...

That's not even getting into the AU Papyri! They also have common building blocks! (Puzzle pieces, I know.)

THEY AREN'T AS HANDSOME AS ME, ANYWAY! EVEN IF THEY ARE ALSO VERY GREAT.

Ahem. ...Debatable. (Fell gives you a run for your money in the handsomeness department—) ...Nah, you're right.

I AM, AND I KNOW IT!

(I'm also not as good at drawing them...)

Well. Needless to say, there's a lot to cover! And I've spent... huh. 7 hours on this so far! So I'll leave it off for now and maybe do a bit more if there's any interest.

WHO WOULDN'T BE INTERESTED IN ME? WHAT DOES SOMEONE AS GREAT AS ME HAVE TO DO TO GET SOME RECOGNITION AROUND HERE?

Never change, Papyrus. Never change.

THAT SOUNDS LIKE AN UNHEALTHY IDEAL! ...EVEN IF I DON'T SEE HOW I COULD GET ANY BETTER.

Huh. Surprisingly true.

Well. Thanks for sticking with this so long!

How do you draw Papyrus? I'd love to see! Do you use any of these building blo... puzzle pieces?

OOOH ME TOO, ME TOO!!! I WANT TO SEE! YOU SHOULD ADD MORE SPIKES THAN FLOO, THOUGH.

[jewish-vents]

My entire life, I've yearned for the kind of community the Jewish community and Judaism have provided me. I found out I had Jewish ancestry when I was a kid, I looked into it more later and realized my most recent Jewish ancestor (like three-ish generations back) was almost certainly forcibly converted out, and decided to convert to like. Make amends for that I guess and also because I really vibed with the holidays and how we turn up everywhere in history bc we keep doing cool stuff despite consistently shitty circumstances.

But I digress.

I have waited my WHOLE LIFE trying to experience the joy becoming Jewish has shown me, and that gets shit on constantly.

My sister has started making a truly obscene number of Jew jokes. My mom scoffs at all the 'nonsense rules' and has said repeatedly that she thinks choosing a 'restrictive' religion is dumb and I've made a mistake. She even said it's an insult to HER parenting skills that I would seek out religion after she tried to teach me to know better.

My dad is dead but I never ever in a million years would have told him even if he were alive, and my sister thinks it's funny to threaten to 'out' me as Jewish to his relatives even though they're basically KKK-adjacent so she actually enjoys threatening mg safety at this point. (Yay family right?)

My friends have turned everything into an Israel/Palestine discussion lately and I know damn well what they're doing when they start saying truly horrible shit about Israelis and looking at me. They get mad if I try to temper their extremism so I've given up. I barely talk to them anymore and I spend more and more time with other Jews from temple and I don't want to like. Isolate myself from all non-Jews I guess bc I've always felt like that leads to weirdness and perpetuates shit about Jews being unfriendly I guess idk?

Anyway I digress again. My point is I'm really sick of constantly being expected to tolerate it when people think I shouldn't be Jewish.

Other queer people think I'm somehow compromising my queer identity by being Jewish, leftists think I hunt Palestinian children for sport now apparently, right-wingers think I traffic good Christian babies for organ harvesting or some shit idfk, my friends think that if I'm not being more vitriolic in my hatred of Israel than they already are I'm some kind of secret rabid Netanyahu fan, my family think I've been recruited into a cult apparently and the only other people who show me even an ounce of compassion or regard are other Jews and Gd knows there's like ten of us and that number is unlikely to increase.

Just. Fuck. I've put blood, sweat, tears and money into this, I invested more time and emotional commitment into this than I have into going to college or choosing a career, I love it more than anything and have only loved it more the more I learned about it, and all I get when I express this or even just let slip that I am Jewish and chose to be, I get nothing but hatred. I will never understand how a religion that has spent all 5000 years of our existence minding our business and arguing about the same book over and over can possibly have offended this many people with our existence.

Dmn anon, that is a lot you're dealing with right now. I'm so sorry you're surrounded by people who clearly don't respect you. Because yes this is a lack of basic respect, and it is antisemitic. Now I don't know how old you are and how safe you are, but if you can safely do so, set very hard boundaries. Do not tolerate this amount of disrespect towards who you are. It is hard, and many of us have had to go through similar situations, as you can read all over this blog. But I think having to spend your life surrounded by people who make you feel unsafe and disrespected is worse. I know sometimes there are situations in which people cannot safely set these boundaries, I hope it's not your case, but if it is feel free to come here to vent again.

I know you don't want to isolate yourself from goyim. Many Jewish people don't want to. Sadly, when people disrespect us like this, they're the ones isolating us. It's not your fault. Seek people who love and accept you. Sadly, a good chunk of goyim won't - I'm not saying everyone, obviously, but a portion. Having a good Jewish support network seems to be more and more important, whether it's irl or online.

I hope you can soon be in an environment that's safer and more accepting

- 🐺

[katapotato55]

Undertale analysis: Chara was a bad person but not because they were an "evil serial killer child" like the fandom portrays.

TW: mentions of mental illness, self harm, and suicide. SPOILER FOR UNDERTALE. yes this game is 8 years old and scarily popular, but its still worth playing! its 10 bucks on steam! get it! Post also contains stupid edits I made to ENHANCE your experience by at least 50% guaranteed or your money back (post cost $0)

first: some backstory. I played Undertale way back in like, 2016 when the game was still fresh yet gaining popularity quickly. The fandom soon after became criminally insane and went on a moral panic where people were harassed for "playing the game wrong". I remember stories of youtubers cancelling Undertale let's plays because they would kill a character and people would get upset. other than AUs, the biggest thing that stuck out to me was the strange obsession with claiming Chara is an evil demon child who is the root of all evil and eats puppies and enjoys drinking the blood of the innocent. and then counter-culture made it so that chara is actually innocent and that the PLAYER is the horrible evil monster eating puppies etc etc.

two extremes that i half-agree with, but mostly disagree with. There was an INSANE black and white mentality that flooded the Undertale space with no breathing room for mistakes. nowadays people have matured and the fandom calmed down, so now would be a great time to explain why i think Chara is a more complex character than people give them credit for. please don't hurt me.

1- Chara very much had mental health issues.

and not in the horror movie way where they were a caraaazay evil serial murderer

a huge misconception is that people assumed the garden tools in toriel's house being dulled was somehow "proof" that Chara was an evil serial murder or something.

though... I think people also forget Chara heavily hinted at struggling with serious depression and misanthropic tendencies.

Chara climbed the mountain to end their own life. the reason the garden tools were dulled wasn't because the Dreemurs were trying to protect other people from Chara, they were trying to protect Chara from themself. it baffles me how a lot of people didn't catch onto that. It could be that we were young teens and didn't know better... but i digress! "but kat? how is Chara a bad person ? are you saying people with depression are-" get that objectively wrong idea out of your head. Having a mental illness does not make you a bad person. If you struggle with suicidal thoughts please get help from loved ones and don't EVER think you are a bad person for struggling. no. chara is a bad person because...

2- Chara was a bitter misanthrope that didn't care about anyone else or their feelings.

there are several lines of dialogue that point to the fact Chara did not like humans. There is a high probability that Chara had a hard home life before falling to the underground and that is possibly why Chara was the way they were. I am not going to send you a million screenshots as to every single bit of evidence of this, I am not made of time and jpegs. (besides i spent the entire budget on photoshop edits) I am however, going to send you the most damning evidence on my side: the true lab tapes. In the pacifist run, you can visit the true lab and find Asgore and Toriel's old home videos. The tapes basically showcase Chara's plan to Asriel where they were to eat the butterscotch flowers, and then Asriel will absorb their soul when they died.

you can watch this youtube video on all of the true lab tapes. to recap the story, Chara died, Asriel absorbed the soul, took Chara's body to the human village and then the humans thought Asriel killed Chara. Asriel refused to fight, walked back to their home and died in the flowerbed. Later on if you talk to Asriel, He mentions he wasn't the one who went to the human village, but it was Chara that was controlling him. He refused to hurt the humans and fight back and essentially they were both taken down. so here are my thoughts (please remember this is my interpretation you are OK to disagree with me)

-Chara probably just used the freedom of the monsters as an excuse to off themselves, Then put that emotional responsibility on Asriel. -They then USED Asriel's body to try and enact revenge on the humans in their death as some kind of messed up murder-suicide but in the wrong order -This ends up Killing Asriel, then he later became a bitter misanthropic husk after being reincarnated by Flowey. Possibly due to the trauma. -This ends up putting the ENTIRE underground in a depressed state with no hope and causing a massive war with the humans -their adopted parents are now divorced due to this tragedy and both Toriel and Asgore started to have conflicting issues on the topic of humans -Asgore basically trapping everyone with him in his own grief because he didn't want to actually face what happened and played the long game collecting souls one by one. -Toriel struggling to move on and essentially trying to mother any human that falls down without facing her demons. -Litterally all of undertale happened. essentially Chara was not a bad person because they were a child version of Jason Voorhees Chara was a bad person because they manipulated their family into having emotional responsibility for their self-inflicted death and hatred of humanity. They made their issues everyone else's problem and didn't consider how their horrible actions would affect others. and in a way, that is one of the morals of Undertale If you don't care about others and how your actions will affect others, then you would be making the world a shitty place in the end. Lets get back to that thing I said earlier about fans harassing other players for little mistakes. killed Toriel on your first play through ? congratulations! you are a horrible irredeemable person who deserves to get death threats ! /s God forbid we have nuance and acknowledge that most players at this point feel BAD about what happened since this is their first play through! And that they CARE about what they did to their new friend! These kind of people ignore the fact that the issue with the genocide run wasn't just the deaths, but that the player didn't consider how the monsters felt after you just ripped away their happy ending. which is the mentality that both Chara and Flowey had.

here is a video i recommend. to quote this video about the sans fight: "They call out the player not for acting immorally but for acting with no moral guidance whatsoever. Flipping back and forth between good and evil for no real reason except that they want to see what happens. In the boss’s own words, committing genocide “because you think you can, and because you can, you have to.” " Chara offed themself and made Asriel emotionally responsible for Chara's fucked up revenge fantasy without considering others feelings The player restarted the timeline (more than likely the good ending) to kill everyone all for the reason of curiosity without considering others feelings. the reason why Chara goes after you at the end of the genocide run is because you basically VALIDATED the deep dark desires of a mentally damaged person and made them watch their loved ones get ritualistically murdered. meanwhile in the pacifist run (with no history of the genocide path on your file), you simply let Chara remain as they were when they passed away. You didn't validate their dark mentally unstable desires, you simply shown Chara that the world isn't a horrible place and that actually caring about other people leads to a better life. If you HAVE played genocide before the pacifist ending, then the lesson does not sit because you still basically led them down a dark path in the end. By caring about how others feel and the impact you leave on people, you are helping retain hope for a better future for everyone, and that is one of the many reasons why i love Undertale.

thank you for reading this massively long analysis, it took me a lot of time and effort to get this put together.

[neversatisfiedwithlife]

Long tangent. Started as marina and andy but got carried away. Don't read if you're sensitive and can't handle being critical of media.

On screen this season have we actively seen Andy interact with maya about the pregnancy? I want to say no. We really haven't seen a lot of Andy to begin with(it really feels like they leaned more on moving the story of the station through ross. Which just feels lazy and unnecessary. Ross does not need to be a focal point. Yes we get the bits about Andy trying to find ways of saving money without getting rid of anyone. But other than that she's just there. She got captain and then just really became this background character... they really said this is her only personality.)

But I digress, so Andy is the one to tell the team about liam right. At the ross/sullivan thing. But that just feels so lazy too. We get the moment where maya(as always) is supportive and there for Andy's captaincy christening or whatever, and the little moment before that where we get a flash back of them at the academy. Plus in episode one we get maya kind of giving Andy the pep talk. But other than that🤷‍♀️

So yea it just feels really lazy to have Andy suddenly be in the know about maya and carina and the possible struggle of adopting liam.(yes things can happen off screen but there's so much important talks and interactions happening off screen while irrelevant things happen on screen. TV is visual. We should be seeing and experiencing these moments)

This season has spent so much time on characters that do not need it. So many dynamics that do not need it. But when it comes to maya and andy... one of their root relationships, like andy and maya have been special to this show since s1... but we can't even get them actually talking?

Like we can't see andy talking about how far maya has come. Can't see her telling maya how happy for her she is? Nobody thought this would be good scenes to film? Andy who was there for their wedding, who helped convinced maya to stand up to Lane and invite her mom to the wedding?? Or like it would've been cool to have Andy come over to their new home, Andy having moments with liam in an "aunt herrera" type of way...(like just anything that could kind up resemble baby prue).

It really is just maya and carina in their own bubble until the writers suddenly want to put in a line(that feels half assed or last minute) to show "Hey yea remember the firehouse is a family"...)

This also reminds me of the way Jack's story is just resolved off screen after like 1 or 2 episodes? They could've drawn it out, could've shown the team, shown andy(give her something more than background captain character) being there for him and helping him find his next calling.

The way they just so easily write him out but then have him lingering in moments like the funeral and andy captain thing...like if they cared at all about their og characters they could've given him more.

Instead we got an episode storyline with beckett and his family(and like cool we see where the alcoholism comes from) but the continued desperation to have the audience sympathize with beckett. The continued way of trying to have the audience forget he spent a whole season and a half tormenting, harassing, and abusing his power while putting his team and civilians in danger...(no he doesn't need to be condemned to his actions-although the story has done no hesitations about condemning maya at every turn-but it would be nice if his story was actually well rounded. There was no real consequences for him. No real inner reflection when it comes to what he did to maya and the position he put the team in. Same with Ross. They really just wrote her as complacent(and wrote most of her time as chief with the only concern being her relationship with sullivan... but we're also supposed to forget that while they constantly have them talking about their marriage and how much they love each other and blah blah. Girl couldn't even balance being chief.)

[rayshippouuchiha]

hiya, ray! could I have some advice? see, I’ve just gotten my first apartment, and now I’m looking for a good seating arrangement for it- on the one hand, I know I should go cheaper and save money whenever I can, but on the other, I’m close with my parents, and my dad is probably gonna visit pretty frequently. which is great! he just has a bad back from an accident years ago (it never got much better in the pain department because for some godforsaken reason, the doctors never send him to physical therapy? I feel like that should be the logical path, but I digress-), and I want him to be able to recline comfortably if he comes to hang out for a while.

but if I spend a lot of money on a reclining sofa or loveseat, I know my parents will be upset and feel like I spent too much on something for them… I don’t want them to feel bad or guilty, but I just want them to be comfortable whenever they stop by. what should I do?

You could look into buying something used instead of brand new for one. Flea markets, new and used furniture stores, thrift shops, etc etc can often have perfectly good furniture for a fraction of the price as long as you don't mind that someone else had it first.

There's also the option to purchase the sofa/recliner on a payment plan instead of dropping a lump sum although that can, to be completely honest, often end up with you paying significantly more than the item is worth due to interest.

Or, and I mean no offense with this suggestion, you buy what you want/can afford and then just don't tell them what it actually cost or explain to them, calmly, that it's what you wanted to do. Besides, good furniture is often a good investment since it's an item that, for the most part, you're going to get a lot of use out of over an extended period of time. A quality loveseat/recliner/sofa can last for decades in the right environment.

[thricedead]

HIIII I'd love to ask some questions wheeeee. one character that rlly caught my interest was rantaro... he seems to be wearing a priest outfit and I was curious about his relationship with religion/level of religious belief as well as how it bleeds into his daily life and overall perception of the world :0

HI HI OMG HI LEMYA ^_^ i was hoping youd appear hehe. Im glad you asked about Rantaro! I keep his profile low and usually leave him out of the central 6, but he is the game's true antagonist and a very powerful, sinister figure.

I almost immediately decided that he would look like a catholic priest, and built from there onwards. I have a difficult relationship to religion, i essentially spent 3 years of early childhood being babysat and educated in a nunnery and severely abused by the nuns. When I realized how Christianity twisted itself very early in its life into a flag of violent conquest that abusers who like to justify their own greed readily rally around, it helped me make sense of how my own abuse within its walls wasnt an isolated case, and I was actually fairly lucky because i escaped his clutches. However, a strange image of beautiful, young, pure and kind nuns and priests stuck with me, even though Ive only ever met child abusers, bigots and thieves in my vicinity.. sorry for this digression but i had to explain this in order to explain rantaro! He is not christian, and does not hail from a christian family either. He was raised vaguely Buddhist and in fact he is still known by the public as a kind benefactor to a local temple. Religion anf spirituality dont really have any value to him, and neither does money even though he has a lot of it. He perceives trust to be the true currency of value in his world. When Rantaro was young, his father (a politician, albeit a small fish in a vast sea) stole from the european mafia that he had a give-and-take relationship with, and as a result was executed alongside his immediate family members. In a moment of desperation, fifteen-year-old Rantaro began begging for his life in a snivelling, embarrassing display, promising to swear loyalty to the mafia boss and be his dog if his life was spared. The boss was faintly amused with how he only begged for his own life to be spared and not his parents' and siblings' and promised Rantaro an office job in exchange for him disposing of the corpses. The boss fulfilled his promise, and young Rantaro became fixated on the idea that doing disgusting and shameful things for others' sake will make them trust and love you. He performed diligently at his job, and not long after he met Seiya. I will not spoil their relationship because it's central to the ending, but Seiya became the embodiment and object of Rantaro's obsession with establishing a tie through witnessing and being made to witness the most terrible parts of the other person. At some point, Rantaro created his stage persona called "Father Pius" (to separate it from his business persona). Father Pius is always portrayed on the stage as a priest in a confessional booth, usually ending up seduced and driven to lechery by characters played by his other 3 unit members. There's a dark irony in the man who abused Seiya, who in turn abused Odile, to paint himself to the audience as a paragon of purity being dragged down into the muck by outsider temptresses. Guilt and a feeling of responsibility and blame fester in his victims, and the stage play blends with real life.

All in all, his outfit represents a surface-level purity and deep-rooted depravity being brushed off as a momentary loss of sound judgement due to the seductivr powers of evil. The character of Father Pius is well accepted by the fans, though fans still favor the star crossed lovers dynamic between the Leader's character and Jiang Bin's character to the story of the Leader seducing Father Pius. Rantaro does not want to kill himself over this (self affirmation)

[butyoumakemesohot]

finally... my secret santa fic! thank you endlessly to kb @softsnzstuff for putting this together, and thank you to @annieherondale (hey girl hey - i was your secret santa!) for being so patient! i hope you enjoy this!!!

pairing: platonic st/eve + ro/bin, pre-s3 word count: 1k summary: when steve shows up to work displaying all the usual symptoms of his "allergies," robin can't help but feel a little annoyed (i mean they work in a restaurant for fuck's sake)

After about a month into the world's worst summer job, Robin inadvertently develops a list in her mind - an inventory of facts and analyses about none other than Steve Harrington:

He hates his parents.

He loves his friends, all of whom inexplicably consist of children no older than fourteen.

He’s really good at stacking scoops of ice cream. His record is seven on a single cone.

He has horrible allergies.

She’d be lying if she said she didn’t find the last one kind of hilarious. Part of her has been searching for ways to chip away at his ego since high school, and while they’re technically friends now, teasing him about it is still pretty fun.

It’s noon on a rainy Tuesday in June, and Starcourt is practically desolate. Naturally, Steve rolls in a few minutes late for his shift, his dampened shoes squeaking against the tile Robin just spent half an hour cleaning. But she digresses.

“Hey there, Harrington,” she greets, not bothering to look up from the book she’s been assigned for summer reading.

“snff! Hey, Robid.”

He breezes past her so he can clock in, emerging from the back a few moments later. Robin dog ears her book, hoisting herself up onto the counter before Steve can claim it.

“Should be pretty slow today,” she notes, eyes skirting across the empty food court.

“Yeah - snrf! - the roads were pretty mbuch embpty. It’s like a fucki’d hurricade out there.”

Robin clocks another congested sniffle, her eyes narrowing as she takes in Steve’s appearance. His nose is a bright pink, his wet hair slicked back beneath his uniform hat, which is uncharacteristically askew on top of his head. He’s panting, too, out of breath from what was surely a miserable dash across the parking lot.

“What, King Steve can’t afford an umbrella?” she quips, her eyes trailing over the rest of his drenched uniform.

“Ha,” Steve deadpans, sluggishly wiping his nose against the heel of his hand. “I could’ve sword I - SNF! - had ode id mby ca'hhhr but I guess ode of the kids took it.”

“My money’s on Mike.”

He chuckles. “Yeah, mbe too… hah-! hhaHH’ESSCHH!” He whips into his cupped hands just in time, grimacing slightly at the sight of his palms. “Ugh, excuse mbe.”

He wipes pathetically at his nose again, shivering beneath the mall’s air conditioning and his cold, wet uniform. Robin can’t help but feel a bit bad for him.

“You know…” she begins slowly, a teasing lilt to her voice, “rain is known to exacerbate allergy symptoms.”

Steve rolls his eyes, reaching for a few napkins from the dispenser next to the cash register. He wipes the mess off his hands before giving a thick, gurgling blow into the thin paper, still sniffling in the aftermath.

“I dod’t have allergies,” he has the absolute gall to say.

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s just - snnf! - ‘cause I got caught id the ra'hhid - huhhh… ha’hhTCHHH! ISSSHHhiew!” Steve groans dramatically, roughly pinching away the wetness clinging to his nostrils before grabbing another handful of napkins.

Robin goes back to reading her book, sounding rather amused. “Bless you. Also, I’m pretty sure you're breaking like, seven different health code violations right now.”

“Whatever,” he brushes off. “It’s dot like - snF! - adyode’s here, ahhhdyways. snffsnrrf… heh-! hHH’ESSCHHH!”

Another violent sneeze before he’s burying the lower half of his face in the fresh bundle of napkins, blowing his nose with an unrestrained honk that Robin is almost positive the people who work at the Orange Julius on the other side of the food court can hear.

“Jesus, Harrington, could you at least try to be a little less… vocal?” she asks, cringing.

“I kndow, I kndow - snnnrf! - I soud really gross right dow.” He tosses the soiled napkins in the trash before pulling out a few more in anticipation, glancing at her apologetically. “I would’ve stayed hombe but I really deed the modey.”

“We all need money, dingus. It isn’t worth killing yourself over.”

“‘Dingus’?” he repeats, smiling slightly. “That’s a dew ode… ehh’SSCHHHIEW! God, fuck, sorry. snrrk!” Steve searches for a clean spot on the napkins to fruitlessly wipe his nose, another shiver visibly running down his spine.

Robin sighs. “Have you ever considered taking an allergy pill?”

“It’s dot allergies,” he insists, sounding a bit more perturbed this time.

As much as Robin hates to admit it, Steve may be right this time; judging by the thick stuffiness in his voice, accompanied by the deep flush in his cheeks, it may not be allergies. It may be something more.

Before she can bring it up, however, a couple that Robin vaguely recognizes from school comes in to order some ice cream. She nudges Steve in the direction of the cash register so that she can handle preparing the food, moving quickly when Steve’s incessant sniffling starts to sound more and more unpleasant. She presents the cones with a plastered-on smile, managing to slide in front of Steve right when his breath starts to hitch, blocking him from the view of the customers.

“Thanks for visiting -”

“hahh’AAESSCHH!”

“- Scoops Ahoy! Please have a -”

“ESSCHHHEW! snnxf! hh’IRRSHHH’uhh!”

“- voyagetastic day!”

One more horrendously loud sneeze from Steve makes the couple hightail it out of there, nearly forgetting to accept their ice cream in the process. Robin smirks a little as she watches them go.

“Now we really aren’t gonna have any customers,” she muses. Steve, meanwhile, seems to still be fighting for his his life.

“huh’KGGSCHH!” He sniffles thickly, his nose still buried in the now soaked bundle of napkins. “God, does it ever fuckihhh’g stop? hhhhh - hih-! ihh’SSCHHH’uh!”

He finally manages to blow his nose again, which seems to aid in quelling the itch in his sinuses, but does little to actually clear any of his congestion. He tosses the napkins in the trash when he’s done, taking in a few deep, steadying breaths through his mouth.

“Uh…” Robin says. “You good?”

“For dow, yeah. snnfg!” He pinches the bridge of his nose, which has now deepened to a nearly comical shade of red.

“Steve, I think you have -”

“Allergies?”

“Actually, no,” She smirks again, crossing her arms over her chest. “I was gonna say you might have a cold.”

“... Oh.” Steve sniffles thickly, dragging his index finger beneath his nose. “Yeah, that would mbake sedse, too’hh… hhh’ISSCHHhiew!”

Robin laughs; Steve’s eyes brighten proudly at that, even if it’s at his expense. As she ushers him back to the break room, managing to find a dry uniform for him to change into, she mentally replaces item number four in her list with the following: Steve Harrington either has allergies or a shit immune system. Either way, that makes him a huge dork.

[c7thetumbler]

Quick Game reviews: 2023 (Part 1!)

Hey everyone! Apologies for the screenshots stolen from google; at the point I compiled most of this I deleted my Xitter account and didn't have the screenshots I typically share from there.

Additionally, since Tumblr has a 30 image limit this is going to be split into 2 parts! How exciting.

Let's get it goin

This group of 8 games were beat in the first week of 2023! Do not set such goals; games are made to be fun on your own time and turning it into a job is a lot like seeing how the sausage is made. But I digress;

Tinykin (Steam)

A very fun 3D puzzle-platformer collectathon. It has many pikmin-like elements in that you control a bunch of little guys to carry, push, or interact with various objects in fun ways, but I would hesitate to call it a full Pikmin like game because they really serve as collectibles which when you have enough of let you access certain areas. There's really not strategy element to it. But, it's still a fun 3D platformer, and I recommend it

Super Kiwi 64 (Steam)

This is a weird one. Another 3D platformer that will last you at most 1 hour, Super Kiwi 64 is an unsettling but intriguing little experience where you navigate a number of levels with challenges and items to collect. I say unsettling because the music has a very mysterious vibe, and the environments go from the bright forest above to some almost liminal, dark areas devoid of interactable characters and littered with strange skeletons and glyphs. It was interesting; I would say pick it up on sale if you're looking for a chill hour of playtime, but it's also only $3, so you do you

Toree 2 (Steam)

Another retro 3D platformer that's more like the PS1 era, Toree 2 is focused on quick, optimizable movements and levels design to be speedrun and 100%'d. This one is also only an hour, but also only a buck to play! Keeping with the unsettling theme, it's levels are nostalgic and bright, but the main antagonist seems to be drawing on some glitchy, bizarre power that causes some strange effects to happen in levels. It's a small but fun nostalgic experience that it's difficult and a well done series of levels

Toree 3D (Steam)

Same review as above, the sequel! Sure, the 3D may lead you to believe it's different mechanically, but it was already 3D so it's really just more of the same.

Dead Estate: Bombs Away Update (Steam)

This update added a new character, some new enemies, and some alternate rooms. Again, my Dead Estate recommendation is high for those who are into the rogue-like, top down arcade shooters, and this free update was more goodness to complete, though BOSS can very easily be broken with a number of explosion-based items.

Mechanibot (Steam)

Is this auto chess? I don't know what auto chess is as a genre. kids these days

Mechnibot is a top down tower defense like game with rogue-like elements. You start off as mechanibot, a tiny robot who has been tasked to fix the sun and has a number of robots to choose from. Robots act as "towers" that grant certain effects depending on their type and description, and can even have multiple types and effects. Your job is to keep these robots alive and attacking by frantically running around and placing them in and out of danger. You get money for each wave, which can be spent on given options at the end of each wave to upgrade robots, get new ones, and some upgrades for yourself as well. It's a lot of fun, a good 8 hours of content and replayable. Try out the demo and see if it's for you

Minit Fun Racer (Steam)

Another short game! This is a spin-off from Minit, and is much more arcade like. You start off on your little bike and have to avoid all the obstacles and collect coins to get to the end. You won't be able to progress very far for a while, so you get upgrade to last longer and get some upgrades for your scooter until you eventually can. Took me about an hour and a half to get all the achievements, but there was surprisingly a lot of cute hidden stuff along the way. Again, a fun arcadey experience with lots of charm for almost nothing.

Chico and the Magic Orchards DX (Steam)

This one was fun! I was on a big GameBoy kick this year, and the DX for this actually came out I was playing it. It was a little aggravating with some of the boss fights, but overall I had a fun time playing it! Recommended for a nice little nostalgic GBC puzzle game, would definitely be best on a portable console.

A Little to the Left (Switch DL)

I wanted to play more simple games, and this one seemed like a lot of fun as a recommendation from a friend. It's a little short, but it speaks to me as someone who hops between obsessing over doing things perfectly and finding it difficult todo anything at all. I especially like the way there are multiple solutions for several puzzles, which when compared with another player let you understand the different ways people can "organize" the same thing. A casual puzzle game that's worth a try, though don't expect hours and hours of entertainment from it

Game & Watch Gallery 3 (Switch NSO: Game Boy Color)

I owned Game & Watch Gallery 2 as a young'un, and remember playing it endlessly so it was nice to give this one a go when the GB/C update for Nintendo Switch Online Dropped. As the third entry, it contains a lot less common Game & Watch games, but the modern spin on them using Mario characters gives it a lot of personality. Honestly, I'm surprised we don't see more of these games remade in recent Mario Parties as homages or just high score games you can do.

If you've never played a Game & Watch Gallery, I'd give this one a try as its fun, addicting little bites of gameplay are very enjoyable and there's loads of unlockable bonuses to keep your attention, but if you find you don't like a game or two in it it can be a slog to get the 1000 points to finish the whole game.

Wario Land 3 (Switch NSO: Game Boy Color)

For those unfamiliar with the Wario Land series (and yet somehow found me?), it's a very fun series of platformers which focus more on puzzle solving/execution than your typical Mario platformer. Wario Land 3 specifically took Wario Land 2's "Impossible to get a game over" formula and ran with it, also making this a fun little Metroidvania in the process. It's definitely among my favorite in the sereis, though it's held back by an obsession with its own mini-golf game which it has you play one every level (every level has 4 exits). Overall it's a great entry in Mario spinoffs and a very fun time, but be prepared to be frustrated by some pretty annoying jumps and a silly mini game

Super Mario Land 2: The 6 Golden Coins (Switch NSO: Game Boy)

I have a love-hate relationship with this one. I never got to play it fully when I was a kid, but returning back to it I loved it. But it's way, waaaaaay too short. With 6 worlds with 2-3 levels tops, and with a frustratingly focused screen due to the resolution of the original Screen, it's not got a lot of staying power. Would love to see it as a pallette in Super Mario Maker 3 though.

It's fun, but short. Don't expect to spend a lot of time with this, but hey; you're probably playing this as NSO sub or for free online so no loss with this classic

WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ (Switch NSO: Game Boy Advance)

The original WarioWare! It's fun, but again pretty short. Worthj a play if you've never tried out a WW game before, but the best WarioWare portable experience is Going to be WarioWare Gold on the 3DS and the more recent switch escapades. Additionally, this doesn't have the Wario World functionality, which obviously it can't but that was part of the reason I played it back in the day. Good for some random fun, doesn't stand out as an experience vs the more recent WarioWares

Dead Estate: Heaven & Hell update

This is the update the game needed; it drastically improved the floor spawning algorithm, added a lot more interesting playstyles for each character, and added more enemies and gimmicks to keep you replaying over and over again. There are more updates past this that improve the game further, but with this I can whole-heartedly recommend this as a very fun and addictive rogue-like.

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (Steam)

What a wonderful April Fools game. My favorite game dev pranks are the one where they just silently drop a whole-ass spinoff.

A wonderful jaunt in the Sonic Universe! It's no secret that I love Sonic, and I've been keeping up with the IDW comic series (it's very good) since it started releasing a few years back and it's a wonderful fleshing out of characters and side-stories that main Sonic games will never address. This murder-mystery + special stage minigame was written and produced by the same writes on the IDW comics, and it's a very fun experience to see them get to make an interactive game with some humor while still getting to keep and flesh out the characters we never really get to see in Sonic Games. I highly recommend this for any Sonic fan, and hope this means we'll be seeing more in the way of sonic spin-offs in the future.

...

Also the IDW comic series is great! It takes a little to start with the first arc, but after that it's all I want out of a Sonic Comic. Tangle and Whisper are also cool as hell.

Lunistice (Steam)

This was a fun albeit short3D platformer, also looking like a PS1 original. I unfortunately didn't 100% it so I didn't finish the story and get the nuances of it, but as a platformer it was a fun romp. I'd recommend it as a fun labor of love, but not as something you can really dig your teeth into

Pizza Tower (Steam)

This game is really good! Feels great, first time in a while I've been like "Oh this is fun but really hard, I don't think I'll get good enough to 100% it" and then slowly but surely decided to. The only issue is some kinda old racist tropes being used in the western world which they really didn't need, but gameplay, visually, and musically this is a masterpiece. An essential part of any platformer fan's collection to have tried.

... If only they hadn't added more achievements I'd still have it 100%'d on Steam

Super Mario Bros. Peach's Adventure (SNES Classic romhack)

I saw this in a bit on Vinny's fullsauce channel about weird Mario hacks, and the only premise for this being weird was that Peach's design is nonstandard. It became apparent when he started playing that actually a ton of work and love went into it, so for the sake of the bit he moved on. I Proceeded to hack my SNES Classic so I could play this and boy was it worth it.

This romhack is adorable! IT's full of collectible's, has really fun levels, tons of references for any longtime Mario fan, and carries a nice aesthetic of the original SMB but with SMW's features so it's looks like a really amazing Mario Maker game. I loved it!

Across-Stitch (Itch.io)

It's Picross, but with colors! I'm a big running fan of Nintendo Picross games, and this came up on my recommended on itch so I decided to give it a try. Very fun, has a lot of puzzles, and is just a fun time waster. I got it on itch (linked), but honestly it'd be perfect for my phone had I done that

PAC-MAN CHAMPIONSHIP EDITION 2 (Steam)

So this one's kinda weird; Pac-man CE was one of my favorite games on the 360 (I didn't have many), and I thought the sequel would be it but just better since they'd solve the scoring problems. It was actually just like more of the same but with some different styles of play, and I found myself getting tired of it pretty fast. I have nostalgic memories of 1 so I'm probably looking at it with rose-tinted goggles, but this is a very passable arcade experience.

STEREOGRAM (itch.io)

I cannot in good conscience recommend you play this game, as looking at both screen this closely to do the stereogram and crossing your eyes for extended periods of time can cause permanent damage to your eyesight.

... But as a concept it was really neat! I did beat it with frequtn 5 minute breaks, and it only took a couple hours. Very basic metroidvania with fixed rooms to make the effect work.

Charm Studies (itch.io)

A very cute mixed visual novel and picross game! I like picross and this caught my eye, so I gave it a shot. Fun, but a bit short. But also free! Maybe try it out if you're not sure about picross yourself

Shantae: Risky's Revenge - Director's Cut

Longtime C7 fans will know I like Shantae quite a lot. And have an unhealthy amount of Shantae Merch. So when my Sister was visiting and I was feeling particularly self-conscious about playing games over the mic with friends, I decided to whip out this classic and finally 100% it. Shantae holds a special place in my heart for me, because I grew up an incredible prude with absolutely no interest in the kind of scandalous things that friends were starting to bring up. Whenever they tried to get me to watch Anime and watch stuff that had some fanservice, I felt wildly uncomfortable just because I didn't know how to process what I was seeing (and had undiagnosed anxiety and ADHD issues).

Shantae was the first time I saw something "suggestive" (read: cute girls in light outfits) tied with a style of gameplay I liked, and allowed me to kind of stop hating myself whenever these things came up. With this being a DSi game, meaning I could download it with nobody knowing I did, and the rave reviews it was getting by being one of the first DSi games available, I finally decided to purchase it. I loved the series ever since!

Getting back to this play-session, I decided to revisit this classic (my first experience with the series) and play it 100% with all the bells and whistles, including speedrun achievements. I got them all! For people who know what Shantae is, this is an essential entry into the series and a contender for top 3. If you've not played a Shantae game but like Metroidvania's, this or the recently released Seven Sirens are the best starting points

And yes, just to brag, that screenshot of the steam stats does mean I got the worst ending last and optimized my playtime.

My personal Shantae tier list, best to worst

Seven Sirens

Risky's Revenge tied with Pirate's Curse

Half-Genie Hero

Shantae GBC

Risky's Revolution, an unfinished GBA game in the series, was also announced to be resurrected and releasing next year, which is rad!

.. Anyway, onto another topic

TUNIC (Steam, played over steam link on the TV with a Controller away from the internet)

This was a hard one to get into, but a very fun one once I got the difficulty barrier and begun understanding the games' mechanics. I did end up getting the best ending, but not 100% all the achievements since that would've required more playthroughs, and the magic of figuring out the world would've been gone.

The use of the manuals, sudden realizations of mechanics, and really fun moments with some beautiful areas and items to figure out make this a wonderful game. Some of the bossess are.. not great, but on the whole I highly recommend this experience to people who want to feel what it was like in pre-internet days, having to solve a game's puzzles by charting out the world and coming to a deep understanding of its mechanics to find all the secrets. If you're easily frustrated or aren't a fan of 2D Zelda though, this is a pass

Cult of the Lamb (Steam)

This was one I was not expecting to get into. I saw it and thought "Hmm, I like games with a base-building aspect to them sometimes but a lot of the time that really gets in the way of the actual game." And to be honest, there were a few moments where juggling the two kinda did. Additionally, and this is a personal taste thing, the visuals of Don't Starve kinda don't appeal to me, so seeing a more cutesy version of that wasn't something I thought I'd love

... But this game is phenomenal! An incredibly fun rogue-lite game that mixes with base and resource management in a way that doesn't actually exclude someone who would like one over the other!

This was another one I 100% after a LOT of playtime and attempts at damageless bosses, but it was very worth it.

LEGO Builder's Journey (Steam)

I've been on Lego for the past few years, and this seemed like a fun little game that wasn't tied to any existing franchise so I gave it a go. It's an environmental puzzle game, where each micro-level has its own little puzzle where you need to figure out which pieces interact to (most of the time) get your little 1x1x2 lego guy to the other end of the stage.

It's very cute, and while a bit short ended up being the perfect length for this kinda game. The only thing I'd put against it is my computer had a rough time running it because they really wanted all the shaders and reflections to look great, so keep that in mind.

The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap (Switch Online)

This is a weird one. I could've sworn I loved this game as a kid, and in fact this is what got me into 2D Zelda's because it was so much fun! Revisiting it though, I find it's one of the weaker entries in the series. The visuals look great, the story is as charming as you'd expect, and as someone who was really into windwaker and picked this up I was hooked, however it is by far one of the most tedious Zelda's I've played. The Dungeons are all relatively straightforward; while some offer an interesting mechanic from being small and making you think how larger objects affect the world, they still felt very linear.

Additionally, I had no idea just how grindy this game was at the time in comparison! Tons of the sidequests and rewards are visible fomr your first pass in an area, so as a result every time you get a new item you're tempted to go back and see if helps. The NPCs often block places as an obstacle that just move after a while (or a result of kinstone fusing), which made the game a lot more frustrating to remember things by. Kinstones themselves are annoying to find and even worse to use, as NPCs will randomly decide if they want to fuse or not. So to get everything you need to frequently visit and revisit the same places and NPCs over and over again, with no way of knowing if that random person has something you need to fuse with or is actually just a random person.

Additionally the figure collection, something I adored in WindWaker despite it being ridiculously grindy there too, has been reduced to a Gacha machine. A heart piece is locked behind collecting them all, which means for 100% completion you have to collect ALL the figurines, including ones only available after you clear your file, making the final heart piece effectively useless. Worse, the act of collecting them is a gargantuan time sink; it takes loads of time to go through dialog, even more to collect the rupees you need, and the "chance" system doesn't quite work how you'd expect. With me cheating to get 999 rupees in gambling all the time and going through all the prompts to get all these, it took me 3 hours. That's quadrupled at least if you play the game properly.

Never 100% this game, but as far as 2D zelda's go this is definitely not a terrible entry; just a bit uninspired. I'd recommend ALTTP, ALBW, or Link's Awakening over this myself.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch)

I would have some fun screenshots but deleted my twitter so they're gone now, oh well.

I'm not gonna go too far in depth on this one; It's breath of the Wild but >2x larger with some wild building mechanics and a really good story. A fantastic game that may see age as the open-world genre gets saturated, but quite frankly one of the best games you'll ever see on the switch.

Annalynn (Switch)

I followed the artist on Twitter (when I still had one) and really liked the retro feel of it. It's a fun classic arcade game, however like some of those classic arcade games I found myself frustrated by its difficulty while still not grasping the hardest nuances of its mechanics enough to get good at it. It's fun, but I'd see if it's for you by watching the videos first.

Part 2 coming later today!

[synthetic-ultramarine]

I remember when the discourse on AI art was first starting to get bad, there was this one reddit post that people were just losing it about; basically the reddit op expressing an intent to get an artist's alley table at a con and sell prints of images they made with midjourney; people were absolutely furious about this.

I found that response so strange because, first, people were taking it as absolute gospel truth, even though it was just an anonymous reddit post. as if "lying on reddit, in order to upset people, for fun" isn't a popular hobby.

But secondly: ok so imagine this guy really is sincere, and he doesn't balk at the amount of work and time and money it takes to actually run a con table, and he actually goes and does that: so what? what bad thing would happen if the room full of 50 people selling pictures had a 51st person selling pictures? how is "a 51st guy selling images made with midjourney" materially different from "a 51st guy selling images made with photoshop"?

it's not true that "AI" image generation is a collage machine and it's not true that collage is plagiarism; it's not true that "AI" image generation uses more energy than any other common application of your average gaming pc; we can throw these out. So what's the problem, that he had to do less prep time than an artist who uses a tablet and photoshop? this does not really concern me because various traditional artistic media take different amounts of time; the amount of time spent is not what gives art its artness. A photographer making 10 photos or a printmaker making 10 prints off the same block will take less time than a painter making 10 paintings; a quilter making one queen sized quilt will take longer than all of them put together. The fact that I have to point this out at all indicates an excessive focus on the photoshop-and-tablet setup in internet artist spaces, to the exclusion of other mediums, but that's a digression.

What's the problem with this hypothetical guy being at the con? I think the real problem is that he's there, and he's at the con. Any hypothetical sale he makes is imagined as a lost sale for someone else, and as the anti-library anti-password-sharing corporations have taught us, every time you hypothetically think you may have lost a sale, that's basically the same as an actual physical theft of cash.

I think the angry response to that reddit post revealed a very ugly attitude that normally stays hidden; there are a lot of people who primarily view their fellow picture-sellers as competition, not as comrades. Some people view the "artist community" not as a community at all, but as a zero-sum game where every sale someone else gets is a loss, a theft, even an insult. This is why people harass artists like that; the presence of AI discourse conveniently provides an excuse to get rid of a "competitor" by saying "that person must be punished for laziness; they used the wrong computer program, when they should be using a nice moral adobe product."

[uhgood-girl]

people are having a lot of interpretations on the line jk used in his apple music interview my views were different but messed not clear when he said I will never cross the lines with armys which a singer or artist should maintain everyone taken it as he is saying he will not use them for his benefit, sexual desires, hook up nd all crap they assumed but I don't think he want to say that can u please explain ur point of view not share it please.

hi anon, i hope you can forgive that i'm not sure how to answer this without sharing it? maybe i was supposed to post about it unprompted but to be perfectly honest, the quote in question didn't stick out to me at all before this.

i personally haven't seen any discourse over it either and am confused as to why there would be any as it seems within the lines of the normal boundary setting most of the members have done at some point or another to me.

but to be fair to you and this ask, i went back and watched it again just to make sure i didn't miss anything. the section being discussed starts around 26:13 and ends around 27:40 and in summary the interviewer asks jk about the special relationship bts have with army, how unique and symbiotic it is and what is jk's favorite part about this dynamic. jk answers that he agrees it's very special and how it's important to him personally to continue to try and have "authentic and comfortable" convos with army that show a real version of him. he adds the disclaimer that he knows that there's a line that shouldn't be crossed between performer and audience and he won't cross it but he wants to be our "friend" as much as he can.

so, do i think the "line" he has no intention of crossing here refers to not using army for his benefit/sexual desires/hook ups? uh, no, i'm with you anon, i don't think that's what he meant at all. but not because that line doesn't exist for him, i think it does, but like, that goes without saying, right? assuming jk is a decent human being who would never use his fame or money to unfairly take advantage of anyone, which is something i hope we're all on the same page about here as i don't know why anyone would ever willingly be a fan of someone they thought with high probability would do such a thing, would that not be saying the quiet part out loud? is there some group of genuinely delusional y/n's in a foxhole some where needing this spelled out still? (rhetorical, please don't make me think about saesangs today)

i put quotations around the word "friend" up there because at the end of the day, there will always be a (needed) barrier between idol/artist/performer and fan and jk can't really be our friend in the true sense of the word, which he's aware of. the nature of this type of relationship as a whole already maintains a weird, fluctuating power imbalance between both parties as one cannot exist without the other and you won't get very far, on the artist side of things especially, without understanding this.

but jk has kind of, sort of already crossed some "lines" with us in how willing he has been to show and share so much of himself with us, over the last year, in particular. in case you just fell off the turnip truck yesterday, as my very southern grandmother would say, getting to witness someone as famous and untouchable as jk chilling in real time in their home and bed even, is highly unusual. most celebrities with that level of status wouldn't be caught dead sharing something like that and understandably so, tbh, as most fans couldn't handle that level of intimacy with their idol. hell, a lot of people who consider themselves fans these days apparently can't handle it either, which makes me very sad and tbh how dare you potentially ruin the trust so many of us have spent years building up with them. rude. taking things for granted is how you lose them and the special relationship bts and army share only stays special with effort, but i digress.

i think jk's disclaimer here was an assurance that he's very aware of what he has chosen to share could be perceived by some as having already gone too far but that his boundaries are still firmly in place. "authentic and comfortable" are a priority to him but he's not going to exceed our shared comfort zone. he may be a lot more candid than some, say seokjin, who may as well be an international man of mystery for as much as he's willing to show off the clock in comparison, but jk knows what he's doing. and considering how young he started and how long he's been in the spotlight, he seems exceptionally well adjusted and savvy overall at navigating these extremely tumultuous waters, imo.

anyway, respect your artists as human beings and know your own fan boundaries, folks. there's always some nuance to be had, especially on a site like this where it's a mostly contained bubble for us, the audience, to throw around our fiction and theories and odes to how beautiful they all are but when you leave this space with any of that (minus the odes, maybe) and put it in front of these very real people in question, you've gone too far. don't be that asshole. everyone despises that asshole. (including said artists! they're never going to say it that frankly but i will ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

[semper-legens]

50. Diamonds in the Mud, by Brian Reade

Owned?: No, library Page count: 343 My summary: A celebration of working-class heroes - from the Hillsborough mothers to the legends of football, here are a selection of working-class people who have made a real difference in the world, and whose legacies should be celebrated alongside people from posher backgrounds. My rating: 4/5 My commentary:

Now, here's a book with a definite audience, and that audience is named me. While my background is a lot more middle class than working class, I still rail against the overexposure of moneyed, posh people in our pop culture, and particularly when it comes to the 'heroes' that we 'must' celebrate. No, I don't think I particularly care about Winston Churchill, actually - the man was a horrible racist and that fact hardly ever comes up in discussions of him, the focus instead being on his efforts as Prime Minister during the Second World War, to the point where it's practically taught that he alone was responsible for the Allies winning the War, never mind all the other countries and people who were, you know, actually doing the fighting. But I digress. Reade is clearly a champion for the working class, in a very familiar, Liverpudlian way. His focus is very much on Liverpool and the North West, though not all of the people he spotlights are from here. Some might criticise him for provincialism. I wouldn't be one of them, though. I was born in Liverpool, and it's still my closest city. The North West often goes underrepresented in English media. Hell yeah, is what I'm saying here.

Anyway, the meat of this book is spotlighting a selection of working-class people who could rightfully be dubbed heroes. And all of them are interesting in themselves. One highlight is the Hillsborough mothers, the parents of those killed in the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 and spent the years after searching for justice for their children and campaigning for the truth to be officially recognised. They endured so much scorn and abuse for going against the establishment in the way that they did, and their long years fighting for justice for the 96 (now 97) victims of the disaster are worthy of acknowledgement. Another highlight is Doreen Lawrence, the mother of Stephen Lawrence, who was murdered in a racist attack that was swept under the rug for years. Like the Hillsborough victims, Stephen was blamed for his own murder; like the Hillsborough mothers, Doreen rose to the occasion despite her grief and spent many long years fighting for her son's death to be recognised as a murder. She was just an ordinary person, who should not have been thrust into the public eye as she was. She's a hero, though her story isn't taught at schools. By and large, Reade's emotive reporting gives a lot to the stories presented here, though sometimes he does centre himself in the narrative. I get it, but it does come across as somewhat egotistical from time to time. Nevertheless, this is a really interesting book, subverting the common British narrative that only upper-class moneyed people did anything of note, ever. A good read!

Next, a short story collection, and a touch of magic in the air.

[icywebs]

An Adventure in Mum-Land

My mother died 10 years ago. It's really weird to say that, thinking about it. It both feels longer and nowhere near as long as that. She was pretty eccentric and had a habit of stashing stuff everywhere and was a bit of a hoarder.

Whenever we'd go on vacation she would bring a small seam ripper and would cut a couple stitches out of the bottom hem of the hotel curtains to stash cash and valuables - because the hems were huge. On many occasions she realized too late she left something valuable at the hotel.

We knew she stashed a lot of stuff in a lot of places and we had to literally rip up the carpet and I KNOW we didn't find everything. Every book had to be gone through because there'd be cash stored throughout the pages, every casset tape box had to be opened because there'd be cash or literal gold nuggets she got from Alaska stored in them.

We pulled dressers apart and found some of the valuable jewelry taped to the bottom of drawers. We ripped the box spring apart and found even more cash and odds and ends there. We peeled back wall paper and found some cash and thin jewelry stored there.

Literally had to take apart the kitchen table because we saw part of something she'd stashed there and couldn't figure out how she got it in there.

I give this context so that you understand these traits going in.

We had a pretty complicated relationship that I won't get into here. In the last years, we had begun rebuilding our relationship. She had mentioned several places she'd stashed various things, such as "In this specific corner in the bedroom under the carpet I stashed some of the gold nuggets."

Mom. Plz.

Salty aside: My step dad was pretty garbage about handling of her things after her death. I spent a month helping him dismantle the house and everything of value went to him, including items that were sentimental to my sister and I. He "nobly" allowed us to take some of my mother's and maternal grandmother's jewelry (but nothing that looked like it was of value), and said we could take the 'junk' jewelry but he kept most all the valuable jewelry that my biological dad gave her as well. He let us take other things, as long as they weren't valuable, and I had to fight him for a picture that was given to my parents by the artist to celebrate my birth. After his death, we inherited nothing further. He left my mom's stuff, property she owned before even meeting him and that my sister and I helped maintain, and all the money to his own kids but cut my sister and me out entirely when he died. There's some salt about heirlooms from my mom's family never being recovered because he decided to try to sell everything, including some things of very sentimental value. But I digress.

Among the things I was so graciously given was a random black snakeskin patterned grabbag. I forgot about it entirely and admittedly I didn't go through a whole lot. It found a place in my walkin closet and was forgotten as I grieved. Most other things that were obvious have been gone through since. It has been 10 years, afterall.

Fast Forward to last night! I am going through my closet and starting to purge a bit of stuff we don't need. We had a couple of bags of random LARP nicknacks and I initially assumed it was another bag of that. It was on its way to the purge box when I noticed a beaded bag sticking out. I stopped and pulled it out, thinking I would keep it because it was kinda cute.

As I went to empty the bag, I found half of one of those little cardboard boxes that usually hold a jewelry case. Within it was a bit of a jumbled mess... however, something stuck out to me - there was a hot air balloon enamel pin. My dad used to fly hot air balloons and I realized then that this bag wasn't LARP junk. There were several other balloon pins I found further in it that were even more familiar from friends of the family. The ballooning community is pretty tight knit, so we had a few of them.

There were some pairs of hoop earrings, some earrings that didn't have a partner, some random weird shit I don't recognize, a bullet??, some loose acrylic beads. Was... a bit chaotic.

I moved on to empty the rest of the bag.

I recognized the gold stud earrings my stepdad had been looking for. They're pretty heavy, I'd never want to wear them. Had I not known he was pursuing them I'd have ignored the boxes entirely and passed them off as some novelty of some sort... but... I knew what they were pretty quick. They were one of her investments, but held no sentimental value to me. I don't even know what to do with them.

Oh boy things got spicy! I realized then that I was in for a wild ride with this bag.

Pictured here is a random stick that was in the bag, cheap acrylic 'amber', a ceramic bead of some sort, hoop earrings that are aggressively 80s and huge, and the novelty glitter earring in the top right corner. Literally just glue and glitter. I hate glitter. Shit gets everywhere.

I glimpsed in the plastic baggy that holds a box with a 1/4 pack of cards. Most of them are missing. There's a jar of... we'll say vintage acrylic buttons, some vintage metal buttons, and a bonus decomposing mystery pill.

Opening an old jewelry case I was met with some old buttons, one with a missing glass gemstone, a half dollar, an old as fuck nickle, and a peso. There was also a tiny candle? And a segment of the remnants for my grandmother's rosary.

Next jewelry box, upon initial inspection, is empty.

But lo and behold! It's the Black Hills Gold, diamond, and tourmaline set my sister and I bought her for her 50th birthday!

I also found, within the heap, a solid gold chain necklace.

Mind blown. I KNOW chain necklace, she wore it often.

Moving along! I opened the orange... I think it was a hair mask? Container.

As I delve deeper I find the gold plated cannabis leaf, pipe mesh, piece of turquoise, another bullet? An iron nail? A screw? Some sort of brass vintage locket with mystery pictures???

Some earrings in the jar have partners and some that don't. Some of the earrings are sterling silver, some are very clearly the cheap kind that will make my ears break out. Of course this ecclectic mishmash of what even is happening is also hiding... a solid Black Hills Gold bracelet she cherished. The soft metal is scratched to shit and living in this fucking jar probably didn't help. It's kinda heavy. Also pictured is black coral bracelet that I forgot about while taking pictures cuz I was so stunned to find this bracelet.

Well. Okay. This happened. My mom's trademark jewelry was tossed in this grabbag.

It took a while but I finally moved on to find my grandmother's cherished obsidian necklace. It had been broken and needs to be restrung, so all the loose beads are kept in this... ancient... L'Oreal face mask jar.

At this point, I am just about to beat my head against my desk.

I finally moved on to the last box and had one final surprise.

Within this box was the platinum heart necklace with tourmaline, a sapphire, and peridot, one of her trademark sterling silver snake pendants, some safety pins, random agate beads, plastic beads, sterling silver hoop earrings, metal coated plastic beads, single earrings, and...

Unless I'm mistaken, the heart-shaped yellow-tinged (no, not champagne though that's what my stepdad insisted it was) diamond from her broken engagement ring. She'd caught the setting on something and it came off the band - and they had been looking for it to reattach it. We assumed it was lost to the void.

-----

While much of the heirlooms had been lost, it appears some precious pieces manifested in my closet. Literal gems mixed in with plastic odds and ends that were simply tossed in bags and stashed in corners. It's incredible that I've found so many pieces that I almost never saw my mom without, especially with my step-dad going through such great lengths to ensure we didn't get such treasures.

This has been such a good adventure and I'm definitely going to be looking into repairing broken pieces, cleaning everything properly, and get some of this to my sister.

Thank you for going on this adventure with me :)

[tortoisesshells]

for the fic-specific asks: i know customs and duties is an austen pastiche, but push it one step further! what's it look like in the austenverse?

I've tried translating it before, but it's been a weird experience: for all that Nellie's named from Elinor D. (& her younger half-sister, Mary, for Marianne D. - and I suppose there's a case to be made that Nellie's surviving daughter Polly, fond of pirates and jumping out of trees, shares some DNA with Margaret from the 95 S&S?) - there's a lot about Nellie that doesn't map perfectly onto Regency England, or at least Austen's two inches of ivory.

this ... got long. I'll save everyone by putting this under the cut.

In part, it's because Nellie's not genteel: she's the oldest daughter of a man who allegedly earned his living, the widow of a man who earned his living (and then some, and debts, and. well. it's complicated.), and the sister of a man who's not averse to some piracy from time to time. She's doing reasonably well, socially, in Boston in the 1730s, because Boston's rules in the 1730s are different.

But, I think, maybe: what's important about Nellie is that (1) she's terrified of poverty, and not being able to raise her surviving children in circumstances better than she had & (2) she's very aware of difference, and the precariousness of her current, relatively elevated station. So I think, sanding-off the specific stamps and edges of the base universe, Nellie's still a young widow with children, she's just - hmm. Well, she's not controlling much of an estate. Much more like the Hayters or the Musgroves than the Elliots or the Bennets, I suppose. She married up - maybe she's a downwardly-mobile farmer's daughter, or the same, but a country lawyer - she's since moved away from the country in which she was raised, and doesn't count much on her blood-family for support of any kind.

Let's just ... assume Jimothy's still a naval officer. It feels tremendously unfair for Nellie to get stripped of a lot of her specific backstory, but it's too weird to imagine him as, say, a prosperous landowner. Too many of his problems come from spending 5/6s of his life in the RN.

The real question is: what's the conflict? I assume, since we are living in Austen's two inches of ivory, there's a lot less smuggling, out and out lying, near-drowning and actual drowning/murder, piracy, and weird digressions on Protestant sects. So much of Customs hinges on Nellie and Norrington being on opposite sides of the smuggling problem, and the strain that puts on them individually and as people who genuinely like each other but sometimes fall short of understanding; there's not really a neat parallel that I can think of that fits within Austen's worlds and plots. I think, maybe, you could file down the plot to "Norrington threatens Nellie's ability to maintain her family" - maybe he's got some distant claim to the land? Or he's made his fortune in prize money during the Napoleonic Wars, and is looking to purchase an estate - meanwhile, Nellie's financially shaky, and cannot eliminate the possibility of selling Samuel's land and house, she would desperately like to avoid that possibility.

(that seems a little more like a Hardy plot to me.)

Let's just ... assume for the sake of argument, perhaps, that Widow Treat & family live in the same neighborhood as Norrington's older sister, Frances, whose husband is an MP. An estate close to the one member of his family he likes is appealing; the circumstances are sad, of course, but he's been at war for 22 years at least - he's a little inured to death. Nellie's will to rent it out, at least, after the harvest - besides, she spent the first 18 years of her life in a state of anxiety and embarrassment, why should the back end of her life be any different? She and the children go to stay with her late husband's Aunt and Uncle in Bath, which is, of course, where the Austenian comedy starts...

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Please could you tell me all about your wool mattress? I looked into them a bit years ago (when I had chronic fatigue and was reading all sorts of scary things about the toxic fire-retardants in our mattresses we're breathing all night) but at the time I couldn't justify the expense, when my own mattress was only a few years old. Would love to hear why you love yours so much!

Where to start... XD

So, for everybody else that might not know this, in many places before the advent of modern foam mattresses, people slept in mattresses filled with wool, feathers, or hay. Where I live, as wool has been one of the main products for a long, long time, wool mattresses were the most common type.

(picture reference)

My parents' first home was a beach cabin, and we had wool mattresses there, which we left behind for the next owner when we moved; friends of mine that live on the countryside still have them in some places. So I had experience with them since childhood, and around last year, as I kept waking up with back pain every day, I started thinking more and more seriously about getting one, and earlier this year, after some research I found what is, to my knowledge, the only wool mattress maker in my city; so I bit the bullet and got one made for myself.

The saga of the purchase itself was something, because the shop was very folkloric, the owner a chatty old man who ballparked the cost of the mattress to me, and who also had on one of his tables something that looked like a wheel of cheese, but didn't smell like cheese but also didn't look like wood or a tool and I was too afraid to ask what it was. Anyways.

The cost itself in my case was around the same price a good foam mattress of the same size. The main difference that way is that a foam mattress will last you a decade, perhaps, a wool mattress can last a lifetime. BUT wool mattresses also require maintenance; you need to air them regularly (it will vary depending on the relative humidity of the place you live at, how many hours you spend in bed, etc), turn them around and flip them to distribute sinking, and because wool coils up, they need to be opened and the filling combed down and fluffled up once in a while (this also varies depending on your weight, hours spent in bed, level of comfort with flatness/stiffness, etc). Some say once every two years or so, it can be less it can be more. I think it is more organic that way, somehow (?) like how people joke about mattress stores being all fronts for money laundering because it is an item people so seldomly purchase, but when mattresses have maintenance, then the business does become sustainable. I digress.

So, experience these past few months: change of mattress hasn't really affected my fatigue at all, so probably the fire retardants are not relevant (wool itself isn't really that flammable at all without any additives, so that's still a pro if you are concerned about the fire retardant and other processing chemicals present in foam), but my morning back and neck pain is gone. GONE. And I sleep much better at night. You can feel the breathability of the material. Same with the support. The support of a foam mattress has a completely different tension. Think the difference of feel between stretchy pants and fitted pants that have no elastic component to them. The support is firm rather than tense.

Some people worry about wool attracting bugs, but I have never seen one of these get infested (?) so that's up for debate, I think. One pro of wool mattresses is that you can bend them and roll them up for cleaning and ventilation, but they also have the con that they are much heavier than a foam mattress, so I think if you aren't particularly buff, carrying a queen or king sized one from one room to another will require two people. The level of softness/stiffness of the mattress will depend a lot on the type and amount of wool it has.

I think I have covered all with this (?) If there's something else you'd like to know, please ask!

In general I am very happy with my choice and recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone for whom the pros as presented outweight the cons.