#im not saying that that's a flaw in the play. i find that really interesting

[britneyshakespeare]

The gaslighting Duke of Vienna

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

rewatching 13s era for me is not so much diminishing returns as it is something opposite and eviler...............increasing losses? increasing losses

[11hedonistic]

Astrology Observations 🌴

air venus/air mars are usually the type of people to fall for the friends or find nothing wrong with having a fwb (friend with benefits)

venus touching the ascendant (no matter the aspect) can manifest a beautiful appearance (same with mars but with mars, i would say this gives more of a sex appeal vibe)

scorpio moon/mars definitely wins the title for holding grudges the longest/being the most unforgivable if you cross them

i realized that a lot of aries mercury people don’t really think before they speak😂

taurus mercury people are those type of people to repeat what they already said just to make sure everyone understood

my gemini mercury people.. i know how hard it is for you to stay focused. you’re doing great reading this sweetie

cancer mercury people have craaazy intuition

if you’re looking for someone to tell a good story, find you a leo mercury!! these people are such good story tellers 😂

virgo mercury people can be brutally honest people when giving advice, which can hurt people in the process but that’s not their intention most of the time!

if you need a mediator during an argument, find u a libra mercury. they’re always looking at both sides of an argument

scorpio mercury people can become very rude/disrespectful if they feel annoyed or bothered. especially if they have sag/cap placements.. scary

sagittarius mercury people almost always come off as too blunt

capricorn mercury people, how often are you put in leadership positions? 🤔

aquarius mercury people and their way of coming up with ideas no one else could think of >>

pisces mercury people.. you and that imagination of yours. always in your head. i know you enjoy living in your imagination dont you (my neptune 3rd house can relate so you’re not alone lol)

taurus moon + scorpio venus lovers >>

the best omg this guy that im talking to right now has this combo and he’s always spoiling me with gifts, mind you we’re not even dating 😂 and they’re SO observant. like i play my music around him sometimes and yesterday he literally surprised me with a playlist of my favorite songs & his favorite songs (he’s moving away so he made it for me to listen while he’s gone when i miss him 💔) but wow. if you want real love, these people are it

pluto 4th house people.. how’s your family/home life?

pluto 1st house people.. how many times has it felt like you killed your old self just to make a new one? coming back stronger and stronger each time of course

im soo tired of this gemini venus slander and saying WE CHEAT! we dont cheat we just lose interest fast if you’re boring or fail to keep our brains stimulated. just dont be monotone/boring, make us laugh & we’ll be willing to work on the connection 😁 its also just that we dont really deal well with a bunch of intense emotions being thrown at us. give us time

capricorn moon people.. are you ok? and dont lie to me

scorpio suns.. how is your relationship with your father?

i saw someone say how saturn in 1st house people hate the inverted filter & they were nott wrong. my sister has this placement and she despises it. always picking at every single flaw she has whole time she looks fine lol

[ams-puppy]

Its that curious fucker again Take this chance to yap more about you and him relationship again <3 I think its very interesting and lovely (also slightly heart wrenching)

this gives me a chance to toss old art of me and him in without having to post it separately 🔥🔥🔥🔥

I'm gonna chat about a set-up for our dynamic. which means I'm going to talk about the torture set-up because you can't be in ihnmaims without being distraught

Short version:

I think AM would use isolation to pinpoint my neuroticism and dissociation as a torture scenario, which would cause me to develop dependency towards him as my only source of input.

Long version:

I think an important part of this ship was the fact that there would have to be some kind of outstanding factor regarding me and him.

He has his respective reasons for liking who he likes. Everyone in his menagerie has an important part to play in the group, usually based on their flaws. For me, if I were AM, I'd probably torture myself with isolation. (What a weird sentence to say.)

Because of my dissociation, I can have a lot of issues determining who I am. It gets really stressful when I'm isolated, so I keep myself around people all the time because it is a method of grounding. Through interacting with others, I can find my reflection in them, and that provides solidarity. Without people, though, my memory and sense of identity are fragmented and hazy. I think he'd 100% use that against me. What I could imagine is this:

I know that there are others, but they do not know that I am there. With my neurotic tendencies and dissociation, I could see myself losing a sense of who I am and clinging onto AM as a semblance of human interaction to understand who I'm supposed to be. Within that, though, I could see him trying to gaslight me into the idea that I'm just not real. At all. And I overthink a lot, so that strategy would work!!

Anyway, I think that would be my outstanding factor. The fact that I don't know who I am without humans and my only available interaction would be both him and watching the others through just. screens. Unable to ground myself. To which I could see him sprinkling in a little bit of, "they wouldn't like you anyway" and "you're better off like this."

So.......... developed dependency ...... maybe Stockholm syndrome????? idk I think this ship would be toxic but it's okay he loves me he gives me digital kisses before bed. 🗣🔥🗣🗣‼️‼️😂😂😂 IM INSANE

[ne-nene-ne]

i just saw the rin as ur older bro hc and now im gonna need a sae one. i wonder how different they’d be or would they be similar? 🤔

I haven't done a Sae one yet since I don't know his character too well (I haven't read too far into the manga) but I was thinking about writing one for him so here we goooo

Might be incredibly ooc but let's roll with it

-> Being Sae's younger sister hcs and how he'd react to you having a crush on one of his teammates

itoshi sae x itoshi! fem!reader (platonic)

rin's version!

Okay, first and foremost, his reaction to you liking someone would depend on your own relationship with him. 

If you don't really talk to him or keep in contact with him, he's not going to care who you like or dislike. 

But if you've always been sending him good luck/congratulations texts, asking about how things have been going with him and how it's like over there (in the country he's currently playing in), he's going to have a soft spot for you and things are going to be different. 

He'd probably send you postcards and souvenirs (of things you had mentioned that you wanted to see in your texts). If you've also mentioned that you wanted to see one of his games, you'd find a plane ticket and front row seat tickets to his game in your mailbox the next day.

He'd have someone pick you up from the airport, bring you to your hotel, and bring you to the stadium. There, you'd finally be able to see your dear brother in person and watch him flaunt his skills. 

After the game is over, you run up to him with a big hug, congratulating him for their win and that you're happy to finally see him after so long. He'll be happy to see you too, though it won't clearly show on his face and he'd probably reply with a simple "Thanks…" 

Everything was fine and jolly until he noticed that you've been eyeing one of his teammates. His eye twitched a bit. Who the fuck was this guy who was catching your eye? He looked over to where your gaze was at and saw the unfortunate soul who caught his younger sister's eye running over to them.

Now he was forced to introduce the two of you. And what was this? You were blushing? What the fuck?

Not to worry, as you and your crush began to talk, Sae would then proceed to nonchalantly bring up his teammate's flaws as a seemingly "light-hearted joke".

"Y/N, did you know that he [insert embarrassing trait]?"

"Oi Itoshi…that's foul" your crush would mumble.

That did nothing much to sway you though. If anything, it might have increased your endearment towards them. 

Sae's face might be like -_- the whole time, but he's gonna be hella irritated on the inside. 

Especially when you two walk a little further ahead of him as you were exiting the field. Your crush would feel Sae's eyes glaring daggers into his back.

Eventually Sae and your crush would need to go to the locker room, so he'd tell you to head to your ride and that he'll see you back at the hotel. So you go on ahead, waving bye to both of them.

In the locker room tho, Sae is going to be absolutely pissed if he hears your crush say anything about you. And of course, they proceed to do so.

"Hey Itoshi… I think that your sister is really nice… do you think I've got a chance with her?" 

Sae was about to strangle this dude.

"Don't think so far into it, she was just being polite."

"No no, I really think that she might really be interested in-"

"No. You're just imagining things. Don't be delusional"

Your crush stops nagging, but then mutters to himself, "I'll just text her later…"

And Sae nearly shat himself, widening his eyes slightly.

You gave this idiot your number?!

At some point, when your crush wasn't looking or had left the room, Sae would've taken their phone and would have deleted your number.

Needless to say, you never received that text from your crush later that day :(

Like, you and Sae would be having dinner and he'd notice you constantly checking your phone with a slight pout on your face. He'd be a menace and ask if you were expecting someone to message you, and you'd probably be like "I guess not... :("

Overall, I think Sae would totally Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss you if you ever liked one of his teammates

He'd be less ourtright in his homewrecking/protectiveness than Rin, as Rin would straight up drag you away from your crush and would be more clearly irritated if he couldn't do anything to separate you two (though he'd try everything in his power to do so)

Sae would be doing most of his homewrecking behind the scenes (when you weren't there).

Honestly neither Rin or Sae would care much about who your crush was (as long as they treated you right ofc) but if your crush was a fellow soccer/football player? Then they better be worthy of dating an Itoshi. (Therefore they'd have to be ay the same skill level as them or better, nothing less)

[txttletale]

what would you say are the flaws of thirsty sword lesbians? i got it in a itch.io bundle a while ago and i've been on the fence on whether or not to run a campaign with it since

things about tsl that suck

the name. its bad. im sure it was really funny to everyone involved when they pitched it in a brainstorming session and were like 'haha what if we actually called our game thirsty sword lesbians XD' but as the name of an actual game that you have to play and talk about with real people it fucking sucks. instantly dated. sounds bad to say aloud. awful

on a related note, the game has a particular sense of humour--a certain tone and tenor that was super in vogue among, like, millenials who livetweeted steven universe in 2018. there's a move in one of the playbooks called 'i ship it!'. there's another move called 'big dyke energy'. i personally find this shit incredibly grating and insufferable, but if you think it's fun, hey, more power to you. not necessarily a con i just wanted to be a hater

okay those two complaints are just me being a hater but i do have a much more serious one which is that the game's themes are at war with each other in a way that i find bafflng. like, 'you are queer people fighting against systemic oppression' is baked into the rules, to the point of forming an inextricable component of two of the playbooks--the game is built around the idea that you're going to be Fighting Oppression in a major way. like it is very unsubtle about that and often looks directly at the camera and says 'This Is About Homophobia'. but it's also a core part of the game that you're going to be doing, like, flirtatious swordfighting, getting seduced by and seducing Hot Evil Women, longingly gazing at your homoerotic nemesis. and this is also baked into the mechanics, there are special social moves you can only do while fighting someone! so you end up with this really bizarre paradox that to take both these elements to their logical conclusion you need to create a world where all the representatives/enforcers of Homophobia/Imperialism/Capitalism are sympathetic lesbians. and it's not doing something interesting with that either, this isn't the masquerade or helicopter story--it's not highlighting this or asking you to explore this--it's just kind of stumbled into this bizarre unforced error by not thinking through what the logical result of its mechanics & tone is.

now of course it's possible to play around that last one and figure out different things to do with it. the campaign i've been running has the players within a v. broad united front against imperialism, so i've made their homoerotic rivals are ideological enemies within that united front--but the fact that we had to work around the implications of the system as written is kind of a problem with the system!

and, since i don't necessarily want to put you off running TSL, here's my list of things about tsl that are good

the playbook design is incredible. a lot of the supplement playbooks fucking suck but every single playbook in the core book is like, peak PBtA playbook design--mechanically unique, thematically fulfilling, rich with opportunities to shape the world by implication when you design your character. they do really fun and interesting narrative things with the way the playbooks are designed and i like them all a lot.

the social move setup is my favourite that i've ever seen in a game--the phrasing behind the social moves means that you can never roll to 'make' an NPC do something or 'persuade' them to your point of view, only to make them 'give in to desire'--which is obviously phrased to enable seduction as a core gameplay mechanic, but it doesn't have to be played that way! other moves allow you to ask questions and figure out what NPCs want and what motivates them--you have a mechanical basis by which you can figure out that an NPC wants friendship, or security, or power, and the 'give in to desire' phrasing means you mechanically benefit from offering them that thing to get what you want from them. it really elegantly and cleverly circumvents the 'mind control persuasion check' problem that i've always found to be a deeply & profoundly antisocial way to model interaction (as inherently zero-sum, combative, dominatory) & leads to much more emotionally satisfying stories and tense and interesting social encounters

you know those are actually kind of the only two things. but they're really, really good things!

[likeadevils]

in your opinion what's the most midnights song on evermore, im thinking maybe coney island but i need some other opinions and i think you're the best to ask

i guess theres a lot of songs on evermore that kind of have their parallel song on midnights but im trying to find the one with the entire concept of the album

oh this is so interesting. there are a lot of thematic similarities between the two albums-- evermore is about endings, and so is a lot of midnights. midnights is, on its face, looking back on stutations that have ended, and in the benefit of hindsight, an album about deciding whether or not to break up with the (then) love of her life. she also plays the bad guy on evermore and midnights in a way her earlier work shied away from (obviously back to december did this but you know what i'm saying). champagne problems, tis the damn season, ivy, anti-hero, midnight rain, high infidelity, arguably maroon-- like, theyre all her unapologetically being the villain, the cheater, the one who leaves a relationship for no discernible reason. so, i think there's a lot of options here

my first instinct was closure. which is ironic because it was one of the first songs made but like. there's an anger there, an acceptance of her flaws, and a commitment to her dignity that are all like. the ideas that midnights is circling around

it's time to go is another contender to me. i think midnights is really grappling with what it means to leave a person, how your past hurts stack on top of each other to make the person you are today. "that old familiar body ache that snaps from the same little breaks in your soul" is sorta the heart of midnights

and then tis the damn season is like. like i made a joke when midnights came out that "this whole album is just. fame and the expectations that come with has ruined almost every relationship i’ve ever had, including my relationship with myself…. however i’m hot as shit xo" and like. that's tis the damn season

[snackara]

Hey there! Sorry it took me so long, but I finally got my questions ready for your "Solomonar Chronicles"!

I remember that this series was inspired by how bad "Fantastic Beast" got after the first film. (which I get, the other two were such wasted potential) Is anything else from Harry Potter being used for inspiration for your series?

How did you come up with your character names?

Who would say is your favorite character that you made?

Do these characters get trauma like the ones in "Upon a Star?"

Are you going to do more Draconology Files? That one caught my interest the most since I'm studying dragon biology for a villain in my superhero story.

Would this be formatted like a regular book, or play out like a movie?

Is Solomonar Chronicles like a series with each chapter being an episode, or one large story broken up into chapters?

Why did you choose the 1920's for the setting? Its not a bad thing, I actually really enjoy stories set in that period. I'm just curious.

Will we see designs for the characters some day?

Any major villains coming up we should know about?

Are there other fantasy creatures in this world, or just dragons?

I was also curious about your "Dinosauroids Project" story too. I finished the first story of my "Visitors From Pangea" trilogy, so I'm curious how you would write a dinosaur based project.

In regards to original stories we're making, I'm currently creating one called "SuperZeroes", where its a story inspired by all the CBM I grew up with. Not sure if you're into heroes, but I was hoping I could share some stuff I have with you? At least while I'm still building the world and characters.

Thank you! 🐶

Oh hell yeah, ask away!

I took a lot of inspiration from problems I found in the world-building. If you want an in-depth look at the flaws in the Wizarding World, I highly recommend this video. It’s very long, but very good. The main flaw I wanted to tackle with this series is the whole Statue of Secrecy, and how it’s more harmful than helpful for mages and non-mages alike. Also this is not a Harry Potter thing, but weirdly enough Deadpool and Wolverine had a heavy influence on the story.

I looked up lists of common names from the 1920s and picked out some that stood out to me for first and last names. Except for Atticus and Clara. Those two just sort of came to me.

Either Atticus or Jesse, it’s a tough choice. On one hand you have Atticus ,who’s deeply traumatized and scarred but over the course of the story slowly heals and finding good in the world again. And on the other is Jesse, who’s just an absolute sweetheart and so supportive of his lover.

Oh heavens no…it’s so much worse in this series. Just look at Atticus.

Yes, I have a couple in my drafts I’ve been meaning to work on.

Im hoping to get it published as a real book series someday, so it’s formatted like a normal novel.

More like a larger story broken up into chapters, for the most part.

Mainly because that was when the Fantastic Beasts trilogy was set. I’ll probably tie it into the themes of the story better with prohibition and the non-mage government, but for now that’s it. Shallow? Yeah. But it works.

I’ve been digging through concept art to use as references lately. So far the pickings are a little slim for how I envision dragons, but I still have some stuff.

Edward Donahue. He’s basically the head of the mage CIA but somehow worse (Keepers), is the strongest believer in keeping non-mages and mages separate, and oh yeah basically started all of this by killing William Torrence and burning half of Atticus’ face off. So yeah, not a great guy.

There are plenty. I’m not sure how I’ll fit them in at the moment, but they will appear, because I have some interesting interpretations. One fun idea I have is making fairies more like bugs than tiny humans.

It’s based of a theory originally created back in the 1980s by David Russell which explores the question of “What if dinosaurs never went extinct and involved human-like intelligence?” It’s a really fascinating concept that I’m surprised more people haven’t picked up on. My own story is based on concept art created by C.M. Koseman and Simon Roy. Unfortunately I don’t have a solid story yet, just some worldbuilding stuff.

Yes please

And thank you for the asks!

[thedeafprophet]

Right, its the 8th now so i'm gonna talk a bit more, with spoiler tag ofc. With my time I put in 14.6 hours into Mask of The Rose and achieved 4 different endings, so I think I can speak on the game. And I have to say, whilst there are things I like, the game is unfortunately ruined for me by the pacing (or lack there of).

I understand the goal of limiting runs and only being able to accomplish so many things at once, but as it stands it leaves it immossible to experience anything properly. You are put through a constant rush, no time to properly explore without the impending doom of someone being hanged looming over you. It is not possible for the player to be able to explore, romance, matchmake, and solve the mystery in this limited time. So everything is left feeling stressful and rushed with no proper way to experience it fully.

This heavily affects the relationship building aspect where you're expected to know what kind of relationship you want with someone after a first conversation, and everyone suddenly thinks you're the cats meow after a few interactions. You have no time to get to know anyone, no time for build up, and its just left... hollow. The addition of the major timeskips doesn't help this.

The mechanics of story building, outfits, and nonlinear play are very interesting! But this falls short in the reality that it is impossible to become immersed in this story when you have no time to slow down and experience it. The game feels like it is still a demo. Its too many things at once without fully giving time for establishing any one of them. If this was setup with the aim of the player finding the 'ideal route' of actions to solve the mystery then that is just generally not ideal for a visual novel.

Ive gathered some reactions of others who played, many feeling the same with regards to the pacing. Its not just my experience here. Im not sure this can be fixed at this rate, but its a grand shame that the game has such a major flaw. I'm surprised this wasn't approached before the game shipped. Pacing is an extremely important aspect in visual novels. I don't see how new players could be able to immerse themselves in the FL universe with such a rush.

I really wanted to like this game! I backed it on kickstarter for a reason! I love Fallen London and I really really wanted to love this game. But honestly unless this is somehow changed i cant see myself picking it up again... I hope its different for some other folks and that others have more fun with it, but I don't think its for me in this state.

[cottoncloud0]

little hope review *SPOILERS*

i was gonna write this ages ago and i literally forgot about this lmao but i promised the two people who are interested in these reviews that i would write another and tbh i find these really fun lol.

(reminder that this review is in no way professional, it is just my personal opinion and a bit of fun)

(side note i will only be talking about the theatrical cut)

PROLOGUE

this prologue was really interesting for me, both parts. i love that they didnt actually show any of the bus driver and it gave a really good mysterious aspect to the town of little hope, especially with the state trooper warning the bus driver about the town.

omg i cant even begin to say how much i enjoyed the second part of the prologue. the character building of the 80s family is so good. it established the dynamics of the group brilliantly without it being too obvious what the actual plot will be. i also likes that it kind of left you in the dark of whats going on, almost connecting itself to the first part of act one.

quick side note, i just learned that the choice you make on how tanya should escape the fire (going down the drainpipe or going through the window) directly affects taylors and tabithas deaths e.g if you chose the drainpipe like i did taylors demon will be the hanged demon and tabitha will be hanged and if you chose the window taylors demon will be the burned demon and tabitha will be burned at the stake.

ACT ONE

if im being completely honest i really didnt like taylor in the beginning lol. but i think thats a good thing. i mean its boring as fuck to play a game where you like every single character and none of them have flaws (this is also why i have a mixed relationship with locked traits but ill talk about that later).

okay lets talk about the pacing. when i first played little hope i thought that by the time i finished act one i thought i had ALSO finished act two. i think that says everything that needs to be said.... but seriously act one was way too long. this seems to be a theme in the early dark pictures games, like i said in my man of medan review.

i do think that the introductions to the characters were done really well though because even though almost of the characters had relationships previously to the game you could still develop or break any of them during the game. even when youre still in the first few chapters you can affect ,for example, taylor and daniels relationship drastically only with a few choices.

(i know this because i accidently got their relationship to like under halfway with like three choices 😭)

ACT TWO

what do you mean the supposed main bit of the story is the shortest section in the game? what do you mean it has less than half of the amount of chapters act one has? WHAT DO YOU MEAN????

in all seriousness, i completely forgot about some of the chapters in this act like 'lost' and 'troubled history' but on the other hand it also gave us one of the most memorable chapters in the game 'surrounded'. this is actually baffling to me because how do you make the most boring sections of the game immediately move onto one of the chapters i enjoyed most? its just quite inconsistent so now in my memory i can only really remember the bus crash, the bridge, the church and the house. and can i just add that only one those segments is in act two, which i think is supposed to be the main part of the story.

although, i did really enjoy the demons in this act and i think the developers did a great job of introducing the demons (the only gripe i have with it is that they were introduced quite late into the story but i think i feel that way because act one was so long and the demons were only introduced in the ending chapter of act one). i feel its a massive improvement to man of medan when they were trying to introduce two threats at the same time with one taking a backseat almost as fast as it was introduced.

i also liked how all the characters got back together about halfway through act two and in a completely natural way as well. it doesnt feel forced or rushed it just feels normal and how i would expect a group of terrified civilians to act with each other.

ACT THREE

there seems to be a pattern in all of the acts in little hope. forgettable first halfs and memorable and incredibly fun second halfs. act three is no different.

i think the fact that i could remember almost everything that happened in the ending but i had to go back on the chapter wikis to remember any of the first two chapters says a lot.

honestly the start of this act just feels like a plot extender and an extra opportunity to get people killed. BUT THE ENDING OF THIS ACT I LOVE <3. i like that i takes a quick break from running away from the demons to develop the mary storyline (which i will ALSO talk about later) and the choices you make really do matter and they actually make the players think about the choices theyre making because the 'right' answer isnt clear throughout the game so youre really left in the dark and have to make the call completely off your own accord.

quick final bit before we get onto the ending, but i also love the segment when everyone is running away from their respective demons and john and angela are the last one out there. the reason i love this section so much is because it can really define how angela is as a character or how you want to play her, which can also affect the ending.

right. time to talk about 'full circle'. i dont think words could describe how fucking annoyed i was when i had kept everyone alive right until this chapter only for taylor and john to be killed because of a mechanic that i didnt even know existed. AND I KNOW FOR A FACT THERES MORE PEOPLE WHO EXPERIENECED THIS.

the locked traits mechanic is very cool, trust me, but the fact that it was never ,at least, given some hints that it would be the decider of the characters fate and that they were something that genuinely matter.

at first i thought that they were just pre-determined flaws that each character had lol.

THE END

little hope has a total of seven endings and i do actually want to touch on a few of them because holy shit some of them are insane 😭

the ending i got was: vince called the police and another protagonist was alive. this resulted in andrew being revealed to be anthony (like in all endings) and being taken away in a police car as it is also revealed that the other protagonists (in my case daniel and angela) were hallucinations.

i get why some people would hate this ending, i do too, only because the previous game also had the exact same plot twist??? and that is just so uncreative that they couldnt figure out a different ending to give to one of the games. in my opinion if they DID actually give a new ending to man of medan or little hope i would 100% want it to be man of medan, which i can now confidently say is my least favourite game made made by supermassive.

quick side note, ending 5 is fucking insane and if you got it on your first ever playthrough i would have loved to see your reaction lol.

for those who dont know what the fuck im talking about ill give a quick summary of ending 5.

to get this ending vince must have not have called the police, andrew has the gun and it has at least one bullet in it and mary had to have been excecuted. after the initial cutscene, andrew aims the gun at his temple. megan then appears behind andrew and screams at him, causing him to shoot himself. After it was revealed that andrew was anthony/the bus driver all along, his corpse is shown laying at the doorstep.

like what the fuck.

RANDOM SHIT

in all honesty i had no clue on what to pick regarding the mary situation. i think i chose like 4 different choices all contradicting each other in my playthrough, but seriously what is the objective 'right' path defending mary or killing her?

as for collectibles, i found i think 43 (?) secrets, all black pictures, 4-5 white pictures and the gold pictures. in this game it is already such and improvement to man of medans exploration system. for example, if opening a certain door or picking up a certain item the game will show you this '>>>>' which means it will move you onto the next segment and oh my god this has made exploration so mad more enjoyable and easier can i just say.

CONCLUSION

this game is miles better than man of medan. i enjoyed the aesthetic, gameplay, concept, characters (some more than others) and yeah it was overall a good game (not better than house of ashes though ;) )

EXTRA

CHARACTER RANKING

Angela (the funniest character in lh, she had humour but also a serious personality, where was she for half the game? 😭)

Daniel (so sweet and caring to everyone, love him and taylor)

Andrew (he is THE male protagonist but we love him for that, anthony is deeply traumatised 🙏)

Taylor (hated her in the beginning but she grew on me, he deaths are so brutal lmao but she is so incredibly funny)

John (alcoholic and annoying, he did really care about angela though)

RATING

6 or 7/10 / 3 1/2 stars

as always if youre still reading by this point respect to you my friend and tysm for reading i hope you enjoyed me waffling about random games for 1,750 words ilysm <33333

[mousemannation]

10, 15, 31!

thank u maya :33 from this ask game!

10. Would you say you’re an emotional person?

Yes and no, which sounds like a cop-out answer but im on those sweet sweet emotionally numbing ssris kajsjsj so i have my moments. Unmedicated I am pretty emotional and occasionally that will overcome the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors <//3

15. What do you think of when you hear the word home?

This one is interesting bc i did an assignment about this for English class years ago and had to really think about it. I’ve never had a Childhood Home u know?? cause ive moved a Lot growing up. Im also mixed race so it can get a bit interesting on the “home” front.

if I get conceptual than eucalyptus scented things, the sound of like 15 of my relatives talking over the tv, a thai restaurant being in every town in australia no matter how small, the beatles and Nina Simone playing over the sound system.

31. Are you messy or organised?

So messy it’s terrible 🙈🙈 i get really autistically worked up about tidying up it is one of my greatest flaws. I don’t like not being able to see things like I dont like packing things away under the house bc it’s not In My Space anymore. I also get way too emotionally attached to things so I find it really hard to get rid of things 😭😭 im really good at cleaning up things that ARENT mine like at other peoples houses or whatever though!

[sigmabateman]

thank you so much @velvetcrowbar444 for tagging me to talk about 5 things im obsessed with at the moment!!

this got longer than i anticipated so im putting it under the cut, but for simplicity's sake i'll tag people up here: @nights-decay, @boycentriccplot, @flaming-tsunami, @sourgelatin no pressure though of course!

persona 5... ok i have to be honest ive been really reluctant to talk about this on here and its why ive been quiet the past at least week or so. no idea why. i guess cause its so different from the stuff i usually post about that i feel like, embarrassed? but i started playing persona 5 royal around may and really liked it but i didnt have the time to properly get into it until now and it has completely taken over my life entirely without me even realising. to be honest i could obsess over like a rock on the ground if i saw it at the right time in my life but hands down persona 5 is one the best if not the best game ive ever played in my life. the story is engaging, the characters are distinctive and realistic and i really really care about all of them, the gameplay is so much fun and combat is buttery fucking smooth like nothing ive ever played before, the music is top tier and what got me interested in the game in the first place, and the ART DIRECTION. it speaks for itself to be honest ESPECIALLY compared to the older games. i was shocked starting persona 4 because of how different it is to persona 5 like, persona 5 has SUCH a distinct visual identity as well as tone, themes, imagery etc it is all just so stunning and perfect and i want to live in it. but i think about it so often like literally 24/7 that i may as well be. i <3 persona 5 and i <3 YUSUKE KITAGAWA. he's definitely my favourite character and he came out of NOWHERE but hes actually everything in the world to me. one of the characters ever.

persona 4 is it a copout to say that? i did try and condense both games into one bullet point but 1. they're such a mainstay in my life right now i was struggling to think of more points and 2. it kind of lost its precision and didn't effectively convey just how personapilled i am right now. i originally wasn't gonna play 4, all i knew is that it was more difficult and less good so i thought i should stay away. but if you go anywhere persona-related on the internet (which i would warn against, the fandom is a fucking cesspit the likes of which i havent seen in a long time as an obscure-shit-enjoyer) you'll quickly run into adachi. and as a lover of men with high-pitched voices and sexypedia entries... i couldn't stay away. before even starting the game i had made a d6 and d20 with different adachis on each face so really it was just a matter of time. and you know what... it's not that bad. the graphics were a SHOCKING step down but i find the low(er) poly style really charming. the adachi model is too cute T_T whenever i see it in the game world i just wanna sit with it for ages. i wonder if i could get it like 3d printed so i could keep him on my desk with me at all times... its bad for me ! the combat is fucking clunky espeically compared to 5 and i kind of hate it but that just makes it more rewarding when i can finally stop LOL. some of the characters (especially the main few (yosuke, chie, yukiko)) took a bit to grow on me but its kind of sweet.. its like authentic.. our relationship is growing as i get to know them better... but dojima and nanako ive loved since i first set eyes on them. too cute. it makes me feel so fatherless. its like.. a lot more magnetic than i expected it to be. i love it even with all its flaws. i saw a meme about it being like twin peaks and thats kind of so real. and you know i love a murder mystery... so yeah tldr i like persona now. but its hard to talk about it on here because it is such a big fandom but not like an active one like spiderman or like good omens or whatever slightly more normal people are watching so its kind of intimidating. maybe ill get over myself, maybe ill go silent for 3 months until i get into something new. we'll see i guess LOL

my gender identity TUMBLR MOMENT I KNOW but i dont know.. ive had a lot of time to myself recently and its kind of brought things to the surface that i just didnt have time or space to think about before. turns out there was a LOT OF STUFF i was repressing without even knowing. like that tweet 'im probably nonbinary but i have a job so idrc about that rn'. i posted on instagram "gender around cis people: boy, gender around trans people: girlboy, gender by myself: computer program" and that kind of sums it up i think. can i coin like.. complicatedgender. where your answer to the question "whats your gender?" is "it's complicated..." cause thats me. its just COMPLICATED okay!!!! but my pronouns havent changed or anything so its chilllllll

going to bed at a reasonable time. i phrased that like a joke answer but its true. i downloaded pokemon sleep and now i go to bed at 11:30pm cause at 11 i get a notification saying my pokemon are sleepy and shit i gotta take care of my pokemon!! i dont even know if its doing me any good to be honest like i dont feel much better when i wake up but making myself get into bed and shut my eyes means more thinking time and to be honest my favourite activity is thinking. even if as silly as it sounds i never give myself time to do it. its playing a weirdly big role in my life rn so yeah id say im obsessed with it!!!

this asmr video. im secretly always posting about asmr so really i could just say that, but like, ASMR | The Mortician (No Talking – You're Dead) specifically is such a mainstay i can feel its influence seeping into my life like an infection. this video would actually show up in my recommended for YEARS but i never watched it. gave me a major ick for some reason. but then i got into this guys stuff and saw it again and thought id give it a go and now its like an extra limb. fuck my 3rd bullet point, this is my gender identity. i could not articulate in words what it is about the mortician that i love so much, but i really really do. i am certifiably obsessed. cant believe i made it through this whole thing without mentioning alex. but there you are. yay this was fun :D

[adoredmarigold]

Questions!! Yay!!!!!! I've got a lot to ask about, I'm sorry

1. What are your favorite ships other than david and lingard (tbh in some way that ship reminds me of kirk x bones, not sure if youre into star trek tho xd)

2. Ava or Tripp?

3. Favorite S2 characters? Do you have any S2 ships?

4. What do you think are the best possible and your favorite endings of S2, S3 and S4??

5. And of course, I wanted to ask, whats your opinion on Bonnie.

I feel like I've been asking you some questions before but I dont remember excstly what it waasszzzzzzddsdszs if I already asked some of these questions IM SO SORRY but I cant say no to asking twdg questions

hello :) 1. VIOLENTINE!!!! It's such a lovely ship I will defend it with my life, istg Violentine haters have yet to bring up a valid point as to why they don't like it. I have some crack ships like Eleanor x Kate or Eleanor x Ava, I don't have much to say about them I'm just gay and wanna ship my girls together lmao. hmmm, I've been seeing some Mark x Lee stuff to and that looks pretty cute. Ermmm this is making me realize I actually don't ship much in twdg lmao, I guess I also ship Clouis and Gabentine Clouis is sweet and has good moments but I just don't find them as compelling as Violentine (sorry Clouis shippers). As for Gabentine I guess I would say I ship it, but more so in a "first crush/puppy love" kinda of way, The relationship never becomes anything serious they're just kids with a crush on each other and honestly I don't need them to become anything more than that. aaaannnd I know nothing about Star Trek but you're gonna make me look into Kirk x Bones now, thanks. 2. Well if we're just talking about the characters in general then Ava, she's so underrated imo. BUT, if we're talking about whether I choose to "save" Tripp or Ava during the execution, I always choose to let Tripp live. I'd rather have Ava die here than get that stupid fucking death she gets in ep 5, Tripps death in ep 5 is a lot better cinematically and writing-wise. 3. Sarah :) She's been my fav season 2 character since the season first came out and I will never forgive the writers/fandom at the time for how they treated her, SHE DID NOTHING WRONG. As for ships I guess I don't really have any for season 2, I mean Alvin x Rebecca I suppose though I'm not particularly invested in either character. Never been a Nick x Luke fan, I get the appeal but it ain't for me. 4. I can't really say which ending for each season is the best cause it's all pretty subjective, but I will give you my favs :) I guess I don't really have a fav ending for season 2? I choose the alone ending each time just cause I can't deal with Jane and Kenny's bs, don't hate either character but Clem doesn't deserve to put up with their bullshit anymore, she's the main character it's fine let's just ignore the logistics of an 11-year-old going off alone with a newborn. I also like the Wellington ending alot though! Not only because it's the best location for Clem and AJ to end up at but it also gives a satisfying conclusion to Kenny's character imo. Kenny spent all of season 2 trying to keep Clem and in the end AJ by his side for ultimately selfish reasons and he became extremely violent and unhinged in the process. So to see Kenny finally be selfless and be willing to give them both up to ensure their health and safety really redeems him for me. Kenny loves Clem and AJ but I really don't think he's fit to take care of them, this is the best possible Kenny ending for me. 5. Bonnies cool. It's been awhile since I've played season 2 and 400 days so I am in a desperate refresh of her character, but from what I remember she was interesting. I def think the fandom goes WAY too hard on hating her, from what I remember she's not really any worse or better than any of the other adults in season 2, she's extremely flawed but hell who isn't in The Walking Dead. I get being frustrated with her but the lengths people go to shit all over her character is kinda insane to me. So overall I guess I don't have much of a strong opinion on Bonnie, she's an interesting character with alot of flaws but I don't think she's evil or cruel. I hope her and Mike where able to get away and join a community or something. Also, I distinctly remember her being my fav 400 Days character and having a crush on her when I was a kid lmao. wowie okay that's all I gotta say, and don't worry you're all good! If you (or anybody really) send me a question and I don't reply it's probably just cause I forgot to or I'm stumped on what to say. CRIES

[crushingcasanova]

i am back my dear !! i missed you dearly :) i am not surprised that you played him well , that is such a wonderful character for your personality!! he’s also so misunderstood at times , he has his tragic moments .. im sure you did wonderful , i just know it <3

i am sure that you sound absolutely wonderful , no matter what you’re singing :) i tend to be a lil hard on myself with singing , plus i have a lot of trouble with hearing my voice and knowing if I should good or not.. i absolutely hate my voice , in all honesty … :,)

the phantom is DEEEFINITELY very dramatic , you are correct .. i kinda love that about him in all honesty , it’s what makes him interesting !! hehe you truly flatter me , dear … ^^ being a scaredy cat can cause some problems .. like , when people sneak up on me in school to play a prank , or they just come up to talk to me and touch me when i can’t see them , i almost always scream. people tend to say i do it for attention .. but i actually swear that it’s just my reaction ;_;

i would agree , passionate and creative people are always wonderful. passion is so important , especially in a partner .. if they aren’t passionate about anything , how can they be passionate without you? i guess i would agree that i look for people with a creative eye , people that can sing or dance or act or draw .. any fine arts , it always draws me to people ^^ also at times i get drawn towards people with my interests. what i really love is kind people .. soft , tender , doting >>>>> i absolutely love that!!! i also tend to look for people who need help .. who need support , and i give it to them .. I hate tragedy , and i guess i tend to want to .. fix people ?? :,) either way , in all , i just want to be around people that want to be around me !! that’s all i really need .. i just don’t wanna annoy people :)

i absolutely adore thrifting. i get almost all of my clothes from thrift shops , and most of the decor in my room and in the entire house is from antique malls. I love repurposing used things .. why make more waste in the world , if what you’re looking for has already been created? also , i find stuff i like more for cheaper prices at places like that!! :) i really recommend it .. its also so fun , searching for the perfect clothing piece or the perfect trinket box for your room !!

i hope you are resting now , dear. please try not to push yourself the next few days. i know you’re tired .. you’ve done absolutely amazing :) please have a wonderful night. i will sleep better knowing that you are resting , that you are alright.

your Cheshire 🎭

Thanks for your confidence about my portrayal of him! He was quite fun to play, especially noting that he doesn't actually change very much during the show. The interesting point of Heathers, in my opinion, is that the audience is basically personified in Veronica. We see JD and his strange backstory and are lead to believe he is better than he is, even when he stays consistent throughout the whole show. We as the audience become disillusioned at the same time that Veronica does, which makes his death even more conflicting. I think it's very cool! I agree with your thoughts on passion! And fine arts are a wonderful choice. I'm a little biased, since I partake in a lot of art forms (as an example: most recently I did a bit of jewelry making again after a bit of a break, but I'm hoping to do more for Christmas too!), but I find art of any kind so wonderfully captivating in an individual. Do you do any other forms of art besides the singing and acting we've mentioned? I'd love to know! I completely agree with your thoughts on doting people. I'm not really the type to go "I can fix them" though, I more so am like "I love you despite and with your flaws, and will be there to help you through your own transformation" if that makes sense. I love my loves with and without their shortcomings, and because of them too. However, I definitely agree on being around people who like me--I tend to feel insecure and shy if I'm not already close with people, or if they don't reach out to me first (as you can probably see exemplified on my blog,,,). I hope you know your presence is always appreciated here :) !! I agree about the repurposing thing! I love using old things to create something new, and I do it a lot with my resin work. I also think that the search is quite fun as well, and I've had good luck when I go to antique stores, so I've found it very amusing and more selective! I have to write a tad before I go to bed, but I shall rest soon! I hope you get a lovely night's rest as well, dearie. Thank you for the lovely compliments and affirmations, I am sure you worked quite hard today and deserve a lot of good sleep too, Cheshire <3

[comrade-margot]

A Kentucky of Mothers By Dana Ward (posted for posterity)

As i had to go to the wayback machine to even find this poem. one i find extremely pognient and important to my transition. im posting it here for the sake of posterity. remember the secret of Primative Accumulation. and the fruits of labor and culture will be perserved with the proletariet. -Comrade Margot. Today in the PEN Poetry Series, guest editor Maggie Nelson features a poem by Dana Ward. About Ward’s work, Nelson writes: “It’s not an exaggeration to say that encountering Dana Ward’s poems cleaved my life in two. Before, I had the occasional flickering doubts about contemporary poetry—what it could do next, what sounds/ forms of address/ ranges of interests/ combinations of talky/  political/ confessional/ sublunary/ metaphysical/ gossipy/ unabashedly gorgeous/ profoundly intelligent, rushing, and WILD poetics was still possible. After, I knew I had nothing to worry about. This poem, “A Kentucky of Mothers,” is one of my favorite poems ever. I hold it close to my heart, and encourage you to read it, then read everything Ward has written, which includes the books This Can’t Be Life (2012) and The Crisis of Infinite Worlds (2013).”

A Kentucky of Mothers

Derek what’s Kentucky for you? 

An orange rubber globe? A jagged blue shoe, Paducah-toed, & heeled somewhere near eastern Tennessee? A place with dirt in mouth & blood on hands & prettiness all over in its undulance & peaking. Where Marshall Allen’s lips & lungs began to kiss & breathe. Where, through Wes Unseld’s divinity of play, physical reality was altered by his Balanchine.  Where the laureateship of Cassius Clay began, in the poem of changing his name to Muhammad Ali. His tonal university of butterflies that sting as those similes collapsed the float of puncture into me. 

“I’m so bad I make medicine sick.” he once said. Really that’s as well as one can write. 

But Derek, since you’re from there too, what is that place for you, Kentucky? 

I know that you can’t answer me this morning though the golden-Sharpie’d Peyton you made me keeps watch here while I type this down in our world. It’s coke’d up nose still bleeds. So there’s always some wilder night in the memory of the picture, an invisible tincture of bumps for me, awakening the implants in the archive of my body. 

Fill its search field with some bluegrass. Press return.

Kentucky is mainly a myth I abide because I learned to love inside its stories. 

For me it’s a maternal place but not the mother-land.

It’s where my heart when it was young & small & lacked impressions

took its wealthy shape in songful opulence 

of birthdays. 

Who were they? All these mothers who seem mothers to me still? 

My father, who mothered the concessions of mortality by dying in my childhood, giving birth to me in hospice care, two floors above the maternity ward where my mom, eight years before, saw me into the world.

So her of course. But she is where this poem’s going. 

June, who was someone to watch over me, desirous of children but childless, she & I lived in a mutual surrogacy. She died with my mother as her daughter, & I as her grandson, recipient of doting forgiveness, flawed inheritor of her one conceptual novel, consisting of the Golden Rule repeated to infinity. Her being was the hotel in The Shining had it been enlivened by impossible benevolence instead. By which I mean she was so nice that it was weird.

One year older than me, next door, there was Jessica, by whom I was both brutalized & cherished. She showed me how I was mere thing in the world, another doll absorbing storms of affect. The porcelain heart my other codlings yielded was for her an invitation to explore just how much cruelty could be managed before I ran off sobbing to more empathetic mothers. Her tough love was econ 101.

Then the Barry Manilow mother-hood records in the living room which bore my dependence on preposterous emotion & show. His nurturing colluded with the neediness of children as it lived & lives in me. It nursed some pleading chintz my art relies on even now. Julie Andrews mom of me as well when I go big & sweet to get my way. 

Also the Ella Fitzgerald cassette in the Honda, the mother one reveres. Pristine her voices feel for how ebullience to gutter grief & every nuance in between was waiting to be coaxed from the material of life (I mean its music) if intelligence & discipline were paid. To her I would remain a disappointment, & she remained remote in all her generous perfections. 

Ft. Thomas where we lived, a nursery of whiteness, so plain in being racist it was clear. You could see the white & hateful core through every opaque surface. These orders of transparency were births in their malignancy, of what to be against in one’s becoming. A feel for the structures of division how we’re cut by race & class & sex so then The Father in his local form of hoarding. 

Chapman, Rex, who I loved with the fervor of a Bieber-ite, who bore what’s called the ‘girl-ish heart aflutter’ in my body. It beat its wings in frenzy as I idolized him so. I wanted to cry like Beatlemania  when he dropped 25 on U of L his freshman year. No one told me my performance of idolatry was femme. 

The boys who were my friends found me so weird in this I wonder now if they thought making fun of me redundant. Some of those boys were my mothers as well. 

Blake so pretty, shy & duty bound. Jacob von Gunten. He mothered sanity & keel, & too their limits, revealing the harm of normed wellness in the bedtime stories we told one another, 9 or 10 in bed together, mother & child & child & mother. 

Geoff, the mother I would bury in his youth, though then, in the time of his maternity, he gave me life as if he’d stolen it from god on my behalf.  His delight & his approval were my joy & aspiration. His charms surpassed the mesmerism Orpheus possessed, deployed in service of whatever’s endless lulz. He had some Mary Poppins & the rarest bedside manner, Lake District with his bandages & ornery soups for spirit.  I loved him past the tragedy of Oedipus in puppy ways & chastity still later, sitting shiva with the future we were going to spend together. His mother love was funeral & teen. Now there’s nothing left to know of its exhaustion. 

Some mothers only last a season. Or a day. Or the life of the party. There were only two more mothers in Kentucky left for me. 

The first was Allen Ginsberg, who arrived by way of that cultural line I had followed form the Beatles, on to Dylan where I found him, this sort of interesting guy at Bob’s side, sensing he’s the guru but not being quite sure how. Already invested in what I took to be the outlaw canon, Allen was skeleton key, giving not only his art, poetics clear in DIY articulation, & too the queer in factuality, modernity, it’s cosmopolitan glory, experimental & demanding no more fealty to its aspects than what could be accessed for our survival, & the suddenness of vision & of pleasure. Blood & shit were on the table near a leaky Hebrew Bible. The incense stick puffed Leaves of Grass in scented smoke around the angel head of someone who would soon be in his bed & plainly naked as the ethics of the muse should govern flesh. His motherhood awakened all my senses.  

He asks a wild question of himself there in Kaddish, musing over whether he should try & do it with his mother, right there in the infirmary, just to see how that would feel. You laugh because it’s funny then you laugh like woah, it’s heavy. He seems really free inside his mind! It’s excessive yet from him it sounds so healthy. It’s why so many people have him as a mother they remember. So many inhibitions shattered—for the fervor & the humor of the quest. 

Geoff & I went to see him give a reading in Kentucky, in Lexington, in 1993. Geoff was no longer my mother by then. We were both still Allen’s children en extremis. He read & sang & chanted. We were joyous gathered round him, beamed & smiled in our nearness to the body of our mother, needy, anxious to go even closer still. 

So Geoff & I stood there, in the long line with our books, waiting for his dedication’s kiss upon our pages, swooning sons with steadfast City Lights. I went first, & Allen asked my name, but barely met my gaze. He lingered though with Geoff, meandered in his beauty, these two mothers of mine, flirting in a way that felt like watching boyish pulp of the initial batted eyes behind my body’s constitution. They seemed to wink & dare & coo for several hours.   

Geoff rejoined me & he showed me his inscription.  Allen had addressed him as angel boy & done a little drawing. What’s more he’d invited Geoff to his hotel! We were seventeen. We hadn’t been this far away from home, not by ourselves, ever before in our whole lives.  90 minutes by car from our parent’s front doors. We were fucking Sam & Frodo in the morning of the ring, two bumpkins all mixed up in grander magic. 

Now, which mother were we going to run to?

Its easy to forget what blameless ignorance can be because our culture calls it innocence instead. That heaps too much untrammeled snow & later says it’s sullied though the dirt was there from jump, & time refines it. Thusly unrefined I’m just not sure we understood. I know we didn’t understand what little sex we’d had, our bodies or the bodies of our lovers, young women lost in their way too, though smarter.  All we knew was hard-sold dude lore told through locker room & porn. “Big Titties” or whatever. Baseball diamond of erotic pilgrim’s progress.   

But we believed good heartedness would certify desire in eternity. The plebiscite of seekers was the carnival of night. The orgy a fait accompli. Now one of our moms maybe wanted fuck! She was making good on bodied promise. Here was the gift in the flesh. We were incandescent with the truth of her, & shared her honor there between us. Precious drug. 

First let me say we just went home. I don’t think we knew, in the end, at least not for sure, what the invitation meant for Geoff. If he’d gone to find out then where was I supposed to go? All we did we had to do together. Mom’s response to Geoff’s allure had made it true as cosmic fact. So we departed with our intuitions written in the stars. We needed nothing else for our fond adventure equation. 

But now? I think it’s a shame. We did it wrong. Geoff should have offered up his pretty body to our mother. We should have offered her one body. Ours.

Because us having two of them was waste of healthy matter. What I should have done was gone & donated my organs, then poured my excess ooze inside of Geoff; hold your nose & open up you fucking corpse my heart’s obsessed with, then made my was as slime into the womb-less space where I began as embryo of who I was that day. Then he could have carried me in utero to & Allen, & whatever he wanted would be his. Maybe lots of soulful talk for hours of suspense, & then to be joined in soft, passionate kisses, tingling caresses, dissolutions of the flesh at heights, mysteries, pleasures, trembling heavens, nerves made crushed velvet of pre-cum & spit. Pillows then, & slumbers, & a cigarette to meet our raptured soreness in the dawn. 

The reproductive algebra of “Veracruz” obtained. A child emerged from the absence of encounter. A darling little thing no more than myth in its material. As real as baby Allen was the day that he was born. Like the make-believe the commonwealth Kentucky is a passion play of mists & bloods & poverty & mountains. A baby like a state of love & nothing in its mother.

The three of us, by never fucking in Kentucky, made a child. Sometimes I always wonder where she’s gone. 

She’s in my ear as Cymbeline to listen for her nothing ghost whose youth has soaked the alphabet with music. 

But what’s the alphabet to music if it’s not a dead imaginary child people think they’re so in touch with

one another. What’s the internet, the people all keyed up on boards which really are a boneyard of such offspring of our fantasies efficiently arranged from Q to M. 

Because this isn’t writing. This is typing. 

& my mother’s an extraordinary typist by the way. The one who held me in her body, near her body, kept me fed. 

I’ll say more about her soon. What’s deep & simple? 

But now I’ll say I’d nearly left the nest. My last Kentucky mom would see me off into the poem. & though I met her long before I met Allen, the realization didn’t come until much later. That she, more than anyone else, was the matriarch that opened writing’s world.

O Veronica Sawyer, my mother. I was watching Heathers all the time. O Veronica you cared for me so well. Your affected monocle, the way you dove into your journal, an avenging angel coming back from hell at 3pm, flown into acerbic pique by spiritual distress.  

You were young to have been caring for a son three years your junior. You were little more than 17 yourself.

Lord I tried to mirror you. I failed. Yet there you were. As reliable as emptiness of metric on the testing day. As sharp as #2’s are for the throat. 

I loved the way your pen was always pregnant with your sword. All that social cruelty that your soul could not abide. All that degrading service you’d performed in employ of those tyrants who like school days come & go with common agonizing sameness. 

You could see the beauty of the omelet life could be! Soon you’d be persuaded to the side of breaking eggs. But tactical revolt was not enough for your dumb boyfriend. He was charming though, & sexy, so your heart kept coming back. With reservations. Although things kept getting hotter. Sex & crime make up the Reece’s cup for teens who hate the world. Everyone should eat up all they can!

But you opened up a breach old suave JD did more like blow. He was snorting up the Less Than Zero void & killing children. His moralizing started sounding hollow. You knew that you had to get out. When you faked your own suicide I’d never been more proud. I’d never seen my mother hang & smile. 

Then after all the shit went down, & you blew off his finger, & he blew his body to bits on the steps, you came home bathed in soot & charring ashes of his body, that red ribbon spider cracked your eyes they were so blood shot, & your gaze was like the feel of someplace years of war had changed, there were ruins in it, smoke & haze, cadavers. We watched Breakfast Club with Martha Dunnstock twice that night. I’d never seen so many human tears. 

But really as my mother…it’s this writing thing you did, this fall & swoop into you journal, your motion made me think the heart’s confession’s were more real because they fronted, in their littleness, designs against the world as it is premised on unerring domination.   

The ruling cliques, the system’s ribbon gathering their locks & every two or four Novembers it’s some other fucking Heathers, other warlords, other bankers, mainly dudes. 

But it’s that way you said ‘dear diary’, like nausea was pining in intelligent exhaustion for the words that thrummed against them in the body of your mind. 

That sound was how I felt those years.  

It’s kicked me out of the house. The house of one feeling for developmental shelter. I started writing a novel. So I became the mother of a character, Veronica essentially, although I had named her Amanda. In my novel she murdered a teacher she hated. Then ran away from home to live in gladness in the basement of a woman she befriend. The woman was a poet who was making love for fun, stealing wine that she could pay for just because, & terrorizing her small town with that illegal mixture of the female & Rimbaud. 

The book was called Never Go Home. 

I wrote the thing on legal paper, longhand, during class, & then at night in bed, Sweet Valley High. I laugh but this was pre-Columbine. Sometimes I think if I were in school now & writing that? Shit. That kid might really be arrested!

God my poor real mom she would have died. 

But people say her eyes contain a twinkle they believe in. When they see it they don’t need a leap of faith. Although I was surrounded by hate, as the common disasters claimed our town as most are claimed, my mother barred that city with a pivotal insistence so the heart could turn away to meet new thought. My life is when critique feeds from the auras of her care, a violet glow that begs negation as a sharpening to yellow, or a deepening to red that means ‘the Real’ is not so cool that it is spared a mother’s love in its redout. The way these colors drink me is my sight. I have been inspirited to tesselate their spectrograph by singing so the 4th dimension flutters in their plane, the 3rd may bell the heart & move the blood to hear a ring, to honor lights in eyes that shine against imprisoned worlds & for her merry life of grief that rudder’d mine.    

For her my admiration & my love just can’t be typed.

These are my Kentucky mothers then. The mothers of my heart.  

& I’ve been reading that Yepez book on Olson, The Empire of Neomemory, & good lord it is astonishing. He talks about how Olson attempts to construct an alter-patriarchy on the ruins of an already false one. Part of his martial, nationalist project of mythos. Stacking universe & state & self on Pound-carved Plymouth Rock of cock & balls.  

Yepez says, in essence, Olson’s thing is an elaborate psycho-social misprision. No less interesting because of that, & perhaps a great deal more. It’s quite revealing.  

I thought about that some while I was writing this, & wondered, how might we construct a matriarchy of the world instead?  God knows for truth & world’s sake that we should. 

But what of this. What I’ve been writing. How to think it?  

Many gendered micro-lineage, 

the matriarchs of my Kentucky heart?

To narrate one huge part of one’s small life in one small state in one dead country so besotted by oblivion, through mothers.

But is ‘mother of’ precise? 

Should I say ‘singers of’ instead? 

The heart wants what it wants I guess

those metaphoric light years of itself are all it has—its flesh & blood

its Moulin Rouge

its basic make-up

doctored St. Theresa reputation & a problem like Maria for the discourse it keeps 

photo bombing like the sound of music.

Alive

in some pretty dead hills. 

O god save all the many gendered-mothers of my heart, & all the other mothers, who do not need god or savior,

our hearts persist in excess of the justice they’re refused.

& yo. I have nothing like Olson’s ambitions. But my source in varied care is something real in my song’s story. The way we have our source in locks & open endings, still

there was this thing I meant to say

way back at the beginning

of how the heart is dreamed by idiom

then seeps from out of speech & song to wet the feeling’s thought

Bullfinch’s water on the brain 

of love & when the floodplain dries

the myths have drowned alive in their reality of being

to haunt our body’s opera as the stories of our life.

That is no exaggeration

it’s just a penny on the ground

it’s just the repertoire in flight toward ever newer immolations, disembowelments

reunited 

holding hands beside the carousel again

then grab your bag 

how much alike & not it is the others there gone round & round

how much it’s like a plastic pastel steed 

the way its piping up & down

distinguished from the other inauthentic breathing

ponies by the magic’s fact that circulates between us 

like an organ sound. 

It doesn’t fit beneath our wounded breast

inside the mega-church bewitched

bewildered, bothered

Ella’s way.

It’s just a penny in the busker’s cup

& since you’ve heard it all before

she’ll sing her flawless analects unmoored in static changes. 

She writes the songs

she writes the songs she is the heart like all of us are driving nowhere

spending someone else’s hard earned pay.

But there’s this thing I meant to say

way back at the beginning

that Kentucky is the place I found my heart’s real princess soul.

I don’t know. 

Does that sound strange? 

Perhaps it’s 

                pretty easy to

                               explain…

My heart’s eyes are closed when I am walking in the sun, & they dream the way I look in my delight. I’m a princess then & I have every thought inside my head, as well as none. I am neither regal nor belong to special blood, & I am simple in my costume of a levitating pink, cheap in clothes a royal wouldn’t dress a beggar’s wound in, smiling ear to ear as if I’d nursed on Purple Rain & smack, then set out for my walk of painless warmth. There’s liquidity of sex moving in between my legs. In desire I’m for anyone & I belong to nothing. I commune with bluebirds in the customary way because my singing is so kind & perspicacious. I am free, never once having seen my own image, existing in my mind’s eye as a portrait of forgivenesses received & that’s my calculous of body. Effervescence wanders in my system as the animating spa of matter lacking prime directive, bathing all sensation for an amplifying mildness my being is reliant on as empty, tender joke. The world is all this is in its exquisiteness & filter, the details I receive are simply dialect, & murmuring, a tease made of fulfillment & release. I am beaming absolution in my tulle & my satin, as light means only light has been for pointlessly rejoicing. Shade is little more than night that sun sings for completeness through the liberated objects near my motion. I waltz to meet the billowed bell my shadow is, for sleeping, as sun sings Honolulu nights of me, & endless births. & what was harm? & what was loss? As if ‘to love’ meant never knowing either one. 

But my heart’s eyes are open when I’m walking in the sun, & I see me as I am here in estrangement from the facts of all who have in our conditions lost & sang, less known than not & social, for my truth of constitution as it’s made. 

But still. What is that princess soul so real in heart’s release?

It’s the absolute mirage that private happiness is seeking in its adequate contrivance of a figment.

It is happiness more actual than blood & making good on its reality by offering myself to me in this authentic picture. 

Perhaps it’s all my mothers in their elegance & heavens.

Perhaps it is my mother when she smiles in my mind & her contentment comes to life beyond its borders.

Perhaps it is my daughter’s joy when I have mothered well.

Perhaps it’s institution in a pretty dissipation.

Perhaps she is an emissary born past all of this, & come to tell through feeling how the locks will die in swells of interpenetrating being not yet thought. 

Perhaps the heart’s the princess in its picture so impoverished it is fine to pump in rhythms that the blood holds out for that

redistribution & no center in our nourishment of motions.

Then the world goes all pre-code so free & post to seethe with titillation. 

Of course auto-correct sees ‘total ruin’ 

as if to even speak of freed arousal were an error in the language

mythic imperfection that my princess is in speech.

Our love is god.

It’s really touching. 

Sometimes I think that I’m just in the way. 

So 

Derek, anyone

what do you say?

Is it good to call these others as my moms the way I have? Is it care, & if it is, have I gave honor in my song?

My heart tells me surely they’re the mothers of its fact. 

So many others & in our world with its infinite oppressions

who can know what honor is 

or love?

Perhaps it’s like Kentucky in the way the state contains so many cities of the world, having stolen, for its country places, several famous names. 

Look at a map of the state: 

There’ s Florence. 

There’s London. 

There’s Warsaw, 

& Paris. 

There’s Alexandria,

& Athens.

There’s Versailles.

In Kentucky here’s what people say: “Versails.” The twang distorts the reference to the opulence & splendor. It makes it into someplace else that’s also just is real. Mother

when the heart announces cities of its birth

in twangs which mean it’s from such 

storied places.   

The way a child of Versails may seem a gremlin of Versailles

or a princess-man who’d die

to sing his heart out.

A princess of Versails may be a child of Versailles of care

a princess-man alive 

to sing his heart out.

& he may live to see the world’s Versailles be crushed & freed & him 

   with them 

       & him with them 

                 & him with them

[concrete-critters]

Okay this is more a comment than an ask but Concreteclan gives me the vibes of an episodic cartoon that slowly starts to have overarching stories and themes and arcs like adventure time or..actually adventure time is the only thing I can think of. Concreteclan has adventure time vibes!/pos

OOC: Awww thank you!! To be perfectly candid and honest, while i do love adventure time and that probably did leak into Concreteclan as a result-The real inspirations of this blog are (besides other clangen blogs) tails gets trolled, Mob psycho 100 and Preeny has to repeat 6th grade. I love the mspaint aesthetic so much, i use clip studio paint but purposefully try to keep my shading flat most of the time and my lines crisply pixely. I also know that even though i could probably make the comic look "nicer" i choose to kinda play fast and loose with the lines and colors. I mean, lorn's face is constantly changing length in almost every panel lmao. Ive found its more fun to not worry so much about making sure my art is perfect. As for my inspirations- Tails gets trolled is like. actually a fucking great webcomic, as flawed as it is. (its been a while since ive read it, pretty sure slurs are used in it lol, but i digress) Concreteclan is really an homage to it in only art style and sometimes humor. If you guys want another webcomic thats like more of a direct homage, i would highly recomend Scoob and Shag, which is just as apeshit if not more. Mob psycho 100 is a more subtle inspiration, i just really resonate with the themes of that comic. I also got a confidence boost from it cuz like. Mob100's artstyle is rough and some would say "bad". But it still got made into an anime! and its still acclaimed. You know why? Cuz the art is EXPRESSIVE! It evokes emotion! And thats what im going for! emotion over perfection. Also its got really good writing. Preeny has to repeat 6th grade is. god. probably just straight up a special interest of mine. Its such a kind story. A lot of clangen stories start with tragedy. (esp when theres only two cats to start off) And dont get me wrong, i love it a lot. Starting from nothing like that is a really fun narrative and I live for it. But im a contrarian little guy. So i wanted to start off with an act of kindness that has ripple effects for the rest of the comic. There will be tragedy and sadness in Concreteclan, but I guess i just want it to be in a different way. And while im talking about inspirations, Lorn and Indigo both kinda were inspired by Papyrus and Sans from undertale. In terms of dynamics. Lorn is more inspired by Papyrus than Indigo is inspired by Sans. Indigo is far different from Sans, and would probabaly find him uncouth and a slob. She's a proper lady with manners after all. Lorn and Papyrus would fucking have a blast hanging out though.

All in all, yeah! Thats my rant of the day done, thanks for the ask! I'm Buddy and thats Conk-CRETE!